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The Chinese People
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THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
LOS ANGELES
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THE CHINESE PEOPLE
[.Frontispiece.
THE
CHINESE PEOPLE
A HANDBOOK ON CHINA
[With Mapo and Illustrations]
Venerable ARTHUR EVANS MOULE, d.d.
MISSIONARY TO THE CHINESE FROM 1861
FORMERLY ARCHDEACON IN MID-CHINA
RECTOR OF BURWARTON WITH CLEOBURY NORTH
AUTHOR OF
"new CHINA AND OLD," '' HALF A CENTURY IN CHINA," ETC.
LONDON
SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE
NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE, W.C.
43. QUEEN VICTORIA STREET, B.C.
BRIGHTON: 139, north bTREET
NEW YORK: E. S. Gojsham
I914
DEDICATED
TO THE
BLESSED MEMORY OF
GEORGE EVANS MOULE, D.D.
MISSIONARY TO THE CHINESE FROM 1 857
BISHOP IN MID-CHINA, 1880-I907
OS
7<0
c
W«6
PREFACE
This Handbook is intended to furnish students —
particularly students of Foreign Missions — with a
repertory of information on things Chinese, and to
form an introduction to wider study. The bibho-
graphical lists appended to the volume will provide
guidance to those readers who wish to extend further
their researches into any of the subjects here discussed.
The materials supplied in the following chapters have
been collected and arranged from various sources,
supplemented by the writer's own information and
reflections, which are based on the knowledge and
experience gained during his residence in Mid-China,
as a missionary of the Church Missionary Society, since
1861.
And here the writer wishes to record his sense of the
great advantage which would have accrued had he
been able, in compihng this Handbook, to avail himself
of the wide and deep scholarship and the yet longer
experience of his brother, the late Bishop G. E. Moule,
of Mid-China, his exemplar and leader for half a century,
to whose memory he dedicates the book. Yet he has not
been wholly deprived of that source of information, for he
has received invaluable help from the Bishop's youngest
son, the Rev. A. C. Moule, who possesses the advantages
not only of his birth in China and of a childhood spent
838910
vi PREFACE
in a Chinese home (conveying a sense of the very atmo-
sphere and genius of the land), but also of some years
residence in North China as a missionary of the Society
for the Propagation of the Gospel. Mr. Moule has
contributed to the writer's resources digests of the
writings of some eminent modern Chinese scholars,
and has supplied notes embodying the results of his
own studies and observations.
Special thanks are due to Monsieur A. Vissi^re, Pro-
fessor in L'£cole speciale des langues orientales
vivantes at Paris, who has very kindly revised the
bibliography and added a note on Chinese reading, to
which his wide experience as a student and teacher of
Chinese must give exceptional value. It is not the inten-
tion of the bibliography to include the names of un-
translated Chinese books, although, of course, for those
who can read them, Chinese books are incomparably the
best authorities for many of the subjects dealt with in
the following chapters, or to name books for use in the
study of the Chinese language. There are, however
(if this little book should fall into the hands of any who
are learning Chinese), many books which will be found
of more or less assistance in learning the spoken language,
and some which deal with reading and writing, such as
those by Bailer, Bullock, Hillier, Hirth, Mateer, Morgan,
Pr6mare, Vissiere, Wade, Zottoli, and several others.
Dr. Legge once said that he had been learning to read
Chinese for fifty-seven years, and was learning still.
But while that must continue to be the experience of all
who persevere so long, it is hoped that the note which
PREFACE vu
M. Vissi^re has written will lead many beginners to
find Chinese reading, as Dr. Legge assuredly found it,
a possible and delightful task in far less time than
fifty-seven months.
Thanks are due also to the writer's sons for very great
help in copying his manuscript and revising the proofs ;
to his sister-in-law, Mrs. H. J. Moule, for the loan of
the original of Plate IV. ; to the Trustees of the British
Museum for permission to reproduce paintings, etc.,
in their collections for Plates I., VI., VII., IX., X.,
XIV. and XVI. ; and to Mr. Laurence Binyon for
advice in connection with the same ; to M. Ed. Chavannes
for leave to produce Plate II. ; and, lastly, to Mr. L. C.
Hopkins for his great courtesy in having the photograph
for Plate VIII. specially taken from a specimen in
his famous collection of ancient inscribed bones.
It only remains to add that Chinese names and words
are spelt throughout the book in what is known
as Wade's system, excepting only names of places
which have acquired a well-established English form in
some other system, such as Pekin, Tientsin, Hankow,
Soochow, Foochow, Canton, Hongkong, and Fukien,
Kiangsi, Chekiang, etc., which the reader might fail to
recognise if they appeared as Pei-ching, T'ien-ching,
Han-k'ou, Su-chou, Fu-chou, Kuang-chou, Hsiang-
chiang, and Fu-chien, Chiang-hsi, Che-chiang, etc
The latter spelUngs, however, are used in the maps
recently published by the Ordnance Survey Department
in London and in the map which is inserted at the end
of this volume.
A ROUGH GUIDE TO THE PRONUNCIATION
OF CHINESE WORDS AND NAMES.
a as fl in father.
« as c in men (or as a in man).
^ as e in her (slightly shorter before n).
ei as ei in feign,
i as i in marine.
ih like the first vowel in sugar, slightly prolonged ; or French eu.
0 as 0 in for.
ou as on in though.
u as II in lute (shorter before ng).
uei 1 • . . , ,
^j- j- as wei m weight.
ai as a-i above.
ao as a-u above.
ch as ch in change (before i, something between ch and ts),
f, h, as in English.
/ as guttural r.
k as in EngUsh, unemphatic.
/, m, n, as in EngUsh.
p as in English, unemphatic.
s as in English,
/ as in English, unemphatic.
w, y, as in English.
ch', k', p', t', as above, but with strong aspirate and emphasis.
hs does not always differ greatly from sh.
CONTENTS
PACE
Preface v
List of Illustrations - - - - xi
I. — Physical Features and Means of
Communication ----- 15
II. — The Land and the People - - - 63
III. — The Origin and History of the Chinese
People ------- 123
IV. — Religious Thought in China - - - 164
V. — Religious Practice _ . - _ 1^2
VI. — China's Sages - 223
VII. — Literature and Education - - - 260
VIII. — Christianity in China : Early Christian
Missions and other Religious In-
fluences FROM THE West - - - 302
IX. — Christianity in China : Missions of the
Churches of the Reformation - - 352
X. — China' s Relations with Foreign Powers - 376
A Table of the Dynasties which have
Ruled in China ----- 425
A List of the Provinces of China - 427
Bibliography 428
Chinese Reading 439
Index - 444
Map - at end
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
I. — Eagle attacking a Bear.
From a painting in the Wegener
Collection, British Museum,
by Chia Pin, late Ming
dynasty.
Photograph by Lumley Cator - Frontispiece ,
II. — Ancient Map of China.
From M. Ed. Chavannes' tracing
of a map now preserved at
Hsi-an fu. The original was
engraved on stone at Ch'i-
shan, in Shensi, a.d. 1137,
being copied probably from
a drawing of the tenth or
eleventh century - - - Facing p. 15
III, — The Bore on the Ch'ien-t'ang
River.
The wall and eastern suburb of
Hangchow below, and the
river and distant hills above.
From a copy of an old
woodcut in the Lifi-an-Chih,
c. A.D. 1274.
Photograph by W. Pouncy - Facing p. 28
IV.— Wind.
Bamboos moved by a strong
wind.
From a painting by Tzu-hao.
Photograph by R. B. Fleming - Facing p. 72
xli LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
V. — Fishing Cormorants.
From a modern painting.
Photograph by W. Pouncy - Facing p. 78
VI. — Tiger.
From a painting in the Wegener
Collection, British Museum,
by Ch'en Chii-chung, of the
Ming dynasty.
Photograph by Lumley Cator - Facing p. 86
VII. — The Emperor-Sage Fu-hsi.
Part of a painting in the
Wegener Collection, British
Museum, by an unknown
painter of the Ming dynasty.
Photograph by Alexander
& Co. Facing p. 141
VIII. — Bone used for Divination.
From the collection of Mr. L. C.
Hopkins, who has kindly sup-
plied the following notes with
the photograph.
The inscription on the left hand
upper part reads : —
z: i'i fp
n m.^
" On the day chia-yin made
inquiry as to a dwelling house.
Divined ? to [or from]
ancestor /. Tenth moon."
Notice below the inscription the
cracks made by heat, by
means of which the di\dnation
was done.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xii
A large hoard of these bones
and pieces of tortoiseshell,
dating probably from not
later than the third century
B.C., was found in Honan in
1899. Facing p. 169
IX. — Snow Gathering on the Moun-
tains OF THE Immortals.
The missionary Bodhidharma
crossing a mountain pass.
From a painting in the Wegener
Collection, British Museum,
by or after T'ang Yin, c.
A.D. 1500.
Photograph by Lumley Cator - Facing p. 178
X. — The Unsurpassable Kuan-yin.
From a painting in the Anderson
Collection, British Museum,
by an unknown painter of the
Yiian dynasty.
Photograph by Alexander
& Co. - - - - - Facing p. 182
XI. — BODHISATWA AND ATTENDANT.
Brass images of the early seven-
teenth century, preserved in
the Ling-ying Kung, near
T'ai-an, Shantung. - - Facing p. 213
XII. — Confucius.
From a portrait engraved on
marble, a.d. 1325, and pre-
served in the Temple of Con-
fucius of Shao-hsing fu, in
Chekiang.
Photograph by W. Pouncy - Facing p. 225
xiv LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
XIII. — A Page of a Book.
A page from the Lu-lii ching i,
an illustrated book on Music,
printed from wood blocks
A.D. 1596, showing a blind
musician with his she or
psaltery (cf. p. 117). On
the folded margin of the leaf
are seen the name of the
book and the number of the
volume and leaf. - - - Facing p. 267
XIV. — Xavier and Ricci.
The title page of Nicolas Tri-
gault's Christian Expedition
to the Chinese undertaken by
the Society of Jesus, Augsburg,
1615.
Photograph by Alexander
& Co. ----- Facing p. 336
XV.— Shen 1:N-Tg.
Artist and first Chinese priest
of the Anglican Church. He
was born in 1827, ordained
deacon 1875 and priest 1876,
and died in 1899. - - - Facing p. 360
XVI. — The Mirror-Polisher.
A Manchu lady, with her chil-
dren and Chinese nurse, hav-
ing their brass mirrors bur-
nished on New Year morning.
From a painting in the
Wegener Collection, British
Museum, by Hsii T'ing-k'un,
eighteenth century^
Photograph by Alexander
& Co. - - •; - - Facing p. 406
XVII.— Map of China - , . . at end
^
•
THE CHINESE PEOPLE
CHAPTER I
Physical Features and Means of Communication
China lies to the east of the great mountains of Central
Asia, and from these her physical features, mountains
and rivers, are derived. Speaking generally, quite
three-quarters of the country lies at 1,500 feet or more
above the sea. The only parts which are below this
level are the great north-eastern plain and the lower
portions of the large river basins. Mountains, of which
some peaks reach a height of nearly 20,000 feet, occupy
the whole of the extreme west, but further east they
are divided by the river system of middle China, the
larger division running from south-west to north-east
across the north-western provinces, with branches
running in a south-easterly direction between the Chiang
and the river Han, and between the rivers Han and
Wei, and reaching the sea at Shan-hai-kuan ; while the
lower ranges of the other division are evenly distributed
over the southern half of the country. Outside this
great connected system are a range of hills along the
coast of Fukien and southern Chekiang, and the
mountains of Shantung.
The mountains are as yet not perfectly surveyed or
explored, but there is no doubt that they not only are
1 6 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
of extreme interest to naturalists, but also are rich in
minerals. Gold and silver have not been found in
great quantities, but copper appears to be plentiful in
the south-west, and has been used from the earliest ages.
Iron is widely distributed, and coal-fields of such enor-
mous extent exist that it is said that a very small part of
them would supply the world's utmost imaginable need
for many centuries to come. The Chinese have known
the use of coal for 2,000 years or more,* but have worked
it for the most part only where it crops up on the surface.
There is said, however, to be an old mine near Po-shan,
in Shantung, \\dth a gallery of seven or eight miles
in length. Coal-mining with western machinery and
methods has been carried on since the end of last
century, with the special licence of the Government, in
various parts of northern China, especially in the
provinces of Chihli and Shansi.
After this very brief glance at the general disposition
of the physical features of the country, we propose to
devote the greater part of this chapter to the rivers of
China, and other means of communication ; and such a
special and preponderating notice may be justified by
the estimate which the Chinese themselves form of their
great inner waters. You must know, they say, that if
our rivers are our woe they are also our wealth and gain.
The source of the Ho, or Yellow River, was for
centuries as great a mystery for the East as the source
*The first licence to dig coal was granted to Newcastle, wo
believe, in the year 1268 or 1269, and coal was evidently quite
unknown at home to Marco Polo, who left Italy for China
about that time.
r. THE SOURCE OF THE HO 17
of the Nile was for the West. In the Yu-kung it is
made to rise in Mount Chi-shih, in Kansu. In books
of the Ch'in dynasty it was said to rise in Kun-lun,
but the real position of this mountain was quite un-
known. After the embassy of Chang Ch'ien to the
West, in B.C. 128, we find the theory that the Tarim,
or River of Khotan, which fell then into Lop-nor, ran
underground from that point to reappear at the Chi-shih
Pass as the Ho, and the mountains in which that river
rises were consequently named Kun-lun. It is said that
in the higher parts of Kansu the stream, which is already
200 yards wide, is sometimes actually lost to view
beneath the boulders which fill its bed. We find no
more certain information until a.d. 635, when Hon
Chiin-chi " reached the shores of the Po-hai (Djaring-
nor) and saw in the distance Mount Bayan-khara and
the sources of the Ho." The discovery of the actual
source is, however, generally attributed to Liu Yiian-ting,
in A.D. 822 ; and, even so, the course of the river as it
runs north in a double curve from Djaring-nor, 120
miles east of the source, to the point where it enters
Kansu south-east of Kuku-nor, was not accurately
known until the end of the thirteenth century.
As the river enters Kansu it is about 8,000 feet above
sea-level, and drops 5,000 feet in its north-easterly
passage across the province. Though it is here scarcely
navigable, two of the very few important cities on its
banks are in this province, namely Lan-chou and
Ning-hsia ; the latter, on the north-east frontier of the
province, where regular navigation begins, exports a
B
THE CHINESE PEOPLE
considerable quantity of liquorice down the river.
From Kansu the Ho runs north to the high land of
Mongolia, where its course is changed to almost due
east. For ages this reach formed the boundary between
China and the barbarous tribes of the north ; but in
the eighth century the Chinese established four military
posts in the enemy's territory on the north bank of the
river. Later, on the other hand, the whole course of
the Ho was outside the dominion of the Chinese emperors
for many years. At Ho-k'ou, south-west of Kuei-hua-
ch'eng, the river turns sharply to the south and pursues
a direction a little west of south for about 480 miles,
until it is joined, near T'ung-kuan, by the River Wei
and turns even more sharply to the east. This part of
the river was hardly known to Europeans until 1906,
when it was surveyed by Major McAndrew, who thus
describes it :
" The scenery down the Yellow River from Ho-k'ou
to Yii-men-k'ou, and again below T'ung-kuan-t'ing, is
very fine in places, but also monotonous. The hills are
all bare, of uniform height, and topped with a smooth
cap of loess. The cliffs that line the river are all about
the same height, and of the same reddish-grey sand-
stone. There are, however, a few spots that are well
worth a visit. One of these is the Lung-wang waterfall
[at Hu-k'ou, 250 miles south of Pao-te], Above the
fall the river is about 200 yards wide, and the channel
is broken up by rocky ledges. The bulk of the water,
a tumbling mass of a tawny orange colour, flecked with
foam, plunges into a narrow crack in its bed near the
I, THE LUNG-WANG FALLS 19
Shensi shore. The depth of the fall is about 40 feet,
but the bottom is a seething cauldron which cannot
properly be seen owing to the clouds of spray that rise
from it. The remainder of the water falls into the
same fissure at right angles to the main fall in a series
of cascades 500 yards long. This is a region of wonders
and paradoxes. There is a spot some distance below
the fall where, standing on the roadway by the river-
bank and looking up-stream, one sees a cloud of blue
smoke rising from the middle of the water without
apparent cause, while at one's feet the whole volume
of a great river rushes for three miles down a narrow
fissure in places not more than 15 yards, and nowhere
more than 40 yards, wide. One can, I say, stand and
see, but one cannot in June (the time of our visit) con-
veniently sit on the rocks by the side of the roadway,
because they have been baked burning hot by the rays
of a powerful sun, and one cannot sit on the roadway
itself, because it is a mass of ice 12 feet thick. The
presence of this ice in m.idsummer so far south comes on
one as a great surprise. The sun heat in this gorge is
intense, and the water of the Yellow River itself 71°
Fahr. Yet there are great banks of ice on the rocky
ledges at the side of the water. One of these on June
20, was 100 yards long, 5 yards wide, and 12 feet
thick. This ice, I beheve, generally melts away by the
end of July. . . .
" A day's journey below the falls is the famous Lung-
men gorge, ending in the straits of Yii-men-k'ou. This
gorge is about 10 miles long. The river is a deep, still
THE CHINESE PEOPLE
stream 150 yards wide, and races between precipices of
reddish-grey sandstone 800 feet high. Above the
precipices the cone-shaped tops of the hills covered with
green scrub rise for another 800 feet. At Yii-men-k'ou
the banks contract to 60 yards, and upon each side of
the strait there is a fine temple. Coming down-stream,
when one's boat rushes through this strait there is a
regular transformation scene, the river suddenly leaving
the hills and spreading out over a sandy flat to a breadth
of I i mile."*
At the mouth of the gorge there is a little island
wholly occupied by the Shen Yii temple, which contains
a monument of great antiquarian interest.
The principal tributar}^ of the Ho is the Wei (or Yii),
which joins it just above T'ung-kuan. Rising in Kansu,
it flows south-east to Shensi, and crosses that province
in a straight line from west to east. The well- watered
valley was the birthplace of Chinese civilisation and is
full of relics of the past. It has also the reputation of
being the most fertile land in China. About nine miles
from the river on its right bank, and half-way across
the province, stands the great city of Hsi-an.
At the T'ung-kuan bend the Ho is still 1,300 feet
above sea-level. At the San-men rapids, which no
boat can ascend, it again enters the hills, to leave them
finally at Meng-ching, a place above Meng-hsien, in
Honan, about 200 miles from T'ung-kuan. Here the
great river, running at a pace of from four to six miles
an hour, finds itself on the level plain, with still 400
*The Geographical Journal, 1907, pp. 194, 195.
LOWER COURSE OF THE HO
miles to cross before it can reach the sea ; and, though
alterations in the higher reaches are recorded, it is
naturally in this last level part that those disastrous
floods and changes of course have occurred which have
won for the river its evil reputation. If there are cities
along its banks it is because the river has come to them
against their will ; and a story is told by Ssu-maCh'ien
of a great lord who had property near the river. One
year the river was good enough to take another course,
and this man, finding the value of his land greatly
enhanced in consequence, presented a memorial to the
Emperor explaining that such catastrophes were un-
doubtedly the work of heaven, and those who attempted
to repair the damage ran a great risk of fighting against
heaven. And so his property was left in peace for
twenty-three years, until the Emperor went in person
to visit the lands along the new course of the river,
where the landlords no doubt had a different theory to
propound.
The Chinese have in all ages shown great industry
and no small ability in dealing with their unruly rivers
and with the ravages of the tide along their coasts.
Some of their earliest traditions are of the engineering
feats of Yii, who worked, as his successors have worked
ever since, to lessen the chance of flood, not only by
strengthening the banks of the rivers, but by drawing
off the surplus water and using it for irrigation. From
dealing with huge breaches of the Ho, or with the
violence of the Hangchow Bore, down to giving a little
town like T'ai-an a constant supply of fresh water.
THE CHINESE PEOPLE
nothing has been too great or too small for China's
engineers. It is well known that the Yellow River, like
other rivers in the great plain, flows high above the
level of the surrounding land. The late G. J. Morrison,
of Shanghai, once took levels across the dry bed of the
river in North Kiangsu, and found the lowest point of
the bed four or five feet above the plain. When the
high banks run, as they sometimes do, across the mouth
of a valley, they cause floods by preventing the local
water from running away after the summer rains.
When we first hear of the Ho (b.c. 800, or earlier) it
left its present course just east of Huai-ch'ing and
passed northward west of Ta-ming into the swamps of
Ta-lu ; thence it divided into the " nine rivers," which
met together again, as a network of streams do to-day,
near Tientsin, and flowed eastward to the sea. In
602 B.C. a change took place in the arrangement of the
nine rivers, the main channel moving from the west to
what is now the Grand Canal on the east. In 132 B.C.
the river burst its right bank in what is now the extreme
south of Chihli and flowed into the valley of the Huai,
a great river which now runs through the Hung-tse and
Kao-yu Lakes into the Grand Canal in Kiangsu. This
breach was repaired in B.C. 109. In a.d. ii the main
stream moved still further east, and occupied the bed
of the Chi, running, as it does now, through north-west
Shantung. This was still its course in the eleventh
century. In the fourteenth century it seems to have
been flowing into the Huai, and the Yiian Shih gives
an account of the means taken to repair a great breach
THE CHIANG 23
which was made in the left bank in 1344. In the
sixteenth century its bed lay through north Kiangsu,
between the Huai and the Grand Canal, which last it
crossed north of Huai-an. In 1851 the left bank burst
to the north-east of K'ai-feng, and after three years of
indecision and destruction the stream returned to the
valley of the Chi. In 1888 it again tried to flow south-
ward, causing most disastrous floods, but, after European
engineers had been appealed to in vain, native methods
prevailed, and the breach was securely closed. An
examination of the dry bed in Kiangsu shows in the
western part nothing but loose sand, while nearer the
sea there is a firm and very fertile alluvial deposit. It
is this firm silting-up of the mouth that is thought by
some to be the chief cause of the constant more or less
serious bursting of the banks.
The above are only a very few of the changes of bed
and of the great floods which are recorded in history ;
and it has been possible to give only a very meagre
idea of the canals and other works which have been
carried out. either to use the water for irrigation, or to
lessen the strain on the banks, or to avoid the danger
of navigating the rapids.
The Chiang, that is, the River, is one of the largest
and best known rivers in the world. It is called also
the Great River, or the Long River, and, for the most
part by Europeans, the Blue River, or the Yang-tse
(Yang-tzu). It rises, as we have it on the authority
of Confucius, in the Min mountains in the extreme north-
west corner of Ssuch'uan, and flows south-east past
THE CHINESE PEOPLE
Ch'eng-tu until it is joined at Hsii-chou by the Chin-sha-
chiang, a tributary so much larger than the Min stream
that it is often regarded as the main stream by Europeans.
The Chin-sha rises some distance north-west of the
source of the Ho, and flows southwards through Tibet
into Yiinnan. On the borders of Yiinnan and Ssii-
ch'uan it receives a large tributary, the Ya-lung, from
the north, and then flows north-east to meet the Min.
Between this point and I-ch'ang are the rapids and
gorges so famous for their magnificent scenery and for
the difficulty and danger of their navigation. From
I-ch'ang to the sea, a distance of a thousand miles, the
river is navigable by small steamers, and sea-going
vessels come up 600 miles to Hankow. It must be
enough to name here a very few of the many large cities
which have grown up on the river banks, such as
Wu-ch'ang (which, with Han-yang and the foreign
settlement of Hankow on the opposite bank, forms the
centre, in several respects, of China) and Nankin, the
seat until lately of one of the most powerful viceroys,
and many centuries ago the capital for a time of the
empire, and Chinkiang, at the busy junction with the
Grand Canal. The river flows through the famous
silk district of Ching-chou and the porcelain manufac-
tories of Kiangsi ; and the traffic, both of native boats
and of steamers, is in all parts very great. The chief
of the many tributaries are the Han — which flows in
from the north-west opposite Wu-ch'ang, dividing Han-
yang from Hankow — and the important streams which
enter through the Tung-t'ing and P'o-yang lakes. The
I. OLD COURSE OF THE CHIANG 2$
water is muddy, though less so than that of the Ho, and
when seen in the distance on a sunny day is of a most
unusual and beautiful rose-colour ; and the shores are
lined for miles with grey reed-beds of almost incon-
ceivable extent. The river is generally deep, some
places near Nankin being marked " No bottom " on
the earlier British charts ; but there is a bar near the
mouth which is a considerable hindrance to navigation.
The level of the water, too, varies greatly, rising nearly
fifty feet in the summer at Hankow, and as much as a
hundred feet in the gorges in an exceptional year. Any
unusual addition to this enormous rise naturally floods
vast tracts of country on either side of the river, but,
for many centuries at any rate, the Chiang has not been
liable to those sudden changes of course which make
the Ho so dangerous. Yet it seems to be certain that
the present stream was, eighteen centuries ago, only
one, and not the largest, of three channels through
which the waters of the Chiang reached the sea. The
conclusion of Yiian Yiian, the learned antiquary of
the early nineteenth century, on this subject is as
follows :
" The Chiang rises in the Min mountain. The three
rivers of the Yii-kung are the Pei-chiang (N. river),
the Chung-chiang (middle river) and the Nan-chiang
(S. river). The Pei-chiang is the River Min proceeding
north of Nankin, Chinkiang, Tan-t'u, and Ch'ang-chou
to the sea, and is the same as the modern Chiang. The
Chung-chiang is the River Min proceeding by Kao-
ch'un and Wu-pa to I-hsing, where it entered the sea.
26 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
The Nan-chiang is the Min proceeding from Ch'ih-chou
{i.e., probably near Wu-hu) by Ning-kuo to the T'ai-hu.
Thence it passed Wu-chiang and T'ang-hsi in a south-
westerly direction to (the site of) Hangchow, where it
bent to the eastward towards Yii-yao, and there met
the sea."*
The stream which now flows into the Hangchow Bay
had a course ten miles south of its present one in the
thirteenth century, and the Che, as the south branch of
the Chiang seems to have been called, may well have
run yet further to the south again.
Just south of the mouth of the Chiang is the Hangchow
Bay, into which flows a river which, though it is of
great beauty and considerable size, and has on its banks
many important towns besides Hangchow, would perhaps
hardly deserve more than mention here if it were not for
the bore with which the tides come not only into the
estuary but far up the river itself. The river was
anciently called Chien, and was perhaps a tributary of
the southern and principal branch of the Chiang which
until comparatively recent days entered the sea in or
near the Hangchow Bay, as has been explained above.
It was also called Che and the Ch'ien-t'ang River ; and
Ch'ien-t'ang, the name of a district past which it flows,
is now practically the name of the river for natives as
well as for Europeans.
The bore is one of the most striking of the world's
unusual natural phenomena. Twice a day it fills the
country with its voice as it passes like some living thing
*Cf. Che-ckiang t'u-k'ao.
I. THE CH'IEN-TANG BORE 27
majestically upward against the stream. The exact
reason why there should be a bore in this river and not
in others, or why it should be regular here and persistent
through great changes of the course and volume of the
stream, and only occasional elsewhere,* seems to have
eluded the most learned investigation ; but it must be
due to some special application of the laws that the
pace at which a wave travels in shallow water varies
with the depth of the water, and that the front slope of
a wave grows steeper as it passes from deeper to more
shallow water. Captain Moore, R.N., who examined
the whole question very carefully, suggests the following
causes : (i) The funnel or delta shape of the Hangchow
Bay, which is open to the eastward directly in front of
the tidal wave from the Pacific Ocean. It is fifty or
sixty miles wide at the mouth, about ten miles at the
narrower part where navigation ends, and the general
depth is much greater across the mouth than it is on
the western part. (2) The large area of sand-flats at
the head of the bay. (3) The out-going stream from
the river. It will be seen that the front of the tide
wave must suddenly grow steeper and is nearly stopped
as it reaches the shallow water on the sand-flats, while
the parts further back are travelling at only slightly
diminished speed, and the water is thus suddenly piled
up and advances with an ever steeper and at last nearly
perpendicular front — " a bank of water and precipice
of snow." The bore is not a wave, but the front of
*A small bore may sometimes be seen as the tide enters the
narrow mouth of Chefoo harbour and elsewhere. The eagre,
or bore, on the Severn is only occasionally to be seen.
28 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
a mass of water which is poured, as it were, into the
river from the pent-up tidal wave in the bay outside.
The stream is running out with a roar that may be
heard half-a-mile away, and the water is at its lowest
level when the bore arrives. The delay in the arrival
of the tide here as compared with other places is noticed
in the Lin-an Chih, a topography of Hangchow published
about A.D. 1274, where also the sand-fiats and the
sudden narrowing of the estuary are mentioned as
causes of the bore. The same book gives tables of
the time when the bore comes on each day of the year,
and careful information about the relation of the tides
to the movements of the sun and moon.
The origin of the bore is connected in legend with the
death of Wu Tzii-hsii, in B.C. 484. This man was
ordered by the king, Fu-ch'ai, to commit suicide, and
before doing so foretold the ruin of his country, and
gave directions that his eyes should be hung over the
east gate of Wu (perhaps Soochow) that he might see
the invaders come. The king was so much incensed
on hearing this that he had Wu's corpse put into a
leather sack and thrown into the Chiang. The story of
Wu's death is told with more or less detail in the Tso
Chuan and in the Shih Chi (b.c. 90), but is first connected
with the bore a century or more later. By the tenth
century we read :
" From that time the tide-head at Tide-gate Hill*
came hurtling up several hundred feet high, over-leaping
*Probably the hills K'an and Che, often called the Sea-gate,
between which the stream once flowed, though it has now left
them far to the south.
-.,\
Ifl, I if\;<'^s
■=^1
' % 'I '
■J
VtM "^^sxw
\- %«:-^
I. THE CH' JEN-TANG BORE 29
the sea-wall and passing Yii-p'u ; after which it gradu-
ally subsided. Whenever it came again at dawn and
dusk it had a wrathful sound and the swift rush of
thunder and lightning, and could be heard more than
30 miles off. Then might be seen in the midst of the
tide-head Tzu-hsii sitting in a funeral car drawn by
white horses."
As a rule the spring tide bore forms in two sections
(which join before reaching Hai-ning) at a point a few
miles east of Chien-shan, sixteen miles east of Hai-ning —
" at Tsuan-feng-t'ing, on the south bank, and at Chien-
shan, on the north bank, the tide rises up with waves
of silver and billows of snow " is the native statement —
and travels, at a speed at first of about fifteen miles an
hour, a distance of from forty-five to sixty miles up the
river. At neap tide it does not reach Hangchow,
lasting as a rule not more than twenty-five or thirty
miles ; yet in a great gale a good bore was seen above
Hangchow on June 23rd, 1903, the twenty-eighth day
of the moon. The greatest height measured by Captain
Moore at Hai-ning was ten or eleven feet, and he thought
it unlikely that it could ever exceed fifteen or sixteen
feet. High water is reached soon after the bore has
passed,* and then the stream begins to flow out again
at once.
The navigation of the river is extremely difficult and
dangerous. A considerable fleet of boats, for the most
part carrying fish and salt, goes up to Hangchow on the
*The height of the bore is about half of the flood range or
total rise of the tide ; a lo-foot bore means a rise of 20 feet
from low water to high water.
30 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
flood tide rapidly enough, but it is when they want to
cojne down again that the difficulty begins. Few boats
will dare to meet a large bore, and if they do ride over
it safely they are only carried back again to the place
from which they started. They are therefore compelled
to make use of the shelters which are provided at several
points along the embankment. These consist of broad
shelves secured by rows of piles, some feet above the
mean level of the water, and protected by a bastion,
which serves to deflect the force of the bore when it
comes. Boats are obliged to moor in these shelters not
more than two hours after high water, and as the water
falls they are stranded safe above the reach of the bore
on one of the shelves, and lie there for eight or nine
hours until the next bore passes and the water rising
behind it sets them afloat again. The largest and most
elaborate of these boat shelters is at the little town of
Hai-ning.
The embankments are very massive walls of earth faced
with stone and protected with fascines and piles. They
extend, with some intervals, from a point many miles
above Hangchow to the mouth of the Chiang on the
north, and to Ningpo on the south. An embankment
seems to be first mentioned in the Han dynasty, and
since then extensions and repairs have been carried on
continually up to the present day. The value of these
embankments, which are kept up at a great cost, is
shown by the fact that the land at Hai-ning is from
two to six feet below the highest level of the water.
For a great distance along the south shore, however, the
I. OTHER RIVERS 31
bank is now left high and dry, the stream having grown
much narrower and kept principally to the northern
channel in the last four or five centuries.
Professor G. H. Darwin considered that it was unlikely
that the enormous power of the bore (about 1,750,000
tons of water pass Hai-ning in a minute) could be profitably
used for any commercial purpose, and it is pleasant to
think that this " voice of days of old and days to be "
may run its course for ever with nothing to hamper
its tremendous liberty.
The largest of the remaining rivers in China proper
is the Pearl River, in Kuangtung, the north arm of a
delta formed by the meeting and crossing of three great
streams ; the East River, coming down from south
Kiangsi ; the North River, which rises near the Mei-ling
— the famous pass between the waterways of Kuangtung
and Kiangsi — and the West River, which rises on the
borders of Kueichou and Yunnan and flows eastward
through Kuangsi and Kuangtung. These streams, and
especially now the West River, are of great importance,
flowing through the rich tropical region of China and hav-
ing many large cities on their banks, of which the best-
known, at least to Europeans, is Kuang-chou, or Canton.
There are many other rivers of considerable size both
in the north and the south, of which the Liao in Man-
churia, the Pai (commonly called Peiho) in Chihli, and
the Min, or Fukien River, derive special importance
from the great towns Niuchuang, Tientsin, and Foochow
situated respectively near their mouths. The Pai was
until recently the chief route of communication with
32 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
Pekin. The south-western half of Yunnan is watered
by the upper parts of the Hung-ho (Red River), the
Mekong and the Salween.
The distinction between the two words for river,
chiang and ho, has not been satisfactorily explained.
As a rule it is true that south of the Chiang all large
rivers are chiang and north of it all are ho, but the
Amur (Hei-lung-chiang) and Ya-lu (Chiang) outside
China to the north, and the Hung-ho in the extreme
south, are conspicuous exceptions. In books and old
maps most even of the largest rivers, except the Chiang
and Ho, are called shui, or waters. In some regions
chiang is a large, often tidal, natural stream, and ho an
artificial canal.
Of all the thousands of miles of canals — and in the
vast plains of central and southern China canals are
at least as frequent as roads and lanes are in England —
the most remarkable is, perhaps, the great waterway
known as the Grand Canal. It is called by the Chinese
Yii-ho, the Imperial Canal, or Yiin-ho, the Transport
Canal. Under the year B.C. 486 the Tso Chuan says :
" In the autumn Wu fortified a place on the river Han,
and dug a canal which communicated with the Chiang
and Huai." The place is supposed to be Yang-chou,
and the canal the first section of the Grand Canal. The
Shih Chi, speaking of the work of Yii, vaguely says :
" Later a great canal was made between the Chiang and
the Huai." This part of the canal now runs, mostly
between artificial banks, from Ch'ing-chiang-p'u on the
old bed of the Ho to enter the Chiang opposite Chinkiang.
I. THE GRAND CANAL 33
On the west is a succession of great lakes, through which
the water of the Huai now finds a way into the canal
and, through it, to the Chiang ; and on the east the
land is in places much lower than the level of the canal,
and is much subject to floods. The extension of the
canal southward from Chinkiang past Ch'ang-chou,
Soochow, and Chia-hsing to T'ang-hsi is said to have
been done in the seventh century, but the last short
stage to Hangchow was not completed until a.d. 1247.
South of the Chiang the canal is crossed by many fine
stone bridges, but in the northern part bridges are
extremely rare. There are no locks throughout the
course of the canal, but between Soochow and Chinkiang,
and again between Ch'ing-chiang-p'u and Chi-ning, there
are a number of weirs, at one of which the water falls
as much as two feet. For a great part of its course on
both sides of the Chiang the canal follows the natural
beds of streams, and the construction of it meant the
deepening of existing channels and strengthening of
embankments, together with the cutting of some new
connections between one stream and another, A great
deal of this work was done between Yang-chou and
Pekin, a distance of six or seven hundred miles, at the
end of the thirteenth and beginning of the fourteenth
centuries, having been rendered necessary by the fact
that central and southern China had for the first time
to send tribute of grain to Pekin, by the greatly increased
size of the boats used, and by the neglect of repairs
during the period of the Mongol conquest. Between
Hangchow and T'ang-hsi the banks are faced with stone,
C
34 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
and a good tow-path follows the canal throughout its
length of not much less than a thousand miles, excepting
a few miles where it crosses a great tract of fenland near
Chi-ning. South of the Chiang the tow-path is carried
over all the smaller side streams on solid stone bridges.
Besides carrying an immense amount of traffic, the
canal supports a large population of fishermen, and
most of the many ingenious devices known to the Chinese
for catching fish may be seen in use in one part or
another. The fleet which formerly carried the tribute
grain to Pekin is said to have consisted of between
4,000 and 5,000 boats, but now the grain is taken to
Tientsin by sea and the boats are not used, and the
northern parts of the canal are not kept in repair.
The Grand Canal traverses from the southern to near
the northern extremity the vast alluvial plain which
occupies large parts of the provinces of Chekiang,
Kiangsu, Anhui, Honan, Shantung, and Chihli. This
land, deposited in the course of ages by the rivers and
still rapidly extending, nowhere rises far above sea level,
and is, as has been said, very liable to floods. On the
coast of Chihli a wide fringe of fifteen or more miles is
occupied by marsh and fen land, yielding a valuable
harvest of reeds, and indescribably beautiful, with its
unbounded fields of brown and gold and scarlet, mixed
with whole acres of grey Michaelmas daisies, and deep
blue pools reflecting the cloudless autumn sky. Further
inland, the plain is wholly under cultivation, excepting,
indeed, some regions where a quite perceptible proportion
of the land is occupied by cemeteries — the rule in
I. THE GREAT PLAIN 35
northern China being for families of any importance to
have each a private burying place on some part of their
property, planted generally with arbor vitae, or oaks, or
white-stemmed poplar trees. The villages too — low,
featureless groups of grey or mud-coloured cottages,
relieved sometimes by the fortified refuge tower of a
wealthy family, and generally surrounded by a wall —
are full of trees, and the density of the population may
be judged from the fact that in many parts the plain,
viewed from a slight eminence, appears to be an un-
broken forest, though there is not a tree, in reality, besides
those which surround the abodes of the living or the
dead. The crops in the northern part of the plain, or
Cathay, north, that is, of the old bed of the Ho, are
millet — the graceful panicled millet and the giant
sorghum, twelve or fifteen feet in height, — wheat and
several other grains, maize, beans, potatoes, peanuts,
buckwheat, sesame, and so forth. But, when we cross
the dry bed of the Ho, in north Kiangsu, we pass into
a different country. On the north side the land is
ploughed by oxen, ponies, and donkeys, and the air is
full of the chanting of the ploughboys as they turn their
teams ; on the south flooded paddy fields take the
place of peanuts and millet, and the ponies and donkeys
are replaced by powerful water buffaloes, working in
silence or urged on with unmusical abuse. The southern
part of the plain is far more wet than the northern.
Lakes of enormous size occupy Kiangsu on either side
of the River, the country is covered with a network
of artificial waterways, and thousands of square miles
36 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
are purposely flooded for the cultivation of rice. South
of the river more especially, a great area is planted with
mulberry trees, to supply the silk looms of Soochovv,
Hu-chou and Hangchow, and with orchards of peach,
loquat, and other fruit trees. Large quantities of silk
are produced, as is well known, in Shantung, but here
again the distinction between north and south is clearly
marked. Shantung silkworms feed on the large leaves
of a kind of oak, which grows on the hills, or on those of
mulberries planted by ones and twos about the cottages,
and nothing, as a rule, is seen like the groves of neatly
planted and carefully pruned and grafted trees of
Chekiang or Kiangsu.
The southern plain of which we have been speaking —
the delta, then, of the Chiang, and largely occupied with
swamps and marshes — formed in ancient days part of
the ill-defined region of Yang-chou, and was inhabited
by a half-savage but important people outside the pale
of civilisation, of whom several notices have been pre-
served. Thus in the sixth century before Christ, the
powerful King Fu-ch'ai, whom we have spoken of above,
excused himself from attending some Imperial function
on the ground that he was but a tattooed savage. Of
the same or an earlier period, we read :
" With the people of Yang-chou, women outnumber
the men in the proportion of five to two" — implying,
perhaps, the practice of polygamy — " they have domestic
birds and animals, and cultivate rice."
And again :
" Their character is fierce and illiterate ; they travel
I. PRIMEVAL MAN 37
by water . . . using boats for carriages and oars for
horses. They delight in war, and have no fear of death."
And, coming to the early days of the Christian era :
" The people are fond of the sword, despise death, and
are easily roused. They tattoo their bodies and cut
off their hair so as to avoid destruction by chiao-lung
(? alligators). Ying Shao (of the second century) says :
' They are constantly in the water, and so they cut off
their hair and tattoo their bodies that they may look
like little lung, and thus they are free from harm.' "
And, in the seventh century : " South of the Chiang . . .
they have plenty of fish and rice, and do not suffer from
famine. They believe in spirits, and delight in unortho-
dox sacrifices."*
Later we hear of the general adoption of the Buddhist
faith in these regions, and of the intellectual alertness
and aptitude for commerce which characterise the
people still. With this account of the rude dwellers in
the marshland, we may join the primitive use of stone
implements, of which a good collection, now in the
Museum at Shanghai, has recently been made in Shan-
tung. We are unable to say whether native authors
describe a stone age in their own primitive history or
that of their less civilised neighbours, but it is, perhaps,
significant that of the many words which express the
idea of cutting, a few (including one of the commonest,
k'an), are written with " stone " for the radical or part
of the character which indicates the meaning.
* These passages are quoted in the Ch'ien-tao Lin-an chih,
c. II., f. 4.
38 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
In one respect the aspect, and with the aspect no
doubt the climate, of the more populous parts of China
has greatly changed within historical times, and, indeed,
within living memory. It is quite certain that the hills
were once covered for the most part with trees, but
though forestry is well understood and sometimes prac-
tised, the absence of government supervision, the pre-
valence of small properties and common rights, and the
rapid increase of population, have combined to bring
about the wholesale destruction of the ancient woods.
The hills and mountains of Shantung, for example, were
covered with forests of pine (an article of tribute), oak,
ash, lime, and other trees, and even of bamboo, which
is now an exotic found rarely in gardens ; but at pre-
sent it is small exaggeration to say that they are ab-
solutely bare, and it is a sad but very common thing to
see the women and girls and little children of the poorer
families spending the otherwise idle days of winter in
grubbing up the very roots of the wayside grass to
supply the want of fuel.
The countless boats and ships of China (called vari-
ously chou, ch'uan, po, hua, etc.), though of a great many
different patterns, conform in the vast majority of
instances to one general type, namely that of the punt.
That is to say that they are flat-bottomed, the breadth
is often greater than the depth, the ends are generally
broad and square — though in many cases there is a very
near approach to the sharp prow of Western boats —
and in many varieties, especially of the sea-going vessels,
the stern is high. They are, too, generally house-boats.
I. BOATS 39
covered in, excepting a space of open deck in front and
sometimes at the stern also, with stout bamboo matting,
boards, or canvas ; and they have been for ages divided
by bulkheads into watertight compartments. The hulls
are generally varnished or painted and often decorated.
Those built south of the Ch'ien-t'ang River often have
large protruding eyes fixed near the prow, and painted
lines, which are, perhaps, meant to represent the gills
of a fish. Some, built at Shao-hsing, are elaborately
decorated all over with pictures and ornamental patterns,
with a carved and painted dragon's head in front. Those
in the north are usually quite without ornament, and
more rough and clumsy in make, though not less strong.
Indeed, boats built for the violent current of the Ho or
for the dangerous rapids of the Chiang in the far west
are probably the strongest of all, and in different ways
specially adapted to their strenuous tasks.
Small open boats are paddled, the house-boats are
towed — ahnost always by men or women {wives and
daughters often forming part of the crew), rather than
by horses or oxen — or are propelled by sails, or by the
yuloh {yao-lu), a large oar working backwards and for-
wards on a pin at the back or side of the boat and cutting
the water obliquely like the screw propeller, or again by
an oar which the boatman sitting in the stern holds
and drives with his feet. This last singular method,
one of the most rapid known, is applied to the small
boats called chiao hua, or foot boats, on the canals,
and also to much heavier craft on the Ch'ien-t'ang
River and perhaps elsewhere. Poles are also much used
40 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
for moving boats in shallow water and taking them
up rapids.
As is well known, boats are not only used to carry
passengers and cargo, or for pleasure, but also as
dwellings, and that not only for their crews but for the
families of those whose work is closely or even remotely
connected with the water. The suburb of boat dwellings
at Canton is well known to foreign visitors.
Officials travelling in the course of their duty and
guests of the State use boats provided by the Government,
and we find a Government post-house at Chinkiang in the
fourteenth century maintaining a fleet of thirty boats
for such official use. Nowadays official travelling is done,
where possible, no doubt, by train. Private boats both
for pleasure and travelling are not unknown, but the
commoner plan is to hire a boat or part of a boat, or a
berth in one of the omnibus boats which are run by the
inns at waterside towns. It is on record that 1,250 cash
(perhaps los.) was paid at Hangchow in the year 1308
for the use of a boat for the afternoon to go a distance
of about six mUes ; but the charges of recent years,
before the introduction of steam boats, were more moder-
ate— a pound or less securing a comfortable Wu-hsi-k'uai
boat for the journey of about 150 miles from Hangchow
to Shanghai. The pleasure boats or barges, elaborately
decorated and luxuriously furnished for picnics and dinner
parties, are, it is to be feared, too often the homes of
revelry and vice. In the eastern provinces, those at
Canton, Yang-chou, Soochow and, above all, those on
the West Lake at Hangchow, are famous ; and a con-
t. SEA-GOING VESSELS 41
temporary author assures us that in the twelfth century
the West Lake boats were sometimes as much as 500
feet in length, and able to accommodate more than a
hundred guests at once, in addition, presumably, to a
large crew and swarms of attendants.
Regular services of steam launches between the prin-
cipal cities situated on the rivers and canals have been
introduced gradually and not without natural opposition
since about the year 1890, as will be more fully described
below.
The sea-going vessels are called by Europeans junks,
a word which is said to represent the Javanese djong,
perhaps the same as the Chinese ch'uan. The Chinese
call the larger ships, which centuries ago were 200 feet
long and able to carry 600 or 700 persons, po, and the
smaller ch'uan, or sometimes vice versa. The fishing
fleets must be very large. Ningpo ranks as the second
or third fish market of the world, and is famous for
having (probably for ages) stored ice in the winter time
with which to pack the fish and bring them fresh to
market in the tropical heat of the summer. And
fishing fleets and some coasting vessels may have existed
in very early times, and did in fact exist in the fifth
century before Christ ; but it must be remembered that
the more civilised tribes of ancient China were not a
maritime people, and long sea voyages were rarely
ventured upon by them before the seventh century, and
then only as passengers in foreign vessels from India,
Persia, or Arabia. A voyage to Siam, a.d. 607, was
evidently considered a great feat, and Hsiian-tsang, the
42 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
great Buddhist traveller of about that time, seems to
have heard nothing of a sea route between India and
Ceylon and China, though his predecessor, Fa-hsien, two
centuries before, had returned from India by sea, and
by the end of the seventh century the sea route was
regularly used by Buddhist pilgrims. Still, the ships
were not Chinese but foreign, coming in great part from
Quilon to Canton, or Ganfu, as the old Arab writers
call it. Later (in the Sung and Yiian dynasties) the
foreign trade was to a large extent transferred to
Chiian-chou, which is probably the Zaitun of Marco Polo
and other writers, in Fukien ; and there, as well as at
Shanghai, Kan-p'u, Hangchow, Ningpo, Wen-chou, and
Canton, Inspectors of Merchant Shipping were appointed
towards the end of the thirteenth century. Though
there is some reason to believe that sea-going vessels
were built in China perhaps as early as the ninth century,
there is very little to show that long voyages were made
by Chinese-built and Chinese-manned vessels before the
twelfth or thirteenth century. When we come to the
fourteenth century, on the other hand, it is expressly
stated that the voyage to China was made only
in Chinese ships. In spite of the current and oft-
repeated belief to the contrary, there is little ground
for saying that the Chinese invented the compass,
and they certainly do not seem to have applied it
to navigation at an early date. It was used (not
indeed for the first time) on ships which left Ningpo
in 1 122, but it does not seem to have become common
until later.
EARLY VOYAGES 43
Our notice of sea-going vessels, which is derived from
Hirth and Rockhill's recent edition of the Chu-fan-chih*
may close with some extracts from native authors
borrowed from the same work. Fa-hsien, writing early
in the fifth century, says :
" The ocean spreads out over a boundless expanse.
There is no knowing east or west ; only by observing
the sun, moon, and stars was it possible to go forward.
If the weather was dark and rainy, the ship went forward
as she was carried by the wind, without any definite
course. In the darkness of the night only the great
waves were to be seen, breaking on one another, emitting
a brightness like that of fire ; with huge turtles and
other monsters of the deep. The merchants were full
of terror, not knowing where they were going. The
sea was deep and bottomless, and there was no place
where they could drop anchor and stop. But when the
sky became clear they could tell east and west, and the
ship again went forward in the right direction. If she
had come on any hidden rock there would have been
no way of escape." f
This was on the way from Ceylon to Java in a ship
conveying more than two hundred persons. Leaving
Java in a similar ship they encountered a " black wind "
and " the sky continued dark and gloomy and the
sailors looked at one another and made mistakes,"
* Chau Ju-kua : His Work on the Chinese and Arab Trade
in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries entitled Chu-fan-chi.
St. Petersburg, 191 2.
t Ibid., p. 27.
44 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
— made so great mistakes that after eighty-two days
they reached, not Canton as they had intended, but
Laoshan, near Ch'ing-tao (Tsing-tau), on the Shantung
promontory.
Passing over seven centuries, we read in the P'ing-
chou-k' o-t' an :
" Ships sail in the eleventh or twelfth moons to avail
themselves of the north wind ; and come back in the
fifth or sixth moon to avail themselves of the south wind.
The ships are squarely built like grain measures. If
there is no wind they cannot unship the masts [as is
commonly done on the canal and river boats], for these
are firmly planted, and the sails hang down on one side
— one side close to the mast, around which they move
like a door. They have mat sails. These ships are
called chia-t'u, which is a foreign word [in fact, ' cutter 'j.
At sea they can use not only a stern wind, but wind off
or toward shore can also be used. It is only a head-
wind which drives them backward. ... On large chia-
ling sea-going ships, every several hundred men, and on
small ones a hundred and more men, choose one of the
more important traders as head-man who, with an
assistant head-man, manages various matters. . . ,
Traders say that it is only when the vessel is large and
the number of men considerable that they dare put to
sea, for over-seas there are numerous robbers."*
The China coast, too, has generally been infested with
pirates, who at times have proved a serious menace to
trade.
* Ibid., pp. 30, 31.
EARLY VOYAGES 45
" In foreign lands, though there may be no tax on
commerce, there is an insatiable demand for presents.
No matter whether the cargo is large or small, the same
demands are made ; consequently small ships are not
profitable. Sea-going ships are several tens of chang in
breadth and depth.* The traders divide the space by
lot among themselves and store their goods therein.
Each man gets several feet, and at night he sleeps on
top of his goods. The greater part of the cargo consists
of pottery, the small pieces packed in the larger till
there is not a crevice left. At sea they are not afraid
of the wind and the waves, but of getting shoaled, for
they say that if they run aground there is no way of
getting off again. If the ship suddenly springs a leak
they cannot mend it from inside, but they order their
devil-slaves f to take knives and oakum and mend it
from the outside, for the slaves are expert swimmers
and do not close their eyes under water. The ship-
masters know the configuration of the coasts ; at night
they steer by the stars, and in the day-time by the sun.
When the sun is obscured they look at the south-pointing
needle (the magnetic needle) or use a line a hundred feet
long with a hook, with which they take up mud from
the bottom ; by its smell they determine their where-
abouts. In mid-ocean it never rains ; whenever it rains
they are nearing an island. Traders say that when they
get in calms the water of the sea is Uke a mirror. The
* There must be some mistake here, as ten chang make 100 feet.
t That is black slaves. Negro and other foreign slaves were
much used in China until comparatively recent days.
46 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
sailors then catch fish. . . . When the ship is in mid-
ocean, if suddenly there is seen in the distance a clump
of islands covered with dead trees, and the skipper has
reason to beheve that there is no land in that place, they
know that it is the sea-serpent. Then they cut off their
hair, take fish-scales and bones and burn them, upon
which it will gradually disappear in the water. All
these are dangers, from most of which there is no escape.
Traders give heed to the monks' saying : ' To cross the
sea is dangerous, but pray, and you will see to the vault
of heaven, and in nothing will help fail you.' On their
arrival at Canton they make the monks presents of food,
which is called ' Lohan's Feast.' "*
Chou Ch'ii-fei, writing in 1178, says :
" The ships which sail the Southern Sea and south
of it are like houses. When their sails are spread they
are like great clouds in the sky. Their rudders are
several tens of feet long. A single ship carries several
hundred men. It has stored on board a year's supply
of grain. The}^ feed pigs and ferment liquors. There
is no account of dead or hving, and no going back to
the mainland when once they have entered the dark
blue sea. ... To the people on board all is hidden ;
mountains, landmarks, the countries of the foreigners,
all are lost in space. . . . The big ship with its heavy
cargo has naught to fear of the great waves, but in
shallow water it comes to grief. Far beyond the Wes-
tern Sea of the Arabs' countries lies the land of Mu-
lan-p'i (Southern Spain). Its ships are the biggest of
* Ibid., pp. 31-33.
I. MODERN MARITIME TRADE 47
all. One ship carries a thousand men ; on board are
weaving looms and market-places."*
And again :
" Traders coming from the country of the Ta-shih
(Arabs), after travelHng south to Quilon on small vessels,
transfer to big ships, and, proceeding east, they make
Palembang. After this they come to China by the
same route as the Palembang ships. ... A year is
sufficient for all the foreigners to make the round voyage
to China, with the exception of the Arabs who require
two years. As a general thing the foreign ships can
make 1,000 li (300 miles !) a day with a good wind, but
if they have the misfortune to run into a north wind
and they can neither find an anchorage on our territory
or some place in which to run to shelter and anchor in
some foreign land, men and cargo will all be lost."f
At a later date the foreign traders to China were
Dutch, Portuguese, and the East India Company. The
tonnage of the foreign ships (especially British, German
and Japanese) calling at Chinese ports at the present
time is enormous, and a considerable fleet of coasting
steamers has long been owned by a Chinese company.
China has for a long time maintained a navy, or rather
a service of police boats, both on the coast and on the
inland waters, but her efforts to provide herself with
an efficient modem navy do not seem as yet to have
met with very great success.
Next in importance to the great natural and artificial
* Ibid., pp. 33, 34.
t Ibid., p. 24.
48 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
waterways are the roads. These were divided into the
post roads, which sometimes follow ancient trade routes
and are maintained by government, and private roads,
maintained by local effort— local effort in the north-
eastern provinces often taking the form of digging
trenches or arranging large stones across the road with
the view of driving the traffic on to one's neighbours'
property. Such roads, if laid out at all, are often laid
out on the boundary between two properties, so as to
divide the loss of land between as many owners as pos-
sible, and thenceforth it becomes the natural aim of each
owner to push the road over the boundary, so that it
may run wholly on his neighbour's land. In the north
such unpaved tracks across the fields often sink to a
great depth and are filled with water, and then travellers
are apt to get up on to the fields on either side, and so
the road grows wider and wider, until the loss to the
landowners must be quite considerable. They are,
however, sometimes able to get compensation, as it is not
an uncommon sight to see a large field of corn flourishing
in the middle of even a government road, while the
passengers follow an " up " and " down " track on
either side.
In the parts where stone is commoner and wheeled
vehicles more rare, the roads are little tracks a few feet
wide, carefully paved with flags — the paving being done
either by merchants' guilds, by wealthy individuals, by
large Buddhist monasteries, or by public subscription.
The distinction between north and south as regards the
width and the paving of roads appli^ also generally to
1, ROADS 4$
the streets in towns and villages. The streets of Pekin
are enormously wide, but until lately were, for the most
part, neither paved nor metalled, excepting the two
miles of straight street leading to the Palace Gate, the
middle of which, like some of the post roads, had long
ago been magnificently paved, not with flags, but with
great solid blocks of stone ; while the streets of Hangchow,
the predecessor of Pekin as capital of China, are rarely
twenty feet in width, but almost without exception down
to the smallest lane are carefully drained and paved.
The most important of the twenty-one post roads are
given in the Comprehensive Geography of the Chinese
Empire as those leading from Pekin to Mukden, Ch'eng-
tu (this road divides at Hsi-an, one branch going into
Kansu and joining the old trade routes which passed
through Hsi-ning or Tun-huang into Central Asia),
Yiinnan, Kuei-lin, Canton, and Foochow respectively.
Every three miles along these roads is a />'« (or pao), a
little wattle hut (in the north) which is whitewashed and
adorned with a trumpery flag and a beggar in uniform,
about New Year's time ; and every ten miles a t'ai or
solid square tower of brick or stone perennially, as far as
our observation goes, unoccupied. In Mid-China more
especially there would also be rest-sheds, tiled or
thatched, at similar intervals, and great jars of tea
provided gratis (often by an old endowment), with
cups or bamboo ladles. Along the post roads might
be seen not seldom a Government courier galloping
on a shaggy pony, with his despatch wrapped in yellow
cloth and bound across his shoulders. On the roads,
D
50 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
too, would be met an unending stream of travellers —
countrymen with little bundles slung over their shoulders,
pedlars with a tray on their head, a basket on their arm,
or two large baskets slung at the two ends of a wooden
or bamboo yoke across their shoulders, and in the north
at least, countless vehicles loaded with goods or passen-
gers. Better-off persons than the simple pedestrian will
ride uneasily on a " little car," or wheelbarrow as the
English call it — a flat frame resting without springs on
the axle of a single wheel, which with its covering box,
divides the frame into two wide seats. The whole is
propelled by a man holding two handles behind with a
strap over his shoulders, who may be assisted (or more
often capsized) by a small square sail fixed cornerwise
to a cross of two light sticks, or more reliably by a
donkey or a second man pulling in front. Sails are, I
think, rarely used on passenger cars. For short distances
on good roads (e.g., in Shanghai) a little car will take
seven (rarely eight) passengers, but for long country
journeys two is the usual limit. A more stately and
really comfortable vehicle is the " two-hands." Con-
structed on the same general lines as the little car,
it is larger, has a higher wheel (which does not squeak)
and handles before as well as behind, so that it needs
two men. Confucius' words " Two men of one mind "
are aptly inscribed on the frame of the two-hands. The
hire of the two men and their car was about lod. or is.
a day at the end of the nineteenth century. The best
two-hands known to the writer are those built at Ch'ii-fu
or Ssu-shui, in Shantung, to convey flour to Chi-nan,
CARRIAGES 51
and often hired by passengers on the return journey.
Beautiful pieces of the wheelwright's craft, worked by
two stalwart men, and drawn by a well-fed donkey, they
are the trains de luxe of wheelbarrows. Brakes are
fitted to these cars in hilly country, generally consisting
of two stout wedges of hard wood, so arranged that they
can be made to grip the rim of the wheel. Superior to
the two-hands in dignity but far below it in comfort is
the two-wheeled covered cart [chiao chU), drawn almost
always by a mule. This is the cart which, with its blue
and black tilt, polished woodwork and hammered iron
fittings, powerful handsomely harnessed mule, and loud-
voiced, red-tasselled driver ever ready to slip off the
shaft and give advice to any luckless obstructor of his
way, formed once so characteristic and picturesque a
feature of the Pekin streets. With them must ever be
associated in memory the slow clank of the camel bell,
the unearthly creaking of the water-cart, the gongs and
drums and rattles and fine melodious chants of the
street hawkers, the undiscoverable moaning of the
pigeon-whistles, and all the other sounds and sights and
scents that went to make the spell which Pekin, still
only fifteen years ago, would throw over all who lived
there.
Camels are ridden by the Mongols, but otherwise are
chiefly used as beasts of burden, very largely for the
transport of coal. Ponies, mules, and donkeys are all
ridden in most parts of the country, and in the north
and west are used as beasts of burden. Europeans who
have hired donkeys in Shantung have been surprised to
52 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
find that no driver or donkey-boy follows them, and
that yet the details of their agreement are known along
the road, that a fresh beast is in readiness at the end of
each stage, and the exact sum promised is demanded
at the journey's end. The fact is that all the informa-
tion is conveyed to those who have eyes to see by the
number and position of the knots in a dirty little bit of
string* which hangs from the donkey's harness.
Wheeled vehicles are now far more common in the
north than in the south. On the east coast, at least, a
two-wheeled cart is a rare sight south of the old bed of
the Yellow River. Small, low, four-wheeled or three-
wheeled waggons drawn by oxen may be seen on the
banks of the Grand Canal ; the so-called wheelbarrow
is common — though far less common than in the north —
over the southern part of the great plain ; and on the
banks of the Ch'ien-t'ang River at Hangchow there are
rough four-wheeled waggons, drawn by two or three
water buffaloes, used to bring passengers and merchan-
dise to and from the river boats through the shallow
water and over the sand flats. These are, no doubt,
the descendants of the long carriages which amazed
Marco Polo by their elegant convenience.
But the most characteristic vehicle, used, we believe,
in some form or other almost everywhere in China, is
the sedan. This is a chair, generally with a fixed or
movable awning or cover, fastened between two poles.
The official sedan is a heavy square thing covered with
• Perhaps a relic of the ancient system of keeping records by
means of knotted strings.
SEDAN CHAIRS 53
cloth and fitted with glass windows and two short stiff
poles, and carried by means of slings and two more,
detachable, poles by four bearers. Private sedans and
those which are for hire for unofficial use are far more
lightly made, often with bamboo frames, and fitted with
long pliant poles of wood or bamboo, which are joined
at either end by a cross-bar and rest directly on the
shoulders of the two bearers. The public sedans at
Hangchow, for example, have narrow bamboo frames,
the sides, back, and top filled in with closely-plaited
bamboo matting, painted black, and wooden seats, cov-
ered with leather. Just across the Ch'ien-t'ang River
the same chair is found, but a simple cord is used instead
of the wooden cross-bars of the poles, and the bearers
stand much nearer the chair and further from the end
of the poles than they do elsewhere, so giving a curious
jerking motion to the sedan, which, while it may ease
the bearers' shoulders, not infrequently makes the pas-
senger sea-sick. The form of the unofficial sedans, and
especially of those used in the hills, varies greatly in
different parts of the country — one of the most unusual
being that of the chairs on T'ai-shan, the sacred moun-
tain in Shantung. In central and southern China the
mountain chair consists often of a board to sit upon,
another to lean against, a stirrup, and two long bamboo
poles. Mule-litters, large seatless sedans in which it
is possible to lie down, where the human bearers are
supplanted by mules, are used in parts of the north and
north-west, especially for ladies going on long journeys.
In the hills of Chekiang an oblong basket called a
54 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
P'i-lung, slung on a single pole and carried by two men,
is used as a means of human conveyance.
The Chinese make it a kind of matter of conscience to
express no surprise at the wonders and inventions of
science. They apply Solomon's philosophy of the
permanence of material, and the conservation of energy,
to the accidents of invention, and the processes of
creation. " There is no new thing under the sun. Is
there a thing whereof men say. See, this is new? It
hath been already, in the ages which were before us."
And they are said to have legendary tales of paddle-
wheels used on the Hangchow Lake some centuries ago ;
and even aviation, they feel convinced, was an art
known to the ancients. But the introduction of modern
methods of locomotion has been accomplished in China
only after extreme suspicion and reluctance ; not so
much from a failure to appreciate their usefulness and
adaptability to the country as from a wish to prove,
perhaps, this indigenous origin of all clever and necessary
appliances ; or more likely from superstitious fear or a
desire to wait till they could do the same for themselves,
and, of course, from the fear that tens of thousands
would be thrown out of work by each labour-saving
innovation.
The jinrikisha, or " man-power carriage," introduced
more than thirty years ago from Japan — a two-wheeled
vehicle carrying one or two passengers at most, with a
movable hood and waterproof apron, and propelled and
guided by one man between the shafts and another
pushing behind — has been adopted only locally in ports
RAILWAYS 55
like Shanghai or Hongkong, where there are well-metalled
roads, and to a less extent in inland cities such as Pekin
and Chi- nan, where the streets are very uneven. It is
perhaps hardly likely that the Chinese with their whole
enterprise and energies strained to the utmost in building
railroads, will give thought and time and toil immediately
to the improvement and widening of their other roads,
turning them — ^notably in the central and southern
provinces — from the paved or pebbled footpaths de-
scribed above, through the vast rice plains or over the
hills, into tracks not for these man-power carriages
only, but for wheeled traffic generally. The ancient
methods of locomotion by boat or in sedan chair will
not readily abandon what remains to them of custom
when railroads ravage the land. But the iron way
itself has had a long and dispiriting conflict before it
could reach its present state of bounding advance. The
first tentative railway was built in the year 1874. It
was a private enterprise to connect the inner port of
Shanghai with its outer anchorage, Woosung, twelve
miles distant, in order to facilitate the landing and
transport of merchandise often delayed by the notorious
Woosung Bar. The utmost difficulty was experienced
by the projectors, a leading Shanghai firm, in the
purchase of land for the track, in consequence of the
opposition of the Chinese authorities. The owners of
the land were for the most part willing to sell at
exorbitant prices, but for the double fear of the wrath
and exactions of the mandarins, and the peril of the
luck of the land being dislocated and the god of the
56 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
soil insulted by this masterful and noisy intruder. The
telegraph posts and wires first placed along the track —
and the same happened all over the provinces at the
first introduction of the telegraph — were torn down, as
also uncanny and inimical to the good fortune of the
people and the good will of the spirits of the earth and
air. When at last by combined cajolery and com-
pulsion, with liberal use of money, the line was finished,
a despairing attempt was made to destroy the luck of
the line itself — not, as with the first English railway,
by the tragic death of the eager and able engineer and
projector himself on the supreme day of his triumph —
bu' b}^ the pre-arranged and duly paid-for suicide of a
soldier, who threw himself in front of the engine as it
started, on the promise of one hundred dollars for his
surviving widow and family. The line proved to be
most popular with the people generally, and the passenger
traffic was very large. The authorities, however,
positively forbad the carriage of goods and merchandise ;
and when they thus defeated the chief object of the
railway and persistently inveighed against its intro-
duction as illegal and unauthorised, it was at last sold
for two million dollars (then about £350,000) to the
Chinese Government, professedly for transport to
Formosa for a military railway, but really and effectively
for another destination. The usefulness and facilities
afforded by such a method of locomotion and trans-
portation were, however, gradually impressed upon
both rulers and people. The telegraph was protected
by Government proclamations and the Imperial stamp
RAILWAYS S7
on every pole, and the nearest village through the crowded
plains made responsible by heavy fine for any wilful
damage done. The recognition of the necessity for
better methods of communication was forced upon the
Chinese mind very especially during the great famine
of 1876 to 1879 in the north and north-west, and the
campaigns of the Mohammedan rebellion at the same
period. The writer witnessed the shipping to the north,
in steamers, of \'ast quantities of coin and of unlimited
grain for famine relief, and when they reached the
port of call there was no means of transport to the
affected area but by driblets on mule-back. Later than
this, and when the principle was accepted, and the great
trunk lines from Pekin to Hankow and from Hankow
to Canton had been projected and surveyed, official
opposition continued. Yes, they would have railways
(this was in 1903-4), but they would build them them-
selves, and with their own coal and iron and engineering
skill. The \'ast factories and furnaces and manufactories
at Hankow, round which the conflict against the Manchus
raged in 191 1, had been built by the great Viceroy
Chang Chih-tung with this purpose. His iron was too
far from his coal, but he had this definite policy and
design. And, lest the blame of this policy (bigoted was
it, patriotic, or ignorantly superstitious ?) should be laid
on the dynasty and the rulers alone, the writer, who
saw Hankow in 1893, may state that he also witnessed,
fourteen years later, the rioting and seditious up-
rising of the people against their magistrates and
the Government because thev condescended to raise
58 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
foreign loans and to employ foreign engineering skill in the
construction of a specially difficult and intricate line of
rail between Hangchow and Shanghai. They would
repudiate the loan — they, the people, would provide
the funds. Five-dollar shares were largely taken up,
and, unawed by the problem of throwing a bridge over
the Ch'ien-t'ang River with its mighty bore, which no
structure of their imagination could withstand, and
with a substratum of constantly shifting sand, they
with hot haste resolved to have the railway, but that it
should be Chinese throughout. The railway is now,
with full foreign engineering skill, slowly growing ; but
in other parts of China, notably in the finely laid and
worked Shanghai-Nankin railway, extension has been
considerable and the work thorough. Even a republic
is obliged to resort to loans, and our latest news as we
write is that the great Hu-kuang railway — a line i,6oo
miles in length, and dealing with the provinces of
Ssiich'uan, Hupei, and Hunan, and so southwards to
Canton — is fully surveyed, the work begun, and financed
largely by foreign loans. The Chinese are, however,
training in England and America and at home a large
and able body of engineers, and if they are wise in
welcoming thus at first on equitable terms foreign capital
and Western skill, they may in the limitless ramification
of the railway system projected by their eager dreamers,
eventually attain to this ideal of Chinese money and
Chinese skill predominant. The first railway to be
quite successfully built and worked — the success being
due no less to the perfect tact than to the technical skill
STEAM SHTPS 59
of the English engineer-in-chief, Mr. C. W. Kinder —
was that between T'ang-ku and the coal-mines of T'ang-
shan, afterwards extended to Tientsin and Pekin in one
and to Manchuria in the other direction.
Steam traffic on the coast and with foreign ports has
not met with the same opposition, except at Ningpo for
a short time ; considerations of geomancy and com-
petition with native craft have not had much weight
in the great wide sea ; and the advantages of steam
in the pursuit of the ubiquitous pirate craft on the
coast, or in outrunning those dreaded rovers in the
China seas, have over-ridden even patriotic sentiment
and superstitious fear. But the introduction of steam
in the inner waters, rivers and canals, has repeatedly
led to violent opposition, and prohibition for a time.
The great Chiang from its mouth below Shanghai up
to Hankow (a course, as has been said, of six hundred
miles) has now for many years been traversed by many
lines — English, German, American, Chinese and Japanese
— of fine river and some sea-going steamers, and Hankow
is one chief centre of the foreign sea-borne and land-
borne tea trade. Steamers of smaller draught and
tonnage go higher still to I-ch'ang, and a few negotiate
the great gorges with their rapids and reach Chung-
ch'ing, the commercial capital of Ssuch'uan, a distance
measuring some fifteen hundred miles from the river's
mouth. The system of steam launches for towing native
river craft met with considerable opposition twenty-five
years ago, and the writer has seen these launches taken
off and refused official licence for months together, as
6o THE CHINESE PEOPLE
interfering with the established boat traffic, and as in
some way threatening the good luck of the district. The
system is now very generally adopted, and where
twenty years ago the journey, for instance, from Hang-
chow to Shanghai by the Grand Canal and by connecting
waterways would often occupy five or six days — the
boat being moored at night — the journey in native or
foreign house-boat towed by a powerful launch occupies
only eighteen or twenty hours. The railway follows
approximately the same route and covers the distance
in five or six hours. The latest and possibly the last
developement of acceleration of locomotion and con-
nection between the Far East and Europe is the Trans-
Siberian Railway, with two main points of arrival and
departure — Dalny, now a Japanese port, near Port
Arthur, and Vladivostok, the Russian port. The rail-
way was begun sixteen years ago by Russia as a
military artery, with a commercial pretext. The South
Manchurian section is now under Japanese control, and
connects at Harbin with the Russian system. The line
is guarded along a great part of its 6,000 miles course
by military posts at carefully-selected intervals, and runs
through the Buriat land and Siberia, past Lake Baikal
and the remote life of Irkutsk, to Moscow, and so
through Poland, Germany and Holland to Western
Europe and England. Thus the Farthest East , approach-
able by sea sixty years ago only by the long Cape route
and under sail, with a favourable voyage of 112 days
or more, can now be reached by a land run of from
twelve to sixteen days.
I. THE POST OFFICE 6i
It is worthy of notice in connection with methods of
locomotion and communication in China how good the
Chinese postal system has been. The present system
was arranged and ordered under the control of the
Imperial Maritime Customs Department (with which the
name of Sir Robert Hart must always be honourably
associated) and is a State enterprise with strong foreign
guidance and suggestion of method. But long before
any Western influence was felt, the mails in China were
handled with regularity, reliability and integrity worthy
of all admiration. The methods and machinery probably
varied in different provinces. Indeed, a post-office
was almost unknown in the north-eastern provinces, but
in the central provinces of commercial activity and of
necessities caused by business intercommunication, the
whole postal department (not in any perceptible sense
a Government enterprise or monopoly, but managed by
several private post-offices and companies in each large
city, and these not in rivalry but with friendly co-
operation) conducted its operations with singular
efficiency and honesty. Money and valuables were
carried as well as letters. The amount of postage was
far less than English postage rates sixty years ago.
Urgent letters were marked by a little feather stuck into
the flap of the envelope. In cities and large market
towns there would be, say, two deliveries (of letters
arriving by two different routes) every day, and local
deliveries more frequently, and the postman would
call also for outgoing letters obligingly or in the way
of business, and also as a great convenience, twice
62 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
daily. Bank drafts of comparatively large amounts,
say for 200 dollars or more, would be transmitted by
post ; the amount enclosed would be stated on the
face of the envelope, double postage charged, and the
office would then hold itself responsible for the whole
amount. Robberies, miscarriage and wilful damage
were exceedingly rare, as though the common sense even
of the criminal Chinaman could recognise the almost
sacred character and public and private benefit alike of
the post and the postman.
CHAPTER II
The Land and the People
China is so vast in geographical area, and in the varieties
of her latitudes, that separate memoirs are almost de-
manded for the separate provinces. But we must offer
here a mere general survey ; with some special features
which have come under our personal observation. The
varieties in climate ; the fauna and flora of China ;
her methods of agriculture, her handicrafts, her manu-
factures and products of her industries ; her fine arts
in music and painting, sculpture and graving ; her food
and drink, her hfe in town and country, her costume and
customs and general characteristics, furnish a long list
of subjects teeming with interest, and all the more so as
some of them at least are changing and passing by, and
should be, if possible, carefully photographed before they
are lost to view and to memory. The form of the Empire
of China, for we cannot yet quite drop the ancient title,
approaches a rectangle ; its length from the south-
western part of the province of Hi bordering on Kokand
(Long. 70* E.) to the sea of Okhotsk (Long. 145° E.) —
the extremest limit, is 3,350 miles ; its greatest breadth
from the Yabliono mountains on the Russian frontier
(Lat. 50° 10) to Yii-lin-kan Bay on the south coast of the
Island of Hainan (Lat. i5* 10) measures about 2,400
63
64 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
miles. The superficial area of the whole Empire, with
its outlying dependencies, is between four and six milhon
square miles ; while the area of China Proper alone is
about 1,500,000 square miles, or more than twelve times
that of the United Kingdom ; a territory nearly equalling
that of British India. These measurements and estimates
afford some guide as to the probable population of China.
Some place the population so low as 240,000,000,
without sufficient data ; some (a quite recent com-
putation) as high as 438,000,000. Twelve times the
population of the United Kingdom — as the area of China
is twelve times as large as that of the United Kingdom —
gives about 500,000,000, The last census of British
India, with a similar area to that of China Proper, and
not on an average a greater density of population, gave
about 300,000,000. The article on China in the latest
edition of the Encyclofcedia Britannica gives 390,000,000
as China's population ; and the Statesman's Year Book
{1902), giving 283 as the average population per square
mile in China Proper, requires a population, besides the
numbers in China beyond the provincial borders, of
382,000,000. The Statesman's Year Book (1913) gives
433,533,030 as the most recently accepted census, pub-
Ushed by the Chinese Government ; so that the different
lines of calculation all converge towards the more
familiar round numbers, accepted also by the Chinese
themselves, of about 400,000,000. When we note that
the great Empire's feet are fixed 8° within the Tropic of
Cancer, and that its head reaches to 16° only south of
the Arctic circle, the varieties of temperature and of
n. CLIMATE 6s
climate must be considerable. The climate of Pekin
(40° N.L.) ranges from 10" to 25° Fahr. in the winter,
and from 75° to 105° in the summer. The sea on the
coast-line of the Northern Gulf of Pechili is frozen from
December to early March, and the harbours are closed,
the coasting steamers lying up for the winter. In Mid-
China, Shanghai (31° 24' N.L.) and Ningpo (30* N.L.),
the extremes of temperature are nearly as great, but the
average is more equable. We have recorded 8° Fahr.
in Shanghai at the end of January, and 102° in July with
a west wind (the hot wind in summer, and the cold
\vind in winter, as it sweeps over Asia's plains and hills,
unmodified by the sea). Ningpo varies about half a
degree in temperature as compared with Shanghai ; and
in either region heavy and long-lying snow-storms are
sometimes experienced, and hockey is played sometimes
on the frozen canals. In fighting the fires which are
so frequent at the New Year season in Shanghai, the
firemen, and the very rafters of the burning houses, are
seen coated with ice from the hose water freezing as it
falls, so severe is the frost. During the winter of 1892-3,
three hundred beggars were found frozen to death in
their shelter-sheds. We notice here, however, chiefly
the extremes of heat and cold — and these are greatly
modified as we proceed southward.
The climate of Canton, which for many years was the
only port in China really familiar to Europeans, has been
carefully noted and recorded — with a highest observa-
tion of 94° in July, and a lowest of 29" in January ; but
both in Canton and in Hongkong, in the same latitude,
E
66 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
the thermometer very seldom rises above 90° ; and snow
and ice are very rare phenomena indeed.
In Hankow, the geographical centre of China Proper,
the summer heat is more oppressive than in any other
region of China. The city, one of the ports opened for
trade after the second China war with England, stands
(as we have noticed in chapter I.) on the bank of the
great Chiang, nearly 600 miles from its mouth, and
nearly 3,000 miles from the river's source. It was
formerly a mere suburb of Han-yang fu, a city on the
river Han, where that river joins the Yangtse ; the
river Han in fact separates Hankow from Han-yang.
Opposite to these two cities, Hankow and Han-yang,
lies Wu-ch'ang, the provincial capital of the province
of Hupei ; so that three great cities and centres of
political and industrial and commercial life, with a
population approaching 2,000,000, lie here under one
coup d'ceil of great beauty viewed from high ground
afar ; but with dense and insanitary conditions of life
when you draw near. The great heat may be accounted
for, partly by the distance from the sea-breezes, and
partly by the closer air of the valley through which
the gigantic river flows. The winters of Hankow, how-
ever, are cold.
For chmatic calculation take a few more regions, in
the distant south-west, west and north-west of China.
The province of Yiinnan has an equable climate, es-
pecially in the central highland plains, which are from
5,000 to 7,000 feet above the sea level. The temperature
in the summer seldom rises above 86" in the shade, and
n. CLIMATE 67
the \\inters are moderate, till you reach the borders of
Kueichou eastwards, where both frost and snow are
more severe and last longer. The climate of the greater
part of Ssuch'uan, the largest province in China Proper,
with an area (until last year) of 218,533 square miles, and
a population of 68,724,800, is salubrious and free from
violent extremes of temperature. The mercury scarcely
ever exceeds 100° in the summer, and very rarely in the
great plains and valleys falls below 35°. Shensi is the
cradle of the Chinese race ; its capital, Hsi-an fu, was for
many centuries the metropolis of China (Shensi means
"West of the Pass," i.e., the T'ung-kuan pass, where
Shensi, Shansi, and Honan adjoin). Shansi, " West of
the Mountains" {i.e., the hills which divide the province
from Chihli to the east), is traversed by two arms of
the Great Wall, and is bounded west and south by
the Yellow River. It formed the home and centre of
rule, near the modern P'ing-yang, of Yao, the semi-
historic and most famous of China's ancient Emperors,
B.C. 2300. Both of these provinces have a much warmer
climate than the vast adjoining province of Kansu, where
the cold is very severe, and skins and furs are worn
generally by the people. Kansu stretches across the
desert of Gobi to the confines of Songaria to the north-
west, and to the borders of Tibet on the west. Shensi
and Shansi suffer much from the uncertainty of the
rainfall in those regions ; and flood and drought period-
ically devastate vast tracts through which the Yang-tse
and the Yellow River flow — from abnormal melting of
the snows in the vast mountain ranges where these
68 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
rivers rise, and the inability both of ancient and, thus
far, of modern engineering, to confine swollen rivers
within their beds, and then to conduct them in irrigation
where most wanted. These variations in the melting
of the snows correspond in a measure to the variations
in the monsoon rains in India, and to the fluctuations
in the Nile. The average rainfall in China was estimated
by Humboldt as 70 inches annually, but apparently his
calculations were made from imperfect and partial data.
We have known a fall of 24 inches in twenty-four hours
at Hongkong, and a continuous downpour during the
rainy season at Ningpo of heavy thunder-rain day and
night without intermission for seven days, laying the
whole of the vast plain under water. A similar inunda-
tion laid this plain, 1,500 square miles in extent, with
6,000 cities and towns and villages, four feet under water
from end to end ; but this last flood came on after three
days only of torrential rains, accompanied by water-
spouts, caused by the landing of a severe typhoon as it
swept up the coast. The amphitheatre of hills sur-
rounding this plain, rising some of them to a height of
2,000 feet, presented a strange appearance, as their sides
were scarred by hundreds of landshps, caused by the
bursting of the springs — the escape of the " rain-frogs,"
as Chinese legend or folk-lore declares, to pass seawards,
and quaUfy for the degree and dignity of the dragon
king of rain.
We have seen this great rice-growing plain under very
different circumstances, in time of drought, with the canal
beds dry and dust blowing. The vast stretches of riceland,
AGRICULTURE 69
recently dotted over with the tender plants, drilled
in by hand from the emerald seed-beds, looked as hard
as iron. The country people in relays were digging
for water as for very life ; for they hoped thus to save,
if possible, some at least of the fast withering rice-plants,
which for nearly three months before harvest should
stand in an inch or more of water, drawn up from the
canals or streams below and tipped into the higher level
fields by chain pumps worked by blindfolded buffaloes,
or by treadmill pumps with men and boys, and some-
times women, toiUng thus and singing day and night.
Agriculture holds the first place in the estimation of
the Chinese among the branches of labour, ranking next
after scholarship and letters, in the fourfold division of
society — for " the king himself is served by the field " ;
and throughout the great arable plains and upland valleys
and even in the high-lifted terraces of the hills, watered
by intricate series of bamboo pipes, rice is the staple
product of the land. The price of rice governs exchange,
and affects markets of all kinds ; and its steady rise of
late years has been one great cause of grave anxiety and
unrest amongst the people. Prices generally of the
necessities of life have nearly doubled within the past
fifteen or twenty years, and rent and wages have risen
in proportion, rice all the while being the dominant
and active partner in economics.
It is doubtful whether the machinery and methods of
modern scientific farming, if experimented with in China,
will be more effective and productive than the methods
and implements which exhibit the practical experience
70 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
of China's husbandmen for 2,000 years. The character
of the rice-plant, and the state of the soil required for
its culture and growth, seem to indicate this. The inunda-
tion and deep ploughing of the fields (deeper far and more
thorough than casual observers imagine), their harrowing
while still under water; the thick-sown seed beds, the
clumps of plants six inches high, taken out and tossed
hither and thither into the water-covered fields, to be
untied and planted one by one by hand ; the unre-
mitting supply of water, the careful tending of the plants
between the narrow rows (early and late rice alternately
sown) for the removal of any appearance of weeds and
the levelling of even worm-holes ; and the result in
average crops and well-ripened and garnered grain
(fields cut, threshed, and carried on the same day in
favourable weather), affording an abundant gain for
the long toil ; all this could hardly be better done.
The methods employed in the cultivation of other
crops, beside the staple rice, must not detain us ; but we
quote from a recent panegyric upon China, the following
brief enumeration of the varieties in the products of the
soil.*
" Within the boundaries of the Empire all the neces-
sities of life can be supplied. Northwards as far as the
Great Wall, and farther, in Mongoha and Manchuria,
though the cold is extremely severe in winter, yet
amongst grains, wheat and Indian corn and millet
and sorghum abound ; and amongst fruits we find pears
• Cf. " Great China's Greatest Need," in The Splendour of
a Great Hope, p. 112.
n. NATURAL PRODUCTS jt
and apples and fine grapes. Then southwards, as far
as Hainan, though the weather is hot all the year round,
yet there, too, fruits abound of different kinds, oranges,
lemons, and pumeloes. Then in the more central pro-
vinces, Fukien, Chekiang, Anhui, and inland as far as
great Ssuch'uan, though the summers are hot, and there
are cold spells in the winters, yet the weather is for the
most part equable, and we find four or five varieties
of rice in great abundance ; and of fruits — peaches,
plums, pears, and the beautiful arbutus berry, the
yang-tnci, and wheat, barley, beans, and peas ; cotton
also is widely grown on the alluvial plains, and hemp
and tobacco ; and the mulberry tree embowers the sides
of the mountain streams as by forests stretching far into
the bosom of the hills ; and the silkworms, " the precious
ones," are carefully tended — an ancient industry in
China ; and the tea-bushes cover the hills of Fukien
and Chekiang. We find, therefore, every necessary
article of food and clothing supplied in your great land."
The chief glory of the trees of China, and one which
may be said to combine in itself food and clothing, sup-
plied in other forms by the varied productions of the
soil here enumerated, is the bamboo. It becomes rare
as you travel to the farther northern districts, but
it is found through more than two-thirds of the hills and
plains of the eighteen provinces. It has been called,
and not without reason, the national plant of China.
Fine and useful timber abounds in the hills of central and
southern China — the camphor tree, the liquid ambar,
fir and pine of many varieties, the cypress and arbor-
72 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
vitae, dwarf oak (mere brushwood in many districts,
and useful only as fuel) , an oak in the northern provinces
whose leaves are used instead of mulberry leaves for
silkworms, and larger oaks, with purple acorns, in
Hongkong and on the mainland. The willow and alder
and Pride of India fringe and shade the canals and rivers,
and the holly of considerable size and red-berried, with
mistletoe on camphor and other trees, abound in some
districts. But the bamboo is everywhere, the waving
tree standing 40 or 50 feet high in some groves, and the
cane having a diameter of from 6 to 10 inches or more.
Some varieties (the Chinese speak of sixty in all) are
of lower growth and finer canes, a black-skinned variety
being much used in furniture. It is raised from shoots
and suckers ; and when once rooted, it spreads under-
ground, and propagates itself widely and rapidly. The
tender shoots, as they push through the moss-strewn
soil, to the height of 4 or 5 inches, are cut like asparagus,
and form a delicious vegetable. The shoots which are
left to grow up reach their full height of from 20 to 60
feet in one season, after developement showing itself in
the hardening of the cane ; and when thus fully ripened
and seasoned, it is used for every imaginable purpose.
The chopsticks, or knife and fork, with which you eat
the young bamboo are themselves bamboo ; the table
at which you eat is made of bamboo ; the chair on
which you sit, and the couch on which you rechne, the
cane of the pedagogue, and the very paper of the book
his pupil fails to repeat correctly, are bamboo ; so are
the pencil-handles and the cups to hold the pencils ; the
IV. — WIND
{To face />. 72.
n. THE BAMBOO 73
rain-coat of the husbandman and boatman are made
from bamboo leaves sewed upon cords ; and cut into
thin sphnters the wood is twisted into cables, plaited
into tilts and awnings of boats, and woven into matting.
The joists of houses, the ribs of sails, and the very sails
themselves, are bamboo of different sizes and composition ;
and the carpenter, the porter, the boatman, all depend
on bamboo poles. The shafts of spears, the wattles of
hurdles, the tubes and shoots of aqueducts for terrace
cultivation, and the handles and ribs of umbrellas and
fans, the pipes of the Chinese organ, and the tuneful
flute, long tobacco pipes, bird cages, and water wheels,
wheelbarrows and hand-carts — " all are furnished or
completed by this magnificent grass, whose graceful
beauty when growing is comparable to its varied useful-
ness when cut down." * A very rare, if not quite unique,
variety of the bamboo is found near Wen-chou, in south-
ern Chekiang — the square bamboo. A variety of the
peach unknown, we believe, elsewhere in the world is
the flat peach of Shanghai. We had imagined that this
fruit, which we have seen and tasted — in shape and size
something like an artificially-pressed Normandy pippin,
and with a true and luscious flavour of its own — was found
only in the neighbourhood of Shanghai. But it is re-
markable that " Flat Peach Clubs " are known amongst
the Friendly Societies of China, and the name is said to
have its origin from the legend of the " Western Mother,"
Hsi Wang Mu, of antiquity, which records that when
she invited Han Wu-ti (b.c. 140) and the eight genii
* Williams, Middle Kingdom, vol. I., p. 277,
74 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
to a banquet, in other regions than Shanghai tea-gardens
(for was it not in the fairy land of the Kun-lun Moun-
tain, the Hindu Kush?), she gave to each of her
guests some flat peaches out of her own garden.
The fruits and flowers of China, both wild and culti-
vated, deserve a special handbook to themselves, and
we can merely allude here to some of the speciaUties
in those enumerated above. Oranges and lemons are
of good quality and variety. The Canton orange re-
sembles the familiar St. Michael's oranges of Europe,
with a thinner skin than the Jaffa oranges which have
reached our English markets and are so welcomed here.
In Swatow and Foochow and T'ai-chou fine loose-skinned
oranges abound, and are sent to the northern markets
in vast quantities. Others grow and ripen as far north
as Ningpo, but these are of an inferior quality. Further
to the south-west, at Ch'ii-chou, a large pale-skinned
orange, called the " golden," is grown ; and this fruit
used to be supphed specially for the imperial table.
The best fruit of this kind is perhaps the great Amoy
pumelo, a fruit of a pale yellow colour, lying in flakes
inside the thick protecting rind, with an average circum-
ference of about 25 inches. A coarser fruit, with a
dull red colour, is grown further north. Cherries of an
inferior but very palatable kind come in with green
peas and beans in April ; but though wild currant
bushes and wild raspberries are found, neither these
fruits nor strawberries nor gooseberries were cultivated
in Chinese gardens till their Western guests arrived and
demanded the fruits of home. The diminutive golden
11. FLOWERS 75
orange, the cumquat, grown largely for preserves, and
the loquat, the persimmon, yellow and red, and the
lichee, are well known and valued amongst Chinese
fruits. The citron is valued more for its fragrance than
for its taste. The Fo-shoii, or Buddha's-hand-citron,
shaped thus artificially while growing, is specially
valued, and carried in the hand or placed on the table
as a wholesome scent in the unwholesome days of later
autumn. The Chinese, with their almost passionate
love of flowers and of fair rural scenery, seldom arrange
parterres and masses of flowers, or flower-borders and
green sward, as in English gardens ; but both in pots
indoors and in artificial rock-work beds and shelves
they delight to display both flowering shrubs and festoons
of roses (the damask rose, the cluster " seven sisters "
rose, the banksia, both cultivated and wild, in great
masses), and the peony, a flower celebrated and discussed
and described in ancient and modern pictorial art, and
in prose and poetry. In the beautiful private residence
of the literary family, whose large private library is
mentioned in another chapter, the writer with his brother,
Bishop Moule, and ladies of the Mission, were invited
to examine several portfolios of flowers, peonies, roses,
camellias and others, painted with rare artistic taste
and admirably modulated colour by the ladies of this
interesting and intellectual family. Some of the colours,
both natural and in their artificial copying, are hard
to match in Europe.
Then come into the open air and beyond the city walls
— those ancient and picturesque and, in old warfare and
THE CHINESE PEOPLE
unrest, not ineffective defences of China's cities and
larger country towns. The walls are as a rule massive
earthworks faced without and within with granite and
with more fragile battlements of brick, pierced for
gingalls or small cannon. The average thickness of a
city wall would be 22 feet at the base and 18 at the
summit, with a height of from 20 to 30 feet. Plants of
all kinds, and even shrubs and trees, strike roots in the
interstices of the walls, and make the city sides lovely
at times with honeysuckle and dog-roses or with the
brilhant hues of autumn leaves. It is one of the imag-
ined reforms of young China, when the picturesque
and the venerable are all sacrificed to the material
and the utilitarian and the scientifically precise, to
level these walls, and run electric trams and motor-' buses
along the line of the ancient defences. We have
watched these walls withstanding successfully, so far as
effecting a breach was concerned, the heavy guns of
EngHsh and French corvettes fifty years ago ; but they
would not stand five minutes against the more modem
and powerfully explosive shell-fire, and for defence
in war they are doubtless useless. But it will be long
before the intra-mural inhabitants of the great cities
will sleep quietly with the walls levelled and the gates
banished, which used to form a check upon, or, at any rate,
some surveillance over, banditti and undesirable ahens
by day and by night, and in some cases afford protection
from the night attacks of wild beasts. But now we are
outside the walls, and clear of the long and busy suburbs,
and in the wide country, in the fields or on the slopes
PHEASANTS <j-j
of the hills of Chekiang, most famihar to the writer.
How fair is a morning in April or early May ! The sun
is up, and is fast dispersing the low white mist over the
land. The sharp metallic cry of the pheasant is heard,
and there, almo -t glorious in the sunshine which lights
up every dewdrop on the grass around him, the great red
bird is flapping his wings and rejoicing in the morning
air.* China is almost the ancestral home of the pheasant.
Both the gold and silver pheasant come from China, and,
though nearly exterminated now in a wild state, while
reared extensively for sale, they still linger, probably,
in the woods of the inland provinces. In Mid-China
the commoner pheasant is so abundant that the average
market price in the season, which is generally observed
by native sportsmen, would be less than two shillings a
brace. There are several varieties of the pheasant,
and one discovered by the well-known ornithologist,
Swinhoe, is pecuhar to the hills of Chekiang. It is so
rare and highly prized, that the writer once had a com-
mission entrusted to him — which, however, he failed
to execute — namely, to procure six brace of living
birds of the Swinhoe variety for transmission to England,
for which the offer of £5 a brace was made. Williams
mentions amongst eminent varieties of this pheasant
tribe, the Phasianus superbus, or barred-tailed pheasant,
kno\v'n since 1832 to naturalists as Reeves' pheasant,
from the name of the traveller who first introduced the
bird into England. The tail-feathers of the cock bird,
with alternate bars of white and yellowish colour, have
• New China and Old, p. 109, et passim.
78 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
been seen 7 feet long, though 4 feet only is the average
length. The argus pheasant is found in China, and is
probably the model of Chinese legendary descriptions
and delineations of the phoenix. The peacock and the
iris pheasant are also kno\vn in China, and the plumage
of the male birds is of rare beauty. Wild turkeys are
met with, and bustards, wild swans, and wild geese of
many kinds. Egrets, storks, cranes, curlews, corn-
crakes, partridges, quails, sometimes in great quantities,
and snipe in the season, tired with their long migratory
flight, will cover the ground ; woodcock also, and
waterfowl of very great variety and number. Ouzels
haunt the mountain streams, and great grey king-
fishers, besides two or three varieties of the more familiar
brilliant flashing bird, are found ; also mandarin ducks,
a name, " mandarin," given (as it is also to a special
kind of orange) not so much from their being
appropriated to the use of officials, as from the
beauty of the species. These with the gulls and fish-
hawks and very many varieties of sea-birds which
haunt the coast, and the screaming carrion kite, and
large eagles soaring in inland skies, form but a section
of the list of China's bird life. The cormorant is tamed
and trained for fishing, with an easy gag in the shape
of a small collar round the neck, to allow of the passage
of small fry for the bird's food, while preventing the
swallowing of larger fish, which are duly appropriated
by the fisherman. The golden oriole, with its brilHant
sunshine of colour and its low tuneful call, is weU known
in the hills of Chekiang. A small brown thrush sings
ma:¥Ci^' >i ii
EARLY SUMMER yg
in the gardens with a note like a subdued version of
the storm cock's soaring song. Robins abound, and
tits, long-tailed and blue, finches, the hawfinch and
crossbill, sparrows, chiefly the tree-sparrow, in great
numbers, swifts and martins, and migratory buntings.
But now observe, as we leave the pheasant crowing
and pass along the canal, and approach the hill-sides,
the broad beans are in full bloom, and as the sun warms
the flowers, and the breeze wafts the odour, the air is
dehciously fragrant. In the northern provinces the
bean is quite a staple crop, and the manufacture of
bean-curd and bean-cake is a great industry, suppl3dng
one of the chief exports from the port of Niuchuang and
elsewhere. The wheat now in early May is tall and
luxuriant, as it is only one month from harvest-time.
Great masses of red clover are in flower, and now they
are ready to be ruthlessly ploughed into the half-sub-
merged soil, which is being prepared for the rice planting ;
and so important is the clover as a manure that the
harvest is in a measure foretold by the weight of the
clover. The irrigation pumps, fresh-painted for the
new season, are now taken out of their winter shelters
in temple yard or shed, and are fixed at intervals along
the canal banks for the summer's ceaseless toil. The
yellow oxen, or water-buffaloes, which, blindfolded with
deep bUnkers, turn the flat wheels of these pumps, are
enjoying rest and fresh pasture for a time on the low
hill-sides, or amongst the clover and buttercups which
clothe the tombs. Our boat now approaches the
hill-sides, and red bunches of azaleas hang from the
8o THE CHINESE PEOPLE
banks, and mirror themselves in the water of the in-
undated rice land. The hills are in their full-orbed
beauty. The great azalea carpet, 1,000 miles long and
500 deep, starting from the hills on the Yang-tse shores,
down to the peak of Hongkong, and covering also the
hills and mountains of Japan, is the chief glory, and
a very entrancing glory, of the springtime of the Farthest
East. The pure white flower is comparatively rare and
local, but the red azalea, with six or eight gradations of
colour, passing from purple and deep scarlet to pink
hues of many shades, and, a little later, the large yellow
azalea, reported to be poisonous for cattle, are
common. These gorgeous flowers, opening first on
the lower slopes of the hills, cUmb gradually to the
very summit of the mountains, some of which reach
an altitude of 3,000 or 4,000 feet. Wistaria also covers
the rocks, and sometimes camphor trees, 30 or 40 feet
high, are festooned from the summit to the ground by
branches of this beautiful and fragrant creeper, hanging
and trailing amongst the brilhant green of the young
camphor leaves. On one occasion, as we climbed one
of these carpeted hills in the flowery springtime, we were
suddenly confronted by the beautiful sight of an arbour
of wistaria with a tall spike of scarlet azalea amongst
the blue-lilac blossoms, and a deer running under the
trailing bloom. Single camellias also abound on the
hillside, and in temple courts and in private gardens fine
camellias are often grown, with double flowers, and red
and white side by side. We remember one spring day,
when visiting one of these temples to converse with the
WILD BIRDS il
priests, the full-blown blossoms were beginning to fall
in gentle cascades of beauty, stirred by the April breeze ;
and the priests gladly accepted Christian literature in
return for a handful of their fair fading flowers. Blue
borage covers the ground, and the fir-trees are in
flower, and women and girls are busy amongst the
trees, gathering the pollen to mix with cakes.
And now :
" I hear a charm of song through all the land."
The blackbird's note is heard ; and the familiar English
bird, with his orange bill and tranquil fluting note,
sings in city gardens as well. The Chinese yellow-
eyebrowed thrush makes the hills resound with melody,
wood-pigeons murmur, and the soaring cry of rooks
and the croak of the raven are heard ; and magpies
chatter not singly,
" garrulous under a roof of pine,"
but in flocks, in the autumn and winter, as numerous as
starlings in England ; and they crowd the battlements
of the city walls, or quarrel amongst the tall river-sedge
before going to roost. There flies, or rather glances,
among the trees in the spring-time, the shan-ch'iieh, the
hill-magpie — a fine grey bird, \\ith long traihng tail-
feathers and a peculiar chatter of its own. Now the
cuckoo calls — the same bird, surely, as ours, flying from tree
to tree, with the same intonation of mingled present-day
pertness and the pathos and melancholy sweetness of
long ago. It is the same in genus, with slight differences
only in plumage, which mark it as indigenous. But
this smaller and best-known bird is only one out of
F
82 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
a family of cuckoos. Listen to the deep-toned bell-
like call from the rice plain below us. It is seldom that
you catch sight of this large singer, which is also of
the cuckoo tribe. There are two other varieties of the
cuckoo known to the writer. During the beautiful days
of April and May, and all night long as well, the hills
resound with the loud and plaintive notes of these
birds. It is difficult to catch sight of the sad singer,
though sometimes the voice startles you by its nearness.
And the country people, perhaps from the mysterious
invisibility of the bird, have woven its song into ancient
folk-lore, or have invented the legend to suit the song.
" K'ang-k'ang mai-kao," " Hide, hide the wheat-cakes,"
cries one bird all through the tuneful spring ; for it is
the soul of a Chinese girl thus telhng her long sorrow
to the hstening hills ; starved and nearly beaten to
death by a tyrannous mother-in-law ; steahng one
day, to appease her ravenous hunger, two small wheat-
cakes, and terrified by the old woman's step returning
from the hill-side, she stuffed all into her mouth to hide
the theft, and was choked and died. " Hsiao tzu tang
tang," " Your dutiful son will hold you up," cries another
cuckoo ; for here speaks, with pathetic undying love,
the soul of a dutiful lad, the only son of his widowed
mother. She died, and he, heartbroken, followed his
mother's coffin, carried in funeral procession to rest on
the hill-side. The sad train moved on \vith waihng and
tears : and, coming to a narrow footbridge across a
mountain torrent, the bearers stumbled, and the loving
son hurried forward to help them, and received the
BIG GAME 83
whole weight of the coffin as it fell and crushed him
to death. Glad to have died, though it seemed in vain,
for his dead mother, still he sobs out in musical dirge
his purpose and resolve of love.
The Chinese, with less imagination of pathos, interpret
the more familiar cuckoo's note thus, "Tsou-k'o, tsou-
k'o " — "Make my nest, make my nest" — which is
expounded either as a scarcely veracious promise to
the much-enduring hedge-sparrow that next year the
cuckoo will make her own nest, or as a command to the
obsequious bird to have everything snug and ready for
the cuckoo's return next year. This bird is, as with us,
migratory ; but it seems to go no farther south for the
autumn and winter than Formosa.
Now, turning to a brief narrative of the fauna of
China, in a book of travel entitled The Big Game of
Central and Western China, Mr. H. F. Wallace, F.R.G.S.,
tells us of his discovery of rare animals, especially the
Shansi Takin, which he describes thus :
" This animal is allied to the ox, and is credited by
the natives with more than ordinary viciousness ; in
sunlight the Takin is of a conspicuous golden yellow,
though the females are considerably lighter and more
silvery in hue, like the yellow in the coat of a polar bear.
The bulls are much larger, and have a decidedly reddish
tinge about the neck, not unhke the colour of a lion.
Though much larger in size, they yet reminded me very
strongly of the Rocky Mountain goat {oreamnus mon-
tanus) both in their heavy build and apparently clumsy
lumbering gait. On occasions, however, they can cover
84 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
the rough ground on which they dwell with the agility
of a rhinoceros."
The hill sheep of Kansu are also described — dwelhng
at a great altitude, and rendering stalking both danger-
ous and laborious. The white-maned serow is also
named — with enormous ears and an elongated pensive
face. Roe-deer and wapiti (until quite recently set down
as peculiar to the American continent) were found in
Kansu. After crossing the Wei River, which flows from
the westward into the Yellow River at the south-west
corner of Shansi, Mr. Wallace speaks of the number
of wolves infesting the country, and of their frequent
attacks on people, and carrying off children. But wolves
and bears, and the biggest game of all, tigers, are met
with much further south, and not in the wild and sparsely-
populated regions, but in the neighbourhood of great
cities, and amongst the thickly-populated plains and
upland valleys of e.g., Chekiang and Fukien. A sports-
man, known to the writer some few years ago, was
watching at night, on his back, for wild geese, when a
large animal jumped over him, and astonished at his
recumbent figure, stood at bay for a moment against a
white-plastered tomb. The moon was shining brightly,
and the sportsman saw at once that it was a large grey
wolf. He was informed the next day by the inhabitants
in the great alluvial cotton-growing plain close by, with
a population of half-a-million, that wolves hunt here in
packs at certain seasons of the year, and sometimes
carry off children. On the shores of the beautiful
lakes which he among the hills to the east of Ningpo,
n. WOLVES. 85
with its 400,000 inhabitants, and with something Hke
50,000 or 60,000 on the very shores of the lakes, another
sportsman was aroused while at breakfast in his house-
boat by a cry from his servant, and hurrying to the head
of his boat he was just in time to bring do\\Ti with his
rifle a full-grown grey wolf ; and two minutes later a
second wolf rushed past in pursuit, and was shot down.
It was hard to beheve the assurance of the country
people that in that populous and busy region, which we
had traversed for years, wolves had always haunted the
hills, and were greatly dreaded. Further south, amongst
the T'ai-chou mountains, and still in the immediate neigh-
bourhood of a considerable population, we have heard
at night the cry as of a low bark, from what the Chinese
in that region call dog-headed bears, but which are
doubtless wolves. A husbandman going into the fields
on a summer's day not long ago, accompanied by his wife
carrying her baby, began his work of hoeing in his plot
of ground, and his wife laid the baby to rest in the long
grass by the wayside, while she helped her husband in
his work. Unknown and unsuspected by the poor
couple, a dog-headed bear had been skulking near, and
followed them at a little distance ; and as the woman
deposited her baby, the brute ran in and carried it off.
Large and fierce wild-cats are met with in the hills of
Chekiang, and leopards are quite numerous.
As far north as the shores of Hangchow Bay, and as far
south as Amoy, both on the island and adjoining mainland,
royal tigers, ten feet long, have been encountered from
time to time ; and in some regions where the jungle from
86 THB CHINESE PEOPLE
long neglect has become dense, both tigers and black
panthers are frequently met with.
The Ningpo plain which we describe above, with its
6,000 cities, towns, and villages, all alive from west to
east with the confused sounds of industry and occupa-
tion, has been traversed several times by these great
cats, traveUing, it is presumed, in pursuit of deer by
night, and lying down in some bamboo or brushwood
shelter by day ; and they have ventured to the very
outskirts of the suburbs of the capital city, Ningpo.
One of these dangerous and savage beasts, after
mauling and kilHng a man, was discovered by the
villagers near, who had been roused by the dying cries
of their poor friend. The great city was close by, three
miles distant, and the news reached the ears of the
general in command of the garrison. He took with him
half a regiment of soldiers, and a small artillery-train,
and besieged the tiger and did him to death, not how-
ever before he had charged again and again, and badly
torn some of the men. And then over the carcase of
the man-eater arose an angry and critical discussion as
to which of three chief claimants should possess the
prey. "It is mine," said the Commander-in-chief,
the T'i-t'ai, " I am bound by law to be brave ; and there
is no recipe for courage to equal soup from tiger's flesh
and bones." " The beast is mine," said the Tao-t'ai,
the chief departmental magistrate, " traveUing, and slain
in my domain, there is no question as to my right to
the animal." " Not so," said the Governor of the
Province, the Fu-t'ai, or his representatives, " the first
VI. — TIGER
{To face p. 86.
ir. TIGERS 87
offer of the carcase must be made to the paramount lord."
Eventually the controversy was settled by the presenta-
tion of the head to the Fu-t'ai, of the skin to the Tao-t'ai
and of the flesh and bones to the intrepid T'i-t'ai. But
this happened, it will be remembered, in Old China !
Will such customs and superstitions age, and the tigers
themselves pass with the New China of the Republic ?
The great strength of these animals was shown the
other day, when a tiger carried off a large pig, weighing
from 200 lbs. to 300 lbs., in his mouth, as a cat would
carry a kitten. He was traced along the sandy shore of
a stream which we traversed a few days later ; and it
was observed that after carrying the pig high off the
ground for some distance, the tiger, tired of the exertion,
dragged it trailing across the sand till he reached his lair,
and then at his leisure he devoured as much as suited
his taste. Near this spot is situated a Mission Station of
the C.M.S., with a large Church. One Sunday afternoon,
as the service was nearly ended, the congregation were
alarmed by a tiger's roar not far off ; and as many of
them came from a town a mile distant, they were obliged
to spend the night in the Church before they ventured
with fear and trembling to go home. In this same
neighbourhood a calamity happened, almost unique, one
would believe, even in the annals of any but the fiercest
man-eating tigers. One of these terrible beasts actually
entered a cottage, the door standing open, and seizing
the mother from the midst of her children, carried her
off bodily and devoured her. Tigers are good swimmers ;
and both between the Island of Amoy and the mainland,
THE CHINESE PEOPLE
and between Singapore far south and J chore, and other
islands near the Singapore coast, there is a frequent
communication of tigers to and fro, to the great alarm
of the people.
A skin of the rare capricornis maxillaris, a beast with
goat's horns and large grinders, has been seen by a friend
of the writer ; but not the living animal ; and how far it
is distributed is uncertain. Wild-boar, and some of great
size, 300 lbs. weight and more, and looking like small
oxen, are met with over a large stretch of country. One
Sunday afternoon, the writer, after Evensong, went into
the hill-country near his Mission Station, to preach in
the villages. As he crossed a low pass, and turned a
sharp corner of the hill-side, he came upon a wild-boar,
a badger, and a fox, sitting on their haunches in a
friendly contemplative attitude, facing the sunset.
Foxes in Mid-China are much smaller than the English
fox ; and hares are about the size of a large rabbit.
Wild rabbits are seldom found, though we used to hear
rumours of wild white rabbits amongst the moss-strewn
bamboo forests in the Chekiang hills. In the midland
regions of China known to the writer, horses are rarely
met with, except those introduced from Australia only
for the use of foreigners, and small and fleet racing
ponies from the north, and they are never used in
agriculture. Small donkeys are seen, chiefly bestridden
by itinerant doctors, sitting in the orthodox manner well
back near the tail. The water-buffalo is the husband-
man's chief friend in the supremely laborious ploughing
and harrowing of the inundated fields — a beast
THE DRAGON 89
cumbrous and strong and patient, though of somewhat
uncertain temper, but smaller than the fierce and for-
midable black jungle buffalo standing 6 feet high, found
in the marshy ground of Singapore and the Straits.
Chinese husbandmen use also a small j'ellow ox in their
fields. Chinese towns and villages are infested with
" pariah " dogs — noisy and cowardly till they have to stand
at bay in a corner, when they are dangerously aggressive.
It would be well if some useful occupation were found
for these pests, besides their undoubted use as scavengers
and as watchdogs at night. The Japanese jinrikisha
runners in some mountain districts harness their fav-
ourite dogs to the little carriage, and they put forth
their best strength in helping their masters up hill.
It is customary to regard the lung or dragon of the
Chinese throne and flag, and of the Imperial coat-of-arms,
so much as a wholly mythical beast and the creation of
legendary fancy, that with the hauling down of the flag,
and the overthrow of the throne, the animal itself may
be dismissed perhaps from narrative and description
of the fauna of China. Possibly this is the case ; but
there is, if we mistake not, a growing suspicion amongst
geologists, that the iguanodon of the rocks is remarkably
like the Chinese lung, and possibly the historical source
of the supposed legend.*
Chinese architecture is often spoken of as almost non-
existent as an art — and as illustrated chiefly by fantastic
and fancy portraiture on Chinese willow-pattern scenery.
* Another view is that the lung is the alligator Sinensis,
Cf. L. C. Hopkins, Dragon and Alligator in the Journal of the
Royal Asiatic Society, July, 191 3, pp. 545-552,
90 The CHINESE PEOPLE
It is perplexing, indeed, to find in a country so ancient,
and with a people so long acquainted with the arts of
civilisation and with education and literary monuments
of antiquity, so few ancient buildings, so little of planning
and creating for far-off ages, for all time. And yet with
this ephemeral structure, the type has lasted long. We
do not find any seven lamps of architecture burning in
China — no Roman, Byzantine, Saxon, Norman, transi-
tion, decorated, early Enghsh, Gothic styles. But we
notice, so far as we can trace back, in temple roof and in
country house alike, reproductions in stone and brick
and tile of the stretching tents of ancient, nomadic China
on her arrival in her new home. The buildings erected
for the Tartar garrisons in the provincial cities under
the old regime were in idea and arrangement a repro-
duction in stone and brick of the tents of a canvas camp.
Most graceful and picturesque and artistic is the style
of temple architecture, but there is no sohdity or majesty
about it. This feature is supplied more by the bridges,
with spans, or " eyes " as the Chinese call them, of
differing size and number, solid, strong, splendidly
true, with keystone and perfectly curved arches — a fine
art indeed, when the rudeness of the scaffolding and of
the porterage and leverage of the massive stones is con-
sidered. Some of the memorial stone arches, which in
certain semi-sacred regions (as e.g. between the city of
Hsiao-shan and the portage of Hsi-hsing, as you near
Hangchow) are seen in avenues and long rows, exhibit
not only massive and permanent masonry, but sculpture
of wonderful depth and beauty. Some of the oldest
n. ARCHITECTURE 91
monuments in China are pagodas — a thousand years old
and more, and of varying heights. As you travel
northwards and beyond Pekin, the pagodas are more
like rough square towers, and the Tibetan type of
Lhassa temples appears, but the more familiar form of
the pagoda is a polygonal and tapering form, from 100
to 200 feet high. The original idea seems to have been
not vaguely to secure the luck of a city or district, but
to restrain and confine evil influences underground by
this heavy extinguisher. But often the pagoda was
simply a shrine for Buddhist relics.
Coming now indoors, and turning from this brief
sketch of the fauna and flora and outdoor employments
of the people, and their dwellings and buildings, we notice
that the arrangement and the interiors of houses, in the
cities, towns and villages alike, follow pretty nearly
the same lines. The shop fronts to the streets are of
course more artificial, though showing great variety in
adornment and display. The Chinese often follow a
custom not unknown to the rest of civilised countries,
namely, the reservation or assignment of certain streets
or quarters of a city to certain trades. The Leather-
market street, for instance, in a city known to the writer,
is occupied mainly by the manufacturers of leather
travelling or packing cases ; the Drum-tower street
is occupied almost exclusively by the stalls of fish-
mongers, fruiterers, and market-gardeners. The gold-
smiths and silversmiths have their recognised quarters ;
and nothing is to be found in certain streets but long and
attractive rows of furniture shops. Behind these shop
92 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
rows, however, you will find reproduced in quadrangular
courts and thickly-packed groups of houses, the arrange-
ment of the country villages. Each courtyard and con-
siderable group of houses, inhabited sometimes by mem-
bers and branches of one family, and with the same
surname, but more often by a more promiscuous
tenantry, will as a rule have a common hall, which may
be the ancestral hall of the family — or it may merely be
a convenient place for meeting together for gossip or for
business, and a convenient place for deposit during the
winter of the pumps and gear and other implements
used in irrigation and agriculture, if in the country ; or
of carpenters' and masons' materials, if in the city or
walled town. You enter one of the houses within the
court, which court is sometimes completely open towards
the south, save for a detached dead wall to ward off evil
influences, or else it has houses all round, the approach
being by a narrow alley. In the case of an agriculturist's
house in the country, or of a small artisan's in the town,
you probably step over the high threshold on to the mud
floor of the common room, with a kitchen at the back,
but with the sitting-room to your left, which you will be
asked to enter — boarded, and neatly and often artistic-
ally arranged with chairs and tables with red-wood tops
and yellow legs, and sometimes inlaid and carved. A
picture of a family ancestor perhaps hangs here, and
sometimes a shrine is seen ; but this would rather be in
the family hall. Scrolls hang in pairs, with sententious
sayings or classical quotations in harmonious juxta-
position, and often with flowers, or bamboo tracery ;
II. COUNTRY HOUSES 93
and these make the room attractive and bright. You
might see, in old days, two parallel couches, with sus-
picious signs of the materials for opium smoking. This
eyesore, however, was comparatively rare except in
rich men's country houses, till the period of fashionable
and almost universal opium smoking, which immediately
preceded its suppression and abolition. These country
houses are sometimes on a very large scale. The long
and lofty white walls surrounding and isolating them from
the neighbouring villages, and enclosing perhaps seven
or eight branches of a rich family — each branch with a
separate establishment and courtyard and rockwork
garden — gleam through the land. The walls are high
enough and strong enough, and the doors capable of such
firm fastening as to defy fire or the rude weapons of
assault used by irate country people. The roof-tiles used
in most houses are so substantial and sound, and they
are so carefully piled and fitted, sloping down from the
roof-ribs, that even when unceiled the upper rooms are
not much troubled with leakage ; the chief danger being
— especially in sites high up the hills, or in places narrow
between the lower hills, swept by draughts of
tempestuous wind^the tearing off of the tiles. On these
higher situations, both in China and Japan, heavy flat
stones are placed on the tiles, or they are kept in place
by ropes weighted at each end by stones, or thick blocks
of wood. Some mountain temples are roofed with tiles
made of cast iron or even of brass ; and the ordinary
tiles are laid on a thick bed of mortar in the North.
We have seen in the city of T'ien-t'ai, in the province
94 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
of Chekiang, a city near the mountains and exposed
to such tornadoes, not only whole rows of houses un-
roofed by a great gust of the storm, but also the massive
memorial stone arches described above, blown down flat ;
aye ! and more weird than this — and than the drowning
of many boatmen and passengers on lumber rafts and
charcoal cargo boats overturned in the rushing flood
torrent — the lightning, in such fierce play as we have
never seen before, was reported to have torn off the lid
of a coffin on its way to the tomb, lifted the corpse high
out of the case, and leaving the grave-clothes hanging
in a tree, to have dropped the corpse into the road.
The surroundings of Chinese courts and houses seem to
be one loud-voiced and ill-favoured ridicule of sanita-
tion. There is scant privacy, and none seems expected
or desired, save for women indoors. Drainage, if cared
for at all, is surface drainage ; and this, unless it becomes
permanently stagnant, is undoubtedly less harmful than
imperfectly trapped underground drainage. Gases can-
♦ not accumulate, save in the form of evil odours which
are perennial. One wonders sometimes whether in the
dangerously unhealthy months of September and early
October, when these evil smells are rendered in-
tolerable by damp and heat and breathless air com-
bined, life is not saved continually by the Eden scent
and almost heavenly fragrance of the kuei-hua, the
olea fragrans, which fills and conquers the foul air of
city and country alike by its sweetness. The houses
of the Chinese in the city and country are sometimes,
and specially in the North, mere bungalows, with no
II. ASPECT OF THE COUNTRY 9S
upstairs rooms ; or more generally they are one-storied
buildings with two or three bedrooms, bare and com-
fortless, save for the ponderous fourposter family bed-
stead, with a tiny boudoir or dressing-room, all within
the embrace of the framework. The windows are
low, and darkened by the deep eaves. We have slept
in such a gigantic bed, and in such a bare bedroom,
upstairs in a house on a hillside, and so perched that
half the bedroom floor was the floor of the hillside ;
and we stepped out of the bedroom window, as it were,
on to moss- strewn ground shaded by bamboo. The rats
were scuttling and screaming in the roof, and down below,
far into the night (as we had retired early, from fatigue),
we heard with thankfulness our Chinese catechist teach-
ing and preaching Christ to the neighbours, who sat and
listened long, emphasising their appreciation of the
preacher's words by knocking out the ashes of their long
pipes, and filling them continually.
The aspect of the country in hill and plajn undergoes
very great changes in the four seasons, and this largely
from the absence of prairies or large stretches of grass
land, which give to England the wonderful perpetual
charm of green all round the year. Such green as China
has — we write here chiefly of central China — round her
graves, or by her hill-slopes, turns brown in the late
autumn and winter. The preparation of the day soil for
rice cultivation does not begin till the spring, so that after
the latest rice and fruit crops are gathered in, the bound-
less rice plains and the hillside present a dull monotonous
brown, of stubble and bare boughs, broken only by
96 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
patches of winter greens ; and the tall reeds and sedge by
canal and river, turned now from light green to dull
yellow, are all alive with flocks of wildfowl. Then come
the brilliant emerald patches of the rice seed beds ; then
the great expanses of the plain or hill valleys are dotted
with the countless young plants pricked out ; then with the
ceaseless chorus of the apparently drilled and disciphned
frogs (for they cease their clamour, and recommence it
as by the signal of a fugleman), the irrigation of the
fields necessitating a constant supply of water begins,
and ceases not day nor night. The fields are green now
all over ; and the rice grows and flowers and turns yellow
under the fierce suns of July and August. Meanwhile
the hills, carpeted and covered with flowers, and re-
sounding with song in the spring months, lose both
flower — but not the fadeless summer green of bamboo
and brushwood — and song — save for the cuckoo, which
sings into August, and the oriole and low-voiced Chinese
nightingale. Now the great masses of yellow grain in
the plains are cut and garnered — the early rice in early
August ; the intermediate crop, the chief harvest, in
September ; the wai-po, or best white rice in October ;
and a fourth variety later ; and the cotton crop is cleared
and gathered in from the alluvial plain. Autumn flowers
— the wild pink, and gentian, and the gorgeous bride-
groom flower, scarlet, purple, yellow, and white, a fine
bulb growing round tombs and watercourses — glorify
the scene. Autumn berries also, and the scarlet leaves
of the candle tree, with the pure white opening berries
among the leaves, and the glow of dwarf oak leaves
ir. CHARACTERISTICS 97
and maple, carry us on to the keen air and frosty ground
of December and January. But earing follows hard on
harvest in China as with us ; and in November the
sloping banks of the canals are green with winter wheat
and broad beans, which stand even the most bitter
frosts.
Now watch the characteristics of the inhabitants of
these oities and villages of China, and their life in the fair
land of their inheritance. The theory has been pro-
pounded by some observers that the Chinese nation is
deaf ; and that this is demonstrated by the incontro-
vertible fact that as a rule everyone talks, and at all
times, at what seems to be the very top of his voice.
They do not shout to emphasise a particular point : even
the most commonplace remarks are thus enunciated.
Their quarrels also, especially those of women with their
neighbours half a dozen yards off, are a war, not of per-
sonal conflict, from which they are held back by neigh-
bour's hands, but of words, and those sometimes exceed-
ing bad, flung out with loud and almost hysterical
screams. The Chinese common oath is profane — not so
much in introducing the Divine name with careless and
revengeful appeal to God, as in degrading and debasing
reference to the human frame and nature. But the
Chinese, though a loud-voiced and at times quarrelsome
people, and at times again barbarously and vindictively
cruel, have nobler and more attractive characteristics ;
and these last deserve more the attribute of characteristic
than those others, which may be called in their badness
and repulsiveness, accidental, occasional, local. Attention
G
THE CHINESE PEOPLE
is being much drawn in these days, and perhaps with
justice, to the natural and, one would almost be asked
to conclude, the divine virtues of gentleness, patience
and subordination in the Hindu. But though one would
not discredit or discount these characteristics of the
Hindu lower classes, they seem like the lassitude of virtue,
or virtue necessitated by the melancholy of lassitude ;
whereas the extraordinary patience, endurance^ and at
he same time cheerfulness, of the Chinese, are the char-
acteristics and accompaniments of a singularly active,
diUgent, and hardworking race — not the patience of
enforced submission, but the patience of intelligent
activity. Watch the arrival of the early morning
steamer at Shanghai or Ningpo, for instance, with 800
or 1,000 passengers on board, or of river and coasting
craft yet more crowded. They have been patient all
night with the discomforts of a rolling and pitching ship,
of close air, and sardine-Hke packing of their persons and
goods ; and they disembark by the narrow gangways
still good-humoured, and if struggling at times for place
and foothold, yet still patient and enduring in the pro-
cess. On the shore, cramming and almost blackening
the broad landing-stage and its approaches, friends come
down to welcome the visitors, maintaining a precarious
foothold amongst a dense mass of cooHes with poles
and ropes for the carriage of the luggage and baggage
and bundles of the passengers. They have stood there
for two hours in driving rain or snow, kept back by
barriers and masterful local police with bamboo rods ;
and when the barriers are loosened, and the officials step
II. CHARACTERISTICS 99
aside, the coolies like an avalanche bear down on the
landing-stage and the bedraggled passengers, elbowing
one another, and struggling for precedence, but still
smiling, shouting, good-humoured, and patient, in light
disappointment, or in over-burdened success.
It is now early October in a year of abnormal rain
and flood. The whole plain is under water, and the late
rice crop is submerged, and apparently ruined. But
with infinite patience and cheerful hope, the Chinese
husbandmen are harvesting in boats ; and with minute
toil they lift shock after shock out of the water, tie it
to a tall stick, with the hope of wind and sun dr5dng it,
and so lift piecemeal the drowned harvest from its watery
grave. In a neighbouring plain inundated by the great
rainfall and waterspouts which we describe elsewhere,
we passed in our native boat (in some places going over
instead of under bridges, so deep was the water) village
after village lying below the level of the canal, with their
houses two or three feet deep in water, A barber's shop
stood open, and we could look inside, and there sat a cus-
tomer with his feet dangling in the wet, and the barber
up to his knees — yet both cheerful, patient and merry
in their misery. The Chinese are seldom in a hurry,
and time does not seem to be much prized or husbanded
by them ; but very few of them can afford, or would
care, to " stand all the day idle." Industry continuous,
patient, and overcoming hindrances and obstacles and
long-lasting discouragement, characterises the life of
agriculturist, woodman and artisan alike. We have lain
awake at night in some upland village in the spring
THE CHINESE PEOPLE
and early summer, and have listened to the ceaseless
tramp and thud, and shaking of the loose paving stones,
in the narrow pathway from the high hills to the market
towns at their feet, of two thousand and more men and
boys, carrying on their shoulders or slung between two
men bamboo poles, or heavy piles of bamboo shoots. Old
men are there with bent spines, young stalwart fellows
with quick step, and boys eight or nine years old, all too
young for such heavy toil, but forced to carry early to
help the hand-to-mouth family expenses and earnings —
their tender backs already bending, and never likely to
straighten again. They sell or entrust these treasures of
the hills to the merchants from the city, or dealers in
the shops below, and turning their money into bags of rice
or other necessaries, heavy laden again, they turn and
mount the high passes, reaching home at sunset or later,
to start again in the fourth watch. Yet thej^ are all
ready to greet a stranger or an acquaintance, not with
complaints and angry resentment against their lot, but
with a loud shout of cheerful and hopeful salutation.
The fishing industry demands and receives in full
measure Chinese patience, diligence and skill. The
nets which line the banks of the tidal rivers, fitted with
bamboo frame-work, and dipped into the water at
flood or first ebb-tide, expand as they touch the water
and slowly sink, and close quickly and securely as they
are sharply hauled up ; and the fish are dipped out
by a landing net. But we are not exaggerating when
we aver that on an average nineteen throws out of
every twenty are resultless in any catch worth the
CHARACTERISTICS
labour. Yet the twentieth cast is made with unruffled
patience ; and patience and hope bring back the fisher-
men day by day to the same occupation, and often to
the same spot. The very interstices and hollows in
the walls and coping of the canals inside the city, below
the water-Une, are with this same industry searched
by the hands and fingers of the fishermen in little skiffs,
for loach or other small fish, which may be hiding
there. The fishing in the deep sea and in arms of the
sea up and down the i,ooo miles of the coast, swarm-
ing with fish, but also storm-swept and pirate-haunted,
demands not patience only, but high courage and endur-
ance. The advent of ocean-going and large coasting
steamers brought with it grave danger and loss, and
sometimes loss of life, to the fishermen on the coast,
who in fine weather will spread their nets with floats
far out to sea, and frequently across the normal track
of steamers passing up and down the northern China
Sea between Tientsin and Hongkong. A careful
look-out is kept by the navigators of these steamers,
and the floats are avoided where it is at all possible ;
but oftentimes at night, with no adequate signal lights
from the fishermen, a great rent of ruin will be torn
througli these valuable nets, and the owners with shouts
and cries will summon in vain the great vessels to stop and
help them or compensate their loss. And then they
patiently and cheerfully turn, when the steamer has gone
by, to repair if possible the injury and to renew the danger-
ous and laborious task. Some of these fishing smacks
(we know of a fleet 10,000 in number on the coast) are
102 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
at sea for nine months out of the year. They set sail
with special invocations of the goddess of Sailors, the
Star of the Sea, Kuan-yin, the goddess of Mercy, and
they carry small flags at the mast-head blessed and
supplied at the idol temples. Some of these brave,
hardy and patient men are learning now to pray to
and to thank the Lord of storms, by Whose word the
wind arises, and Who can command peace and stillness ;
and they carry the Cross as their guiding flag of bene-
diction.
One fears sometimes that the Westernising of China,
and her too precipitate adoption of Western appliances,
and methods of education, and modes of thought, may
make China lose, to her great deprivation and our own,
her noble and delightful characteristics of courtesy, of
good, and in the highest sense gentlemanly, manners,
and of regard for age and authority. The natural-
ness, and in no sense the affectation, of the honorific titles
they will attach, not to your name, and home and country
alone, but to your very aches and pains, is a remarkable
feature in a people so arrogant, and so independent, and
so dominant in their past theories, and behefs, and
treatment of the outer world. And they are seldom
neglectful or unwilHng to welcome, even at most incon-
venient hours, strangers as well as friends benighted or
in distress. We were admitted on one occasion past
closing hours into an inn, in the heart of the mountains,
crowded with traveller guests in one common room,
some in bed, some proceeding thither, some still at
supper. And this apparition of a stranger and a
n. ARTS AND CRAFTS 103
foreigner could not check the outflow of courteous
welcome and wilhng entertainment. The interest and
courtesy went so far as to induce those who were in
bed to rise and listen till near midnight to the foreigner's
divine message. We have been guided during a twenty
miles' walk on a dark and windy night, and through
an unfriendly region, in perfect safety and with great
courtesy, by men who had never seen us before, and
who would receive no reward for their forty-mile walk,
which would end only at dawn, but hearty thanks and
a single dollar. But now returning to the citj' and the
house from which we emerged for our country experience,
this same characteristic of patient industry, bringing
high achievement in arts and crafts, with sometimes
rude and apparently insufficient tools and appliances,
meets us. We might hnger at every shop door, or
enter and examine the goods displayed in the course of
production, and the same impressions would be left on
the mind. The beauty or quaintness of design, and
the depth and thoroughness, and at the same time the
delicacy of the work in wood and ivory carvings, and
then the simplicity and roughness and yet efficacy of
their tools, are most remarkable and significant. Carved
ivory balls are made, containing nine or ten other balls,
of diminishing size one within the other.* Their sculp-
ture, also, bold, artistic, true in balance and proportion,
ranges from gigantic images of Buddha in stone, and
couchant panthers, or standing camels, elephants, and
human figures guarding the approach to the great
* Giles.
i04 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
Ming tombs, and from the balustrades of temple bridges
and staircases, and the buttresses and bosses of their
splendidly proportioned bridges, down to beautiful
tracery of fruits and flowers in stone, and military or
bridal processions. The well-dressed stone of their
tombs and houses, wrought by the ceaseless patient
tapping by hammer and adze of the granite slabs — and all
this without the appliances of great Western masters in
sculpture or painting to help and guide them — shows how
China's art in Chinese patient and intelligent hands has de-
veloped and lived on. There are small but suggestive
specimens, perhaps, in the home we have been describing
of the highest art of the Chinese, such as a small bronze.
And that reminds us of one of the most ancient
of Chinese artistic productions, for the art of casting
bronze was brought to a high pitch of excellence
seven or eight centuries before the Christian era. Here
again is an insignificant but perchance ancient and
precious piece of porcelain*, reminding us that a specimen
of the almost matchless porcelain of the Ming dynasty
has recently been sold for £5,000. Porcelain was
discovered and manufactured sixteen centuries ago,
leaving all European attempts hopelessly outclassed.
There will be gleams also in the dress jacket of your
host, or in the skirts and mantle of the lady of the
house (who will, perchance, especially in these modern
days, welcome you with her husband into the parlour),
of the wealth of silks and satins, flowered or plain,
* Porcelain derives its name from the old Italian porcellana,
a cowry, and especially the nacre or mother-of-pearl in the shell.
n. PAINTING lOS
wrought with toil and infinite patience in the rough
looms in the alley-ways, whose treadles, working all
day and far into the night, you can hear hard by ; while
the splendour of embroidery may be displayed, with no
" second price," in a neighbouring shop. The pro-
duction of silk is mentioned by Mencius, B.C. 372-289.
We have been accustomed to estimate Chinese
drawing and painting only as grotesque and curious,
from conventional delineations of dragons and heroes
on temple walls or Yamen gates, or of bridges and willow
trees on crockery, and to think that painting as an art,
and a fine art, too, is hardly thought of as in a true
sense a Chinese acquirement. Yet the art as an art,
and not merely as an industry, must have taken root,
and that probably largely indigenous, though with some
early Indian and Greek influence, at least early in the
Christian era ; for we have literary records of the art
as old as the fifth century a.d. ; and a book entitled
Hereditary Paintings of Celebrity, giving an account of
heirloom paintings in the author's family, and bio-
graphical notices of celebrated painters, dates from the
T'ang dynasty (a.d. 618-907) ; and another smaller work
traces the art in different schools from the third to the
fourteenth century a.d. There is a painting (probably
genuine) by Ku K'ai-chih, of the fourth century, to be
seen in the British Museum*. Wang Wei, poet, scholar,
artist, flourished a.d. 699-759 ; and the very his-
torical fact of the existence and pursuit of the art as an
art 1,000 years and more ago, added to the parallel fact of
* Cf. " The Times " Literary Supplement, July 18, 191 3, p. 302.
io6 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
the real splendour and brilliancy and softness of Chinese
colours, and the artistic boldness and dashing accuracy
of outlines and delineations, necessarily makes us feel,
as WyHe expresses it, that, notwithstanding absence of,
or error in the perspective as well as stiffness and con-
ventionality in too much of modern Chinese art, there is
no permission, in historical honesty, to condemn her
ancient and more recent art indiscriminately and with
contempt.
" Many of our finest specimens [of studies of birds] "
observed G. Tradescant Lay, in his very early studies of
Chinese life (a.d. 1841), " are tame and lifeless ; while
those of the Chinese are full of vitality, however rudely
they may be executed in some of their details."
The writer is acquainted with a Chinese artist whose
drawing gives almost as much the air of movement to
his figures as a cinematograph could do, and whose
colouring is simply admirable in tone and delicacy.
" In the domain of painting," writes Professor Giles,*
" we are only just beginning to awake to the fact that
in this direction the Chinese have reached heights denied
to all save artists of supreme power, and that their art
was already on a lofty level many centuries before our
own great representatives had begun to put brush to
canvas."
And again, quoting a leading art critic, referring to
the painters of the tenth and eleventh centuries :
" To the Sung artists and poets, mountains were a
passion, as to Wordsworth. The landscape art thus
* The Civilization of China, p. 120.
It. POTTERY 107
founded, and continued by the Japanese in the fifteenth
century, must rank as the greatest school of landscape
which the world has seen,"
These greater Chinese artists unite in dismissing fidelity
to outline in landscape as of httle importance compared
with reproduction of the spirit of the object, the vitahty
and soul of the original. The fantastic side of Chinese
painting is thus condoned, and in a measure explained,
by the assertion that both in poetry and in painting
"suggestion" and "impressionism" are the keynotes to
these arts, and not Pre-Raphaelite minuteness or photo-
graphic fidelity.
The potter's art and ceramic manufacture generally,
in earthenware, are probably more ancient than the
finer development, the yet ancient porcelain, to which
we have alluded above ; so is also the art of glass-
blowing, if we may (as we probably may not) credit the
genuineness and authenticity of the Chinese snuff-bottles,
discovered by Rosellini in Egyptian tombs. The
beautiful Chinese lacquer work is apparently more
modern . The uses of pottery are manifold. We fi nd china
kettles, pans, teapots and cups, some rough and thick,
some exquisitely fine ; water-jars under the shoots of the
eaves, of all sizes, some four feet in diameter ; flower-
pots, some glazed with decorations, some plain. Fine
tiles glazed blue or green or yellow, for temple and palace
roofs, are made of stone ware ; but the ordinary tiles
for roofing or flooring are burned from brick clay.
The province of Kiangsi is specially celebrated for its
crockery, and also for the art of riveting, so fine, so
ip8 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
true, that the crack or puncture is almost obHterated
by this art.
We bid farewell now to our friend's home and its
surroundings, and as we go, let it be to the strains of
music — music which will linger in our ears, now as haunt-
ing echoes of 3,000 years, now as the dirge and sigh over
what may be (in China's precipitate pursuit and adop-
tion of the new, and discarding of the old) the passing of
this ancient and truly national art. Chinese music
used to be the despair of would-be connoisseurs, and the
vaunted possession of the truly omniscient Dr. Whewell.
But it has yielded both treasure and melody and keen
interest to more recent scholarly research ; and we add to
this chapter, not interwoven with it, but as an appendix, a
memoir on the subject, as one of the sciences and arts
of passing and changing China, which we cannot afford
to lose.*
Ceremonies and Music — these may seem to have been,
perhaps, in the life of ancient China, the most important
of all things. There were rules of propriety to guide a
man to the right and seemly manner in which to meet
every situation of his life. And music was the inner
force by which this outward fonn of reverent and comely
action was inspired — music, we seem to feel, not merely
of drum and bell, of psaltery and flute, but of harmonious
thought and word and deed. Music thus was held a
thing not only to be minutely regulated and carefully
* A great part of this memoir appeared in The Musical Times,
March, April, 1907, written by A. C. Moule.
II. MUSIC 109
performed, but as itself the great regulating influence
in state and family and individual life. One of the most
famous instruments of antiquity was named, they say,
from the power which it had to restrain the evil passions.
When we remember this it is not surprising to find that
Confucius, the great restorer of the ancient ways of
virtue, was a lover of music ; and there is something very
fascinating in the thought of the master as an enthusiastic
musician, not merely valuing the political and moral
uses of the art, but himself singing and playing, and,
when he heard great music, deeply moved. Already in
his day the true old music was growing scarce. About
a century later, as we learn from the protest of Mencius,
vulgar modern music had supplanted the ancient even
in royal performances. But it was not perhaps until the
third century B.C. that the old art was lost beyond hope
of recovery.
" How to play music may be known," said Confucius,
instructing the grand music-master of his own too
degenerate State. " At the commencement of the
piece, all the parts should sound together. As it pro-
ceeds, they should be in harmony, severally distinct
and flowing without break, and thus on to the con-
clusion."*
We wish he had told us in more detail " how to play
music " ; we long to learn what the grand music-master,
who probably, like most of his profession then, was bhnd,
taught, or rather should have taught. But we seem to
be doomed to disappointment. What has been recovered,
♦ Legge, Chinese Classics, Vol. I., p. 27.
THE CHINESE PEOPLE
largely, we think, through the research of Tsai Yii,* is
some not very certain knowledge of the scales in use,
and of the instruments on which the music was per-
formed.
The earhest account of the invention of the scale is
found in Lii Pu-wei's Ch'un Ch'iu (b.c. 239), where it is
said :
" Once upon a time Huang Ti ordered Ling Lun to
make musical pipes (lii). Ling Lun went from west of
Ta-hsia to the north of Yiian-yii and took bamboos
from the valley of the River Hsieh (to make the pipes)."
And in a later chapter we have a correct but not at all
detailed account of the chromatic scale formed of a pro-
gression of fifths.! Tsai Yii, who dismisses the common
fables of the invention of this or that instrument by one
or other of the mythical sovereigns of antiquit}' with con-
tempt, seems barely to mention this story of the invention
of the chromatic scale. His desire was to restore a
scientific scale which would conform to the few meagre
hints of notes or scales to be found in ancient books ;
and the conclusions he reached were that the natural
scale must be one formed from a progression of fifths
first derived from the harmonics of an open pipe, and
that this was the only chromatic scale really known in the
last three centuries before Christ. The earliest detailed
accounts of a scale preserved to us are in Huai-nan
* Tsai Yii, who has been made famihar to European students
of Chinese music by P. Amiot's MSmoire sur la Musique des
Ckinois, was a prince of the Imperial house of the Ming dynasty.
His book, Lii lii Cking i was pubUshed in 1596.
t LU Shih Ch'un Ch'iu, Ch. V., VI.; c/. Chavannes, MSmoires
Historiques, tom. III., pp. 643, 637.
II. MUSIC III
Tzu and the Shih Chi, both of the latter half of the second
century. The Shih Chi gives the measurements of pipes
to produce an untempered chromatic scale with a great
degree of accuracy, Huai-nan Tzu so inaccurately that
his figures approach to even temperament, and are quite
unfairly seized upon by Tsai Yii to show that some
tradition of even temperament still survived at that
time. For by study of the ancient books and by learned
calculations and experiments Tsai Yii had convinced
himself that the ancient Chinese scale had not been
derived from a progression of fifths, but artificially based
on the principle of even temperament.
To return now to Ling Lun and his bamboo pipes and
untempered chromatic scale. M. Chavannes * has
examined the evidence carefully, and points out first that
the scale is the Pythagorean scale, and secondly, that the
story suggests that Ling Lun went to a distant country
to find it. Now, Greek civilisation of a sort existed in
Bactria in the third century before Christ, and the
question naturally is : Can we connect the places named
in the story with Bactria ? Ta-hsia is indeed the very
name given to the newly-discovered kingdom of Bactria
at the end of the second century B.C., and at the same
time the name Kun-lun (which is substituted for the un-
known Yiian-yu in later versions of the story) was given
to the mountains which are still so called. But in the
third century the evidence for the existence of inter-
courso between Bactria and China is of the slightest, the
position of Kun-lun was not known, and Ta-hsia had
♦ Mhn. Hist., torn. III., pp. 230-319, 630-645.
THE CHINESE PEOPLE
been regularly applied to a part of what is now Shansi,
though once (b.c. 651) referred to as " in the west " and
in close connection with the sandy desert. M. Chavannes'
conclusion — that the story of the primeval mission of
Ling Lun was invented in the third century and preserves
for us the name of the country from which the Greek
scale had then actually been brought — is tempting, and
is unhesitatingly accepted by some scholars.* We may
at any rate admit with Tsai Yii that the untempered
chromatic scale is foreign to Chinese music, and that it
was in vogue and was first described in the centuries
immediately preceding the Christian era. M. Chavannes'
further contentions that the word lii meant a bell and
not a pipe, that the names afterwards applied to the notes
were at first names of untuned bells, and that no chro-
matic scale was known in China before the third century,
perhaps need more investigation.
Putting aside for a moment the date of Ling Lun's
mission, we may notice that the story hints at a truth
which is insisted on by scientific musicians to-day, that
scales are derived from instruments, and instruments
not made, originally, to play known scales. So Ling
Lun is supposed to have made himself a flute at random,
and to have taken its note as the foundation of the scale.
* It would really suit his purpose better to regard Ta-hsia
as having its normal meaning, Shansi, and to make Ling Lun
travel from " west of Shansi " westwards to the Kun-lun on the
borders of Sogdiana and Bactria, rather than eastwards from
" west of Bactria." An older generation of scholars, I believe,
regarded the story of Ling Lun as pointing to a period when the
Chinese lived west of the Kun-lun. The point of both theories
is, of course, the equivalence of Ta-hsia and Bactria, for which
there seems to be no evidence at a date as early as b.c. 239.
ir. MUSIC 113
The note was called Huang-chung, or " yellow bell," and
was equivalent, according to Tsai Yii's calculation, to
D above the middle C. Whether Tsai Yii is right or
wrong in imagining that the primitive scale derived from
a bamboo pipe was very early given up in favour of one
of even temperament, there is certainly a tradition of
transposition maintained to this day (certain keys being
assigned in the state music to certain seasons or months),
which is not inconsistent with the words of ancient books,
and it would be interesting to know if this also can be
traced to Greece. The mathematical treatment of the
scale which was famihar in the second century B.C., may
have given rise to the belief, if it were not derived from
the fact, that the pipe which gave the note Huang-chung
was the foundation, not only of music, but of all measures
of length, capacity, or weight.
The notes of the octave below and the octave above
the original or " normal " octave were known and named.
But besides the thirty-six notes of fixed pitch thus
obtained, there was another scale — the well-known " five
notes." This pentatonic scale no doubt preceded (per-
haps by centuries) the complete series of twelve notes ;
but as early as it has been traced, the names seem
generally to indicate not fixed notes, but the relative
positions of the notes in the scale, corresponding namely
to our tonic, superiontc, mediant, dominant and sub-
mediant, as, for instance, F G A C D. This was after-
wards enlarged to seven notes by the addition of B (not
B flat) and E.
Modern popular music uses several different keys, but
H
114 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
little or no attention seems to have been paid to them by
foreign students, and we cannot be sure whether the
difference between one key and another is merely a
difference of pitch or involves also a different succession
of intervals.
Compositions, it should be understood, do not wander
from the limits of the diatonic scale, and there is per-
haps no evidence that the Chinese have ever used their
knowledge of the twelve divisions of the octave except
for purposes of transposition. The keys in modern music
are defined, not by the use of the ancient note names,
but by the position of the dominant {cJi'e) on some instru-
ment— generally the transverse flute. The two extra
notes (as B and E) added to the scale seem to have never
become universally popular, though it is said that they
are not uncommonly used in the north, and it may be
broadly stated that the pentatonic scale, approximately
as it is given above, is and has been continuously since
a very remote date the characteristic Chinese scale.
While this is the case, the ancient names of the five notes
long ago gave place to names borrowed from a foreign
scale which was introduced, it is said, by the Mongol tribes
with which China had constant intercourse of peace or
war for ages until the whole country was conquered by
Kublai Khan near the close of the thirteenth century.
The introduction of this foreign scale was, we may be
sure, a gradual process to which it would be hard to give
a date. What is important is to notice that it was from
the first a seven-note scale, practically the same as the
modern European diatonic scale ; that is to say, that if
Ti. MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS 115
we use only the white notes of the piano, while the seven
notes of the ancient native scale must begin on F, the
first note of the Mongol scale is C. But there are indica-
tions that the scale, like the nation, conquered the
conqueror. The outward form was changed, but the
scale remained the same. First a new note {kou) was
invented to represent the augmented fourth of the old
scale ; but this was too artificial a device, and the name
is said to be now quite forgotten. The required result
was obtained, nevertheless, by regarding the fourth note
of the new scale as tonic instead of the first, and of this
arrangement many incidental traces may be found in
various music books. On the other hand, Tsai Yii very
carefully gives the Mongol scale, though using the
ancient notation,* as the scale of an almost prehistoric
flute.
So much for the scales. What of the instruments on
which the music was played and from some of which it was
perhaps derived ? First come — relics surely of a very early
age — a square tub and a couching tiger, curious symbolic
instruments of wood used for beating time (to this daj? a
most conspicuous feature of Chinese music), or to mark
the beginning and end of a performance. Gongs, made
not as now, of brass or bronze, but of sonorous stone,
were well known, and were used singly or in chimes of
• There seems to be nothing at all like staff notation in China,
nor any attempt to indicate the sound of a note by the position
of the written symbol, but notes are represented by words
written just as other words are written. For many classical
instruments ingenious special symbols or tablatures have been
used, but they are always written in straight lines like words.
n6 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
sixteen or more. Chimes of bells, too, were common ; *
the usual form being of a strange flattened shape with
no clapper. Bells with wooden clappers were also in use,
but were perhaps not regarded as musical instruments.
Of drums, the commonest variety seems to have been
barrel-shaped, attaining sometimes to a great size, and
generally supported on an upright post which passed
through the body. A modification of this arrangement
survives in the pedlar's common rattle-drum. There
was, too, a straight-sided drum called po-fu, which has
disappeared.
The ancient wind and stringed instruments were few.
The most important of the former was the yo, a vertical
flute. This instrument, regarded by the Chinese as the
origin of all music, was a single open pipe with three
finger-holes. The pipe was twenty inches long and
half-an-inch in bore, and the finger-holes were three,
five, and seven inches respectively from the lower end.
The scale of this flute begins D E F^ Gjj;, and it is strange
that Tsai Yii should give a special fingering to produce
Gt!, so substituting, as has been already noticed, the
Mongol or European for the ancient native scale. The
yo was gradually modified into a whistle called ti. There
were also pandean pipes {hsiao), and a very strange trans-
verse flute called ch'ih. Two more wind instruments,
* This represents the Chinese view. M. Chavannes maintains
that these chimes cannot have existed before the third century.
A large number of Chou dynasty bells and gongs were found
in Shansi in the twelfth century, of twelve different sizes, but it
is not clear that they formed a complete scale. Cf . Lu-lii thing i,
IV., f. 62.
II. MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS 117
both interesting, complete the Hst : the hsuan, a Uttle
resonator of baked clay not three inches long, and shaped
like an egg with the big end cut off, with a blow-hole at
the apex and live finger-holes symmetrically arranged in
the sides ; and lastly the well-known organ, sheng. This
organ consists of a small cup-shaped air-chamber, into
which are fitted little bamboo pipes with free reeds.
At present it is made with only thirteen or fourteen
speaking pipes, but some of the old varieties seem to
have had as many as twenty-four or even thirty-six
pipes. After a life of some three millenniums in the
East, the free reed was at length introduced into Europe
in the eighteenth century.
Two large psalteries, the ch'in, with seven strings, and
the she, with twenty-five, are perhaps the only stringed
instruments that belong to the really ancient epoch. The
strings of the she gave only one note each, but on the
cKin thirteen inlaid studs of gold marked the points
where the strings should be stopped. But the scale thus
produced is unlike the theoretic Chinese scale, and the
ch'in, with its thirteen studs, and the little organ with
its strangely tuned thirteen reeds, suggest an unexplored
region in the history of Chinese music.
Little is known of the history of popular music. It
is important to remember that till near the end of the
fourteenth century China had constant intercourse not
only with the bordering tribes of Mongols, but with more
distant India, Arabia, and Persia, and sometimes even
with Europe. Later she came into touch with Europe
through Portuguese traders and missionaries, and
Ii8 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
through the East India Company. Her supposed ancient
contact with America seems to have left little or no
trace on her own music, or on that of the Indians.
As regards the ch'in, however, Tsai Yii, who is very
severe on modern and foreign introductions, seems to
have no suspicion that the thirteen studs are anything
but ancient and correct.
Music in China has rarely been purely instrumental,
and seems indeed to have been confined for centuries to
chanting of hymns and prayers and singing of secular
songs. The hymns, at least, were not only accompanied
by instruments, but were illustrated by a troop of dancers
with postures appropriate to each word. This posture-
dancing is still done at the state religious ceremonies
with splendid and picturesque effect by thirty-six boys
clad in gold and scarlet and blue. As a connecting-link
between these two classes of sacred and profane music,
has grown up gradually the music of the theatre, which is
now in popular estimation the most important music of
all. Theatrical performances are, over a great part of
China, connected with religious festivals, and take place
often in the fore-court of a temple, while, on the other
hand, they seem to supply amateur musicians with much
of their material. Music as a profession is not now
regarded as wholly reputable, but it is common to hear
men singing snatches of theatre songs as they go along
the streets or country lanes, and amateur instrumentalists
are many, both among the poor and the better educated
classes. We listened once, almost entranced, to a
boatman on the inner waters of the Chckiang province
11. MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS 119
declaiming with clear strong voice and tune and rhythm,
for more than an hour at night, a poem of short cantos
in praise of Buddha. Keeping time with the sway of
the boat and the stroke of his long oar, the sound over
the still waters and under the silent sky was astonishingly
moving and impressive. Another of these foot-boatmen
entertained us once by a whistle of singular melody and
elastic fulness and sweetness.
The majority of modern popular instruments, with
the exception of some of the drums and one or two flutes,
appear to be of foreign origin. Some, indeed, hke the
transverse flute and perhaps the pear-shaped guitar
{p'i-p'a), may fairly claim to have become naturalised
after two thousand years of use. The pipe {kiian), a
cylindrical tube with double reed, had already won a
place for itself in the state ritual eight or nine centuries
ago. The double reed with conical tube [so-na, perhaps
the Persian zouyna), is probably a later introduction, and
the single reed, still only found in various rudimentary
toys, is later yet. A Persian harp is seen in the early
Buddhist paintings brought to England by Mr. Stein, but
no form of harp seems ever to have been successfully
introduced into China. The fiddle came probably from
India. In a hst of instruments pubHshed c. 1300 a.d.
we seem to catch it lately arrived in an early stage of
developement — a thing with two strings, between which
was put a thin strip of bamboo for a bow. The instru-
ment, though much improved, has practically never got
beyond two strings, and the horsehair with which the
bow is now strung, still passes between the strings.
THE CHINESE PEOPLE
Though its introduction is thus comparatively recent,
the fiddle has won great popularity, and no instrument
is now more often heard in the hands of amateurs or on
the stage.
Whether composition is taught or studied as a pro-
fession may be doubted. That there have been famous
composers is certain, but they have been perhaps no less
self-taught than the great poets. Certain instruments,
especially the guitar called three strings {san-hsien), are
taught now not so much by, as to, blind men. For the
rest the art of playing seems to be privately taught, or
learnt from books, or picked up, and perfected by
unwearied practising.
Of the result, as we know it, it is impossible to give
an adequate idea in words. Of anything like counter-
point there seems to be no trace. On certain instruments
— notably the reed organ, dulcimer, and the ancient
psalteries — two notes, generally with the interval of a
fourth, fifth, or octave, are played together or in rapid
alternation, and there harmony ends. Chinese singing,
they say, cannot be imitated by Western voices, nor
Chinese music written in Western notation or played on
Western instruments. The music has been described as
in a key which is neither major nor minor, the voice is a
kind of falsetto, hard to reproduce. At the temple
services are heard slow, solemn, monotonous chants
accompanied, very quietly for the most part, by a great
variety of instruments. A theatre, whether in a building
or in the open court of a temple, seems at first a very
pandemonium ; the hubbub of the audience, greetings
MUSIC IN THE THEATRE
shouted to friends descried far off on the other side of
the house, cries of the hawkers of refreshments, incessant
chatter of everyone — all this is easily and frequently
drowned by the clash of cymbals and the clatter of
drums and castanets on the stage. Yet if you manage
to hear the singing — and there are actors who will force
you to hear them through everything — it will often repay
the trouble. At its best it is a really wonderful exhibi-
tion of vocal power and skill. It is a common thing at
Pekin, the chief home of actors, to see a man standing
with his face against the city wall and yelling like one
demented ; he is an actor practising his part and strength-
ening his voice. This is a familiar sight and sound
also at Ningpo, which is quite a theatrical centre.
Early on hot summer mornings, with few people about,
men will stand by the hour under the city wall, and
along the river bank, shouting with prolonged intona-
tion, as if possessed or in dehrium. And then there is
the fiddler with his futile-looking little instrument.
Persuade a first-rate performer to play to you alone,
away from the uproar of the theatre, and you will find
a fulness and strength and yet refinement of tone of
which you would not think the fiddle capable, and in the
player a dexterity and touch of which a Joachim might
have no need to be ashamed ; while the music is full of
phrases of fascinating beauty.
Music cannot, perhaps, be said to have made much
progress of recent years. Tsai Yii's great effort to revive
correct and, as he believed, ancient music in the six-
teenth century, was a failure. A century later a book
THE CHINESE PEOPLE
was published which is still solemnly followed in the
state services, compiled by a man who seems to have had
the slightest possible claim to be called a musician. The
instruments are rudimentary in principle, and very often
clumsily made.
When all is said China is, in her own sense, a very
musical nation. Music enters into almost all the con-
cerns of her life, and her people find in musical sounds
a meaning and joy which we, perhaps, may never know.
CHAPTER III
The Origin and History of the Chinese People
The words '' these from the land of Sinim," in Isaiah
xHx. 12, are considered by many scholars to refer to the
Chinese. The Septuagint reading is remarkable —
" these from the land of Persia " ; and this reading is
probably to be accounted for by the fact that, at the
time of the composition of the Septuagint, the China
trade with Egypt passed through Pert "a. From an
apparently similar reason, namely, its position as a place
of transport or an emporium of Eastern trade, Samarkand
was early called Chin. But the word Chin here is, we
are told, Indian or Persian, and was probably not an
original Chinese name of China, transferred to Samarkand
by trade, but a name coined in Samarkand and used of
the country from which the beautiful woven and dyed
silks of those days were imported. Another variation
of the name seems to have been Tsin ; and so it appears
on the famous Nestorian tablet of Hsi-an fu, where
the name of China is written in Syriac Tsin-stan, or
Tsin Land. But since the names Tsin, Sin, Zin and
Sinai are used of deserts lying south of Palestine, the
translator of the Vulgate apparently identified " Sinim "
with one of these, and rendered the passage quoted
above thus — " these from the land of the South."
123
124 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
He was probably mistaken ; and the translators
of the Septuagint were right, at least in looking for
Sinim somewhere to the east of Palestine. The con-
nection between Persia and China is seen from Chinese
annals to be very ancient indeed ; but as Persia was
the medium through which the trade of China reached
the West, it is not difficult to understand how confusion
might arise, in the Western mind, between the two. It is
interesting also to note that in the laws of Manu, the
Hindu legislator, the " Chinas " are mentioned in con-
nection with the Persians and other nations and tribes ;
though there is no proof that the Chinese are indicated
by that name.
By the geographer Cosmas Indicopleustes (sixth
century), North China is called Serica, or the Land of
Silk ; and South China, the Land of the Sinae — the latter
name being possibly derived from Tsin. In the map
of the world by H. Kiepert, as known to the ancients
about the end of the second century a.d., a town Sera
is put down as urhs regia SericcB, sc. China septentrionalis ;
whilst another called Thinae, is described as urhs regia
Sinaruni, sc. China meridionalis. Ptolemy's interesting,
but in places very incorrect projection, gives the same
names of Serica and Sinse, but places Sinae farther
south.
It must be remembered that the name China was not
anciently applied by the Chinese themselves to their
great land as a whole. In later Buddhist writings we
do find the name Chih-na applied to China, it is true ;
and this is the Chinese transcript of the Sanskrit China
lit. ORIGIN OF THE PEOPLE 125
which was itself derived most probably from Ch'tn, the
name of the Chinese state which overthrew the old
feudal system and established the empire in the third
century before Christ.* But as a rule the Chinese
have, since ancient times, designated their land by
some such title as " Beneath the Sky," or " The
Regions bounded by the Four Seas." The name in
most common use, and most familiar also to outsiders,
is Chung Kuo, the Middle Kingdom — a title first applied
to the sovereign state of Chou, but afterwards to the
whole land of China Proper, with the assumption, asserted
or implied, that China is the ruling centre of the earth,
all other states being tributary and subordinate.
We pass now from the name of the land to the history
of the race that has inhabited it for so long. There is
a consensus of opinion amongst most modern scholars to
the effect that nothing is known, or can be with any
degree of probability surmised, concerning the origin of
the Chinese. It is said that no trace of the Chinese has
been found in the history of any country until their own
records reveal them to us as settled, about 2700 B.C., in
the valley of the Ho or Yellow River, that is to say
within the bounds of China Proper. Thus Professor
Parker writes :t
" When first the Chinese are heard of (and they them-
selves are the sole authority, for no one else records
anything about them), they occupied the valley of the
* T'oung-pao, d6c. 191 2, pp. 727-742. L'origine du nom de
" Chine," by P. Pelliot.
t China : Past and Present, p. 4.
126 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
Yellow River and its tributaries as tillers of the soil,
paying to their rulers a portion of the produce as taxes
in grain, silk, and hempen cloth. Despite speculations
touching their possible Babylonian or Akkadian origin,
there exists no evidence whatever to show how they got
there ; but there they certainly were 2700 years before
Christ."
And again :*
" It is a striking fact, that writings upon soft clay,
afterwards baked, were not only non-existent in China,
but have never once been mentioned or conceived of as
being a possibility. This fact effectually disposes of
the allegation that Persian and Babylonian literary
civilisation made its way to China, for it is unreasonable
to suppose that an invention so well suited to the clayey
soil (of loess mud with cementing properties) in which the
Chinese princes dwelt could have been ignored by them,
if ever the slightest inkling of it had been obtained."
This reason by itself is scarcely as conclusive as Pro-
fessor Parker states ; for inscriptions on bricks are not
unknown in China. For instance, the name of the
illustrious lady devotee, who twelve hundred years ago
erected the great Pagoda of Heavenly Investiture at
Ningpo, is preserved still in the m3a-iads of baked bricks
which remain after the pagoda's chequered history of
fall and restoration. These, it is true, are merely bricks
inscribed with the name of the august foundress, and
not used for more elaborate inscriptions or correspond-
ence. But then again, it is conceivable that the Chinese,
* Ancient China Simplified, p. 89.
III. LEGENDARY HISTORY 127
after long years and perhaps centuries of wandering in
regions of Central Asia, where clayey soil was unknown,
may, through disuse, have forgotten the Babylonian
method of preserving records. Further, on their arrival
in China, it would seem that they made use of other
writing materials not much less durable and possibly, to
their literary conception, more artistic and classical than
mud, namely, silk and the surface of the bamboo. The
oldest UTiting on bamboo was by perforated characters,
and dates from very ancient times.
Again, the emphasis laid by Professor Parker, and also
by Professor Giles and other eminent authorities, on the
silence of the Chinese records with regard to their im-
migration from other lands, does not really prove any-
thing beyond the fact that the ancient Chinese were
silent on that point. The Chinese possess, indeed, accord-
ing to the established views of their later chronologists,
a legendary history stretching back for three million
years to Pan-ku, who was first of all the undeveloped
and unenHghtened production of chaos, and then
from him as a master-workman the world was developed.
Now from 2852 B.C. begins the semi-historical period,
including the life and legends of him who " began to be a
husbandman," Shen Nung, " the Divine Farmer." The
life of Yao also comes into this period, one of the two
prominent models of regal power and integrity in China ;
the second regal ideal being Shun. The memory and
light of these two seem to gleam afar in the shadowy
depths of Chinese history as something clearer than
myth. Yao, it is said, was an Emperor who encouraged
128 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
and stimulated astronomical science, and shared during
his later years the supreme rule with Shun, called, like
Cincinnatus, from the plough to assist the monarch now
in the seventieth year of his reign. Shun was ploughing
with an elephant and an ox on a hill, still pointed out
near the city of Yii-yao, in Chekiang ; and the river
above that city divides into two small branches, bearing
on their perpetual flow, in the names of Yao and Shun,
the far-off echoes of those almost prehistoric times.
During their long united reigns (2357-2205 B.C.) the
great Yii faithfully served the throne by subduing the
almost universal flood (2278 b.c), and, on the death of
Shun, succeeded him as Emperor and founder of the
dynasty of Hsia. His reputed tomb stands about forty
miles beyond the source of the rivers Yao and Shun,
near the ancient city of Shao-hsing, and in the district
of Kuei-chi, where after a regal progress through his
dominions, Yii held a grand assembly of his subject
nobles before his death. His memory, fame and work
are on the lips of the Chinese to this day.
What historical basis there may be for the traditions
connected with these three great names in early Chinese
history we do not here discuss, but the history points
to the fact that the Chinese were then well established
not only in the valley of the Ho, or Yellow River,
but also just south of the Yangtse. We gather also
that the civihsation and organisation of the race were
already of a high order ; that husbandry was much
esteemed ; and that the rulers contended successfully
with the great floods that from time to time have
in. EARLY HISTORY 129
been China's bane. Is it not conceivable that a people
who had reached such a position of security and pros-
perity would be desirous to obliterate all record of their
foreign origin, their sudden exodus from their distant
home, it may be in the Babylonian plain, and their
humihating wanderings in many lands ? If this sup-
position is correct, it is easy to understand why the
period beyond Yao, Shun and Yii is wrapped in an
impenetrable mist of legend and myth. Legend and
myth are not necessarily anterior to the beginnings of
real history, but may well have been the inventions of
ambitious historians anxious to conceal, by this method
of glorification, the real events in the exotic birth and
obscure beginnings of the nation's Hfe.
In applying such a theory to the origin of the Chinese
race, we must remember that, after all the ethnological
researches of modern science, the broad hnes of the early
history of mankind, given in the Book of Genesis, remain
our surest guide. The Deluge, if not universal over the
area of the earth, was universal over the then inhabited
regions of the earth. Science is not conclusive as to
extra-diluvial races of men ; and the story of a universal
Deluge appears in the traditions of nearly every nation.
Again, the account given in the Book of Genesis of the
recommencement of the human race after the Deluge, of
the building of the Tower of Babel, and the subsequent
confusion of tongues and dispersion of the nations, is
still the most trustworthy and historical hypothesis on
which to build any theory of national beginnings. And
on this hypothesis rests the theory that the Chinese race
1
I30 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
is not indigenous to China, but spread thither from
elsewhere, most probably from the Babylonian plain.
Secular history may be entirely silent on this point ;
the myths and legends of early Chinese history may con-
tain no reference to any theory of immigration ; there
may be no positive proof of any Chinese connection with
the arts and accomplishments of the earliest Babylonian
civilisation. But these facts should not be allowed to
override the authority and the reasonableness of the
Bible narrative ; and conservative opinion inclines to
the old belief that the Chinese are an immigrant race.
It is interesting to note that no less an authority
than Professor Max Miiller writes thus on the origin of
language :
" Nothing necessitates the admission of different
independent beginnings for the material elements of the
Turanian, Semitic and Aryan branches of speech ; nay,
it is possible even now to point out radicals which,
under various changes and disguises, have been current
in these three branches ever since their first separation."
One of the grandest results of modern comparative
philology has been to show that all languages are but
scattered indications of that primitive state of human
intellect which a profound saying of William Hum-
boldt's illustrates — " Man is man only by means of
speech ; and in order to invent speech he must be man
already." The varieties of human speech, then, whether
Chinese or others, have a common origin, and common
origin of language points to a common origin of race.
Professor Max ^liiller speaks, indeed, of the familiar
111. EAkLY HISTOkV tjt
Bible dictum — "The whole earth was of one language
and of one speech " — as " the natural, intelligible,
convincing words of familiar Bible teaching " ; while
Niebuhr and others testify to the probability of the
theory that the separation into different tongues and
nations must have been by some such violent and sudden
cause as that described in the story of the Tower of
Babel.
It would seem, therefore, that we have the support
at least of the science of philology in building our theory
of the origin of the Chinese on the sure foundation of
the sacred narratives of the Book of Genesis. We may
suppose the tribe, or clan, which became the parents of
the Chinese race, to have been present at the building of
the Tower of Babel, and then, after the Dispersion, to
have started on their travels, taking with them the
memories and perhaps the implements of primal high
art taught by Tubal or Tubal Cain, music and
metallurgy and cognate arts, and the elements of the
one language that they shared of old. Then the long
wanderings and marches would prevent the elaboration
of either arts or language or literature until they
had reached a home — but would not obliterate all the
memories nor entirely destroy the essences. The so-
called aborigines of China who have lived on, some
of them, especially the Miao-tzu and the Lolos, strangely
unaffected by or sternly rejecting the idolatry of China's
later cults, may have been the advance guard by some
centuries of the great nation behind them, and have
refused absorption into that irruption.
tji THE CHINESE PEOPLE
" I have elsewhere," writes F. C. Cook, the learned
Editor of the Speaker's Bible (viz., in his Essay on the
Rig Veda), " adduced facts for my belief that the Chinese,
the only absolutely monosyllabic language of the world,
represents the results of the most ancient emigration of
a portion of the Japhetic races from their original home ;
losing, in fact, whatever progress had previously been
made in the developement of language, as an inevitable
result of long wearisome marches under circumstances
of the utmost difficulty through desolate regions."*
It is worth noting here that the original picture-writing
of the Chinese does form a link with other forms of
primeval language ; while such words as Ti for God,
clearly allied to Gto's, Deus and Deva, and the mythical
and semi-mythical accounts of the Creation and the Flood
in Chinese literature, hint at, if they do not establish,
the connection, however remote, of Chinese with other
tongues and scripts.
Dr. Edkins believes the Chinese to be in some sense
Hamites, and probably the descendants of Cush estab-
lishing the colonies in Asia spread thus far (Genesis x.) ;
and further, that we are very much under the necessity
of adding that the Chinese started on their Eastern
pilgrimage late enough to bring with them some traces of
the primitive Babylonian civilisation, and early enough to
retain the features of the primeval monosyllabic language
more distinctly than any other old linguistic family has
been able to do. As he says : " The first great step in
* F. C. Cook, Origin of Religions and Languages, p. 307.
EARLY HISTORY 133
the developement of human speech was taken in the
formation of the Chinese language." He thinks further
that at about the time of the call of Abraham the
Chinese were already established on the Yellow River
under ruling chiefs, practising astronomy, agriculture,
writing, and other ancient arts and sciences.
Dr. Legge appeals to the same Divine source of infor-
mation as to the human race, to which we allude above ;
and reproducing from geographical and legendary hints
the probable course of immigration, writes as follows
in the Prolegomena to the Shu-ching : " About two
thousand years before our Christian era, the Chinese
tribe first appeared in the country, ... It then occupied
a small extent of territory, on the east and north of the
Ho — the more southern portion of the great province
of Shan-se [Shansi]. As its course continued to be
directed to the east and south (though after it crossed
the Ho, it proceeded to extend itself westwards as well),
we may conclude that it had come into China from the
north-west. ... I suppose that . . . the tribe [broken
off from the families of Noah's sons] . , . began to
move eastwards, from the regions between the Black and
Caspian seas, . . . Going on, between the Altaic range
of mountains on the north and the Tauric range, with its
continuations, on the south, . . . the tribe found itself
at the time I have mentioned, between 40° and 45°, N.L,,
moving parallel with the Yellow River in the most
northern portion of its course. It determined to follow
the stream, turned south with it, and moved along
its eastern bank . . . till it was stopped by the river . . .
134 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
turning again towards the east. Thus the present
Shan-se [Shansi] was the cradle of the Chinese empire.
The tribe dwelt there for a brief space consolidating
its strength under the rule of chieftains, . . . ; and
then gradually forced its way, east, west, and south,
conflicting with the physical difficulties of the country,
and prevailing over the opposition of ruder and less
numerous neighbours."
Dr. Edkins {China's Place in Philology, p. 31) differs
from Dr. Legge, thinking that the early Chinese came by
the usual " highway," as he calls it, from Tartary to
Kansu and Shensi, and thence on to Honan, the birth-
place of T'ang, founder of the Shang dynasty ; and into
Chihli, the birth-place of Yao. M. Edouard Biot seems to
agree with Dr. Legge about the colonisation of ancient
China by this exotic immigrant race — the only difference
being that Biot regards the ruder neighbours of the
Chinese whom they found in the land as indigenous,
and not as Legge stoutly asserts, and as we suggest above,
also immigrants, but arriving from the great cradle of
mankind earher than the " black-haired " people. It
may be objected here that these statements as to pre-
historic China, and as to the origin of the Chinese people
and language, are to a great extent conjectural. But
they are conjectures which seem in harmony with Old
Testament history, an historical not a conjectural guide ;
and they differ widely in value and reliability from
assumption based on other assumptions.
But now imagining, and on no insecure ground, that
the Chinese race have arrived about 4,000 years ago in
EARLY HISTORY 135
the area of their new home, can we imagine, again, from
historic aid, and not from mere romance, what they
brought with them, and what met them there ? Dr.
Ernst Faber, in a learned article on Prehistoric China,
after declining, perhaps too dogmatically and with
scarcely sufficient reason, to allow any authentic Chinese
historical annals earlier than those of the feudal state
of Lu (722 B.C., pubHshed and just possibly altered by
Confucius about 240 years later), yet finds " a rich
source of soHd historical material unnoticed at our feet ;
namely, the Chinese written characters " ; and he
assures us that " the 100 or so elementary signs used
4,000 years ago and in our hands to-day can reveal to
us with an extraordinary comprehension of detail the
history of Chinese life at that remote period." The
eminent Chinese scholar, M. Edouard Biot, in his
Researches into the manners of the ancient Chinese
according to the Shih-ching (the one of the ancient
Classics whose authenticity is least contested) — "the
national songs," as he calls them, " of the first age of
China," — brings the story of China and her manners and
customs later down than do Faber's linguistic researches.
The two together enable us — to quote M. Biot once
more — not merely " at our ease," as he says, but " with
eyes intent, to contemplate the spectacle of the primitive
manners of that society." The oldest of these Odes
belongs to the Shang dynasty, dating probably from the
year B.C. 171 9. It should be noted further that the
China described in the ancient odes lay between N. Lat,
33° — 38" and Long. 106° — 109°, instead of the
136 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
present limits of China Proper so-called, 20° — 40°
N. Lat., and 100° — 121° E. Long. The China of Chou
reached thus barely half-way down from the Yellow
River to the Yang-tse. The region farther south
was regarded then as being infested by the " Southern
Hordes."
Dr. Faber draws attention first of all to the astonishing
fact that the 40,000 Chinese characters or words in
K'ang-hsi's dictionary have been developed from
elementary characters numbering not more than 100.
These must not be confused with the 214 radicals under
which those 40,000 are grouped in Chinese dictionaries,
though some of the 100 are found in the 214. They are
just simple characters which may form elements of other
compound characters, but they themselves do not con-
tain any other element. They are pictures pure and
simple. And what do these, traced back to their original
use and function, reveal as to prehistoric China ? They
may be grouped under five classes : Those relating to
man, to animals, to plants, to inanimate nature, and to
the products of human industry.
Littera scripta manet. K'ou shih feng, pi shih chung,
say the Chinese ;" the character," ideographic or arbitrary
as may be, " is rooted deep, but words," airsa Trrepoevra,
" are as wind." Now these special characters give us
clear echoes of ancient history, not so much of the
history which they, when further developed, recorded,
but of the history which lies embedded in the characters
themselves. First, then, let us concentrate our attention
on the history of prehistoric China, silently uttered or
III. EARLY HISTORY 137
implied by these 100 or more elementary characters, the
primal source of the 40,000 or so now existing. We
gather from Dr. Faber's summary the following facts as
to the state of China in the earliest days of the hfe of
the people in their new home. Human society was
already in a settled state. They had come into the
partial possession of a new and permanent home, to be
expanded indeed in all directions, but already capable
of orderly settlement.
There was a chief designated by the word "great,"
da (according to the ancient pronunciation), still
appHed to mandarins {ta jen), and he had officers under
him {ch'en). Society was divided by families [shih), and
the ancient names live on.
A second group of characters relating to the fauna of
ancient China, while particularising the wild animals —
tigers, deer, snakes also and rodents — mentions specially
the principal list of domesticated animals — horses, sheep,
pigs, oxen — as already in the service of man. Though
wild horses, sheep, and goats, still to be seen in north-
west China, and wild pigs everywhere, no doubt roamed
over the hills and plains of ancient China, the
domestication is plainly mentioned.
Dr. Faber thinks that a clear indication as to the resi-
dence of these ancient dwellers in China being far from
the outer seas, is shown by the choice of the carp as a
representative of fish. But the elementary character
used for fish is used surely of the genus, not of the
individual class.
He deduces a religious element or atmosphere from
138 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
the traces of divination connected with the tortoise, and
from the incense cauldron.
The produce of the silk-worm was early known and
valued, though the wonders of woven silk and satin came
later. In the flora of ancient China trees and plants are
carefully distinguished, but few are specified, only the
melon amongst vegetables or fruit, and only the bamboo
amongst trees. The bamboo, indeed, from prehistoric
times has been used for every imaginable purpose. In
this connection must be mentioned the celebrated Bam-
boo Books, discovered, it is said, in the tomb of the
King of Wei who died 319 B.C., and written over in the
small seal character with more than 100,000 words.
Their genuineness and authenticity have been strongly
doubted by scholars, but these annals so produced, and
stretching back to legendary days, have their place
in the accredited literature of China, and their account
of the reigns of Yao, Shun, and Yii, and of their achieve-
ments, is more sober, and apparently more historical,
than the narratives of the Shu-ching. The group of
the flora of China is so meagre, however, compared
with the fauna, that it suggests the belief that agri-
culture at that early time was less developed than the
breeding of cattle, and than the chase. The early
shelter and dwelling found in overhanging hills is per-
haps indicated by the primeval form of the character
for mountains — a thrice-jagged eminence — and a cliff and
a dwelling seem identical in form. Again, the characters
for fields (arable) and divided fields point to agriculture
and small holdings as already introduced ; while the
III. PRIMITIVE CIVILISATION 139
ambiguity about the character for divided fields lends
itself to the rendering " wells," early introduced, even as
in their ancient and original home, for purposes of
irrigation.
The indispensable value of salt appears in the mention
of salt land — not the sea-shore, for there is no sound
even of the sea in these ancient symbols — but preserved
and utilised salt plains. The absence of characters for
stars and planets, when the sun and moon are men-
tioned, is noticeable and not easily accounted for, though
a character formed of three dots and indicative of the
fixed stars is given by some authorities.
The presence and use of fine and practical arts is
clearly shown. Axes or hatchets, the carpenter's
compass and rule, carving instruments (wood-carving,
and that of a bold and yet artistic pattern 3,000 years
old, is still to be seen in ancient temples) ; nails ; dry
measure ; tiles and bricks ; dishes, platters, and wine-
jars ; windows and doors ; wheeled carriages ; em-
broidery, in clothing — all these appear and tell of
well-advanced civilisation, or rather the upbringing,
when placed in a once foreign soil, of the useful arts and
methods of civilisation learned in the cradle of the race.
Dr. Faber's explanation of the meagre allusions to
religion, to the Supreme, and to worship, is disappoint-
ing. I have noticed above the allusions to divination and
sacrifice, and perhaps to prayer, in these elementary
characters, but God as a personal being and as the
object of all true worship is not to be found ; though, as
we shall see in the immediately succeeding era, if we may
I40 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
trust the Chinese historians who follow, the name of
the Supreme appears and lives on. It is, I think, quite
conceivable and quite in accordance with the theory of
origin which we are following, that the early settlers in
China distrusted their imperfectly-formulated language,
at first, adequately to express the name and attributes
of God, which Noah's sons and their wide-spreading
descendants both before and after the Dispersion knew
well. Their worship was confused perhaps by that very
confounding of their language and speech, but emerged
again from memory and the voice of the inner conscious-
ness. God's image was not wholly erased, though so
greatly blurred by the Fall and by the blunders of pride.
Now, turning to the records of ancient China preserved
in the I-ching — the Book of Changes, the highest authority
for everything relating to human affairs amongst the
Chinese, and the only one of the classical books spared
from destruction by Shih Huang-ti's decree — and more
especially in the Shih-ching, or " Book of the first National
Songs of the Chinese," and following here for these odes
M. Edouard Biot's translation and notes, we have a
continuation of that yet more remote history which the
primitive characters of the language have revealed to us ;
not perhaps a continuous tale taking up the story from the
point to which the elementary characters have brought
us, but still, we may hope with M. Biot, representing in
perfectly authentic narrative, and in a form simple and
naive, the manners of the Chinese in the purest way.
It is worth while noticing here that a written docu-
ment is spoken of as presented by Yii to his sovereign
Vir. — FU-HSI
[To face p. 14 r.
Itt. PRIMITIVE CIVILISATION^ t4t
at the beginning of the Shang dynasty, 1766 B.C. Dr.
Legge believes the date of the earliest of the odes to be
about the year 1700 B.C. The developement of the
ideographic characters which succeeded the elementary
characters, and developed later, and were succeeded in
their turn by phonetic characters, is placed at the
probable date of 1200 B.C., and the odes, therefore,
if they are in any true sense genuine and authorita-
tive, touch closely, and almost invade, the primitive
period, and their sketch of ancient China must, on this
supposition, form an invaluable contribution to the
history ; only in the first case our history is drawn from
almost stereotyped proofs, in the second case it depends
on the more movable evidence of human authorship.
Quoting then, first of all, from an Appendix to the
Book of Changes, we are informed that :
(i) In ancient times Pao Hsi (commonly placed in the
twenty-ninth century B.C.) invented the eight trigrams
and the knitting of string into nets for hunting and fishing.
(2) Shen Nung (twenty-eighth century b.c.) fashioned
wood for the share, and bent wood for the plough-
handle. Ploughing and weeding (the Chinese are
an example to the whole world here, and the virtue of
weeding is repeatedly insisted on in the Odes) were taught
to all under heaven.
(3) He established midday markets in central places
for barter and exchange.
(4) The Emperors Huang-ti, Yao, and Shun (twenty-
seventh to twenty-third centuries B.C.) introduced seemly
upper and lower garments.
142 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
(5) Canoes and boats, large and small, hollowed out of
large trees, fitted with oars shaped from smaller wood,
were introduced by these rulers.
(6) and (7) Oxen and horses were trained, and yoked to
carts and chariots for traffic.
(8) and (9) The cities had double gates, and a clapper
to warn against marauders.
(10) Pestle and mortar were introduced.
(11) Bows and arrows were bent and sharpened for the
chase or for war, and " served to produce a feehng of
awe."
(12) In the highest antiquity men made their houses
(probably referring to a nomadic state) in caves during
winter and in the open country during summer ; and
subsequently the present form of architecture was in-
troduced— the ridge-beam above supported on poles
and frame-work, with projecting eaves against wind
and rain.
(13) Different methods for burying the dead were in-
troduced.
(14) Government was carried on successfully in the
highest antiquity by the use of knotted cords to preserve
the memory of things; but in subsequent ages the
sages substituted written characters and bonds. This
method of recording events or transactions is still used
by the T'u-fan or Hsi-fan in Tibet, and by the Miao-tzu
in the Province of Kueichou.
Other ancient Chinese traditional records exist, some
lit. PRIMITIVE CIVILISATION 14 j
of Taoist origin, some in the compendium of Chinese
history from Fu-hsi (2852 B.C.) to the Ming dynasty
(a.d. 1644), but they differ widely from one another.
But, turning now to the Shih-ching, we see the Chinese
three thousand years and more ago, apparently with
fine physique, as is still seen, especially in the northern
provinces. Though there is not much allusion to this
subject in the Odes, yet from a passage in the works
of Mencius, describing the height of King Wen as 6| feet.
King T'ang as 5 feet 10 inches, and the speaker in that
passage as 6 feet i inch, and referring to such measure-
ments as well above the average, we may conclude that
the height of the Chinese has not much varied from
ancient times. It is interesting to note that tallness
in ladies was admired in prehistoric or semi-historic
China.
Luxury and finery in dress, and even foppery, appeared
early, and clothing, both for rich and poor, seems to have
been as a rule ample and sufficient, with furs and silks ;
while caps of skin, set with precious stones, and cloth and
leather shoes for summer and winter are also enumerated.
The northern climate and scenery of ancient China
is hinted at again and again in the Odes ; snow, and
not rain, is prayed for to nourish the growing crops and
moisten the ground ; and snowstorms and frozen rain
bending the trees are mentioned as phenomena of frequent
occurrence.
House-building is described after the days of T'an-fu,
the grandfather of the great King Wen, who lived, it is
said, in a cavern like a potter's kiln, for there were then
144 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
no houses. The method of building house walls of
adhesive earth, after ramming the foundations till they
resemble cement, is discussed at length ; and from
watching similar processes with similar methods in quite
modern Chinese homes and temples to-day one can hear
afar over three thousand autumns the cries of the ancient
workmen as they keep time, ramming down the earth
between the confining planks.
China has had walled cities almost from the first, and
these walls originally were of earth ; and the substance
of present city-walls — as a rule now faced within and
without with brick or stone — is also earth ; the broad
moats, wet or dry, marking in fact the excavations of
the masses of earth required for the wall.
The earher buildings of the ancient Chinese are said
in the Odes to have been demolished or interfered with
by the Tartars.
The Hall of Ancestors is mentioned early in the Odes ;
and ancestral worship, with whatever primary signi-
ficance, confronts us in the Sacrificial Odes of Shang,
the earliest probably in the series, and throughout
the Shih-ching. Side by side with this ambiguous
worship we find that which was strangely silent in
the primitive characters of the language (a silence, as we
have suggested above — and we adhere to this belief —
the result not so much of ignorance or Godlessness
as of awe and the acknowledged poverty of early speech) ,
namely mention of prayer, and " spreading of the letter of
ancient complaints " before a possibly impersonal Heaven
or High Heaven. Alternating with this phrase and
III. PRIMITIVE WORSHIP 145
impersonating the only apparently impersonal, Ti,
Sovereign God, is prayed to— the Elohim of the Hebrews,
and singularly akin to Geo'j, Deus, Deva — Greek, Latin,
Sanskrit — or, more frequently, Shang Ti (Ha Elohim),
the Supreme LORD, God alone, God in the High Heaven.
Besides this we find Spirits mentioned, " a celestial
hierarchy around Shang Ti, like the dignitaries around
the King" (Biot), and worship and sacrifices were
offered to all these — a mark one would conclude of
decline already setting in from the ancient monotheistic
faith. The degrees of worship, even as now in Roman
Catholic nomenclature, may have differed — latreia,
douleia, hyperdouleia — and the worshippers differed also
in their rank and prerogatives. Shang Ti, the Divine
Supreme Ruler, could be approached and addressed
only by the earthly ruler, a custom and order observed in
Chinese worship up to the threshold of recent changes.
The spirits of Imperial ancestry such as the celebrated
Hou Chi were also exclusively approached by the ruling
sovereign {see King Hsiian's prayer, Shih-ching, Decades
of Tang, Part iii. Book III, Ode \v). Then each family
had its own tutelary ancestral spirits, to whom the family
by a special representative and with attending devotees
could pray, either invoking protection and blessing
or pleading for intercession with the High God.
Inanimate nature also — mountain, river, the sohd ground,
the rain, the thunder — had its spirits ; and the people,
debarred from worship of the far-off Supreme God, turned
thus through ancestral devotion (the Apocrypha seems
to trace the very origin of idolatry to the apotheosis of
146 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
Buddha by his father) to animism higher or lower.
They worshipped the powers of God's nature — as they
must have a god, and were not allowed to approach the
High God. To this high subject (religious belief and
worship) we return later. We notice these features here
as revealed in the ancient odes.
The minute and elaborate description of Chinese life
in the Shih-ching, adumbrated in the earlier primitive
characters, points more to growth of expressions in lan-
guage than to any special advance in civilisation, though
this doubtless did evolve and expand as the surroundings
of the people demanded. The musical instruments of
ancient China, and the music specially used at their
ancestral feasts to attract the notice of the hovering
or soaring spirits — these are treated with great elabora-
tion and reiteration in the odes.
Astronomical observations, a very ancient and accurate
science of the Chinese, appear now in careful numeration.
The Milky Way (the " Heavenly Han " or " Mankind in
the Sky," as it may perhaps be rendered, the " Heavenly
Stream " or the waterway for souls to Heaven) occurs
several times. So does the planet Venus, with the con-
stellation Lyra, and the supposed twenty-three divisions
of the stellar world, with Hesper and Phosphor — these
all too soon debased to augury and astrology. And from
the simple elementary characters of male, female, child,
family — suggestive but not quite positive — we find the
historical narrative of the high sanctity and regulation
of marriage established and in force during the earliest
days. -,
III. ANCIENT WARFARE 147
The arts of peace, which Rogers in famihar hnes
ascribes as their chief glory to the Chinese —
" A people numerous as the ocean-sands,
And glorying as the mightiest of mankind,
Yet where they are contented to remain :
From age to age resolved to cultivate
Peace, and the arts of peace — turning to gold
The very ground they tread on, and the leaves
They gather from the fields year after year." —
these peaceful arts and industries were accompanied,
and in a sense protected, by the art of the chase, and by
the greatest hunt of all, the art of war. Surrounded
as the early settlers were by wild beasts and hostile
tribes, the Chinese armies when taking the field hunted
and fought by turns (Biot). Sometimes, as described
in the Odes, the sovereign in person took the field ; or
civil war on a small scale occurred, one feudal prince
warring against another. Their ancient chariots, and
mailed warriors with helmets on, the chariot knight
in the centre, his esquire on the right to hand him his
arms, sword or javelin, or bow taken from its case of
tiger-skin ; the foot soldiers with breast-plate or shield
and buskins; the assaults on fortified cities by hooked
ladders, all pass before us in the Odes. Until the
introduction of firearms in the early days of the thir-
teenth century, and long after that, the methods of
warfare and its implements did not greatly differ from
these methods three thousand years old.
The principles of government as described in the
Odes, and obscurely hinted at in the character for min-
ister in the elementary characters, were expanded and
148 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
manipulated to meet the growing area of Imperial rule,
and have remained practically unchanged all through the
legendary semi-historical and historical periods— including
the great dynasty of Chou, lasting from 1122 B.C. to 255
B.C., in the middle course of which dynasty the true histor-
ical period commences — through the feudal period also,
and the Ch'in dynasty 255 B.C., which lasting only fifty
years yet first unified China — and up to the fateful days
now upon us when a Republic appears hke a phantom,
beneficent perhaps, but weird, in the Imperial Land. The
following in brief was the scheme of government. The
Sovereign ruled with and through his secondary or
feudatory chiefs called generally princes, whose Chinese
specific titles Dr. Legge translates as duke, marquis,
viscount, earl, and baron — represented in later times
by the title and office of viceroy or provincial superiors.
These directed or controlled officers of " the right and
left," the mandarins of later nomenclature (a word pro-
bably derived from the Portuguese mandar, to command),
who were charged with the civil administration and
care and instruction of the people. " Father and mother "
was till lately the recognised title of the Chih-hsien
or chief executive magistrate of a district ; for thus
the patriarchal, and parental character and attitude
of the Emperor, Son of Heaven, and Father of the
people, inspired the very names of his subordinates.
Other officers again had charge of departments of
public works or agriculture, reporting periodically
on the state of the people, and accounting for taxes
and other sources of revenue. There were also naval
in. THE TRIBUTE OF YU 149
and military mandarins of the Imperial forces, and for
police work. These inform the Emperor as to his
great family, and carry out his schemes of beneficence,
with the assistance further of a grand council at court,
and with the Emperor's own processions through his
dominions, to see the people's life and industries, and to
hear the people's voice — for that voice has never been
forcibly silenced, nor without opportunities of appeal
even before the lesser magistrates. These Imperial
processions were discontinued by one of the now dis-
carded but not unworthy Manchu dynasty, because of
the impoverishment of rich and poor ahke in their loyal
desire to honour the Sovereign by lavish display of silks
and satins carpeting the streets and roads over which the
Imperial feet should pass.
Before proceeding to a survey of historical China —
ancient (760 B.C. and onwards), mediaeval (221 B.C. — a.d.
1644), and modern— it may be of interest to add a sketch
of the civilisation of ancient China, summarised from the
Tribute of Yii, a section of the Shu-ching, describing the
events of the Hsia dynasty, lasting from 2205 — 1766 B.C.,
under which Yii and his descendants possessed the land.
This document is treated by Bunsen as a contemporary
and pubhc document of Yii's reign (2205 — 2197 B.C.),
but Chinese scholars generally regard the record as a
romance, though one of very ancient fabrication. Dr.
Legge shows the wholly mythical and unreliable character
of the celebrated stone pillar asserted to have been
erected by Yii himself on the top of Mount Heng in
the present province of Hunan, on the genuineness of
ISO THE CHINESE PEOPLE
which the genuine and authentic character of the Tribute
of Yu would seem to stand or fall. Chu Hsi (a.d. 1130 —
1200), the most distinguished critic and philosopher of
his age, and till recent years the officially recognised and
authoritative commentator on the sage Confucius' own
text, searched for the stone in vain, and is wholly
sceptical about it. Dr. Faber is probably within the
limits of sober criticism in regarding the account of the
ancient Chinese contained in the Tribute as an impossible
description of China as it lay and flourished and developed
2200 B.C. But he thinks it may be a romance thrown
back 1,000 years, and mserted by writers of the Chou
dynasty as descriptive of prehistoric China from what
they saw around them, near the dawn of reliable history.
And as such it seems to supplement our sketch of China
before Christ came.
China is described in these records as divided by Yii
into provinces, including : (i) Shensi and parts of
Chihli ; (2) south-west Shantung and a small part of
Chihh ; (3) north Shantung ; (4) part of Kiangsu and
Anhui, north of the Yangtse ; (5) Yang-chou or the
sea-board south of the Yangtse, apparently Chekiang,
and farther south as far as Amoy, as pumeloes as well as
oranges are mentioned as its productions ; (6) central
Hu-kuang ; (7) Honan and part of Hupei ; (8) Ssii-
ch' uan and part of Kansu ; (9) Shensi, and parts of
Ssuch'uan. Here we find, in addition to the articles
and arts belonging to the prehistoric or earhest part of
Chinese civilisation, skins of bears, foxes and jackals,
named as prepared for use, and articles worked from their
Itt. TME TRIBUTE OP YU tst
hair ; varnish made in two provinces, Shantung and
Honan (Chekiang is now celebrated for its special
varnish, used largely for the cleaning and repair of the
woodwork of western ships while in port) ; fine grass
cloth also ; fine and coarse hempen cloth ; woven
ornamented silks, especially in the present chief home of
this industry, the coast provinces south of the Yangtse ;
products of the sea, but only in north Shantung ; precious
stones, gold, silver, copper, lead and steel, as used for
exchange, and in fine art manufactures.
The same general summary of arts and products would
probably describe them down to the Christian era, and
long after that, supplemented and enriched, but scarcely
displaced, by mediaeval and modern inventions and
reforms. It must be remembered that Chinese territorial
expansion, to its present limits and beyond, dates chiefly
from the T'ang dynasty (a.d. 6i8 — 907), Korea and the
south provinces of China Proper coming under Imperial
rule at that epoch. So great and illustrious was the
dynasty deemed, that China is even now called by some
the great T'ang country.
We have traced thus partly by deduction and surmise,
partly by the information of historical annals, the history
of China, and the manners and customs of her people,
more than half-way down that history's course. There
have been many changes in China since the Christian
era, dynastic and political, and the bounds of the great
Empire have from time to time expanded and contracted
again, but the general aspect of the land — her manners
and customs, her high civilisation and universal education ,
I5i THE CHINESE PEOPLE
and that of no mean quality or meagre benefit — have
not much changed ; and we close this chapter with
a rapid survey of the outward features of the better-
known dynasties in China's story, leaving for the time,
save by cursory notice, further description of her internal
conditions.
China has been under the sway of more than twenty
dynasties and governments since the era of the legendary
Hsia* Within the hmits of a handbook it will not be
expected to find a full unfolding of the tale of these
3,600 years, and we must content ourselves with the more
notable both of the dynasties and of the rulers, and
with the most epoch-making events in those eras.
Both the hereditary system of succession within the
limits of the reigning Imperial family, and the feudal
system of subordinate states, seem to have been instituted
by the great Yii, 2205 B.C., and this system lasted till the
Ch'in dynasty, when, under Shih Huang-ti, 221 b.c, the
Empire was unified, and the first universal Emperor
reigned, and sought, by the destruction of all docu-
mentary annals and evidence of the past, to make history
begin with his tale and dynasty.
The third dynasty, including, according to Mayers'
estimate, the semi-historic and earliest historical periods
of Chinese history, was the Chou dynasty, following the
Shang, and lasting 867 years. Great men and noble pass
across the scene as these nine centuries flow on. King
Wu, the founder of the dynasty, Duke Chou, and China's
* See Table of Dynasties, p. 425.
III. CH'IN SHIH HUANG-Ti iSj
three great philosophers, teachers and reformers, Lao-
tzu, Confucius and Mencius, are there ; and the strange
anomaly was witnessed of deepening depravity of morals
and social unrest, side by side with a new emphasis laid
on the five relations of society, an expansion in the
written language, and literary activity generally, to-
gether with persistent efforts on the part of these great
reformers to stem the torrent of evil. The first threaten-
ings of danger from the Tartars in the north, which
afterwards so seriously affected the Empire, were felt in
this dynasty. These, called the Hsiung-nu, were prob-
ably of the same race as the Western Huns. The Ch'in
dynasty, which came next, though lasting only fifty
years, forms an epoch in the long history of the very
greatest importance. The Great Wall was neither begun
nor finally completed by Shih Huang-ti, but he added
greatly to it • and besides this attempt to fence off danger
from the north, he extended the limits of his now con-
solidated Empire over almost the whole of the territory
afterwards known as China Proper.
The Han dynasty succeeded 206 B.C., and, lasting with
the Eastern Han 430 years, is justly reckoned one of
the most illustrious and eventful periods of Chinese
iiistory. It included within its limits the wonder of the
eternal ages — the Incarnation of the Son of God (shortly
before the reign of P'ing Ti). Buddhism was officially
introduced into the Empire ; the system of competitive
examinations for office dates from the early years of this
dynasty; and good and strong government, with a
penal code, kept pace with a rapid developement of
1S4 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
commerce, arts and literature, notably in history and
philosophy.
The period of the three rival states, immortalised and
made literally to live in Chinese imagination, through
the notable historical novel. The History of the Three
States, and connected with the names of Ts'ao Ts'ao,
Liu Pei and Sun Ch'iian, followed the Han ; and this state
of internecine war was succeeded, not immediately indeed,
but after the chequered life of twelve more short-Hved
and disturbed reigns, by the illustrious 300 years of the
great T'ang, by which name, " the great T'ang," China
was till recently called in common parlance. It formed
the Golden Age of Chinese poetry. The territorial ex-
pansion of China even beyond its present limits took
place in this era. Korea was annexed, and Persia looked
to China almost as its suzerain, while the civihsation
and definite incorporation of Southern China dates from
these glorious days. The rise of Arab and Persian sea-
trade with Ganfu (Canton) during this dynasty is
noticeable.
Then after five dynasties of the briefest duration, in
A.D. 960 the great Sung dynasty began, and, with the
Southern Sung, lasted just over 300 years. It formed, or
rather included within its boundaries, the Augustan Age
of Chinese Uterature — the great critical philosopher
Chu Hsi (A.D. 1130 — 1200) flourishing at this time.
But during the last hundred years of their sway,
the Sung monarchs were greatly harassed by the Chin
Tartars, the ancestors of the Manchu dynasty. From
the years a.d. 1129 — 1276, Hangchow was the metropolis
in. KVBLAI KHAtJ 155
of the Southern Empire, the north lying under the over-
shadowing cloud of the Mongols, who eventually, under
the Yiian dynasty, established the first foreign domina-
tion, after a native and independent rule of 3,000 years.
Of the magnificence of Hangchow (the Kinsay of Marco
Polo) both under the Southern Sung dynasty and under
the Mongols, the walls stretching to their furthest tra-
ditional length of 100 (Chinese) miles, or nearly 36 of our
measure, we speak further do\\'n. The Yiian dynasty
is best known through the famous Kublai Khan, who
made the sovereign or suzerain power of China more
widely felt than at any other period of the nation's
history. During the Yiian dynasty, as Marco Polo
testifies, China was in a measure overrun by foreigners —
all the highest officials were Mongols, Saracens,
or Christians (" bearded men") — and the native topo-
graphers fully confirm this statement. The testimony
of Western writers is very striking. Andrew of
Perugia calls his salary alafa, reckons its value accord-
ing to the estimate of the Genoese merchants, and lives
in a place called hy the Persians Zaitun, a city in the
province of Fukien.
The Mongols ruled China for about 100 years, and
with their overthrow a Chinese native dynasty, the
Ming, the first on the roll being the son of a labouring
man, governed China for three centuries, and in the
earlier days wdth energy and success. Foreign trade with
the Portuguese was partially sanctioned ; the Jesuits
arrived, and their scientific and mechanical skill was
welcomed; while careful law-codes were formed, which
156 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
still guide the administration. It was till quite recently
the secret and often the avowed design of all Chinese
patriots to restore the beloved Ming and to expel the
foreign Manchus. Lineal descendants of the family still
live and are recognised in Chekiang, and it is significant
both of the power and of the toleration of the Manchus
that they continually winked at the Chinese custom of
making the actors in their historical plays conform to the
costume and manners of the Ming.
But degeneracy and weakness set in, and, hard pressed
by northern invasions, the Ming called in the Manchus
to their aid, and having quelled the rebellion which had
caused the suicide of the reigning Emperor, and having
defeated the northern invaders, the Manchus assumed
for themselves, with the name of the Great Pure Dynasty,
the Imperial power ; and this dynasty only one year ago,
after 268 years' rule, retired before the pretensions of
a Chinese Republic, whose history we cannot relate,
for it is still in the making. No one who has lived in
China during any part of the closing century of the
domination of the Manchus, can fail to have his memory
crossed and blurred by case after case of bad faith and
unreliability on the part of the Central Government, and
reflected repeatedly in the treacherous or openly hostile
attitude of the provincial and local magistrates. The
Tientsin massacre, with a rebound as of an earthquake
wave, influencing even the most friendly Chinese, and
turning them to thoughts of violent expulsion of foreigners
and extinction of Christianity ; the long and dismal
succession of truculent summer rumours, of riots, and
in. THE MANCHU DYNASTY 157
persecutions, of defiance of treaties, paraded and suddenly
apologised for ; the outrageous picture-placards and
blasphemous and fiercely brutal anonymous caricatures
(or, as in one case, with avowed and secretly protected
authorship) ; the vexatious restrictions on inland trade,
and all the long likin controversy ; the uprisings against
the telegraph, the railroad, and all improvements ; the
culmination in the Boxer uprising — all this, like an evil
dream, possesses one's mind and memory in reviewing
Manchu rule and policy since the T'ai-p'ing Rebellion.
It marked, perhaps, effeteness and decay setting in,
though, strange to say, all through these years, and up to
the very recent phase of the repudiation of loans and
the attempt to set aside ordered agreements, the old
nobility of China's integrity flew high its flag of praise :
" A Canton merchant's word is worth any one else's
bond." This must be remembered to China's credit ;
neither must the fact be forgotten, that this state of cor-
ruption and the weakness of ill-faith set in after the
disastrous ruin of the T'ai-p'ing Rebellion, aggravated
by a calamitous foreign war ; and further, that whatever
the merits of the struggle, commonly called the Second
Opium War, may have been, the final Treaty of Peace
and the article approving of Christianity and sanctioning
its promulgation and acceptance by the people (its
repeated infractions we notice elsewhere) was forced
from the Chinese by the victorious powers in that not
glorious conflict. Before, however, the onward sweep
of change relegates the Manchus to comparative oblivion,
it is well to remember how worthily some of the Manchu
1 58 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
Emperors have ruled the land, not from the lust of per-
sonal power and the selfish ambition of autocratic
domination, but definitely and avowedly for the common-
wealth. The Emperor, going in person through his great
provinces, to see the conditions of the people and hear
their complaints, was not an unknown spectacle in
China. It was brought to an end, as we notice above, by
the Emperor himself, from the fear that the people would
impoverish themselves through their lavish display of the
signs of their loyalty, strewing the streets with silk and
satin.
This dynasty has been marked by great literary activity
from time to time ; notably under the truly great K'ang-hsi
(1661-1722), who, besides his authorship in his own native
Manchu language, wrote much in polished Chinese
wen-li. The standard dictionary of the Chinese language
will be for ever associated with his name ; and his
patronage was freely given to literature. The beautiful
editions of The Collection of Standard Essays, and of the
History of China, by Ssu-ma Kuang, a.d. 1084, and an
abstract of the metaphysical writings of the Sung
scholars, were produced in Manchu and in Chinese
during his reign. The Sacred Edict, the joint production
of the Imperial father and son, K'ang-hsi and Yung-cheng
(a.d. 1722), is sufficient of itself to give high honour to
the now dethroned dynasty.
" It is a somewhat singular fact," writes Williams
{Middle Kingdom, Vol. I., p. 554) — rather, one would
say, it is an almost unique distinction — " that monarchs,
secure in their thrones as K'ang-hsi and Yung-cheng
in. THE SACRED EDICT 159
were, should take upon themselves the character of
writers and teachers of morality to their subjects, and
institute a special service every fortnight (the first and
fifteenth day of each month) to have their precepts com-
municated to them." " If too," he adds, " it should
soon be seen that their designs had utterly failed of all
real good results from the mendacity of their officers
and the ignorance or opposition of the people, still the
merit due to them is not diminished."
Th& Sacred Edict is of great interest. It is not merely
an eminent example of the practical carrying out of the
noble paternal and patriarchal ideal of Chinese govern-
ment, the father instructing his children. It is also an
instance, eminent, if ineffectual, of the Imperial head of
the nation warning the people against superstition and
idolatry — a warning increased "to downright ridicule by
Wang Yu-pu, a high officer who paraphrased and com-
mented on the whole Edict. It is, further, a fine piece of
Chinese as literature, so much so, that Chinese scholars
fifty years ago were expected to commit the whole to
memory equally with their own classical books. It is
also admirable as an example of the way in which to
treat a text, pulHng it to pieces, examining each frag-
ment, with illustration, analysis and application, and
then collecting again the heads and the accompaniments
of the thesis and argument in a peroration of didactic
and hortatory power. So much has this been felt, that
the Edict has been recommended as a model when train-
ing preachers and catechists for Christian exposition.
Neither has this alien dynasty failed to uphold the
i6o THE CHINESE PEOPLE
patriotic pretensions of China as a kind of suzerain
of the world, parrying with the subtle weapons of
sublime courtesy, as from a condescending ruler to the
embassies of tributary nations, Lord Amherst's embassy
of peace and goodwill (as designed by him) between nations
of equal and independent authority. This was under the
Manchu Emperor Chia-ch'ing. And his successor, Tao-
kuang, deserves even more honour in the memories of
patriotic Chinese, for while abating little of the masterful
arrogancy and exclusive policy of the Government, he
humbled himself nobly even to tears and passionate remon-
strance, if he might save his people from the gathering
plague of the opium trade and the baneful use of the drug.
And the dynasty, though nearly done to death by the
cataclysm of the long-drawn-out T'ai-p'ing Rebellion, and
by foreign and disastrous wars, never seemed wholly to
lose heart, or abandon its dignity of hope some day to
restore peace and prosperity and order to the China the
Manchus had learned to love. Change, convulsion, revolu-
tion have overtaken China and the dynasty now. But it
is a thought perplexing yet signilicant with which we
close, namely, that every one of the necessary and
wholesome reforms which preceded the new Republic
were Manchu in inception and in execution. Some,
indeed, may be attributed to the pressure, increasing
in force, brought to bear on the late Empress and her
advisers, and the two suddenly succeeding Emperors,
by the reform party, the outward expression of
the secret party of insurrection and revolution. But
the great uprising of China's conscience, in moral
III. MANCHU REFORM i6i
revolution against the culture of the poppy, the
preparation of opium, its sale, wholesale and retail, the
trade in the drug from India and Persia, and the native
growth and traffic, and chiefly its use for anything but
prescribed medicinal purposes — all this was a miracle of
virtuous reform. The movement against the custom,
1,000 years old, of cramping girls' feet, had as its chief
patron the Manchu Empress dowager. The sudden and
only too drastic alteration in the methods and subjects
of education was the result of her " pencil stroke." The
introduction of railways and inland steam navigation,
though hampered repeatedly by official or popular
prejudice and jealousy ; the better pay and discipline
and drill of the army, turning in some places a ragged
and disorderly and hated rabble into a force formidable
for its fighting power, and welcomed and liked by the
people the while, because of its good character and good
order ; and then the first reluctant acceptance of the
clamour of the Young China party for a constitution,
for provincial and local advisory councils, preparatory
to the summoning of a parliament, a National Assembly,
the Emperor still supreme, but served and advised
himself by a ministry ; and all the woes or delights of
party government for the commonwealth ; — all these,
whether they be regarded as wholesome reform or
hustled experiments, all were Manchu ; and " such and
such things" might with patience and reasonable
petition and representation have been extracted from
the not unreasonable Regent and Council.
And this sunset radiance brooding over the discarded
L
i62 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
Manchus must not fade from the memories and imagina-
tion of students of Chinese history, whatever glories of
the dawn of a new era a Republic may hope to shed over
the land.
It is impossible as historians, or as enquirers into
China's story all down the ages, to forget Napoleon's
dictum that Republics are not made out of old monarchies.
It is almost unthinkable that the new Western clothing
and uniform should fit and adorn the ancient Eastern
body politic and economic. Neither is it easy to approve
of an insurrection and rebellion launched against " the
powers that be," without notice or warning or parley, and
against powers conceding point after point of popular
demand. This movement was almost cowardly in its
sudden assault, and though to a real extent guided by a
professed Christian mind and genius, it scarcely deserved
to prosper.
But it is not easy, viewing the matter from outside
(though we claim very deep and intimate sympathy with
Chinese aspirations and destinies), to judge a Christian's
conscience in this matter. A patriotism (never quite
extinct or unknown) is deepening and strengthening in
all ranks now, and China for the Chinese would not have
seemed so strange, had it taken the form of the rallying
cry which the T'ai-p'ing raised : " Down with the alien
Imperial family, up with the flag of a Chinese dynasty."
But that, coincidently with a jealousy and dislike of foreign
influence and interference and control, China should
hastily absorb Western education, and in a hurry put on
the red cap of Western Republicanism, seems so strange,
REVOLUTION 163
that but for our knowledge and experience of China's
marvellous power of cohesion and of recuperation, and
her genius for assimilation and for accommodating her
still unchanged and unchangeable theory of nature to
the changes of this troubled world, we should be in
despair as to her near and further future. We perhaps
judge too ungenerously the purity of the motives of
China's present leaders and rulers ; and we can better
take leave of her ancient history on the threshold of her
new story, with the prayer and hope that, with rulers
swayed by the fear of God, great China may prosper,
and that with " righteousness exalting the nation," she
may be a blessing in the earth.
CHAPTER IV
Religious Thought in China
It is generally said that the Chinese have three religions
— Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism. This state-
ment, however, requires some modification and explana-
tion. In the first place, both Islam and, to a less
extent, Christianity, have for centuries past claimed,
and still claim, the allegiance of a portion of the Chinese
race ; while Manichaeism and Judaism, though now
extinct, once gained a temporary footing within the
borders of the Chinese Empire. The introduction ot
these various exotic religions into China will be alluded
to or fully described in a subsequent chapter. It is true
that Buddhism also, in its origin, is foreign to Chinese
soil ; but in its Chinese dress it has become part and
parcel of Chinese life, and may therefore be studied in
close connection with the remaining two religions, which
alone are of purely Chinese descent. Secondly, the
terms " Confucianism " and " Taoism " are somewhat
ambiguous. The religious system commonly called
Confucianism was not founded by Confucius, and it
would be more correct to describe it as the State Religion
of China, leaving the word " Confucianism " to denote
the moral teaching and scheme of practical philosophy
associated with the name of China's greatest sage.
164
IV. RELIGION AND SUPERSTITION 165
Similarly the word " Taoism " has two different applica-
tions. It is used of the system of philosophical thought
contained in the remarkable treatise called the Tao-it
Ching, which is believed to have been written in the
sixth century B.C. by Lao-tzu, another of China's great
sages. It is also used of the popular religious system
founded some seven centuries later by Chang Ling, the
first of the line of so-called Taoist popes ; and it is in
this latter sense that the words " Taoism " and " Taoist "
are used throughout this chapter.
With these few explanatory remarks we approach the
complex problem of the developement of religious thought
in China. Much of the perplexity and some of the
difficulty connected with the study of this subject will
disappear if we apply to the three chief religious systems
of China what has been said by Professor Poussin of
Buddhism in general :
" The effect of Buddhism," he writes, " on popular
superstition has not been comparable to that of the
churches of the West, or even to that of Mohamme-
danism."— " Gods pagan in origin and character are . . .
Buddhas." — " Buddhism is encumbered with all the
dreams of the half-civilised people who have been its
converts." — " Neither Buddha nor his disciples broke
with the old naturalism." — " ' Wherever he settles,' says
Shakyamuni, ' the wise man will make offerings to the
local deities. Honoured they will honour him ; and
for the man whom the gods protect everything suc-
ceeds.' " — " Ancient Buddhism does not include the
whole of life. ... It has no ceremonies for birth.
1 66 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
marriage or death." — " If rain is wanted or floods are
feared the Nagas and dragon-kings . . . will still be
prayed to and exorcised. Above all, the prehistoric
magic and the power attributed to sorcery remain. . . ."
— " Buddhist doctrine has been unable to destroy super-
stitious thought and practice because it contains nothing
with which they may be replaced."*
These words are true certainly of Chinese Buddhism,
and true also of the State Religion of China and of
Taoism. These three chief religious systems of China
have failed to displace the myriad superstitions and
gods of the ancient Asiatic animism. In particular
they have shown neither the power nor the desire to
remove or to modify the theory of life, which is con-
sidered by modern scholars to have formed, from pre-
historic times, the basis of Chinese animistic beliefs.
This fundamental theory is supposed to be the
Way {Tao) of the universe, which depends for life on
the due interaction of Yang and Yin — the two Principles
or Influences or Breaths. Yang represents the positive
or male principle, Yin the negative or female ; and
though, properly speaking, there should be — and theoreti-
cally is — nothing but harmonious and complementary
co-operation between the two, yet in the Chinese mind
Yang was generally associated with beneficent spirits
(shin), and also with light, warmth and life, and Yin
with malevolent spirits [kuei), and also with darkness,
cold and death. The whole universe being animated
with these spirits, it was necessary for man to avert
♦ Bouddhisme, Paris, 1909, pp. 344-354.
IV. SPIRITS AND MAGIC 167
the malevolence of the evil and to win the beneficence
of the good.
" Heaven, the greatest Yang power, is the chief shen
or god, who controls all spectres {kuei) and their doings,
and it is one of the great dogmata of China's theology
that no spectres are entitled to harm man but by the
authorisation of Heaven or its silent consent. Never-
theless there are myriads, who wantonly, of their own
accord, without regard to that li or law or the Tao,
do distress the world with their evil deeds."*
In accordance with this fundamental theory, the
main function of Chinese religion would seem, from very
ancient times, to have consisted in muzzling the kuei
and stimulating the operation of the shen — a form of
religious belief which may be defined as " Exorcising
Polytheism," or, in other words,
" A cult of the gods with which the Eastern Asiatic
imagination has filled the Universe, connected with a
highly developed system of magic, consisting, for a great
part, in Exorcism. This cult and magic is, of course,
principally in the hands of priests. But, besides, the
lay world, enslaved to the intense belief in the perilous
omnipresence of spectres, is engaged every day in a
restless defensive and offensive war against those
beings."!
It would be quite impossible within the limits of this
short chapter to describe this ancient cult of beneficent
* The Religious System of China, by J, J. M. de Groot,
Bk. II., p. 930-
t Ibid., p. 931.
THE CHINESE PEOPLE
spirits and " war against spectres " ; but two points
must be mentioned before we pass to a brief considera-
tion of the organised religious systems which have grown
out of, or, rather, have been superadded to the theory of
Yang and Yi?i, and to the practices which accompanied
that theory. First, with regard to ancestor worship,
it should be noted that this, the most natural and
simple form of animism, has apparently always formed
an integral part of the doctrine of " The Way of the
Universe."
" The shin," writes Dr. de Groot, " naturally form
two distinct categories : those which inhabit human
bodies or have inhabited them — the souls of living and
dead men — and all the rest, forming, in the widest sense,
parts of the universe." *
After some interesting examples of worship paid to
living men besides the Emperor, the author proceeds :
" Especially, however, men are worshipped after their
death." — And because of the strength of the patriarchal
system, " in the first place worship of the dead in China
is worship of ancestors. It signifies that the family ties
with the dead are by no means broken, and that the
dead continue to exercise their authority and protection.
They are the natural patron divinities of the Chinese
people, their household gods, affording protection against
spectres, and thus creating felicity. Ancestor worship
being the most natural form of soul worship, the fact
is also quite natural that we find it mentioned in the
♦ The Religion of the Chinese, by J. J. M. de Groot, New York,
1910, p. 63.
Vlir. — BONE USED FOR DIVINATION
[To /ace f. i6
IV. ANCESTOR WORSHIP 169
ancient classics so often, and in such detail, that we
cannot doubt that it was also the core of the ancient
faith. It may even have been the kernel of the nation's
first and oldest religion."*
And again :
" Ancestor worship prevails as the sole form of popular
religion recognised by the state. ... It is, in fact,
exclusively for this cult that ritual regulations are laid
down for the people in the dynastic statutes."!
A further proof of the prominence of ancestral worship
has recently been brought to light by the discovery of
inscribed fragments of tortoise-shell and bone, dating,
perhaps, from the twelfth century B.C. In his valuable
paper on this find. Professor Chavannes writes :
" It is well worthy of remark that the tortoise-shell was
used to consult, not gods of any kind, but ancestors."!
A common form of inscription on the bones is, for
instance, " We consulted the oracle in the presence of
Tsu Ting (Ancestor Ting) " — Tsu Ting and the other
names found being just possibly those of the Yin dynasty
Emperors.
We may surmise, then, that ancestor worship is at
least as old as — if not older than — the Yang and Yin
doctrine, into which, however, it fitted without difficulty.
The suggestion of Dr. de Groot that " it may even have
been the kernel of the nation's first and oldest religion "
* Ibid., pp. 66, 67.
t Ibid., pp. 83, 84.
X La Divination par I'icaille de tortue, etc., par Ed. Chavannes,
Paris, 191 1, p. 13 ; ci. 1,.C. Hopkinsin Journal of the Royal Asiatic
Society, Oct., 191 1, April, Oct., 1912, July, 1913, etc.
i;o THE CHINESE PEOPLE
need not preclude our agreement with the theory of
Dr. Legge and others concerning the monotheistic origin
of Chinese rehgious thought. It is a reasonable hypo-
thesis to suppose that China's " first and oldest rehgion "
had a definite theistic, if not purely monotheistic, basis ;
but that from early days this worship of the Supreme
was left to chieftains and patriarchs. The inevitable
result would be that the common people, shut off from
the true worship of God, attempted to satisfy their
religious instincts by giving quasi-divine honours to
the spirits of dead chieftains or tribal patriarchs ; and
having deviated thus far from orthodox belief, pro-
ceeded next to worship the spirits of all ancestors, and
also to imagine the whole world animated with innumer-
able spirits, powerful for good or evil, but all subservient
to the Supreme. To explain the interaction of these
lesser spirits, the next step would be the developement
of the Yang and Yin theory, and with this the spread
of the practice of Exorcism, which has ever since filled
such a large place in Chinese religious thought.
The second point to be noticed in connection with
the ancient animistic beliefs of the Chinese is the
importance of the exorcising priesthood, to which
allusion has already been made.
" From very early times," writes Dr. de Groot, "...
this (Animistic) religion may have had a priesthood,
that is to say persons of both sexes who wielded, with
respect to the world of spirits, capacities and powers not
possessed by the rest of men." *
* Tht Religious System, etc., Bk. II., p. 1187.
IV. PROTEST AGAINST SUPERSTITION 171
These priests were known anciently as ivu, a name
which may be traced perhaps to the eighteenth century
B.C., and they exist to-day under various names, being
generally known to Europeans as " Taoist priests "
{Tao Skill). They are regularly trained, initiated and
licensed, and wear, when on duty, a pecuhar dress, to
which are sometimes added most gorgeous embroidered
vestments. More or less illicit magic and exorcism
seem also to be widely practised by men and women who
hold no hcense, and the work of even the hcensed men
is not officially recognised or reckoned orthodox.*
Against the magic and superstition of this undoubtedly
ancient priesthood, there seems to have been a certain
degree of protest from very early times. Dr. Legge
thought he found the protest in the words of Confucius
himself, t In the first century of our era, Wang Ch'ung
wrote a short essay against exorcism, which he describes
as " a ceremonial institution transmitted from ancient
times," ending with the words, " so the question (of
good or evil) lies with men and not with spectres, in
virtue and not in sacrifice."! The existence and
antiquity of this protest and the fact that it finally
triumphed (in theory at least), not as a matter of novel
change or gradual developement, but on conservative
grounds and for the retention of primitive custom — all
this suggests once more the probability of the contention
Ibid., Bk. II., Part V., The Priesthood of Animism.
Ibid., pp. 1 188, 1 199 — The Religions of Chi\
idon, 18S0.
:;: The Religious System, Bk. II., pp. 938, 939.
t Ibid., pp. 1 188, 1 199 — The Religions of China, by J. Legge,
London, 18S0.
172 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
of Dr. Legge and others, that " the first and oldest
rehgion " of the Chinese was theistic, or even monothe-
istic, in its origin, " Heaven . . . reigns supreme in the
universe," * writes Dr. de Groot ; and the words are
fully justified by Dr. Legge's extracts from the classics
and from modem books of state ritual, which speak of
Heaven {T'ien) or Shang Ti, as creator and sustainer of
heaven, earth, man, and all things, and as being separated
by the distance between master and servant from the
very greatest of all other spirits. f The worship of
Shang Ti, conducted by successive Emperors of China,
upon the open-air altar, the marble platform of the Altar
of Heaven in Pekin, with its impressive simplicity
and its suggestion of immemorial antiquity, seems
to take us back to the distant ages, when the stream
of religious thought in China was doubtless still com-
paratively pure, to the days when the chieftains of pre-
historic Chinese tribes may, like Melchizedek, very likely
have performed high-priestly duties before the altars of
" God Most High." And it is interesting to note that
not only did the early Jesuit missionaries identify
Shang Ti with the One True God, but still earlier,
Mohammedan apologists, in presenting memorials to the
Imperial throne, argued that this Supreme Object of
Chinese worship was one and the same as the Moslem
Allah. The ancient protest against magic and super-
stition, which had been making itself heard with increas-
♦ Ibid., Bk. II., p. 1 154.
t The Notions of the Chinese concerning Gods and Spirits,
by J. Legge, 1852, and The Original Religion of China, by J.
R0S8, London, 1909.
IV. THE STATE RELIGION 173
ing persistence, and the growing tendency to concentrate
religious thought more and more on the worship of Shang
Ti by the Emperor and of the spirits of ancestors by the
people, led finally, in the classical renaissance of the Han
dynasty (206 B.C. to a.d. 220), to the formation of an
authorised State religious system, with official rules and
regulations for the due performance of orthodox rites.
From these rites the exorcist priests, with their heretical
beliefs and practices, were gradually expelled, though it
was found impossible altogether to wean the Chinese
people from their trust in magic. The general effect,
however, of this " Protestant " movement may be com-
pared to that of the Reformation in Europe, more
especially in those parts of Europe where the masses of
the people continued to cHng to mediaeval superstitions.
In China, however, there has never been anything like
a universal reaction against the " Protestant " principles
and practices that were defmitely formulated during
the period of the Han dynasty. To this day the more
educated of the Chinese have remained firm adherents
of the system described as the State religion of China.
The connection of this State religion with Confucius'
name and person lies in the reverence it pays to one
who has hitherto been regarded, not as the founder, but
simply as the transmitter and expounder of the eihics
of ancient orthodoxy. It was not till recent times
that he was actually worshipped, and this comparatively
modern innovation has obscured the fact that Confucius
himself had little, if anything, to do with the develope-
ment of a State religion.
174 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
The Han dynasty witnessed also the rise of another
religious system, associated — and with but little more
reason — with the name of Confucius' contemporary, the
sage Lao-tzu. To quote Dr. de Groot again :
" There is in the Memoirs of the Three Kingdoms and
in the Books of the Later Han Dynasty reliable evidence
that the old principles of Universalism or Taoism " —
that is, of the " Way of the Universe," as explained
above — " had in the first centuries of our era given rise
to a disciplined Church. This process is inseparably
connected with Chang Ling's name. In the second
century he founded in the region which is now called
Ssuch'uan, a semi-worldly State with a system of taxa-
tion, and with a religious discipline based on self-humilia-
tion before the higher powers, confession of sins, and
works of benevolence. Demonocracy played an impor-
tant part in it, and he (Chang) is himself described as
a first-rate exorcist, a god-man able to command spectres
and divinities, a thaumaturgist and compounder of
elixirs of life. When he had ascended to heaven, the
chieftainship of his Church passed to his son Chang
Heng, by whose death it was transmitted to his son
Chang Lu ; and this hierarch finally surrendered his
realm in a.d. 215 to Ts'ao Ts'ao, whereby it was swal-
lowed up in the empire which this hero by force of arms
was then carving out for himself from the territory
of the decaying House of Han. . . . The offspring
of Chang Ling and Chang Lu in the main line have,
under the title of T'ien-shih or ' Celestial Masters,'
exercised to this day, from their see in the district of
CHANG LING 17$
Kuei-ch'i, in Kiangsi province, a kind of clerical pre-
dominance, manifesting itself principally by a supre-
macy over the demon world, effected throughout the
Empire by various means, but especially by charms
and spells imparted to the Taoist clergy."*
The present " Celestial Master " was seen by the
writer eight years ago riding in a sedan chair and calling,
in a very mundane manner, on native and foreign
officials at Ningpo. He is known to foreigners as the
" Taoist pope," and the Church over which he rules is
called the Taoist Church ; but, as explained earUer in
the chapter, the Taoism of this system is not identical
with the Taoism of the much more ancient philosophical
treatise ascribed to Lao-tzii. The clergy or priests who
are subject to this " Celestial Master " go by the name
of Tao Shih, or Teachers of the Way ; but the Tao, or
Way, they follow is only remotely connected with the
Tao of Lao-tzu. How far the writings attributed to this
great sage may have influenced the Taoist Church in its
earlier stages it is difficult to say, but it would seem that
at the present day Lao-tzu is regarded by the exorcising
priesthood of Taoism merely as a great name to conjure
with, in the performance of magical rites. For it must
be remembered that these Tao Shih, or Teachers of the
Way, are very closely related in thought and practice to
the Exorcists of primitive Animism.
" This term," writes Dr. de Groot, " has been used
since the age of Han to denote the votaries of the disci-
pline by which, preferably in seclusion from the busy
♦ The Religious System, Bk. II., pp. 1182, 1183.
176 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
world, assimilation with the Tao or Order of the Universe
was sought ; but these votaries became at an early date
a class who devoted themselves to the sacerdotal work
of propitiation, on behalf of human felicity, of the gods
who animate the Universe, composing the yang part of
its Order, as also to the frustration of spectres who in
that same Order compose the yin part, and exercise a
baneful influence. Actually, then, the tao shih became
a priesthood working for the same great object for which
Wu-ism had existed since the night of time ; moreover,
properly considered, Wu-ism was Tao-ism, because the
spirits, which it exploited or exorcised for the promotion
of human happiness, were Taoist gods and spectres, that
is to say, the same parts of the dual Universal soul, Yajtg
and Yin, which compose the Tao. It is accordingly
quite natural, that as soon as the iao shih made them-
selves priests of Universal Animism, their actual assimila-
tion with the WH was imminent. It was from the wu
alone that the tao shih could learn and borrow the
venerable and ancient exorcising practice ; they wove
it inseparably into the ritualism of their sacrificial
worship of the gods. The difference between the tao
shih and the wu class was finally effaced entirely,
when the older part of the function of the iao shih,
viz., assimilation with the Tao by mental and bodily
discipline in seclusion, was discarded, being incapable
of being maintained by them against the competi-
tion of Buddhist monasticism, and against the oppres-
sion of ascetic and conventual life by the Confucian
State. It thus seems incorrect to pretend that the
BUDDHISM 177
iao shih has supplanted the wu or hsi in Chinese
rehgious Hfe."*
Rather we may conclude that the ancient Animism,
with its magic, exorcism and priesthood, has taken back
into itself the Church of Chang Ling, retaining the ritual
and nomenclature of the system that Chang Ling founded.
The introduction of Buddhism into China, through the
agency of missionaries from India, also dates from the
period of the Han dynasty. The first emissaries of this
foreign religion were orthodox Buddhists, who adhered
to the Canon of Buddhist Scriptures, known as the
Hinayana, or Lesser Vehicle.! Exponents of the
Mahayana did not appear in China till the third or fourth
century of the Christian era, but from that time onward
Buddhism in China was divided into a number of sects,
largely of Chinese origin, and basing their distinctive
tenets, some on the Hinayana, some on the Mahayana,
some on both. The history of these sects is wiapped in
obscurity, but some of them have left their mark on
Chinese Buddhism. This is more particularly true of
the School of the Pure Land, which was founded a.d. 381,
and re-founded in the seventh century, by a famous
Buddhist leader, who is known to have been the con-
temporary of Nestorian missionaries in China. The
theistic tendencies and other elements of Christian truth
in the Amidabha cult, which was the special feature of
• Ibid., Bk. II., p. 1254 [ksi is the ancient word for priest;
wu for either priest or priestess).
t The Southern Buddhists at the present time — that is the
Buddhists of Ceylon, Burma and Siam — follow the Hinayina.
The Northern Buddhists in Tibet, Mongolia, China, Korea and
Japan, for th« most part also rev8r«nc« the Mahayana.
M
178 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
this School, are described at some length below. As for
the other schools, a mere mention of some of the more
important must suffice. Their names give some inkling
of their distinctive tenets, and the dates will show how
active Buddhism in China must have been at the time
when Christianity was first introduced. There was the
School of Penitence, founded at the end of the fifth
century, and the School of T'ien-t'ai, dating from the
sixth. The latter, hke the School of the Pure Land,
still exists as a separate sect in Japan. Then there
was the School of Pity, founded by Hsiian-tsang, the
famous traveller of the seventh century ; and then the
School of Mysteries, whose first Patriarch hved in the
eighth century.
These various Schools or sects of Chinese Buddhism
have long since been absorbed into the School of Dhyana,
or Meditation, to which almost all Chinese Buddhist
priests are attached at the present day. The monks
or priests of this School (nominal celibacy is still the rule
for the Buddhist priesthood in China, though not in
Japan, and monastic life is still observed to some extent)
are governed, according to their ordination vows, by two
sets of rules, the 250 commandments of the Hinayana
and the 48 commandments of the Mahayana. This
School of Meditation was founded in China by Bodhi-
dharma, who came as a missionary from India about
A.D. 521. It spread rapidly in every direction, borrow-
ing freely from all the other schools. In the seventh
century it was divided into two branches, which in the
Sung dynasty gave birth respectively to two or three
IX. — EODHIDHARMA
{To face p. 178.
BUDDHISM
179
new sects. But these sub-divisions disappeared again,
and nothing now remains of them but their names buried
in books. The Japanese branch of the School of Dhyana,
introduced into Japan in the seventh century and
known there as the Zen {Shan) sect, has always appealed
to the aristocracy of Japan, and notwithstanding the
materialistic tendencies of this twentieth century, its
teaching is still much sought after by some modern
educationalists and by not a few of the official class in
that country. Its deep mysticism and contemplative
" quietism," and elaborate discipline for the subjugation
of the body by the mind continue to attract some of the
keenest and most thoughtful intellects in Japan. But
in China it has been far otherwise. The fatal backward
trend of Chinese Buddhism and its tendency to
compromise with superstitious beliefs have already
been noticed. Though sect after sect came into being,
with the avowed object of preaching and teaching some
distinctive tenet that was probably intended to raise
the Chinese mind above thoughts of magic and exorcism,
yet none fully succeeded in its object. The subsequent
assimilation of the various sects into the School of
Meditation still further arrested the influence of higher
Buddhist thought in China. The treatises and books
of devotion, which were produced by hundreds, when
sects were multiplied, have since grown more and more
rare.
" It is no exaggeration," writes Dr. de Groot. " to say
that the fusion of the sects has destroyed Buddhist
study, science and scholarship, and marked the first
i8o THE CHINESE PEOPLE
stage in the decadence of the monastic life, which now
has no more than the shadow of its former importance."*
The Buddhist temples and monasteries in China are,
indeed, a sad memorial of the faded glory of the rehgion
to which they owed their existence. Deep have been
the spiritual yearnings and profound the varied specula-
tions of Chinese Buddhist Schools ; but every Buddhist
attempt to arouse true rehgious feehng and instinct in
China seems doomed to failure. More particularly is
this true of the Amidabha doctrine, which has coloured
the thought and imagination of Chinese Buddhists, but
has lost, in China, much of its former theistic and almost
Christian character. This is still found, however, in
Japan, in the teaching of the immensely powerful Shin
sect, which is a reformed branch of the School of the
Pure Land. The emissaries of this Japanese sect are
already actively engaged in the attempt to put new life
into the dead bones of Korean Buddhism ; and as it is
more than hkely that they will soon extend their opera-
tions to China and revive there the old influence of the
School from which they sprang, it will be as well to give
here a brief account of what they believe and teach.
This peculiar type of Buddhism is as far removed as
possible from the teaching of the historical founder of
Buddhism. Gautama taught that human beings are
independent of divine aid and influence ; but by the
irony of fate he himself is now worshipped with divine
honours by myriads of Northern Buddhists ; not only
• Le Code du Mahayana en Chine, by J. J. M. d« Groot, 1893,
p. 7.
IV, AMIDABHA
SO, but other avatar or manifestations of the universal
Divine Essence, in which all Buddhists believe, have
also been raised, by the theistic tendencies of Northern
Buddhists, to positions of supreme reverence and
worship in the Buddhist pantheon. Chief among these
supposed avatar has been Amidabha Buddha, In
his earthly phase Amidabha is said to have been a
monk. In what country or at what period he lived is
left to the imagination ; but the story is that by self-
renunciation and sustained effort he had reached the
point where he might attain Buddhahood and enter
Nirvana. At the last moment he looked back on a
suffering world, and vowed to return there and discover
an easier way of salvation. He saw there were multi-
tudes who, by reason of their weakness, could not
follow the " Noble Eight-fold path." So, by renewed
struggle and self-sacrifice in this world, he stored up
sufficient merit to save all who attached themselves
to him by faith. Mere repetition of Amidabha's name
would henceforth bring the believer safe — not to Nirvana,
but to a beautiful Western Paradise. True, Nirvana
still remained in the background, as the ultimate goal ;
but to all intents and purposes the Northern Buddhists
were instructed to fix their desires on this very material
conception of a Western Paradise rather than on the
abstract idea of Nirvana. There in Paradise, so they
were taught, Amidabha, the " Boundless Lord of
Life and Light," awaited the arrival of the faithful ;
and so great was his compassionate wish to save men,
that those who called on his name could by that act
THE CHINESE PEOPLE
escape all evil in this world as well as the terrors of
future hells, and so enter into eternal bliss. Associated
with Amidabha in this beneficent work of salvation were
two other avatar, one of whom is Kuan-yin, the bi-
sexual god or goddess of mercy. In China the sex of
this avatar is now female, and she is to this day one of
the principal objects of devoted worship among Chinese
Buddhists, especially among sailors, by whom she is
worshipped as " the Star of the Sea." In her case the
earthly phase of her existence is connected with the
famous legend of a Chinese heroine, who is said to have
lived in the island of P'udu {P'u-t'o), off the mouth of
the river Yangtse — this island being the most sacred
spot in the world in the eyes of Chinese Buddhists.
Stripped of legendary accretions, we can see in all
this a faint resemblance to the Christian doctrine of
salvation by faith in the Triune God and of the goal
of the saved. And some have hastily concluded that
Buddhism, being the older religion, was the source
whence Christianity borrowed these ideas. The real
explanation is that Northern Buddhism most probably
came into contact with Christian thought early in the
Christian era, and that the Christian elements in the
Amidabha cult are due to Buddhist borrowing from
Christian sources. Some of the Triads in the Buddhist
pantheon, such as that of the Buddha, the Law and the
Order, or of the Past, Present and Future Buddhas, are
undoubtedly pre-Christian. But the idea of Amidabha
as a personal Saviour and Lord and of his association
"with two other avatar or manifestations of God in
X. — KUAN-YIN
{To face fi. 182.
AMIDABHA 183
the beneficent work of saving mankind — this has not
been traced further back than the first century in the
Christian era. Japanese Buddhists do indeed profess
to find the germ of the Amidabha theory in a discourse
attributed to Gautama in one of the closing years of
his life ; but the first great Buddhist sage definitely to
preach this doctrine was Asvaghosha, who was handed
over to the invading Scythian king, about a.d. 90, in
ransom for the city of Benares. It is reasonable to
suppose that in the Scythian dominions he came in
contact with Gnostic, Magian and possibly even early
Christian thought. Another great name in the historic
developement of the Amidabha doctrine is that of Nagar-
juna, who is said to have discovered the Mahayana
Scriptures in the Himalayan district in the second
century a.d. Another preacher of the doctrine was
Kumarajiva, who was a native of Eastern Turkestan
and was carried captive to China towards the end of the
fourth century. These two sages had both for a
time preached and taught in those districts north of
India, which were then in the closest touch with religious
thought in Western Asia. Nestorian Christianity mean-
while was pushing eastwards across Asia ; and it is a
significant fact that the Chinese sage, Shan-tao, known
to Japanese Buddhists as Zendo, who simplified and
popularised the Amidabha doctrine in China, propa-
gated his views in Hsi-an fu about the time when the
Nestorian Mission was first established in that city.
Thus much at least has been brought to light by the
original research of the late Rev. Arthur Lloyd, of
1^4 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
Tokyo ; and it is a matter of general regret that he
did not Hve to complete his work and prove his con-
tention that the Amidabha cult in its essence was
directly borrowed from Christian sources. It must be
emphasised again that the Christian elements in this
type of Buddhism, though still prominent in Japan,
have almost died out in China, and that little remains
of them beyond a belief in the efficacy of the invocation
of Amidabha's name, with certain ideas of heaven, hell,
and a continued devotion to Kuan-yin, the goddess of
mercy. Chinese Buddhism as a whole has sunk back
into the slough of superstition, sorcery and magic.
Like the orthodox State Religion and the Taoist Church,
it has failed to supplant the fundamental belief of
Chinese Animism.
The Chinese themselves say, " There are three teach-
ings, but one way." By the " three teachings " they
mean the three religious systems we have described ;
and by the " one way " they seem to indicate the Way
of the Universe and the theory of Yang and Yin. So
that we may conclude this account of religious thought
in China by repeating that not one of the three chief
religious systems of the Chinese is really opposed to
" the Way." On the contrary, each has been super-
added to it, and has tended to preserve rather than
destroy all that " the Way " implies. Nor did the great
sages of China, with their constant striving after better
things, succeed in really raising the tone of Chinese
religious thought and practice. In the region of ethical
moralit}' and philosophical thought, as we shall see in
IV. THE POSITION OF SHANG TI 185
another chapter, they profoundly moved the Chinese
nation ; but not in the domain of religion pure and
simple. Before passing on, however, to a sketch of the
life and message of these great sages, we give, first, some
quotations from Chinese sources, which throw light on
the actual position held, according to Chinese ideas, by
Shang Ti, in relation to the Emperor and to lesser bene-
ficent spirits {shin) ; and we draw attention in the next
chapter to the bearing of certain of their proverbs on
the subject of the religious views of the Chinese, and
append also some notes to illustrate their religion in
practice. The quotations are as follows : —
" In every sacrifice it is the heart that is essential ;
if the heart is perfect it has communion with Heaven
and Earth, and reaches the gods celestial and terrestrial."
{Chiu Tang Shu, c. XXIII.— tenth century.)*
" The High Ruler, Sovereign Heaven, has the rank
of sovereign ; the Rulers of the Five Directions, corres-
ponding to the seasons, rank as subjects. Though the
former and the latter have the title of Ruler in common,
they differ in their rank, which is that of sovereign for
the first and of subject for the others."
" Many years ago (at the fall of the Yiian dynasty)
. . . the High Ruler gave me his invisible help ; the
mountains and streams, having received His orders,
lent me their supernatural aid. . . . Here, now, is the
reason why I make this announcement : I wish that
the fogs and mists in pestilential places may be changed
• This and the following quotations are taken from Cha-
vannes' Le T'ai-chan, pp. 216, 223, 260, 271, 280, 281.
1 86 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
to pure fresh air, that we may stay the rebel chiefs so
that good men may do their work in peace, that the
soldiers may come home quickly and each find his goods
intact so that he may be able to support his parents.
This is my prayer. But I dare not lightly address the
High Ruler {Shang Ti) ; you, 0 god {shen), will kindly
take (my request) into consideration and transmit it
(to Him) on my behalf. My respectful announcement."
(A prayer to T'ai-shan, by the Emperor T'ai Tsu on
the occasion of a rebellion in Kuangsi, a.d. 1395.)
" I carry on my government for the benefit of the
people : you, 0 god, make the waters flow for the use
of living beings : in either case we follow the orders
given us by the High Ruler {Shang Ti). But now the
waters have overflowed their banks. . . . Who will be
held responsible ? No doubt this is the result of my
want of virtue ; but how should you alone, 0 god {shen),
escape blame ? "
(A prayer to T'ai-shan by an Emperor of the Ming
dynasty, a.d. 1452. T'ai-shan, though a great god, is
here placed nearly on a level with the human Emperor ;
but both are absolutely subject to the High Ruler, or
Shang Ti.)
" With respect have I received the order of Heaven
and a heavy charge has been entrusted to my humble
person. It is on me that the people and the gods of
the soil rely ; calamity and prosperity depend on me."
{Idem, A.D. 1455. The Emperor here places himself
above all else, but subject to Heaven, or T'ien.)
" To Thee, O mysteriously-working Maker, I look
IV. THE POSITION OF SHANG TI 187
Up. . . . Thy servant bows his head to the earth. . . .
All the spirits accompany Thee as guards. . . . Thy ser-
vant prostrates himself to meet Thee, and reverently
looks up for Thy coming."*
These words are from a prayer used by the Emperor
at the Altar of Heaven before the year a.d. 1538. In that
year the Emperor Shih Tsung made a change in the
style of address to the High Ruler {Shang Ti), putting
Huang T'ien (Sovereign Heaven) in place of Hao T'ien
(Vast Heaven). On this occasion the ceremonies of a
regular solstitial sacrifice were performed, and six days
earlier the Emperor attended the reading of a paper
giving notice of the intended change at the round
altar, as follows :
"A. B., by inheritance Son of Heaven, of the great
Ming [dynasty] , has seriously prepared a paper to inform
the Spirit of the Sun . . . [here follows a long hst of
shen, or beneficent spirits] that on the first day of the
coming month we shall send our officers and people to
honour the great name of Shang Ti, dwelling in the
Sovereign Heavens. , , . Beforehand we inform you.
. . . and will trouble you ... to exert your super-
natural influence . . . communicating our desire to
Shang Ti . . . "
The hymn sung at the service six days later contains
the following passages :
"Of old in the beginning there was the great chaos,
without form and dark. The five elements had not
* This and the following quotations are from Legge, The
Notions of the Chinese, pp. 24-26, 28-30, with the wording slightly
changed.
THE CHINESE PEOPLE
begun to revolve, nor the sun and moon to shine. In
the midst thereof there existed neither form nor sound.
Thou, O spiritual Sovereign, camest forth in Thy presid-
ency, and first didst divide the grosser parts from the
purer. Thou madest heaven, Thou madest earth and
man. All things, with their reproducing power, got
their being,
" O Ti, when Thou hadst separated the yin and the
yflMg (».(?., earth and heaven) , Thy creating work proceeded.
Thou didst produce, 0 Spirit, the sun and the moon
and the five planets, and pure and beautiful was their
light.
" Thou hast vouchsafed, O Ti, to hear me, for Thou
regardest me as a Father, I, Thy child , . ,
" When Ti, the Sovereign, had so decreed, He called
into existence heaven, earth and man. , . ,
" The service of song is completed, but our poor
sincerity cannot be expressed. Thy sovereign goodness
is infinite. As a potter hast Thou made all living
things. , , .
" With great kindness Thou dost bear with us, and
notwithstanding our demerits, dost grant us life and
prosperity. . . .
" Spirits and men rejoice together, praising Ti the
Sovereign. While we celebrate His great name, what
limit can there be or what measure ? For ever He
setteth fast the high heavens and the sohd earth. His
dominion is everlasting. I, His unworthy servant,
bow my head and lay my head in the dust, bathed in His
grace and glory."
IV. SUMMARY 189
A Summary of the History of Chinese Religion.
I. — At the earliest point at which we can clearly perceive
the Chinese settled in China we seem to be able fairly to
say that there probably was belief in and worship of : —
(i) Shang Ti, the High Ruler (also called Tien,
Heaven) with attributes little inconsistent with
Christian belief about God, unique in his position as
sovereign, but by no means alone in receiving wor-
ship.*
(2) The spirits of
(a) Deceased men, especially ancestors ; and
{h) Natural objects ; with belief in good
and malevolent spirits involved.
II. — ^Worship was led by : —
(i) The head of the State or of the family.
(2) Men or women possessed by a spirit, i.e.,
sorcerers or witches.
The more educated people worshipped with
traditional sacrifices and addresses, or prayers,
without the aid of professional priests, and despised
the less educated who worshipped with the help of
the sorcerers and witches.
III. — ^This state of belief and worship still exists,
but three notable things have occurred in the course of
time : —
(i) c. 100 B.C. — The worship (II. (i) above) of the
educated and less superstitious class was gradually
formulated into a system with elaborate ritual and
* A special form of sacrifice appears to have been reserved
for Shang Ti,
I90 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
service books authorised by the State, which may,
therefore, be called the State Religion or Church
— Jii chiao.
(2) c. A.D. 100. — A Hierarchy or Religious State was
formed, closely allied to the worship (II. (2) above)
of the more superstitious uneducated class, but also
{a) Regarding Lao-tzu as its patron saint.
(&) Practising ascetic and monastic rules
(perhaps borrowed from Buddhism).
(c) Practising means (such as physical exer-
cises) for the prolongation of life and health.
This soon collapsed as a State, but left the exorcist
priesthood better organised than before, and with
some new practices and nomenclature, and this may
be said still to exist under the name of the Taoist
Church — Tao chiao.
(3) c. A.D. 100. — Buddhist missionaries began to
come, bringing with them
[a) A monastic system which has survived.
{h) Doctrinal books, which introduced cen-
turies of religious controversy, now again for
centuries extinct.
(c) A readiness to adapt themselves to the
spirit worship of the Chinese.
Buddhist monks are thus now either meditating
recluses, or (practically) priests of the popular spirit
worship, and form the Buddhist Church — Fo chiao.
Note A.— The State and Taoist Churches appear
together to represent the ancient worship with
IV. SUMMARY 191
comparatively little change. The Buddhist Church
keeps an unmistakably foreign appearance and
character.
Note B. — None of the three churches has, we believe, any
ceremony of admission or initiation for the laity
or would dream of registering statistics of its
adherents. Perhaps no single layman would profess
to be a Taoist ; many, especially women, are devout
but scarcely exclusive Buddhists ; and the vast
majority of men would profess contempt for all
beliefs or practices except those authorised by the
State. The numerous secret societies are probably
the only thoroughly Chinese religious bodies with
duly admitted and registered lay members.
Note C. — The Tao or Way of the Universe, consisting
of the due interaction and opposition of the Yin and
Yang, or negative and positive, principles, is not a
religious belief, though intimately connected with
religion as being controlled by — perhaps created
by — Heaven, and as conformed to (normally) by all
souls, but would be more exactly described as the
basis of physical science and of morality. Religion,
science, and morality were probably not very clearly
distinguished in ancient China, and morality was
connected with religion through science.
Note D. — Dr. de Groot compares the course of Chinese
religion very briefly to a trunk, forking about the
Christian era into two branches (the State and Taoist
Churches), and having a third branch (the Buddhist
Church) grafted on to it at about the same period.
CHAPTER V
Religious Practice
We cannot but feel, after all, that the actions more than
the notions of the Chinese reveal the actual position of
their religious belief, and that some account of Chinese
religions in practice is necessary to complete what we
have said in the last chapter. A brief notice also of
Chinese proverbs as bearing on religious subjects will not
be out of place.
" The genius, wit and spirit of a nation are discovered
in its proverbs." So wrote Lord Bacon ; and in these
utterances from the heart of the nation we find " an in-
xhaustible source of precious documents in regard to
the interior history, the manners, the beliefs, the super-
stitions and the customs of the people among whom they
have had their course."
Chinese proverbs, indeed, are drawn in not a few
instances from their sacred classical writings. The
Analects of Confucius, for instance, consist largely of
apothegms so short, with so much sense, and so many
grains of salt, and likewise so popular, that according to
these signs of a true proverb given by x\rchbishop Trench,
the whole of the sayings of Confucius seem to stand on
the very verge of the proverb region. But very many
Chinese proverbs are gleaned, not so much from the
192
PESSIMISM 193
writings of that sage as from the nation's talk, even as
Shakespeare dehghted to glean his proverbial sayings
from popular speech. And a proverb in Chinese will be
more conclusive and illuminating to a Chinese audience,
a higher and more final court of appeal, than even some
elegant classical quotation. These sayings seem not
seldom to rise into a clearer air than superstition, or
agnosticism or wrongdoing, however clever, can
supply. And not seldom that air is stirred gently by
faith in the unseen and feeling after God :
" If Heaven approves me, then let men despise ;
Loss and reproach are blessings in disguise."
And again : " If a man has done nothing to wound con-
science, a knock may come at dead of night, and he will
not start in alarm." A personal Heaven surely is
appealed to in the one proverb, while in the other con-
science seems almost to be regarded as God's oracle in
the heart. But can a man be always approved of Heaven
and have a conscience " void of offence towards God " ?
" Woe is me," sighs Confucius, " I have never yet met
a man who loved virtue as he loved sensual pleasure ; "
and this sigh the people turn into a proverb half cynical
in its terrible despair and sweeping assertion of the
depravity of human nature : " There are but two good
people, one dead and one not yet born."
Another proverb says : " Even the saints and sages
of old had at least three parts out of ten bad." And
yet : " The good alone can go to the good place. To
the good is the good reward. To the bad the retribution
of evil. Why comes not the reckoning ? Because the
N
194 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
time is not yet full." Is there any hope, then, for sinning
man of change of heart and salvation ? The thunder
of reply is this :
" Go, shake yon mountain range !
Man's nature, who can change ? "
Yet there is place for repentance. " Are you conscious
of fault ? " — and who is not ? — " repent at once and
convert, if haply, if haply you may escape perdition."
Doubt not the presence and power of God :
" Fear'st thou not God ? Be still, O 3oul,
And listen to the thunder roll."
And with that solemn voice of God in their ears, wo
cannot imagine the Chinese soul and conscience fixing
fear and faith only in the Lei kung Lei p'o (the Taoist
" uncle and aunt of thunder "), or in the god of fire.
The proverb points rather to a dim belief in a Supreme
Being, revealed in His eternal power and manifested in
His mighty works. And here again is another proverb,
in which we seem to hear echoes of primal faith, coming
in its origin from a Divine source :
" Heaven has a shining path ; none walk along it ;
Hell's gateless wall to scale, the nations throng it ! "
The uncertainty of human life and the rapid passage
of this human state are often insisted upon. It is a
pilgrim state, and life and this world's homes and stages
are thus recognised in Chinese proverb :
" A rest-shed, call it, by the way,
A tarrying, as we onward fare;
But call it not a dwelling-place
Of long repose from toil and care.*
PROVERBS 195
" Ut migraturus habita."
And on the way you really know not the length of the
stages, and the nearness or remoteness of the goal.
" You cannot tell in the morning what will happen to
you at nightfall." ..." And when night comes slip
off your shoes and stockings with the thought, Shall I
live to put them on in the morning ? "
Yet fear not !
"If in the early dawn you hear and receive the
doctrine" (something deeper and more instructive and
more illuminating to the mind and soul, surely, than
the old Tao of the Universe) " you may die at night and
fear not."
And again, redeem the time if it may be so short and
so uncertain.
" An inch of time, I'm told,
Is worth an inch of gold ;
But more than gold 'twill cost
To ransom time once lost."
And set not your affection on things below. Is not
the far-off echo of that great word, or the preparation
of the heart for its reception, sounded in this proverb ? —
" Gold is empty, silver vain ; and when death comes,
who can clasp them still in his hand ? "
And once more, as either an assertion of man's hopes
and aspirations in the past, not all of the earth earthy,
or as a call faintly heard now, Sursum corda, we find
this proverb famiUar and accepted :
" Heaven's height is not high. Man's heart soars
ever higher."
196 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
We have the same in the Western dress of Tennyson's
hnes :
" The peak is high, and the stars are high,
And the thought of a man is higher."
If we could watch an average Chinese boy or girl from
birth, through childhood, youth, age and on to death, and
know their thoughts and hopes of after death, we should
find that what is religion, in their estimation, of some kind
touches them at almost every turn . The difficulty of such
observation lies in the fact that there is very considerable
difference in the customs of religion or superstition in
different parts of China, and that the true significance
of their ceremonial acts is not easily revealed by them.
There is no separate ceremony of prayer or dedication
of the child at birth. But when the first month is past
the shaving of the baby boy's head is not only a ceremony
of rejoicing and congratulation, but also, being performed
often in the presence of a priest and before the image
of the goddess of Children — a different deity from the
goddess invoked for the gift of children — it has a distinct
religious tone about it. The day of birth is also care-
fully recorded and remembered ; for one reason, because
the date and the special star or constellation ruUng the
day form an essential part in the Taoist fortune-teller's
or geomancer's formulae. Possibly neither more nor less
superstition enters into these beliefs and fancies of the
Chinese than that which finds its expression in the
appeal of a careless, frivolous Enghshman to "the
luck of his stars," or in the ordered and more deliberate
V. NAMES 197
utterances of " Old Moore," and the popular country
oracle, The Green Book, or the prophecies in present-day
books of fashion — for example :
" If your wedding takes place when the March winds roar,
You will spend your life on a foreign shore."
The child is further blessed and protected, sometimes, by
the possession of a significant name. These are manifold,
especially for boys ; but girls also will have a name of
endearment, as well as a more formal adjunct to the
family name. There are parallels, indeed, in Chinese
usage, to the pranomen, nonien, cognomen, agnomen of
the Romans — namely the surname, the " milk-name "
or famiHar and pet appellation, the " book-name,"
given by the schoolmaster on the pupil's entry into
literary life and study, and also a recognised home title
corresponding to our Christian name.
Sometimes, as a familiar name which will cling to
the boy through life, the exact contrary to that state or
nature or virtue which the parent desires for the child
is given him as a name at birth. For example, the boy
is called " Hill-dog," that the terror of the very words
may frighten away and ward off evil influences, which
might make his nature wild and fierce. " Mo-kuei,"
devil, the writer has known to be given to a highly
respectable, if not angelic, mason.
According to Chinese law the legality of marriage is
secured and affirmed by the interchange of papers and
the payment by the bride's parents of the sum fixed at
the betrothal. But though thus defined by law, custom
has lon^ expected and demanded elaborate semi-religious
198 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
ceremonies at the time of marriage. These consist of
the worship of Heaven and Earth, the worship of an-
cestors with the same rites, and then the worship of the
bridegroom's parents, if Hving. ReHgion, or the travesty
of rehgion, then further touches the newly married when
they set up their own house and have their own kitchen.
Sometimes as many as three or four generations hve and
grow up round the aged parents in the old home, the
whole clan being accommodated in one compound, but
each family having a separate estabhshment as a rule.
And in each kitchen the god of the kitchen is placed over
the oven, represented by a small image or almost always
by an inscription on paper, and renewable every year on
the second or third day of the first month. The sup-
position or belief is that this deity watches and notes
every day the proceedings of the family, especially
observing the talk of the women while they work and
cook and gossip. On New Year's Eve this god is sup-
posed to ascend to the courts above with the report of
the family under whose roof he has spent the year.
On this night special offerings are presented before the
kitchen god, with the hope of concihating him and
inducing him to give as favourable a report as possible.
The removal of this god from the kitchen and the tearing
off of the " door-gods " — sheets of brightly coloured
pictures pasted on the entrance gates of the house — form
one of the surest signs of a Chinaman's hearty reception
of the Christian faith.
All through life superstition and the awe of evil
spiritual influences and the fear of the evil eye, or of
V. PESTIVAL^ 199
misadventure and bad fortune, beset and entangle
the Chinese. Is a child born, a son, and then
daughters following ; does the dearly-prized son die
with a tempest of weeping ; and then does another
son come in due course ? That son's soul must be bound
tight to his body, all through childhood and youth, and
even to manhood, by a ring of silver wire placed round
his neck by his mother's loving, anxious hand, and never
removed day or night.
The question has often arisen how it is possible for the
Chinese working classes to live lives at all wholesome
or endurable. They are diligent and apparently un-
remitting in their work, notably so the agricultural and
artisan class, and clerks and assistants in shops, and
yet they have no weekly rest-day or even half-holidays.
The only universal holiday is New Year's Day, but some
relief from incessant toil is brought by the rather fre-
quent occurrence of festivals and special days of com-
memoration, which are largely observed and are all
connected more or less with religion ; and this religious
sanction more than any written law seems to secure
their observance and to raise the consequent hoUday
almost to a legal position. These poor substitutes for
the sacred Sabbath of body and soul, being under the
sanction of one or other of the Chinese religions, the
temples are resorted to or idolatrous rites are performed
at home. The observances connected with the coming
in of the Chinese New Year have often been described
by travellers and residents in China. They are partly
religious and partly social, and in the latter aspect
200 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
serve as a kind of safety-valve for the long pent-up
spirits of the people during the year that is past. It
is probable that these observances will survive the
change of the date of the New Year Festival from that
fixed by the Chinese lunar calendar to the Western style.
The Chinese year has hitherto been lunar, but its com-
mencement is regulated by the sun, the New Year falling
in the first new moon after the sun has entered Aquarius.
It thus comes not before the 21st of January and not
after the 19th of February. To rectify the calendar
seven intercalary months are added in every nineteen
years.
The approach of the season is generally preheralded
at night by a gradually increasing noise of crackers and
other fireworks, and in the day by a general air of
bustle and preoccupation. Once in the year at least,
and for many, once in the year at most, everything is
washed and scrubbed and cleansed. The very frame-
work of their paper windows is taken apart and floated
to and fro in the streams and canals, and boatmen in this
season beach their smaller craft for fresh painting and
overhauling. New charms are affixed to doors and
windows and to the stern sheets and bows of boats.
The passage from the old to the new year is called " the
stepping over the high threshold," and those who
cannot pay their debts before New Year's Eve — called,
with the vain hope of prolonging the time of grace to
the utmost stretch, " the 32nd night" (Chinese months
have only twenty-nine or thirty days) — are supposed
to stumble and fall as they try to cross the threshold.
THE NEW YEAR 201
The old and new year so govern individual life that a
chUd born on the last day of the old year is considered
as entering on his second year the next morning. The
aspect of the streets on a fine New Year's morning in
old times was lively and almost brilliant, especially so
from the graceful costumes of both men and women in
old China. They are out for their New Year's calls,
and everyone will appear, if possible, in long robes and
jackets of silk and satin, with their red-buttoned and
tasselled skull caps on, and the queues (now gone for
ever probably) of the children adorned with twisted
red cord or silk. These fine clothes can be hired, the
price being gradually lowered as the hours of the first
six days pass by. We complained once of the very
late arrival of a caller, who should have been among
the first to salute us. He replied that money was
scarce and he was obliged to wait for the cheapest day
to secure a fine robe already donned and doffed by a
dozen others. When the calls are over, or during these
ceremonial days, the whole community seems to give
itself over to indiscriminate gambling, a practice illegal
and condemned both by Chinese law and standards of
morality, but winked at during this season. At night
also, and sometimes, if the weather is cold and gloomy,
during the daytime, numbers of lads and elders too
assemble in a large shed or in some house, and, with
doors and shutters closed, lay hold on every instrument
of music or article which can make a noise. Without
programme or fugleman or conductor or rhyme or
reason, save the inspiration of hilarity, they seem to get
203 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
intoxicated with the gladness of noise, and the din
swells and dies away and breaks out again till they
cease from very exhaustion.
Kite-iiying, a very high art with the Chinese, is the
special amusement, and for many old people almost the
solemn duty during these early spring days. Their
paper kites are multiform, some like the birds so called,
some like a magnificent mosquito or a dragon or a
centipede, some in the shape of a Chinese picture word,
such as sun or spring or good luck ; and the air resounds
with the aeolian note of these kites, fitted with tight-
drawn harp-strings, or of pigeons with tiny bows tight-
strung under their wings or bamboo whistles fastened
to their tails. At night, with a strong warm south-east
wind blowing, the sky is bright with lanterns attached
to these kites and soaring to a great height. The boys
on their return from school fly the kites, and grey-headed
grandfathers seated gravely on bamboo chairs hold the
kite-string in one hand and their long tobacco-pipe in
the other.
Again, on the first day of spring, if our friend be a
farmer, for instance, the observances will especially
touch his life. On that day, which in the Old Style, as
we must now call it, occurs early in February, a clay ox
is exhibited in the courtyards of the city temples through-
out the Empire, with civic and semi-religious rites, and
afterwards tumultuously broken to pieces by the
people. The current story and belief would tell us
that the colours of the animal, by which the fortunes of
the year are discerned, are distributed over the plain
V. THE PIRST DA Y OF SPRING 203
surface of the clay by supernatural agency in Pekin
at the close of the old year ; and are thence officially
promulgated in every province and every district. A
colourless model of an ox in flour or clay is kneaded
into shape and wrapped in straw, and it is then placed
with a brush and paints in an empty room of the Astro-
nomical Board in Pekin. Another version of the story
places the brush in the hands of a blind man, who,
without hint or guidance, traces the fatal or fortunate
colours on the animal. Whether effected by seen or
unseen agency the colours are there next morning.
Four feet high and eight feet long, the ox speaks th^^i
to the empire. A preponderance of green means illness
and high wind ; black means disastrous rainfall ; red
points to fiery heat in the summer, and to incendiarism ;
white, as well as black, means bad weather ; and yellow
preponderating means good harvests. The City magis-
trate, after due incantations, touches the ox with his
wand. The crowd rushing in knocks it to pieces, and
the husbandmen scramble for the fragments to mix
with the manure for their fields.
The birthday of the sun occurs in the third month.
The ceremonies of the fifth day of the fifth month also
are especially observed, when in certain regions of
Mid-China every house-door has a sword of rushes
exhibited in commemoration of an ancient hero. This
hero, determining to rescue the city and district of
Ningpo from a river-dragon and his yearly toll of a
boy and girl, plunged into the river on a white horse,
armed with a sword made of rushes, and piercing the
204 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
dragon to death gave up his own hfe in the conflict.
The waters were tinged as by the red of peach-blossoms,
and bear still the impress of the story in the name
the " Peach-flower Ferry." At this time also occurs
the " Dragon-boat Festival," lasting nearly five days,
and observed as a holiday. It is accompanied by idola-
trous and superstitious rites, with charms and incan-
tations in every private house. Long and slender boats,
carrying fifteen to twenty men each, race on the canals,
in memory, so the most reUable legend declares, of a
premature reformer 2,300 years ago, who, seeing his sug-
gested schemes refused by the prince, and fearing the ruin
of his country, plunged into the river and was drowned.
The festival of the god and goddess of thunder,
another reUgious hohday, follows in the sixth month
about the close of July ; and the seventh month, during
which the spirits of the departed are imagined as released
for a month from the grave or Hades, and potent
then for curse or blessing, is marked by frequent cere-
monies, which imply frequent breaks also in the routine
of labour. The mid-autumnal feast in the eighth
month, the Chinese " St. Luke's Summer," and the
celebration of the winter solstice, three days before
Christmas Day, complete, but with many minor or
more local celebrations, the Chinese Calendar ; and all in
some sense enliven the monotony of the life we are
imagining from youth to age, and keep also continu-
ally before the Chinese family religious thought of a
certain kind, or something of that dnaidaiijoviaTtpoi*
* Cf. Acts, xvii. 22.
V. PILGRIMAGES 205
spirit which was St. Paul's estimate of the Athenian
rehgion.
Besides these festival days and the holidays secured
by them for those who can afford it, longer intervals are
arranged by very many, chiefly women devotees, for
pilgrimages to sacred places, or to special temples on
the patronal festival of the god or hero worshipped
there. During the early and mid-spring days,
largely with the hope of securing good luck for the
harvest, when sowing and setting are now beginning,
vast numbers of men and women resort to the great
temples on the western shores of " Half of Heaven on
Earth," the Hangchow Lake — Soochow, with its beauties
of nature and art completing, in Chinese estimation, the
earthly paradise,
P'u-t'o, a green island on the southern fringe of the
Chusan archipelago, the central shrine, as it may be called,
of Northern Buddhism, is visited by yet greater and
more continuous crowds of devotees. The great temples
in the fastnesses of the mountains round T'ien-t'ai, in
South Chekiang, also attract multitudes of pilgrims.
The Chinaman, whose experience and mode of hfe and
religious thought, from youth to age, we are trying to
sketch, will find, however, the difficulties in his path
not a few ; and the contradictions of the professors and
teachers and philosophic exponents of the gods whom
they ignorantly worship, if he stops to think, irritating
in their perplexity. But very few do stop to think.
Here, for instance, at his very doorway, and either
presiding over or identical with the earth, the soil round
2o6 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
his house suggests a god of the soil. The fear or rever-
ence and adoration of this god, we are told by modern
scholars to regard as " the lowest substratum which we
can clearly trace of religious thought in China " ; and they
state that " the worship of the god of the soil and
the ceremonies of the ancestral temple come nearer
to origins than any other religious observance." Yet it
is significantly added that from the very first the
superiority of heaven was assumed, and the dependence
of earth on heaven. This must surely point to a prior
behef in and worship of a God of Heaven, a Supreme
and Omnipotent Ruler, from which this lower worship
marks decline and departure, not being itself the original
essence. Here we encounter a fresh conflict of origins.
We have noticed above how the teaching of the great
Tao of the universe in the dual and sometimes antago-
nistic principles of the Yin and the Yang, darkness and
light, gloom and sunshine, cold and warmth, earth and
heaven, moon and sun, evil and good, forms really the
original substance of Chinese religious thought. Yet
in this old worship of the god of the soil we find this
soil, this representative of the inferior and at times
malevolent Yin, regarded as " the ultimate source of
all human blessings and the god also of family pros-
perity." The deity of the soil was regarded in very
early times as essentially a family Earth god, and was
placed in imagination where " the central rain-hole,"
in the very ancient mud-huts or caves, let in the influence
of heaven to the very centre of the home. Here again
is an obvious indication, at any rate in more ancient times.
V. THE GOD OF THE SOIL 207
of harmonious and beneficent interaction rather than of
antagonistic conflict between the Yin and Yang. The wor-
ship of this family god was further extended to worship
by groups of twenty-five famihes, and then it spread fur-
ther to the inhabitants generally, so that the soil even
of a district or province came to be jointly worshipped.
The worship of the god of the harvest was almost
identified with that of the god of the soil, the soil being
regarded as the mother or nurse of the harvest. At
worship of this kind, officials (sub-prefects of the district
or even the governors of the province) would preside.
The altars set up to the Shi, or lares rustici, and to Chi,
the Ceres of the Chinese, are recorded as erected a.d. 26,
open to Heaven with no roof over them, but only a wall
and gates surrounding. It is interesting to notice
further how fei'sh worship must have been early
developed from the very ancient custom of planting a
tree by the altar or of erecting the altar by the side of a
tree. In this tree the power of the soil is manifested,
and that power is worshipped by the worship of the tree.
In Shantung at the present time tree-worship (chiefly of
the Sophora Japonica) is very prevalent, and the inscrip-
tions written everywhere over Taoist or Buddhist way-
side shrines, or in their temples, " Ask and ye shall
obtain," or, " If you pray the answer is sure," are in-
scribed also on banners hung on the tree and are regarded
as utterances of the earth god dwelling in that tree. We
are faced once more by the confusioTi and contradiction of
ancient and modern religious thought, for the god of the
soil, this Earth or Yin, becomes, according to some rather
2o8 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
doubtful Chinese authorities, a feminine divinity and the
consort of Heaven, the great Yang.
To return from this digression — besides the rehgious
influences and suggestions round an ordinary Chinaman,
which have been already mentioned, he would have
frequent opportunity for direct worship in the temples
of the land, though a very large proportion of the
worshippers in Buddhist or Taoist temples are women.
The worship in Confucian temples, which, as we have
seen, is one of the highest forms of ancestral wor-
ship, is for the most part official, though the people
generally, especially in their school and student life,
periodically reverence the name and memory and
tablet of Confucius by a more private worship. The
Wen-miao, the literary temple of Confucius, must, by
the old laws of China, be erected in every prefecture,
sub-prefecture and district, and also in every considerable
market-town in the Empire. Any convenient site
within the walls of the town may be selected, but in all
cases the building must face south. The essentials of
the temple are much the same ever3Avhere, only varying
in size and completeness. It must have three courts,
which generally follow a line from south to north. The
outermost court is called the P'an kimg, after the name
given to State colleges in the Chou dynasty, B.C. 1122 —
255. It is bounded by a wall called the Hang ch'iang.
after the name of colleges under the Han dynasty,
206 B.C. — A.D. 220, thus hnking the sage's memory with
the old times before him and after him. This wall is
coloured red, which is the prevailing colour of the temple
V. THE TEMPLE OF CONFUCIUS 209
generally, whereas the outer walls of family ancestral
temples are all coloured black. This special wall in the
Confucian temple has no gate, until a student in the
district succeeds in obtaining the title of Chuang-yiian,
or First of the Chin-shih doctors ; and when this highest
distinction is gained, the middle portion of the wall is
removed and a gate substituted, through which, however,
no one but such a doctor of letters and an Emperor
or prince may pass. To the north of this wall is an
ornamental arch of wood and stone, called " the spiritual
star portal," and beyond this the semi-circular " College
pool," sweeping from east by south to west. This is
spanned by the arched bridge or royal bridge, which
again no one but the dignitaries mentioned above may
pass over. The north side of the court in which we now
are is usually planted with trees, while on the west side
stands a room in which animals for sacrifice are kept.
The north side has, behind the trees, one large hall with
a great door opened only for the special and privileged
visitors. On each side of this door is a small door leading
to the next and principal court, on entering which, two
long narrow buildings are seen, extending along the east
and west walls. They contain the tablets in chrono-
logical order of former worthies. We are now approach-
ing the central shrine. Between these two corridors
stands " the vermiHon porch," and the court here is
planted with cypress or oka fragrans. Above this porch
is a stone platform, " the moon-terrace," a survival of
custom in the Chou times, and an undesigned honour,
perchance, to the despised Yin principle.
0
2IO THE CHINESE PEOPLE
And now, close by, we reach " the Hall of Great
Perfection," the temple proper. In the middle of the
north wall, " superior and alone," sometimes in a large
niche and sometimes merely resting on a table, is the
Sage's tablet, with an altar before it, and overhead short
eulogistic inscriptions. This tablet is the " throne of
the soul," the supposed resting-place of the three divisions
into which the soul of the departed is separated at
death. Next below this central and supreme tablet
are others (each pair with an altar) of " the Four As-
sociates." The first is the philosopher Yen, " the Sage
who returned," unwearying in study, diUgent in the
practice of what he learnt, living in deep poverty, yet in
unclouded cheerfulness, never repeating a fault once
pointed out, tender-hearted, virtuous, trustful, re-
proving even his adored master by his trustfulness and
soothing him by his harp and song. The summer day of
this noble-hearted disciple closed all too early. He died
at the age of thirty-two amid the despairing tears of his
aged master. No wonder, then, that he stands so "near
the great Sage. The second associate is the philosopher
Tseng, " the founder Sage," as he has been called, or
the exhibitor of the fundamental principles of Con-
fucius. He was dull and slow of speech, but renowned
even to a fault for his filial piety, especially towards his
mother, with whom he had almost an electric chord of
sympathy, and withal so deep and learned a scholar that
to him Confucius entrusted the education of his after-
wards celebrated grandson. The third is this very grand-
son himself, the philosopher Tzu-ssu, " the transmitting
THE TEMPLE OF CONFUCIUS
Sage," as he is called. He merited the title not only by
the composition of the Chung-yung, described below,
the Doctrine of the Mean, but also by his teaching and
handing down the Sage's general doctrines and writings.
The fourth is Mencius, with the title, " the Sage who is
second " — only second to Confucius, as the words
probably and justly mean, and we could almost wish to
see him placed, not only in title but actually, nearer his
great master, as a loyal and enthusiastic pupil and
exponent. Then follow lower in the hall the tablets of
" the twelve wise ones," six on each side of the hall, and
also furnished with altars. There is yet one more court,
called " the Ancestral Hall of Exalted Sages," and placed
behind or on the east side of the principal court. The
official residence of " the Director of Studies," who is in
charge of the temple, stands close by, and Government
students are accommodated in buildings within or close
outside the temple precincts.
We have given these details at length, for their interest,
not insignificant in themselves, is greatly enhanced by
the reflection that the passing away of these buildings,
as well as of many of the Buddhist and Taoist shrines,
by their complete secularisation, if not their demohtion,
is imminent in China at the time we write. And if
ancient history is worth preserving at all, these features
and dominant factors in that history are worthy of
permanent record.*
Buddhist temples called Ssii or An, as distinguished
* See Guide to the Tabled in a Temple of Confucius, by T.
Walters.
THE CHINESE PEOPLE
from the Confucian Miao and from the Taoist temples
Kung or Kuan, have some features of similarity of
arrangement. But they possess a different atmosphere
and a different significance. Confucian and ancestral
temples generally are for the commemoration and
reverence and cullus of the great departed. Buddhist
and Taoist temples and monasteries (Taoist monasteries
being, however, now very scarce), are the abodes of
living expounders of the Buddhist and Taoist doctrines,
living devotees and recluses and living priests, and are
open for the worship singly or in company of the people
generally, addressed to images representing deities of
living and present power. Buddhist monasteries are
almost ubiquitous, except in certain districts, with the
object either of providing places of worship and devotion
and divination to city and country village alike, or of
securing scenes of natural beauty, on lofty mountain
plateau or in secluded upland valley, for the delectation
of the recluse and the worshipper. Hither also come
devotees from the plains with the prospect of merit,
sometimes at the cost of Hfe to the aged, accruing from
a toilsome and difficult ascent.
The arrangement of a Taoist temple with monastery
buildings is not unlike that of Confucian temples. There
will be the same semi-circular ponds and sacred bridges,
the same groves of trees on the north side, and along
the north wall many shrines for worship of minor Taoist
deities. The same three courts will also be seen, only
in both Taoist and Buddhist temples the entrance is
guarded, not by a dead wall, but by a portico with
XI. — BODHISATWA AND ATTENDANT
[To face p. 213.
V. BUDDHIST TEMPLES 213
janitors, some dark, as indicative of the Indian origin of
Buddhism, and all with a threatening aspect, except
" the smihng Buddha " (Maitreya), who often appears
with his stout and placid and radiant form sitting at the
entrance to welcome worshippers. The central hall in
either Buddhist or Taoist temples stands in the second
or main court, and is approached by many steps. Buddha
— the historic Gautama — sits in the centre of his own
temple, gilded over the whole surface of his image, and
with a lotus-flower as his throne. On his right is usually
Ananda, the writer of the sacred books of the religion,
and on his left, Kashyapa, the keeper of its esoteric
traditions. Very frequently one of the Buddhist
Triads is represented, such as the Buddha of the Past,
of the Present and of the Future ; or again, Amidabha
often forms the centre of a group of other avatar.
Before this central shrine in the larger temples and
monasteries matins at 3.30 a.m. and evensong at 5 p.m.
are sung antiphonally by a choir of priests, and here the
chief prostrations and offerings are made, and fortunes
are ascertained by drawing lots before the idol. Here
through the mingled influences of the awe inspired by
these gigantic, silent images of the Buddha and of
bribes of sweets and other gifts mysteriously placed by
parents and grandparents in the little hands as from the
god, idolatry is stamped sometimes indelibly on the minds
of China's children. There is an ambulatory behind
this central shrine, and here the image of Kuan-yin, the
goddess of Mercy, is placed and largely resorted to by
the worshippers.
214 T^HE CHINESE PEOPLE
The chief image in the Taoist central shrine, half
veiled and with a tablet in his hand, is that of Yii-huang
Shang-ti, But here also a threefold object of worship
is often exhibited, " the Three Pure Ones," the central
figure being Lao-chiin (Lao-tzu) himself. The mutual
toleration of these religions, or rather perhaps the power
of absorption which Buddhism possesses is remarkable.
In some temples, on either side of Buddha, stand rows
of the deva of Hindu mythology, Brahma, Indra, Shakra,
honouring Buddha by reverent attention and offerings
of flowers, and in Taoist temples Buddhist objects of
worship are placed in positions of honour.
The temple of the " god of the walls and moat,"*
the tutelary deity of the city, is another prominent object
in every walled town. It forms a common resort, a kind
of club or meeting-place, for popular demonstrations,
as well as a place for worship and divinations. The images
in these temples are treated with greater familiarity
than those in Buddhist or Taoist shrines. They are
carried about pubhcly in procession at certain seasons,
for luck when harvest is near or for exorcising influence
when the spirit of pestilence is abroad ; and sometimes
these images are exposed in the temple courts to fierce
sun or pitiless rain to compel them to interfere with
and countermand drought and flood.
For an ordinary Chinaman, such as the one whose
Hfe we are imagining, there is one observance which will
affect him from time to time more immediately than
* This and similar temples belong to the State religion, and
are under direct control of the magistrates, but are often managed
by Taoist, or even by Buddhist, priests.
V. FiNG-SHUI 21 s
any other. It is an observance — call it religious or call
it superstitious — that is, as Professor Giles assures us,
" the most persistent and most influential on national
life of all Chinese observances "— namely feng-shui,
the " wind and water " system of geomancy. It is so
called, say some, because it is a thing like wind, which
you cannot comprehend, and like water, which you
cannot grasp. The behefs and practices connected
with this superstition cluster chiefly, though not alto-
gether, round death and the abode of the departed.
Our friend's future undisturbed repose in the grave, he
has been told, must depend on good or bad feng-shui ;
but besides " the changes and chances of this mortal
hfe," the luck of a new-built house, for instance, and
of the dwellers there and similar mundane events and
arrangements are also minutely handled and controlled
by these influences.
The system is a very ancient one, at least as old as the
I-ching, 3,500 years ago ; but the modern and more
familiar system was founded by Chu Hsi, so compara-
tively recently as the Sung dynasty 700 years ago.
This too, as well as so very much else of ancient
China— her Hterature, her pohty, her educational sys-
tem, her very script — seems doomed to obliteration ;
and it may be worth the while to give, ere all has passed
away, a brief sketch of this system.
Four divisions guide and control the scheme—^/, the
general order of nature ; shu, her numerical proportion ;
ch'i, her vital breath and subtle energies ; hsing, her form
and outward aspect. Blend these four harmoniously
2i6 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
and you obtain a perfect feng-shui. Now, three prin-
ciples underlie such attempted blending : first. Heaven
rules Earth ; secondly, both Heaven and Earth influ-
ence all Hving beings, and man has power to turn this
influence to the best account for his own advantage ;
thirdly, the fortunes of the living depend also on the
good-will and influence of the dead. Here comes in
of necessity ancestral worship. Under li, the order of
nature, the number five is considered mysteriously
dominant. Under shu, the number of the elements in
nature, the ancients spoke of six elements, the
moderns of five only, namely, metal, wood, water, fire,
earth. Chu Hsi harmonised the two, and taking ten,
or twice five, as the sacred number for Heaven, and
twelve, or twice six, as the sacred number for Earth, he
constructed from these ten " stems " and their twelve
" branches," and from their combinations, the cycle
of sixty names designating now successive years. He
did not invent indeed the cycle, but systematised it
for the purposes of feng-shui. A clever geomancer,
armed with this intricate but meaningless array of
formulae, imposes with ease on his ignorant and super-
stitious customers. The soul of man is, the Chinese
suppose, twofold — the hun and the p'o — the animus,
that is the breath of Heaven, returning thither, and
the anima, that is the quasi-material or animal nature,
returning to Earth. Each of these is sub-divisible.
There are three hun, as described below, and six or
seven p'o ; but the main distinction is between hun
and P'o, and the people, modifying the idea, suppose
V. THE SOUL 217
the dead as chained to the tomb by the quasi-material
soul, while the spiritual nature hovers round the old
home. Therefore, as there must still be action and
reaction of the two parts on one another, the comfort
of the corpse makes the earthly soul complacent, and as
it flashes complacency to the spiritual soul as well, pros-
perity to the house of the living is secured by its unseen
influence. And here comes in the art of the feng-shui
geomancer, in securing a fortunate site for a grave,
open to the beneficent influences of the south, guarded
with fences of trees against noxious northern influences,
with water in front as an emblem of wealth and affluence,
and straight lines in paths and watercourses carefully
avoided or artificially diverted, so as to baffle and
turn aside the evil spirits from their onward course.
We have conducted our Chinese friend thus far ; or
rather he in his ancient or more modern beliefs and
superstitions has led us on. He dies, and, on a day, and
in a place chosen according to the geomancer' s manifold
art, he is buried ; and we leave him there, adding a brief
sketch below of ordinary burial customs. Would that
it were in each case with the Christian hope full of im-
mortality ! The doctrine and belief of the Resurrection
of the Body and the life of the World to come are, as
Westcott describes them, a Gospel revealed from one
oracle alone. But there seem here and there, in ancient
philosophy and belief, dreams of what may be, though
no assertion of what shall be. One custom, the connec-
tion of a white cock with a funeral if it has been long
delayed, is generally described as a sacrifice to the manes
21 8 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
or to the god of the soil or to other spiritual influences.
Socrates remarked, just before his death, that he owed
a cock to Asclepius, and Crito promised to pay the debt.
Jowett thinks it possible that Socrates, recognising the
fact of immortality and of hfe, finer life, after death,
considered himself as restored by death to health — life
here being but the portal to life hereafter, and that he
desired to offer the customary sacrifice to the great
Healer not of sickness alone, but whose voice brought back
the dead also from the grave. Now the Chinese admit
that they cannot trace the origin of this connection of
the cock with funerals. We have seen the white cock,
either a living bird or an imitation in white paper, on
hundreds of coffins being transported by sea or river
from distant provinces to their ancestral homes, and
evidently not for sacrifice. Now, the cock is the bird
not of the darkness but of the dawn, and intimately
connected with the healing and life-giving power of
the sun ; and in Japan the white cock was always
connected with the worship of the Sun-goddess. Is
it possible that in the Chinese funereal bird we have
a trace of a forgotten sign of the ancient revealed
belief in a Resurrection — " at cock-crowing or in the
morning " of the Eternal Day ? But perhaps Dr.
de Groot's suggestion that the white cock, "fit to
serve the spirits," is meant to give strength to the spirit
weakened by the delay in its burial, is more in accordance
with current beliefs. The burial customs of the Chinese
in all their complex ritual and elaborate ceremonial, are
chiefly significant of only one department in religious
V. THE SOUL AFTER DEATH 219
thought and belief — the conviction and apprehension
of life after death. The cold, careless, godless exclama-
tion. " you die — and there is the end," though heard
occasionally, is seldom uttered seriously, or really believed.
" After death the judgment " guides their beliefs in the
mystery of the immortal soul. The soul, the life, the
spirit (the words are sometimes too carelessly inter-
changed)—or as the Chinese say, " the three-inch-long
breath" — is separated at death. One part enters the
unseen world and goes to judgement before the Lord of
Hades, arrested by a messenger mercifully tardy, shod
with one sandal only. Another soul or division resides
in the " spirit's throne," or " seat," in the ancestral
tablet, placed in some recess of the house of the departed,
or in the temple, or at the side of the tombstone ; thus
serving for the rites of the State ancestral religion. The
third follows the corpse to the grave after hovering
round the old home, and listening unmoved to the wail
uttered at the four corners of the house, " Come, come,
come back ! " Periodic wailing and lamentation are
heard by every tomb, addressed as to one still living
though with the dead. And yet, in the confusion of
their sorrow, they either imagine the soul to have passed
safely the verdict of the last judgement, or anticipate its
release. They provide for its use in the mysterious after-
world fragile structures of bamboo and paper, to repre-
sent house and furniture and other needed possessions,
and also bank notes and coin made of silver tinsel and
purchased at Buddhist or Taoist temples. These are
burnt and thus conveyed to the spirit world.
THE CHINESE PEOPLE
It is probably the new life of transmigration for which,
where Buddhist influence prevails, the mourners chiefly
hope. Yet the extreme care of the corpse, shown by its
complete and ample apparel, besides that wafted by
burning into the spirit world, or the great thickness of
the coffins in all except pauper funerals, or the great out-
lay in the building of elaborate tombs, seems to share
with the Egyptian customs of embalming a hope of the
continuance or restitution of the body thus carefully
guarded and preserved. "At the end of all things there
will surely be some turning of the stone, some uphfting
of fortune for me," is a well-known proverb, and appears,
in a form now tinged with Buddhist ideas of " the Yellow
Springs" (the nether world), now of more direct antici-
pation, on many tombstones. Yet in the confusion of
their behefs, even this care of the tomb and the contin-
uous sacrifices and prayers and offerings by their side
seem limited ; as though faith and love and hope cannot
bear up for long amidst the silence and gloom of death.
Filial piety is supposed to be satisfactorily observed,
if for three generations the tombs are kept in due repair,
a calculation possibly based on another familiar proverb
indicative of the influence of the dead on the living —
" The elder generation stamps its image on the younger ;
our ancestors influence even to the third generation —
unerringly like the drops from the roof above falling
on precisely the same indentation of the pavement
below."
God, indeed, has not left Himself without witness
to the nations of the earth. His philanthropy and His
VANITY OF CHINESE RELIGION
benevolence in " rain and fruitful seasons," and His
eternal power and godhead in His creation, before the
eyes of men, are revealed and speak. Sometimes men and
women have wakened up to see that sign and hear that
voice ; and we believe that in instances beyond our
reckoning those who thus followed the sign and obeyed
the voice have found Him. But these religions or
religious practices in China, and notably the religions
of India and the magic and superstitions of other faiths,
are not the discoveries of God promised to the true
feeler after Him, but much the reverse. They manifest
rather blindness and deafness to God's signs and
voice, leading the people (" without hope " because
" without God in the world," and " all gone astray,
turning to their own way " — the world in fact " lying
in wickedness," and yet called and called again
by God through their dreams) to slumber on or, half-
awake for awhile, to turn again to the death-like
sleep of worshipping and serving the creature more
than the Creator.
This conclusion, at any rate, may be drawn from
this and the previous chapter, and it is one which
directly affects and appeals to the Christian Church.
There is nothing in the history of Chinese religious
thought and practice in the past centuries which can
lull the conscience of the Church to sleep with the fancy
that China has not been so badly off after all with her
own faiths, and that the Church's negligence in the high
enterprise of evangeHsing the world has been at worst
a venial offence. Neither, on the other hand, is there
222 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
any excuse in the present for the continuance of that
apathy or the relaxing of such efforts as the Church is
putting forth. China in her old religions, in her new
life, in her pohtical and intellectual awakening, is still
without true hope if without Christ and without His
unique and universal salvation.
CHAPTER VI
China's Sages
It has not been felt possible within the limits of the
last two chapters, or, indeed, adequately within
the limits of the book itself, to present a full
conspectus of religious thought and beUef in China,
ancient, mediaeval and modem. It may form, however,
a useful complement to our narrative and discussion
in the previous chapters if we present in this and a
following chapter some account of China's leaders of
thought and religious teachers — whether her own sages
and scholars or those who have come to her from the
West. And first of all we tell the story of Confucius.
It is not, however, to be supposed that there were no
ethical and religious teachers before Confucius. But
with the exception of Lao-tzii, who was his senior by some
years, his predecessors have left only fragmentary and
disjointed records of their teaching. Moreover, Con-
fucius is regarded by the Chinese themselves as without
doubt their greatest sage. Can we then overleap in
fancy 2,400 years, and see and hear first of all Confucius
as he was and as he spoke ? Will the sight and the
hearing enable us to define or even to conjecture the
causes of his fame and abiding influence ? We use the
words " abiding influence " advisedly : for it is difficult
323
224 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
to believe that the attempt recently made by some
ardent spirits of Young China to discredit and banish
from their curriculum of education the writings of
Confucius and Mencius, as out of accord with Republican
principles, can succeed, save with grave discredit cast
upon Chinese intelligence and most justifiable amour-
propre.
And yet reasons for this long rule over the thoughts
and intellect and manners of a great nation do not appear
on the surface. Confucius performed no very striking
or awe-inspiring act, no great conquest of men's bodies —
or even of their minds — and no great salvation of life.
His writings and teachings contain no special revelation
or deep discovery of philosophy. He was, in his own
words, " a transmitter, not a creator." In Dr. Legge's
words :
" He was not before his age, though he was above the
mass of the officers and scholars of his time. He threw
no new light on any of the questions which have a world-
wide interest. He gave no impulse to religion. He had no
sympathy with progress." He died under a cloud of
despondency as to the triumph of his principles.
How do we account, then, for his fame and his
influence ? The answer of thoughtful Chinese will prob-
ably be that his mind was set on righteousness.
Confucius was canonized about the year 206 B.C. ; the
Han Emperor sacrificed at his grave 195 B.C. ; in the
year a.d. i a temple was erected to his honour by
imperial decree, in which sacrifices were to be offered to
his manes. Since the year a.d. 739 he has been
XH. — CONFUCIUS
[ To face p. 225.
CONFUCIUS 225
recognised as the chief national object of sacrificial
honours ; whilst in the year a.d. 1008 and ever since
the title of " Most Perfect Sage " has been applied to
him ; but his actual deification dates from as recent
a period as the last century. The life and character
which led to such posthumous fame deserve deeper
study than can be offered in a few paragraphs in a
chapter of biographies. How great a man Confucius
must have been ! For by the simple story of his Hfe
and work and teaching he has won the homage, the
affection, and latterly the very adoration, with divine
honours, of the Chinese nation. Yet, on the other hand,
he attained not to the highest rank of the truly great,
since he failed to touch as a teacher and leader of thought
and of morals those springs of higher life which no such
teacher can afford to neglect.
We look back now across the tumults and the calms
of this troublesome world : the birth and growth, the
darkness and the dawn, and the enlightenment at last
of Europe and the West ; and over the dynastic cyclones
and long glorious stretches of peace in Chinese history ;
and we see, on an October morning, 2,400 years ago
(October 3, 552 B.C.), lying in the " mulberry-tree
cavern," so the later legends say, a little new-born boy,
remarkable — so history says— for nothing save a strange
protuberance on his forehead. The legendary myths,
which gather round Confucius and his mother and the
circumstances of his birth, follow at some considerable
distance of time, as is the wont with myths, and do
fiot precede the histor>', but were added by enthusiastic
226 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
devotees, as a requirement to justify their hero's glory.
There is nothing in the real history of his parentage
and birth and after career to warrant the almost super-
stitious awe and reverence, and eventually the actual
worship with which his name came to be regarded.
" Welcome to the Divinity " is the title of one stanza in
a rhythmic hymn sung at the half-yearly sacrifice to
Confucius. "Oh, great K'ung-tzu ! Prior in percep-
tion ! Prior in knowledge ! Co-equal with heaven and
earth ! Sun and moon are sustained by thee. Heaven
and earth are kept pure and live." And again, " Thou
art what never else was since men were generated."
But such exaggerated language as this is scarcely more
than one hundred years old. Confucius, though he is
said once to have compared himself to heaven, would
surely have been opposed to such extreme glorification
of his virtues. Indeed, he is supposed to have spoken
in an almost apologetic tone of that which required no
apology — the humble condition of his family in his
early years — " When I was young my condition was
low ; and therefore I acquired my ability in many things,
hut they were mean things." [Analects, ix., 6.) His
father's family was of noble, even regal, descent ; but
through no fault of his own poverty had fallen upon
him. Confucius as a httle boy of three years old,
deprived by death of his father's care, played at his
mother's knee — not making mud-pies for empty amuse-
ment, but arranging vessels in ritual order. And when
he had entered his teens, we see him — surely no ignoble
occupation, or one to apologise for— sent to the hilUside
CONFUCIUS 227
to tend goats and cattle ; and there he sits sunning
himself, while the beasts lie down at noon, musing on
the mystery of human life, the disorder of the land, the
possibility of reform, and the surpassing dignity and
interest of the ancient annals of China — ancient already
in those ancient days.
At the age of fifteen his more earnest student life
began : "I had my mind set on learning," he says
{Analects, ii., 4.) His absorbing interest in China's
ancient worthies and literature dates also from that
age. " I am one who is fond of antiquity, and earnest in
seeking knowledge there " {Analects, vii., ig) ; " eager
in pursuit of knowledge," so he describes himself. He
forgets his food in the joy of its attainment ; he forgets
his sorrows ; and he does not perceive that old age is
coming on. A nobly simple description of the nobler
elements in his character and hfe !
We follow then the wandering steps of his scarcely
eventful but most earnest and purposeful career. He
married at the age of nineteen ; not happily, we fear ;
but Dr. Legge discredits the sadder part of the story.
At the age of twenty he took office in a subordinate post,
and he began public teaching at the age of twenty-two
— and this formed the leading occupation of his life —
sometimes a resident, sometimes a peripatetic philoso-
pher. His one great theme was the unfolding and
expounding and enforcing of the precepts and examples
of the ancient sages. He was a willing and charitable
teacher — never refusing a pupil because he could not pay
full fees, but not caring to spend toil on unsympathetic
228 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
and listless learners. At the age of twenty-nine
he studied music ; and this ever- favourite accomplish-
ment of his, often cheering him and soothing him in
sorrow or imminent danger, led him on to the " standing
firm " in right principles, which he dates from his
thirtieth year. Shortly after this we find him at the
city of Lo, where the Court of the Chou dynasty resided ;
and his not very dignified or instructive interview with
Lao-tzu, the founder of Taoism, coincided with this
visit to Lo. Lao-tzu was inclined to ridicule the, to
him, affected formality and legalism of Confucius, and
the pettiness, as he deemed it, of his principles. Con-
fucius retired from the encounter aghast, as he confessed
himself to be, and unable to follow the dragon in his
metaphysical flights.
After following the Duke of Chou in his temporary
refuge from feudal warfare to the territories of Ch'i, and
being despised and neglected there, he returned to Lu,
and during some fifteen years of enforced leisure he
employed himself in the truly great work of editing and
rearranging the Book of Odes and the Book of History.
Then, in the year 501 b.c, commenced the one brief
period of high office held by Confucius. As magistrate
of Chung-tu and Minister of Crime there, trusted by
the reigning Duke Ting, he is said to have "made crime
to cease " ; and as the idol of the people, and the subject
of their songs and praise, he spent the next six or seven
years with some grave mistakes, but on the whole with
conspicuous integrity, till the Duke intoxicated and
blinded by the mingled luxury and vice supplied by a
CONFUCIUS 229
rival duke for his fall, neglected his invaluable Minister,
and Confucius left in sorrow. Long wanderings were
henceforth his lot, but he was not alone, as his faithful
disciples followed him ; and to these disciples, or rather
to their pupils and successors, we are indebted for the
singularly interesting yet disappointing narrative of his
life and sayings and doings, the Lun-yii or Analects.
He devoted much time to the study of the Book of
Changes ; and in his seventy-first year, 481 B.C., he
composed the Ch'un Ch'iu, or Spring and Autumn Classic,
a narrative, drier than dust we deem it to be, of his
native state from 722 B.C. downwards. He had staked
his reputation on this work, but his country and posterity
are kinder and truer to the Sage than he was to himself,
and his fame is enshrined within surer and fairer covers
than those of the Ch'un Ch'iu. In the Spring days of
479 B.C. Confucius died.
This summary of the events of a great but little, a
"small" yet most "superior" man, to use his own
words, fails, and a much fuller narrative also will fail,
we think, to account satisfactorily for his long influence
and living fame. A scholar, a great editor and biblio-
grapher, though not perhaps a great writer, his com-
manding influence cannot be explained altogether or
mainly by his literary fame. Great writers sway the
world by their writings, and not always, or indeed
generally, perhaps, by force of personal character.
Confucius rules one land alone, or two (for Japan reveres
him also), but that means a large fourth of the human
race ; and he inspires reverence in all Far-Eastern hearts.
230 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
literate and illiterate alike. Whence comes it ? Not, we
venture once more to affirm, from the religious and
soul-satisfying character of his teaching, but from the
substantial honesty and integrity of the writer. Ques-
tion the great Sage : Can you inform us about the
Supreme God ? And lo, Confucius uses the supreme
name of God, known to the great Emperors and
worthies of the past as Shang Ti, only once in all his
personal teaching. Generally speaking he uses the
impersonal term " Heaven." He sanctions also the wor-
ship of spirits, and he reduces thus the Supreme God of
the ancients to the position of one amongst the host of
Heaven. " He perceived that the ancients did worship
one God" ; "but he allowed this knowledge to become
sterile." Confucius was a complete stranger to the higher
motive of pleasing God. "The 'superior man' does
not much raise his thoughts to a Father in Heaven "
(Foster, The Ideal Man of Confucianism). " Unre-
Hgious, unspiritual," is Dr. Legge's disastrous verdict
on the great Sage. Ask him now about a future life,
and the great " after death." His answer is explicit,
honest, but profoundly disappointing and chilling : —
" While 3'ou do not know life, how can you know death ? "
Ask him then about that which he surely comprehends,
if it be the very essence and concentration of his teaching
— ancestor worship, and the serving of the spirits of the
departed. It is all vague and uncertain : " While you
cannot serve men, how can you serve their spirits ? "
" Do the dead then have knowledge of our worship and
services, O Master ? " " There is no urgency on this
VI. CONFUCIUS 331
point," he says. " Hereafter you will know for your-
selves." Ask him finally about something which is of
imminent urgency — sin, and its forgiveness and cure ;
and the answer comes in the wailing of despair : " He
who offends against Heaven has no one to whom he can
pray." {Analects, iii. 13.)
In moral tone Confucius can rise far higher than this
vague, helpless teaching. " Man is born to uprightness."
— " If a man lose his uprightness, and yet live, his escape
from death is a mere accident." {Analects, vi. 17.)
And infinitely more noble than the "not being" in
sensation, and the consequent goal of " not doing "
(the Nirvana of orthodox Buddhism), is the " not I " — •
the unselfish duty of not doing to others what this per-
sonal self dislikes — which Confucius in this negative form
three times over, and once in positive form, inculcates.
" Confucius," says a Chinese thinker in English dress
and language, " has made the Chinese the one nation
in all the history of the world who genuinely abhor
violence, and reverence reason and right."
A proud and noble description of what Confucius aimed
at, but hardly of the result and rich fruit of his life and
work.
" Confucius," said another, " did much to undermine
the realisation of the personality of God in the minds
of his countrymen — and failing thus to give any religious
basis to his keen practical ethics, these very ethical
theories are vitiated in practice."
We think that either view is exaggerated, and we
believe that a more sober estimate of the Sage, and one
2^2 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
more just to his own aim and object in life, might be
expressed by a Chinese somewhat in the following words :
" Here is a man of our own kith and kin, who amid
surrounding disorders in the State bore himself bravely.
Laudator iemporis acti, he was no mere dreamer. He
was a true lover of his country and her people, and
knowing that righteousness in public and private life is
the only security for peace and prosperity, he loved
righteousness, and set himself to reform the people and
the Government by bidding them look at and study the
high examples of the past. What if he failed sometimes ?
What if his sun set in gloom ? This does not lessen our
admiration and love and reverence for the man, and we
decline to put our Confucius on a lower pedestal of
honour and veneration than that assigned to your
philanthropists and reformers of the West. But we do
not thereby exalt him to Divine rank, or regard him
necessarily as a great rehgious teacher."
If this may be taken as the sober estimate of Confucius'
worth, as judged by a thougntful modern Chinese, we
see that anything we say about the great Sage's failures
must take the form of criticism, not so much of the im-
perfections or errors of his religious teaching, as of the fact
that he never really professed to teach rehgion or form
a religious system at all. Still in him we see how restless
and dissatisfied the world of China was in those ancient
— and yet, compared with the time already past,
modern — days of religious thought. Instead of con-
tenting himself with a behef in the mysterious conflict
or interaction between the Yang and the Yin, and the
VI. CONFUCIUS 233
need of magic and exorcism to defeat or expel the evil,
Confucius seems to have lifted himself almost wearily
into a higher sphere of righteous action, and to have
stopped short only of access to and trust in the righteous
God. Yet there is some trace at least of such a trust in
his later years. Dr. WiUiams* describes as history the
last solemn deposit of his complete Hterary works on an
altar by Confucius himself, dedicating the whole to
Heaven for the benefit of his countrymen, and imploring
the blessing of Heaven (did he mean the Lord of Heaven?)
on his labours. A noble close indeed to a not ignoble
or fruitless life. His failure lay in not preaching all his
life long, instead of possibly at the last alone, the existence
and attributes of the Supreme Shang Ti, of whom his
almost adored " men of old " had told him not a little,
and so satisfying the restless souls of the people and
hfting them to look to the Divine Father (" Oh ! vast
and distant Heaven, who art called our Father," sings
one of the ancient Chinese poets) for spiritual influence
and salvation of body and soul alike.
On March 4, 479 B.C., Confucius died. His disciples
raised a mound over his remains cere perennius ; for it
continues to this day, venerated, adorned, and enriched
by successive dynasties ; and even the most lawless
rebels have treated it with respect. His disciples
mourned by the tomb for three years, and the devoted
Tzu-kung dwelt in a hut by its side three years more.
The doctrines of the Sage were transmitted by a
* Chinese Repository, Vol. XL, p. 421 ; Pauthier's Chine,
pp. 161-184.
234 'rHE CHINESE PEOPLE
succession of disciples, the most conspicuous being K'ung
Chi or Tzil-ssii, the grandson of Confucius, to whom
the authorship of the most interesting treatise, The
Doctrine of the Mean, is ascribed. The work and merits
of Confucius were recognised by those in authority at
once after his death ; but partly through the poHtical
confusion of the times, and partly by the conflicting
views of philosophers, contemporar\' or immediately
succeeding, such as Yang Chu, Lieh-tzu, Mo Ti, Chuang-
tzia, and others, it was not till Kao Tsu, the first sovereign
of the Han dynasty, c. 200 B.C., visited his tomb, that high
recognition was accorded to his memory by Imperial
command ; a memory which Shih Huang-ti (221 B.C.)
had endeavoured to obhterate, and which Mencius, as
we have said, did much to rescue from the sea of con-
flicting errors and to glorify. We have noticed above the
remarkable activity of thought and action connected
with the earlier days of Buddhism in China and Japan.
More wonderful by far is the extraordinary vivacity of
the play of intellect, philosophical, mystical, meta-
physical, and of practical research and didactic import,
during those centuries which saw Lao-tzu, Confucius,
Mencius uprise — the age which introduced Pythagoras
also, and Plato the Great, Aristotle, Zeno, Demosthenes,
to the Western world.
Yang Chu, the Epicurus of China, if that does not
defame the yet doubtful fame of Epicurus, and Mo Ti,
perhaps the first prophet of amiable yet thorough-going
Socialism and Communism, flourished during the years
between Confucius and Mencius. " The words of Yang
VI. YANG CHU 235
Chu and Mo Ti," said Mencius, early, apparently, in his
career as a teacher and reformer, " fill the Empire " ;
an exaggerated statement perhaps, but a proof of the
remarkable spread of their antagonistic views. To either
of these Mencius offered himself as a powerful opponent ;
and he brought forward as his chief weapon the principles
of Confucius, with his own fuller and freer philosophy.
" Each one for himself " was Yang Chu's motto.
" Vanity of vanities, all is vanity," cried Solomon, in
his philosophic struggle with the mysteries of human
life. " All things come alike to all. As is the good,
so is the sinner. There is one event unto all. Time and
chance happeneth to them all. There is nothing better
for a man than that he should eat and drink, and make
his soul enjoy good in his labour."
So Solomon, till his Epicurean frenzy — never defiled,
however, by unmitigated selfishness — is reproved and
calmed and solemnised by the words, " Know thou that
for all this God will bring thee into judgement." He
that feareth God shall come forth from these labyrinths
of trouble and perplexity and dark despair. Epicurus
and the melancholy Lucretius fall lower :
" Live while you live, the Epicure would say,
And seize the pleasures of the passing day."
But these, Epicurus would protest, are mental, not
sensual pleasures — a restriction and limitation which his
followers too easily laid aside. And here, too, there are
no voices of God, of judgement, and of a life to come, to
break the spell of sensual vanity or mental insanity —
" The sober majesties
Of settled, sweet, Epicurean life."
236 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
of pleasure, pleasure, pure or impure, for self, till man
and all things shall vanish —
" Atom and void, atom and void
Into the unseen for ever."
Not SO the Chinese Epicurus, Yang Chu. Strong as the
spell was of his teaching for a time, so that Mencius put
forth all his power to oppose him, yet he sank so low in
his motives and methods for life on earth, that no Chinese
voice is raised in his defence or praise, and his system and
teachings are discarded. But their very audacity and
their temporary spread are a phenomenon remarkable
in a country where, we have reason to believe, from the
very first righteousness and high morality have been
revered and desired.
" Everyone for himself," cried Yang Chu. " Your
good men, enduring toil and trouble, blows and violence
it may be, in the path of what they call duty and in-
tegrity, have no pleasure in this life ; they die as early
or as late as the bad ; there are bands in their death ;
a sad ending — and that is all. Your other men, following
and enjoying pleasure wherever it can be found, and of
whatever kind it may be, sexual, licentious, luxurious,
intellectual perchance, perchance gross and low, yet
spend pleasurable lives, and come no faster to the
grave nor slower than the good ; but there are no bands
in their death ; it is natural, not hard ; and there is an
end. Is it not the best bargain for self, to care for
self alone, and leave God, if there be a God, and other
men alone ? "
No wonder that Mencius, eager and earnest, like his
MEN CI us 237
great master Confucius, for the stability of the State and
of society, the foundations of righteousness, was indig-
nantly opposed to this teacher and his sj^stem. But it is
a symptom, perhaps, of a mind not quite evenly balanced
that he should have felt and expressed the same indigna-
tion against Mo Ti and his principle, so diametrically
opposed to Yang Chu's detestable tenets. " Each one
for himself," cried Yang Chu. " Love all equally," cried
Mo Ti — and this not licence in love, but the restraint of
self-love for the good of others. " The common weal
has to be placed in the foreground ; the highest moral act
of the individual was found in making sacrifices for all."
" Yang Chu taught egoism, Mo Ti altruism" (Giles).
Mencius would have none of it. " It means," he said,
" that no special love shall be assigned to father, or to
sovereign. That is the state of a beast." The same
objection Confucius himself entertained to the high
and noble precept and injunction of Lao-tzu, " Reward
injury with kindesss," to which we have alluded above.
Mo Ti's followers exaggerated their master's principles
and teaching beyond the bounds probably that he himself
contemplated, and sketched out a scheme and results
mischievous, impracticable, and self-destructive, such as
generally accompany societies and communities un-
restrained and uninspired by the higher and Divine laws
of social and philanthropic and charity-founded order.
Mencius considered the discomfiture of these two
teachers as the great achievement of his life. But he
did more than this, and his story deserves a further
though necessarily brief notice. Mencius (the Latinized
238 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
form of Meng K'o or Meng-tzu, " the Philosopher Meng ")
was born in the fourth year of the Emperor Lieh,
372 B.C., and died, aged eighty-three, in the year 289 B.C.,
the twenty-sixth year of the Emperor Nan, with whom
closed the long course of the Chou dynasty. Few details
have been preserved as to his personal history, and per-
haps his hfe and character and acts were so human, and so
near to Chinese genius and predilections, as to discourage
the glamour of myth and invented legend round his
birth and early years. He was a descendant of one of
the noble families of Lu, the same state of which Con-
fucius was a native. He was deprived of his father's care
and teaching by early death ; but his mother, whose
name is familiar to all China, devoted the most sedulous
care to the boy's training, and thrice changed her abode
so that her son's " environment " might not harm him ;
and as a lesson to him, when listless and idle at his studies,
of the danger of thus marring the web of a noble and
useful life, she is said to have destroyed with a knife a
web of cloth on which she was working. Mencius had,
later, the singular advantage, as of a legacy of learning
and wisdom, of the instruction of a disciple of K'ung Chi,
the grandson of Confucius himself (this is the assertion of
the great historian Ssu-ma Ch' ien) , and receiving thus in
direct descent the doctrines of the Sage, the enforcement
and exposition of these formed the chief object and em-
ployment of his long peripatetic career. His name is
honoured as " Sage second " to Confucius, which may
also be rendered " Inferior Sage " ; and in the year
A.D. 1330 (his fame and influence growing all the time),
MEN CI us 239
an Imperial decree invested him with the additional
title, " Second Sage, and Lord (or Master or Head)."
His tomb is still reverently guarded near the city of
Chou Hsien in Shantung.
In the opinion of some scholars and students of China
and the Chinese, Mencius holds a higher position than
number two in the affections and esteem of the people.
Nothing will dethrone Confucius, indeed, from his pedes-
tal ; but " Mencius is almost the darling of the Chinese."
" There is no other work in the whole range of their litera-
ture so living and real as ' Mencius.' " As a school-book
its style is such that it is a treasure intelligible to all.
" The chief dicta of modern Chinese ethics and politics
are mostly taken literally from Mencius, or adhere closely
to his teaching " (Legge). But he is in no sense a rival
or a usurper of the teaching and honour of Confucius.
His great object, like his master's, was the teaching of
political economy. To him the State is the sum of all
human endeavours. Through his direct opposition
to the sensationalist and to the socialist in their
extravagances detailed above, he saw himself necessi-
tated to base his political economy upon ethics, and his
ethics upon the doctrine of man's nature. The ethical
problem is solved for him by the utmost developement of
all the good elements in man's nature.* And here, with-
out criticism or antagonism, he yet joins issue both with
Confucius, and, if we mistake not, with Lao-tzu also, the
deepest thinker on this profound subject. The philo-
sopher Kao, a contemporary of Mencius, insisted upon
* Faber, Mind of Mencius, p, 17.
240 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
the fact that man's nature is neither good nor bad,
denying at the same time any essential difference between
good and evil, virtue and vice. The philosopher Hsiin,
a little later, taught that human nature is evU, and that
the good sometimes shown is fictitious. The philosopher
Han holds a middle and very perplexing course. He
describes three grades in man's nature : the higher good
and always good, the centre capable of being led upwards
or downwards, the lower evil and irrecoverably evil.
Confucius, so far as his few and rather vague utterances
lead us, evidently recognised the bias to evil in nature,
though, as we have noticed above, he describes men as
made originally for virtue. Lao-tzu recognises the evil,
denies that it can be changed, or ousted, or eradicated
by law, but urges the yet impossible achievement (to
philosophy alone) of going back behind law to recover
the original nature, by which, as the law of necessity and
blissful custom, good was always done. Mencius disagrees,
and yet comes nearly into line with all. He teaches
that man's nature is good, but capable of change or
developement. And if for nature these old philosophers
had substituted conscience, which, save when seared or
stifled, is ever on the side of good, as the surviving voice
of the good nature whose essence and form had been
almost lost and grievously deformed by man's historic
fall ; and if the will was introduced as the arbiter, and
that greatly biassed for evil, between the two voices —
then Confucius was right ; then was Lao-tzu on the right
track, and then, too, is Mencius not far from the Divine
original. It may be further suggested that if we are
VI. MENCIUS 241
concerned here only with a doctrine of origins, and that of
the human race at first, and not of individuals at present,
then the first sentence in the first horn-book for Chinese
children—" As to man's original, his heart was naturally
good " — is good doctrine, and also the opening words
of the Doctrine of the Mean — " Man's nature is by the
decree of Heaven." It is remarkable that Lao-tzu's
dream of the recovery of the original natural good seems
echoed in the confession of Mencius that mankind have
lost their old minds or hearts, and the search for the lost
mind is a search of the first importance, though men are
moved to active and anxious enquiry more when their
fowls or dogs go astray than when the immortal mind
and soul and heart are wandering {Mencius, VI. i. xi.).
He speaks in another place (IV. ii. xii.) of " losing the
child-heart."
Few further details have reached us as to the family
life and early years of Mencius. His married life seems
to have been unhappy, but his wise and kind mother's
counsel was with him again and again, restraining and
guiding him ; and we gather that she must have been a
woman of very superior character, and that to her
influence and training her son's distinguished Ufe of
integrity and public benefit is largely due. Mencius was
forty years old before that Ufe really began of more
restless change and activity in reform than even Con-
fucius experienced. He travelled from place to place
through scenes of disorganisation and internecine strife.
The long drawn-out dynasty of Chou was ready to vanish
away, and the smaller feudal fiefs or principaUties, such
Q
242 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
as Lu, Cheng, Wei, Wu, Ch'en, and Sung, conspicuous in
the Analects, were, with no vigorous suzerain at hand,
subjected and aknost blotted out by the larger ones, till
Ch'i remained in a precarious state with three new and
temporarily vigorous kingdoms — Wei. Chao, and Han —
carved out of the thus dismantled Chin, and threatened
also by the dangerous state of Ch'in in the west (the
eventual overthrower of the Chou dynasty only thirty
years after the death of Mencius), and by Ch'u also in the
south. Here we find the sage, during twenty-four years
of hopes and fears, much like his great master and exem-
plar Confucius, travelling from place to place as invita-
tions reached him or opportunities seemed to call him—
teaching, reproving, exhorting, suggesting, and some
times instituting reforms — with two long visits to the
chief state of Ch'i, where King Hsiian, the " Illustrious,"
received him, and now listened to his counsels, now
parried his arguments ; then, leaving Ch'i with regret
but with despair, he found a home in T'eng, to the
southward, where he met with a sincere admirer and
docile pupil. Thereafter we find him in Chou, having
left his hopeful work in T'eng which had resulted more in
theorising than in active reform, but was enlivened by his
encounter with Hsii Hsing, a dreary but noisy levelling
democrat of that era, who would have the monarch
go back to the plough, even as Shun came from the
plough to the throne, teaching the liberty, equality and
fraternity of every one caring for himself, and servant to
himself— the ignoble freedom from subordination, and from
the kindness of serving one another. Then in Liang he
VI. MEN CI us 243
sought to restrain the war-loving monarch, and thence we
follow him back again in Ch'i, with hope of better things
from King Hsiian. His mother died during his stay in
that State, faithfully and lovingly following him thither.
He buried her with almost prodigal magnificence, as a
protest against the Mo-ists, with their doctrine of "no
flowers," no wrappings, but parsimonious niggardliness
in funeral rites. Then he left Ch'i finally, and in confu-
sion. His last long effort to influence the rulers of his
time towards integritj^ righteousness, and just govern-
ment, to reform and regulate the State, and thus secure
the peace and prosperity of the people, had as its scene
the State of Lu, and as he approached his sixty-third
year, his grand climacteric, we lose sight of him, and as
Dr. Legge in his elaborate biography reminds us, his
active ministry closes, and we can only conjecture him
as spending the remaining twenty years of his long life
amid the more quiet and congenial company of his
disciples, discoursing to them, and compiling the great
classic which is the true memorial of his life and char-
acter and achievements.
What had he done ? On only one occasion, if we mis-
take not, did he surrender the high ethical tone of his
teaching and exhortations — an opportunist for the
moment, ready to allow a ruler to give the reins to his
pleasures and lusts, if he kept a tight and just rein on his
government and care of the people, forgetting, what he
seldom did forget, that righteousness not only exalts a
people, but also is the truest nobility of the ruler. This
was an exception. His real attitude towards righteousness
244 ^^^ CHINESE PEOPLE
was reflected in his famous saying : "I love life and
I love righteousness. But if I cannot retain the two, I
will let life go and hold fast to righteousness." The rule
was teaching of the same high moral tone which Confucius
uttered, and a whole-hearted devotion to his country's
good. Yet he seems even less spiritual and theistic in his
teaching and in his thoughts than the great master him-
self. He, like Confucius, uses the word and title Shang Ti
only once in his own utterances, though not seldom in
quotations. " Heaven " he speaks of ; but whether as
a personal Supreme Being or as a principle must be un-
certain. It seems strange that many centuries were
allowed to elapse before his writings were accepted
amongst the classics of the Empire, and till he was ad-
mitted to share in the sacrifices presented to Confucius.
This occurred first in the year a.d, 1083, and after a
momentary degradation at the hands of the first founder
of the Ming dynasty, a.d. 1372, he was promptly rein-
stated, and finally raised to yet higher honour a.d. 1530.
The following brief extracts with which we close this
narrative of China's second and scarcely inferior or
secondary sage show the estimation in which he is held
by his own people ; and for these reasons, and apart
from higher and deeper estimates of character and
belief, we may whole-heartedly join in acclaim and
gratitude. Han Yii (a.d. 768-824), statesman, philoso-
pher, poet of the T'ang dynasty, writes thus of Mencius :
" When Yang and Mo walked abroad, the true doctrine
had nearly come to naught. It is owing to the words
and earnestness of Mencius that learners now-a-days
MEN CI us 245
still know to revere Confucius, and to honour benevolence
and righteousness."
The justly celebrated philosopher, Ch'eng, of the
eleventh century, a.d., will not admit that Mencius quite
reached the exalted rank of a sage, but that he was a great
worthy, and that his learning had reached the extremest
limit he readily allows. He compares Mencius to ice
or crystal bright and clear, through which you can see
defects as well as beauties. Confucius he compares
rather to a precious gem, with less brilliancy, and not
so pellucid, but with a softness and richness and strength
and solidity all its own. Yet the same great scholar
shows surely both brightness and strength in this com-
parison— perhaps hardly fair to the elder sage, but
yet remarkable as independent Chinese opinion :
" Confucius spoke only of benevolence. But as soon
as Mencius opens his mouth, we hear of benevolence and
righteousness. Confucius spoke only of the will and
mind ; but Mencius enlarged also on the nourishment
of the passion nature. In these two respects his merit
was great."
Mencius, he says once more, and with this some Western
critics agree, had much of the heroical about him. The
scholar Yang, again, a friend of Ch'eng and his no less
illustrious brother, eulogises Mencius mainly for his
persistency in describing the goodness of human nature
— and herein he seems to us simply to emphasise the
confusion or only half-truth of this great contention,
" Man must rectify his heart." If so, surely it is implied
that the heart is not as it should be. " The lost heart
246 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
has to be found " — ergo it has wandered from the path
of integrity and right. And if this be so, it will not do
to argue as Yang makes Mencius argue, that " the heart
being rectified, we recognise at once the goodness of
the nature" — for it was the very fault and failing of
the nature which caused it to err. Mencius knew not,
and yet how nearly he touched the truth ! " Except a
man be born again," " Put off the old man," " Put on
the new." Chu Hsi, himself the most eminent amongst
the later Chinese philosophers, earnest student for a
while of Buddhism and Taoism, and then keen and
ardent, if not presumptuous, expositor and critic of the
ethical writings of the Confucian system ; metaphysician,
materialist, sceptic, identifying the dubious idea of
God with the word Heaven, and hence apparently identi-
fying God Himself with a mere principle ; speculator
as to the mystery of ages, the origin of evil, and the
principles of creation ; historiographer also, recasting
China's greatest historical work, the labours of Ssii-ma
Kuang (a.d. 1009-1086) : he, too, pronounces judgement
on Mencius. " When compared with Confucius," he
says, " Mencius always appears to speak in too lofty
a style ; but when we hear him proclaiming the good-
ness of man's nature, and celebrating Yao and Shun,
then we likewise perceive the solidarity of his discourses."
(Legge : Prolegomena on Mencius.) A special biography
and discussion on the teachings and speculations of this
most remarkable and now authoritative commentator
and independent thinker, Chu Hsi (a.d. 1130-1200),
would be imperative in a larger work on the many phases
VI, CHU HSI 247
of Chinese life and history ; but it must suffice here to
notice that his notes on the classics are so far accepted
as orthodox, though obviously controverting the views
and tenets of the great master in some points, that till
recent changes they were printed with the text, and
committed to memory by all Chinese students. The
style also of Chu Hsi's writings, while maintaining the
fine idiom and polished balance of the iven-li of Con-
fucius, and the old time before him, is yet easier of
comprehension and less rugged than the higher and more
antique language of books. It has been largely followed
in modern translations into Chinese of Western literature.
Chu Hsi has also ascribed to him the doubtful honour
of being the chief formulator of the great system of
feng-shui, " wind and water," which governs and tj^ran-
nises, in geomancers' and necromancers' hands, Chinese
thought and action.
The family of historiographers, the Ssu-ma, is also
worthy of special notice. Before the great and long-
lived Chou d5masty the family had held, so they claimed,
the hereditary post of Astrologer, and they boasted of
their descent from the mythical vicegerents of heaven
and earth, Chung and Li. Ssii-ma T'an, who died
no B.C., held office under the Emperor Han Wu-ti,
and commenced the historical compilation, which was
completed b}^ his son, Ssu-ma Ch'ien, c. 145-85 B.C.,
perhaps the most eminent of this remarkable family.
Ssu-ma Piao (a.d. 240-315) is noted as an historical
commentator. Ssu-ma Cheng (a.d. 720), calling himself
humbly the Lesser Ssu-ma, made the historical records
248 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
of Ssu-ma Ch'ien the study of his hfetime, and composed
an introduction to this work, stretching it further back
to the fabulous period of Fu-hsi (Mayers in loco). And,
finally, Ssu-ma Kuang (a.d. 1009-1086) appears, with his
Comprehensive Mirror for the aid of Government (alluded to
above, as edited and recast by Chu Hsi), a synopsis
of national histories from the Chou dynasty downwards.
The historiographer is not necessarily a leader of thought,
or a religious teacher, and such men and their writings
come more naturally under our following chapter on
literature. But we mention this family here as an
instance of the great versatility of Chinese literary genius,
and in connection with that feature in one of her most able
and versatile writers and leaders of thought, Chu Hsi.
Before our final biographical notice of the senior
leader of Chinese thought, Lao-tzu, to whom reference
has already been made in the earlier part of this chapter,
it is worth noticing, as a further proof of the versatility
of Chinese writers, and of their bold independence, that
Lao-tzu, Confucius, and Mencius were all freely (and,
according to the estimate of the Emperor Ch'ien-lung,
with "boundless audacity") criticised by a Nvriter too
little known as the most original and judicious of China's
metaphysicians — Wang Ch'ung (a.d. 19-90). He ex-
posed the " exaggerations " and " inventions " of Con-
fucianists and Taoists alike, and rises in the domain of
natural philosophy far above some of the more fantastic
beliefs of his countrymen, and adds interrogations of
Confucius and criticisms upon Mencius without fear.
(Mayers, Chinese Reader' s Manual, p. 239.)
LAO-TZtj 249
The difficulty of treating Lao-tzu as a leader of thought
or a religious teacher lies in the fact that instead of his
being a voluminous writer, or editor, or redactor, as Con-
fucius was, and Mencius yet more fully, there is only
one literary composition generally accepted as genuine
and authentic from his pen, the Tao-te Citing. And fur-
ther, while his person and brief historj' remain in Chinese
annals and memory, yet his religious system, if it could
ever have been really formulated as such b}^ himself,
was so speedily enlarged and confused by his immediate
followers, Chuang-tzu (fourth century, B.C.) and Lieh-tzu
(fifth century, B.C.) respectively, and later by Chang
Ling (first century, a.d.) — this last commentator
introducing many elements of mystic superstition,
the study of alchemy and elixirs of life, and also an
elaborate pantheon and worship of the deified powers
of nature — that the original teacher and his philosophy
are not felt as powers in the moulding of Chinese thought
or religion so much as they deserve, if such an expression
of patronage and criticism is allowable.
At the same time— and this further confuses the
problem— we are indebted for the most reliable exposi-
tion of the inner meaning of the only genuine writing of
Lao-tzu to these very disciples who added teaching and
speculation obviously foreign to their great leader's
mind. Other documents, however, pubHshed probably
not earlier than the fifteenth or sixteenth century, but
popularly ascribed to Lao-tzu, and doubtless containing
much of his primal teaching, exist, and are everywhere
read, and largely mould Chinese ethical thought
2SO THE CHINESE PEOPLE
and instruction. These books, which are entitled
the Book of Rewards and Punishments and the Book
of Secret Blessings, are not \\ithout ethical and
spiritual teaching of a lofty tone. For instance,
" Recompense injury with kindness " — a precept which
Confucius could not understand ; for " how then," he
demurred, " will you recompense kindness ? " " Rejoice
in the successes of others, and S3^mpathise in their
sorrows as though they were your own experience."
" Empty yourself of passions ; keep the inner man
\\dth all diligence ; cherish gentle compassion, economy,
humility. Be chaste, but do not chasten others ; and
learn not to impute wickedness to the unfortunate."
Peace was to Lao-tzii his highest aim. " The victorious
general must be chief mourner at the great funeral of
the dead in battle." And both Lao-tzu and his illus-
trious successors, Chuang-tzu and Lieh-tzii, also soared
higher — to the very confines, one would believe, of the
uplands of the knowledge of God ; so much so, that it
has been conjectured that Chuang-tzu in particular
must have had some access to the divine truths of Old
Testament Scripture, or that, at any rate, the truth of
man's original nature being in the Divine Image and
of the converse between heaven and earth may have
somehow reached him, and the echoes, sounding above
the clamour of magic and the false doctrine of the Tao,
were recorded by him with human expression : " Man
must rise above his human nature into an ever-enlarging
and boundless perfection by an esoteric fellowship with
the Tao of^Heaven. Human nature is opposed to the
VI. LAO-TZU 251
Divine, and must entirely disappear, before the Divine
can be fully manifested." " Put off the old man ; put
on the new," is St. Paul's rendering of this guess at
truth. The early Jesuit missionaries, Amiot, Montucci
and Remusat, beUeved they could discern in the Tao-te
Ching something better than the Taoist highest hope
for man, which is his eventual return to absorption in
the vast, intangible first principle from which creation
has proceeded. This latter idea is the Taoist Nirvana,
the " passionless bride, divine tranquiUity " of Lucretius,
and a doctrine similar to Brahman thought, the earliest
of the series. The Taoist Nirvana in its turn probably
guided Buddhist theories.
It is noteworthy that Chang Ling is identified probably
with Yli-huang Shang-ti, " the great and precious
god," a deity invented by the Taoists in their earlier
days of polytheism, forced by the rivalry of the many
objects of Buddhist worship. Lao-tzu himself was
deified in their estimation, but his deity was supposed
to be so absorbed in tranquil contemplation that the
care and order of creation must be ascribed to other
hands. And it is remarkable that this idolatry was
so generally accepted by the Chinese during this Christian
era, and the supreme and sacred word " Shang Ti " —
God — had become so identified in their minds with
Yii-huang — i.e., notoriously, \rith a deified man — that
some translators of the Bible and of Christian literature
with great persistence refused to render the supreme
word " God " by " Shang Ti," since it was thus degraded
and defiled. Instead they adopted the word " Shen,"
252 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
with its primary sense of spirit, and its advantage
as a generic divine term — God, the great Spirit, and
also as appUed to spirits in whom there is a divine
element in Chinese classical usage : " I have said, ye are
gods." The term adopted early by the Roman Cathohcs
has also been used both for Bible and Prayer-Book trans-
lation, " T'ien-Chu," " the Lord of Heaven " ; — obviously
an unsatisfactory term, since it is a description of one
of the prerogatives of God, and not the name God itself ;
and, moreover, it lends itself even less to generic usage
than does " Shang Ti." And if " Shang Ti " spells
" Yii-huang " to uninstructed readers or hearers,
" Shen " or " Shen-ming " spells " Huo-shen " — god of
Fire — to the same readers. " Shang Ti " has been
forced into generic use by the Taoists, who speak of
" all the Shang Ti of the heavens." This long drawn-
out controversy is nearly over now, and " Shang Ti "
has been lifted from the confusion and defilement of
idolatrous usage to its high position once more, as the
noblest term in the language for the Supreme God ; even
as St. Paul, upon Mars' Hill, ignoring or defj^ing the
false fatherhood ascribed to the false and low Jupiter,
in the hymn of Cleanthes, lifted and glorified the great
name " God " as unique and alone worthy of worship
and praise.
Lao-tzu was born in the year 604 B.C., in the province
of Honan ; and the very house in which he is said to
have lived is still pointed out in his native district, Hu-
hsien. But singularly few details of his life are handed
down to us. When he was " keeper of the archives " in
VI. LAO-TZif 253
the Imperial Court of Chou, Confucius came to see him,
and to deposit a book in the archives — " Aristotle come
to see Socrates," as this interview, to which we allude
above, has been called. Certainly the sarcasm of
Socrates sent the poor philosopher (afterwards and still
so honoured, whilst Lao-tzu is half-forgotten) crestfallen
and perplexed away. '' The I-ching," Confucius had
said, " treats of humanity and justice : I am studying
that book." " Humanity and justice ! " Lao-tzii replied :
" Don't beat a drum to bring back a truant sheep !
The profession of and talking about humanity, filial
piety, loyalty, and so forth, show that they have lost
their original colours ; if men would practise these
things, instead of talking so much, the very names of
vices would be lost." " Many prohibitions," he says
again, " afford in themselves a proof of the fall and
guilt of man." " Let not the people be slaves of rules,
but freemen of principle." What man needs, Lao-tzu
seems clearly to teach, is not the mere yoke of pro-
hibitory or enunciated law, but that " time should run
back and fetch the age of gold," and that man, getting
behind all formulated law, should be moral without
effecting constraint, direction, or prohibition, a possessor
of the " beata necessitas boni," a possibility guessed at
in Wordsworth's " Ode to Duty " —
" Glad hearts without reproach or blot,
Who do Thy work, and know it not."
Next, history describes Lao-tzu as throwing up the
office which he held, translated by Julien and Pauthier
as above — but by Legge as " Treasury keeper." and by
254 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
others as " keeper of the Imperial Museum." Fore-
seeing the decadence of the house of Chou, he retired
from pubhc life, and, cultivating Tao (the " Way " —
the " Doctrine " — the " Word," used significantly to
translate St. John's use of Ao'yos — " Reason," the
" Primal Principle," " Nature," " Providence," all these
are suggested renderings of this word) and virtue, he
resigned himself to a life of retirement, seclusion and
contemplation. Eventually, finding himself not even
thus free from danger and disturbance, he took his
journey into a far country, passing out of the province
through the frontier pass Han-ku, and after instructing
the governor of the pass, Yin Hsi, at this scholar and
astrologer's earnest entreaty, in the doctrines of the
Tao and Te, and after committing to his hands the
treatise now known as the Tao-te Ching — composed
probably in 517 B.C. — he finally disappeared from sight
and from all rehable history, though not from legend
(523 B.C.). These dates, self-contradictory, are yet
approximate. History, as we have said, is strangely
reticent • but legend has been busy with his story. He
went westwards — did he not ? — descending the pass in
a chariot drawn by four black oxen ; he visited Western
lands, and is said to have planned journeys, including
India and Judsea. Chuang-tzii, indeed, describes both
Lao-tzu's death and the death of his own wife, as of
those for whom mourning is out of place, because they
have reached the long quietude of eternity. Legend
follows him both backwards and forwards. His birth
is described as of a child with features and general form
VI. LAO-TZU 255
SO old as to have suggested the name " Old Child " ;
and, mdeed, he is said to have been eighty years old
at birth. But a previous incarnation in the year 1321
B.C. is also ascribed to liim, and an earlier appearance
yet, as Kuang-ch'eng-tzu, contemporary with and in-
structor of the Emperor Huang-ti (2697 b.c). And
once more not only are avatar mentioned subsequent
to his historical disappearance described above, but also
the wonder of his stretching a hand through the darkness
which shrouds the unseen, and placing in the hands of
Chang Ling a treatise containing the secret in-
gredients of the elixir of immortality.
It is well again to emphasise the fact at this point,
when endeavouring to specify the teaching and beliefs
of Lao-tzu and the Taoist system of religion which
claims him as its " great and high and venerable head,"
that Taoism now is not Lao-tzu ; and the so-called State
Religion, Confucianism, is not necessarily Confucius;
and still less is Buddhism in China identical with the
creed and teaching of Shakyamuni, Gautama Buddha.
It is interesting, further, to notice that Lao-tzu's idea of
a passive following of nature, without legal constraint
or necessity, save of original and right inclination and
instinct, is the ancient but sadly objectless and ambigu-
ous " quietism " of China. His idea of absorption into
mother-nature, the Taoist Nirvana, did not, it is plain,
captivate the Chinese mind, any more than did the
orthodox Buddhist doctrine of absorption into nothing-
ness, the cessation of conscious being, appeal to the
Chinese. Taoism, therefore, must needs invent the
256 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
elixir of life, and the Isles of the Immortals ; and
Buddhism appears not with Gautama and his Nirvana
as objects of worship and hope, but with Amidabha and
the Western Paradise.
It is disappointing, and almost irritating, to trace the
mixture of wisdom and folly, of deep and high philosophy
and of fruitless fancy, of adumbrations of eternal truth,
and the gathering clouds of superstitious error, which
are ascribed to Lao-tzu, either direct from his own
utterances or from the lucubrations of his followers, and
of those who claim the a^gis of his name for their own
gratuitous elaborations of hints they profess to find in
Lao-tzii's utterances. We cannot but feel, when examin-
ing Lao-tzu's manipulation of the word " Tao " — which
forms half of the dual subject of his one classic, and is the
word, the entity, or the ideal, which gives its name both
to the Taoist system in China and to the Shinto {shen-
tao) religion of Japan — that both with Lao-tzu and with
Confucius' s grandson in the Doctrine of the Mean, and
with Confucius himself (" If a man in the morning hear
the Tao, he may die in the evening without regret "), it
implies and includes very much more than the inter-
action of the Yin and the Yang alone in the " course
of this world." Lao-tzu affirms that he does not know
whose son this Tao is — " It might appear to have been
before God." Chuang-tzu says that it existed before
time, which has no beginning, had begun. It is
impersonal, passionless, working out its appointed ends
with the remorselessness of Fate, yet overflowing in
benevolence to all. " What is Tao ? " exclaims Huai-nan
VI. TAO 257
Tzu (or Liu An, 122 B.C.) in his History of Great Light
— ardent votary as he was of the mystic researches
of the Taoists — " Tao is that which supports Heaven
and Earth. Hidden and obscure, it reinforces all things
out of formlessness. Penetrating and permeating every-
thing, it never acts in vain. It fills all within the
Four Points of the Compass. It contains the Yin and
the Yang."
Now, man's great object, the goal of his hope for the
future, the secret of hfe worth living now, must be
conformity to this Tao, this Nature, or Principle of
Nature — this pathway of souls, and of all things — this
Doctrine of the Way. How is conformity to be secured ?
" By being always and completely passive" ; " Non-
exertion " ; " Not doing " ; " Inertia," with its " vices."
Spontaneity and the absence of design also must be
attained. Passionless, as well as quiescent, man must
banish all desires from his heart, and simply yield himself
to his environment. " He need not be a recluse to be
quiescent. Holy men there were, who did not abide in
forests. They did not conceal themselves, but they
did not obtrude their virtues " (Chuang-tzu) . In poHtics,
in education, in social reform, leave things alone. In
quiescence, simplicity, and content, so pass through
this troublesome world — troublesome because of its
fussy ways, its legahty and strife, and endeavour — and
pass back to repose, unconscious in the arms of the
Tao, the mother Nature. But the old philosopher
awakes from his dream with a start and a tremor, lest
ithis laissez-faire attitude of mind and body should mean
R
2 58 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
violation of the original good in man and in nature.
Easy-going yielding to lust, and selfish abandonment
to " the pleasures of sin " he almost shouts at. " Rejoice
at the success of others, and sympathise in their sorrows,
as though it were your own experience." " Empty
yourself of passions ; keep the inner man with all
dihgence, cherish gentle compassion, economy, humiUty
(a noble trio of virtues, indeed !) ; watch against the
small beginnings of evil." Yet these precepts, Lao-tzii
must have noticed, reproduce the very laws and in-
junctions which his quiescence cannot tolerate, and
require that active exertion of the soul's conflict which
is so far nobler than the letting things and Nature itself
drift.
It is not easy to trace the points of possible contact and
evil inspiration in Lao-tzu's teaching, from which com-
menced the fatally rapid descent from these high-soaring
speculations, during the Han and succeeding dynasties.
Lao-tzu as a philosopher, and as a great thinker and
speculator in the realms of abstract thought (it has been
said of him that he first taught the thoughtful Chinese
really to think) , and as the possible founder of a rehgious
system, has vanished. But while his name survives as
the supposed patron of the superstitious and idolatrous
customs now called Taoism, a nobler survival is his, in
the memory cherished by the Chinese, and the effect
which can hardly be estimated of his high ethical
teaching. His dreams and far-reaching speculations,
as to origins, and principle, and power in Nature and
in all creation, in the world of mind and in that of things
\rr. TAO 259
visible, find substance and Divine reality alone
in Him Who has assumed and now must for ever appro-
priate the great word " Tao." " In the beginning was
the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word
was God. All things were made by Him ; and without
Him was not anything made that was made. In Him
was life ; and the life was the light of men. And the
Word was made Flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we
beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of
the Father,) full of grace and truth."
CHAPTER VII
Literature and Education
In these days of change and upheaval, hastily conceived
for the most part, and too hurriedly carried out, when
Western enthusiasts seem to imagine that it is their
vocation in this new century to educate the uneducated
Far-Eastern nations, and to civilise the uncivilised ; and
when Young China also is so eager to accept the Western
offer without knowing what it really means, and to
assume that wisdom, and learning, and literature worthy
of the name come from the West alone, it is worth the
while to survey for a moment, before the great vision
fades perchance from history and even from investigation
and study, the wealth of Uterature — ancient, mediaeval,
modern — which China possesses, and to examine its
system of almost universal education — universal, that is,
so far as area and influence are concerned, not certainly
as to the number of individuals educated — not com-
pulsory, not state-financed or enjoined, but voluntary in
the noblest sense, and largely beneficial and powerful in
its influence ; and now supplanted and discredited after
a life and history of nearly thirteen hundred years.
When we speak of Chinese literature it is a not un-
common mistake to imagine that the expression refers
almost entirely to the Five Classics and the Four Books
360
VII. LITERARY TRADITIONS 261
edited, transmitted, and partly wi'itten by Confucius
and Mencius. The Book of Changes, The Book of History,
The Book of Odes, The Book of Rites, in several parts,
The Spring and Autumn Annals (from Confucius' own
pen) — these are the Five Classics. The Four Books
consist of The Great Instruction, The Invariable Mean (the
Golden Mean), The Analects or Miscellaneous Conversa-
tions of Confucius and his disciples, and lastly Mencius,
the similar but far more elaborate records of the
table or peripatetic talk of this " second great Sage "
\nth his disciples.
But it seems certain that Confucius, as he himself
admits and asseverates, was not the morning star of
Chinese Hterature and scholarship. Not an author or
creator was he, but a transmitter ; and in the old
time before him, many thinkers, and philosophers, and
historians, and poets had flourished — their labour passed
into obUvion, or embodied and embalmed in these books
and classics, rescued, rehabihtated, glorified by this great
laudator temporis acti, this noonday splendour to which
the prehistoric morning star and dawn had pointed.
And most wonderful again is the stream of literary
activity in criticism, exposition, creation, narrative,
imagination, which took its rise from Confucius, and has
been flowing and enlarging ever since. It was said of a
scholar in the early days of the Ming dynasty (1368-1644)
that he was not a walking dictionary indeed, but a
walking library, and this has been true in a very definite
sense of an unbroken and multitudinous line of scholars
during the last thousand years or more, who have
262 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
committed to memory and have retained the whole or
the greater part of these classical and orthodox books —
a mass of Hterature about equal in bulk to the whole of
the Bible. We have known (in these later days, when
the education of women, so gravely neglected by Uterary
and educated China in the past, has been suggested and
experimented on by Mission girls' schools) children under
twelve years of age repeating the Four Gospels in Chinese
by heart. This great art and gift of memorising, which
in the folly of being in a hurry both Western and Eastern
pedagogues and " Educational Departments " are aban-
doning, possibly a necessity in early years from the
difficulty of multiplying copies for the schoolmaster's
pupils, but more probably a token of what they deemed
the priceless and never to be forgotten value of these
documents, has somehow not succeeded in " stunting
the genius, and drilling the faculties of the mind into
a slavish adherence to venerated usage and dictation,
making the intellects of Chinese students like the trees
which their gardeners so toilsomely dwarf in pots and
jars." (WilHams' Middle Kingdom, 1857, i., p. 431.) If
this were generally the case, the full stream of literary
activity, " so careful of the type," indeed, and yet so full
again and again in subject and style and treatment,
would have dried up long ago. Other hostile influences,
besides the weariness and monotony supposed to belong to
artificial and forced learning, have been enough to dis-
courage and blight anything short of a genuine genius
and love of literature and language. Wylie gives us a
list of five great calamities, he calls them " bibUothecal
VII. DESTRUCTION OF BOOKS 263
catastrophes," which seemed at the time thus to ruin
and almost obliterate China's literary history and fame
and treasure.
The first was the notorious burning of the books in
B.C. 213 by the despot of Ch'in, with the notable excep-
tions, not often mentioned, that the Records of Ch'in
were to be preserved, and that certain officials were not
required to give up their copies of the Odes, or History,
or of the works of the various philosophers, besides the
well-known exemption of books on medicine, divination,
and agriculture. This was not so much an act of
illiterate vandalism, as an act of astute policy to prevent
discontent and treason arising from the study and dis-
cussion of antiquity. So he made this desperate attempt
to make all Chinese history and literature begin again
(obliterating the past) with him and his dynasty which
had been formally constituted in B.C. 221.
In 190 B.C. the persecuting and repressive edict was
revoked, and before the close of the Former Han dynasty
(a.d. 25), with great expenditure of memory and inquiry
and search, a large library was collected, consisting not
only of the recovered Classics, but also of works by
nearly six hundred miscellaneous authors. This col-
lection also was burnt during the insurrection which
closed the dynasty, and its destruction forms the second
great catastrophe.
In the reigns of Kuang-wu Ti and Ming Ti, the first
two Emperors of the After Han dynasty, great efforts
were made to restore the lost labours, and it is said —
surely somewhat rhetorically — that when the reinstater
264 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
of the dynasty returned to the capital at Lo-yang, he
had more than two thousand vehicles laden with written
records. This era is always regarded as of special
vitality and vigour in the history of Chinese hterature.
About this time also came in the invention and use of
paper, instead of the ancient use of bamboo and wooden
tablets, perforated in the case of bamboo, or engraved
or written on with ink, and the later use of close-wove
silk for writing material, with the anticipatory name
" paper " ; so expensive, though durable, that many
who could not afford it used as a substitute a kind of
sedge — papyrus was it ? The new paper, called the
Marquis Ts'ai's paper, after the inventor Ts'ai Lun
(a.d. 105), was made from the inner bark of trees, ends
of hemp, old rags, and fishing nets, and was also called
bark paper, hemp paper, or net paper, according to the
material employed. Fine paper is made at the present
time by the Japanese from the inner bark of the dogwood
tree, and they endeavoured to introduce the industry
into China a few years ago, stripping the hill sides in
Chekiang of that particular tree under official sanction.
During this same eventful dynasty (between the years
A.D. 172 and 177) the art of printing was, in fact, though
not in full effect, discovered. The classics, revised by
a hterary commission, were cut in stone and placed
outside the National College ; and as impressions or
rubbings were probably taken from these slabs, and the
obvious hint of the art of block printing was before their
very eyes, it is strange that it lay dormant for nearly
seven hundred years. The engraving of seals, also, and
VII. DESTRUCTION OF BOOKS 265
impressions of course taken from them — a very ancient
art indeed — formed plainly the germ of the art of
block printing. During fresh disorders at the end of
this dynasty the palace at Lo-yang was again burnt
down, and in this conflagration, and during the turbulent
times which followed, the greater part of the books were
again lost. This is the third great bibliothecal catas-
trophe.
Again, but in still troublous times, the cause of liter-
ature was patronised and helped and fresh collections of
books were made ; and these about the year a.d. 300
amounted to 29,945 books, till under an imbecile monarch
the library fell into decay, and fire for a fourth time
(a.d. 311) seemed to ruin and exterminate Chinese
literary treasures.
For a fifth and, as the narrator says, a last time the
literature of China seems to pass through the flames,
yet still a phoenix in new life and literary survival.
Under the Eastern Chin dynasty and the minor Sung,
when Buddhist literature began to appear and to find
its place in the national libraries, great efforts were made
to collect books ; and the language was enriched by some
thousands of new characters. This was in the fifth
century, and the court was then held at Nankin. At
the end of this century a library of 18,010 books was
burnt by military incendiarism ; and half a century later
the Emperor Yiian Ti (552-555), fearing the approach
of hostile troops, rather than allow them (so we imagine
his mind to have been swayed) to fall into the enemy's
hands, himself set fire to his hbrary and burnt more than
266 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
seventy thousand books in Ching-chou. A great final
catastrophe indeed ! It must be carefully noted that,
with the exception of the first, none of these catas-
trophes impUed the destruction of all the books in the
Empire, but only the final loss of a certain amount of
books in certain localities.
But this was not the final holocaust, after all. The
Emperor Yung-lo, third in succession of the Ming dy-
nasty, early in the fifteenth century employed a great
staff of scholars — more than two thousand in all — for
five years in the compilation of an encyclopaedia, in-
cluding all that had been written on (i) the Confucian
Canon ; (2) History ; (3) Philosophy ; and (4) General
Literature — astronomy, geography, cosmogony, medicine,
divination, Buddhism, Taoism, handicrafts and arts.
This work, never printed, from the enormous estimated
cost, ran into 22,877 chapters, making 11,000 volumes
averaging half an inch in thickness, and measuring one
foot eight inches in length by one foot in breadth — making
a column, if so arranged for curious comparison, higher
than the top of St. Paul's. The number of pages was
917,410, and of words 366,000,000. Three copies were
transcribed, although not all three apparently for print-
ing, as one at least is in the cursive style, with red titles,
and punctuated, and carefully bound in yellow silk.
Two perished at the downfall of the dynasty in 1644,
and the third was in great part destroyed — with count-
less other Hterary treasures — in Pekin, on June 23rd,
1900, during the siege of the foreign Legations.*
* Giles. The Civilization of China, p. 201.
jL n B >y^ ^ ^ i^ ^ iil
^^ ■ r^
f^m^-^t^y.
■ip'_-^^4i^.a
'^■i
XIII. — A PAGE OF A BOOK
\To face p. 267.
VII. INVENTION OF PRINTING 267
We must not attempt to follow the stream of literary
life and activity through the, for it, less eventful eras
which follow — the T'ang dynasty (a.d. 618-907), the
golden age of Chinese bards, and the five short dynasties
which occupied half the tenth century A.D. , during which
period block printing, which had been known in the Sui
dynasty (a.d. 590-618), and practised to a limited extent
in the T'ang dynasty, became more generally adopted.
Hangchow was famous for the specimens of fine printing,
some of which the writer has seen in a great library now
alas ! broken up and scattered ; and in a.d. 952 on
Imperial order, the nine classical books, the Confucian
canon, were revised and printed.
The Sung dynasty (a.d. 960-1127) has been designated
" a protracted Augustan age of Chinese literature," and
it may be summarily asserted that since those golden
days literature and education have never been dis-
couraged, whether by foreign rule of Mongol or Manchu,
or by the favourite dynasty of patriotic Chinamen, the
Ming ; and this of itself is a proof of the vitality, and
popularity, and versatility of this great characteristic of
the Chinese race — the love of literature and reverence
for the great historic past, and delight and pride in the
power and potency of their language.
It is an interesting evidence of the way in which con-
quering powers are sometimes civilised and absorbed by
the civiUsation and intellectual supremacy of the con-
quered, that during the Mongol Yuan dynasty, so high
was the esteem and reverence for the Chinese classics,
that they were translated into Mongolian by command
268 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
of Kublai Khan, and tlie attempt was made to print
them thus for Mongol use in the newly-invented Mongol
script.
During this dynasty, however, the tendency which had
crept in under the native Sung dynasty was matured,
and this perhaps indicates a somewhat illiterate dissat-
isfaction with the pure and austere wen-li, or style, of
the ancient literature — a tendency towards the intro-
duction of the colloquial dialect of the court and of the
Northern provinces — kuan hua — into literature, and even
into Imperial decrees. Plays and novels were wTitten,
providing a very valuable thesaurus of this dialect, and a
dictionary also appeared of the hian hua pronunciation.
Literature in colloquial dialects, however, whether in
this so-called " mandarin " tongue (the speech of more
than half the nation), or in any other of the numerous
local dialects, is not considered worthy of an orthodox
scholar's notice or study ; and this contempt or dis-
approval will apply probably more to books wTitten
and printed in Chinese character than to the now
considerable Biblical and Christian colloquial litera-
ture of translation and exposition printed in English
letters.
The reason for such a prejudice would not be far to
seek, and it throws light on the nearly unique nature of
Chinese. Chinese xven-li, or literary style, and its ex-
pression in writing or print, means not so much the
translating into sign or character of words previously
enunciated and familiar in sound and meaning, but it
means the expression in signs — primarily pictorial, and
vii. THE CHINESE LANGUAGE 269
SO suggestive, and then purely arbitrary from the lack
of pictures to keep pace with what was wished to be
depicted — of ideas, thoughts, sentiments, facts (a clause
of speech or a sentence being sometimes wrapped up in
a sign simple or complicated in composition). So that
the literary " classical " Chinese language is not a lingua ;
it is not a dead language thus speaking, for as a speech
it has probably never been alive ; it is not a living
language, for it is not meant for speech (though it can
be enunciated according to the pronunciation of each
district or dialect) ; it is a language for the eye, not for
the ear ; for study, for reading, for elegant composition,
and official document, and largely, though in a looser
style, for correspondence. If it speaks, it expresses itself
in the colloquial of the mind, not, unless translated,
in the colloquial of the lips. This we believe to be
a fairly accurate exposition and explanation of a
difficult and intricate phenomenon. But it is con-
ceivable, on the other hand, that this book language,
or wen-li, represents an archaic speech as well as a script
which has now to be translated into one or other of the
eight chief colloquials of the land before it can convey
the meaning involved in the script to the ear or mind of
the hearer.
The signs or characters, in which this almost sacred
language is written, acquire, therefore, a sacred nature,
and it is an act of merit to collect and gather up
with reverent care stray paper, lest it should have
any of this honoured writing on it. In writing or
printing colloquial literature, when no legitimate or
270
THE CHINESE PEOPLE
recognised character can be found to express the word
or idea desired, one is chosen which has a sound resem-
bhng or in some way recaUing the sound of the colloquial
word. Thus a sense foreign to their true meaning in
classical Chinese is conferred on these characters ; and
such "white" or vain characters are regarded as an
insult to the language and to the reader. In a few
instances a wen-li character conveying the same mean-
ing as the colloquial word aimed at is employed ; though
when read aloud it is pronounced as though the actual
colloquial word were in the text.
One cannot help sjoupathising strongly with this
Chinese jealousy, and with their desire and resolve to
conserve rigidly the structure of their ancient and most
expressive and powerful language. But it seems now
inevitable that the barriers will be thrown down, and
that for the expression for instance of the multitude of
technical words and phrases in science, and scientific
books which China is demanding, either as translations
or in their original dress, multitudes of adapted and
mutilated and dethroned characters must be used, and
the ancient and unapproachable style be forgotten or
whelmed in the flood. But this, observe, does not imply
poverty or stunted barrenness in classical Chinese. It
is unsurpassed when wielded by a master pencil, and a
master mind guiding that pencil, in combined elegance
and terseness of idiom, in well-balanced periods, in
minute nicety of meaning, conveyed by rightly chosen
particles even, and by marked intonation, and by depths
and heights of thought expressed in concise phrases
VII. THE TUN-HUANG LIBRARY 271
which have arrested and have kept busily occupied
commentators and expounders all down the ages.
A notable discovery has recently (a.d. 1900) been
made at Tun-huang, close to, if not identical with,
Marco Polo's Sachiu, in Kansu, not far from the Sinkiang
or Kashgar border, of caves, nearly five hundred in
number, whose sides were covered with writings or
inscriptions, and some of them with closed chambers
filled with manuscripts, paintings, statuettes, and
inscriptions — the writing chiefly in Chinese, but with
Tibetan, Uigur, Mongol, and Brahmi script as well.
One chamber in particular, undoubtedly closed and
walled up early in the eleventh century, and apparently
with some haste, as the different treasures lay as they
were thrown in, pell-mell, has been carefully examined
by Mr. Stein and M. Pelliot. From fifteen to twenty
thousand manuscript rolls, piled to the height of a
man, lined three sides of this cave, which was about
eight feet square. The latest dates recorded on any
of the contents of the chamber are between a.d. 976
and 997. Paintings on silk, and manuscripts inscribed
on paper lie thick. Beautiful manuscripts of the
seventh and eighth century are to be found ; but later
manuscripts, some of which are preserved in the British
Museum, exhibit the work of uneducated and unciviHsed
hands, the very writing showing deterioration. The
caves are now, and apparently have always been, under
Buddhist and Taoist care or patronage, and they are
called the Caves of the Thousand Buddhas. But the
manuscripts are multiform. There is a remarkable
272 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
almost complete Manichean treatise, the fullest known ;
and a brief but interesting Nestorian tract called Praise
of the Three Adorable Ones ; the travels of the Buddhist
Hui-ch'ao in India, a.d. 730 ; some specimens of tenth
century printing ; and some very early and excellent
rubbings also. Careful study may show features of great
importance in this discovery as to Chinese antiquities ;
and though it may not illustrate very definitely that
literary enthusiasm and literary taste which we have
dwelt on above, yet it shows this love of letters in some
sense living on, and a resolve on the part of literary
enthusiasts a thousand years ago, to preserve all the
manuscripts they could collect from the devastating
effect of printing on the one hand, and from a sixth
" bibliothecal catastrophe " of fire on the other.
But we want to know more of the fountain head and
historic authorship of those really ancient books of China.
Confucius, in a passage familiar but tantalising to the
last degree, speaks thus : "A transmitter and not a
maker, believing in and loving the ancients, I venture
to compare myself with our old P'eng." {Analects, VII.
I.) We do not challenge the accuracy of the comparison,
if only we may know who " our old P'eng " truly was.
Chu Hsi, the great critic and commentator and historian
of the twelfth century, but one whose influence and
authority has been probably much exaggerated, assumes
that old P'eng was a worthy officer of the Shang dynasty
(B.C. 1766-1122). If so, and if he lived in the earher
years of that semi-historic period, his days may have
been contemporaneous with some of the earliest events
VII. ••OUR OLD P'ENG" 273
narrated in those classics which we are investigating.
Yet he too, if Confucius is right in his comparison, was
a transmitter and not a maker, a behever in and a lover
of the ancients. He, ancient, venerable, lost in the
mists of conjecture, can hardly have been the author or
original compiler of the books. For there were lovable
and estimable " ancients " in an old time before him,
and ancients whose books he transmitted. We fail to
penetrate into the arcana behind " our old P'eng " ; but
there doubtless sprang into the life of a national char-
acteristic, not only the composition of books, recorded
on bamboo surface, or silk, or papyrus, or sedge, or paper,
or latterly on blocks or by movable type, but this very
hterary genius itself, this distinguishing merit of China's
high and early civilisation. There are indications also
of the use of the surface of bones in writings, for there
are some still extant of great antiquity with tracings like
scratches or cracks, made by a diviner's red hot poker,
a rude application of what might have been a finer pro-
cess, and with considerable inscriptions engraved on
them by means of a metal point.
Before giving some account and brief analysis of the
subjects and contents of this Hterature par excellence of
the Chinese, and of the system and results of education
intimately connected with these ancient books (which
will form our chief topic in the closing pages of this
chapter), it is only due to the hterary fame of the Chinese
of which we have just spoken, to give some idea of the
wide range which Chinese general hterature covers. The
following is a short digest only of Mr. Alexander Wylie's
S
274 TtiE CHINESE PEOPLE
Notes on Chinese Literature* a book which will well
repay more extended study.
The Dictionaries of the language claim our first notice.
These are of two kinds : those in which the word-char-
acters are arranged according to the radical parts of
these signs — the number of radicals ranging from 540 in
A.D. 100, 542 in A.D. 523, 544 in a.d. 1070, to 360 and
finally 214, the last and orthodox limit, under the Ming
dynasty (a.d. 1368-1644). The great dictionary of
K'ang-hsi (a.d. 1716), with its forty or fifty thousand
words, is arranged under these 214 radicals. Other
dictionaries, of the seventh century, for example, arrange
the characters under 36 initials and 206 finals — the
number of finals reduced later to 160, and much later,
in A.D. 1711, with Imperial sanction, one appeared under
36 initials and 106 finals, and marking the five chief
tones, namely the upper and lower even tone, and
the three deflected tones, ascending, departing, entering,
or in full measure, with lower and upper variations for
each of the four divisions, making eight tones in all.
With reference to Histories, besides the great Historical
Classic edited by Confucius, and his own addition — the
Spring and Autumn Actuals — we have already noticed
the work of whole families of historians from the first
century (b.c.) to the eleventh (a.d.).
* First published in 1867 and reprinted in 1901. Though
some corrections and much additional information have appeared
in various journals and periodicals since 1867, Mr. Wylie's book
remains, I believe, the only systematic treatment of the whole
subject in English. Professor Giles' valuable Chinese Literature
(iqoi) treats the matter in a quite difllerent and more popular
style for English readers.
vii. >^OTES ON CHINESE BOOKS 275
Biographical literature includes narratives of the lives
of famous women (published quite early in the Christian
era), and of famous men distinguished in art and arms
and song. Professor Giles has published a translation
and compilation of a Chinese Biographical Dictionary,
containing 2,579 short lives of distinguished men and
women, from the earliest times to the present day.
Books of Travel are very numerous ; an itinerary, for
example, published in a.d. 1717, of a journey from
Ssuch'uan to Hangchow, occupying at least two or three
months. And the well-known narratives of the journey
of individual Buddhist devotees, and then of three
hundred to India in search of relics, come under this
category.
The enumeration of books on Mathematics occupies
twenty-four pages of Mr. Wylie's catalogue, and the lives
of Mathematicians, 312 in number, down to a.d. 1799,
are given in another book, Euclid and Ricci being on
the hst, a list brought down subsequently to 1840.
In Geographies the Chinese language is very rich ; and
Topographies of the most minute description are pub-
lished. The Uttle market town of Lung-hua, five miles
from great Shanghai, and the Chao-pao hill, near the
mouth of the Ningpo river, a hill often bearing the brunt
of assault during the long tale of China's internecine
and foreign wars — both of these spots are minutely
described. In a.d. 646, the Buddhists published an
account of a hundred and thirty-eight countries in Asia.
A special treatise on tides was pubhshed in a.d. 1781
by a Chinese scholar at Hai-niag, a town at the mouth
276 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
of the Ch'ien-t'ang river, past which the great Bore
periodically rushes.
Catalogues of Chinese literature have been published
from time to time, one in two hundred volumes com-
menced in 1772, but not completed till 1790. Military
Tactics were described in a book published 2,500 years
ago by a soldier named Sun Wu ; and Law was handled
in a book published a little earlier.
The Plough was discussed twelve hundred years ago,
and in the year a.d. 1210 the justly celebrated King
chih t'u shih was published by Imperial order — describing
the growth and preparation of rice and silk, with forty-
five pictures and illustrative verses. The silkworm was
written about under Kublai Khan, a.d. 1273 ; and again
in 1844.
A Medical treatise, entitled Search and Enquiry, is
ascribed to one of China's more mythical Emperors,
Huang Ti, B.C. 2697 ; the actual date given being prob-
ably incorrect and legendary only, but its actual high
antiquity probable. In this connection it is noteworthy
that though the Chinese have known practically nothing
of anatomy and have not practised surgery, yet their
medical science and achievements have been remarkable.
Acupuncture was discussed a.d. 1027, and is still prac-
tised. The pulse was written about in the third century
B.C., a treatise reprinted in 1840. The celebrated
Pen-ts'ao, the materia medica of China, was published
during the Ming dynasty (a.d. 1368-1644), and cholera
and small-pox were discussed early. Inoculation
has been practised for a thousand years and more.
vii. NOTES ON CHINESE BOOKS 277
Vaccination was introduced by foreigners a.d. 1805,
and is now largely practised and under local official
sanction.
Astronomical treatises, with later appendices repre-
senting the earth as spherical and ascribing the varia-
tions of temperature and the length of the day to lati-
tude, were pubhshed during the old Chou dynasty
(B.C. 1122-255),* and a treatise on Trigonometry was
pubhshed at the same time ; and Logarithms owe their
discovery and description to China. Divination and
Geomancy have a literature of their own ; and a Book
of Fate was published more than two thousand years
ago.
Painting has been practised all down the centuries,
and a critical notice of fifteen hundred painters appeared
in the fourteenth century ; and the painting of the
bamboo, a favourite subject with both Chinese and
Japanese artists, is discussed in a treatise of the eighth
century.
Music, the Drama, and Dancing, appear in treatises
of the ninth and tenth centuries. The Tea Classic
appeared in the eighth century a.d., and a treatise on
Ink in A.D. 986. Botany was written upon during the
Chin dynasty (205-450), and the culture and beauties
of the Peony in the eleventh century, and the Chrysan-
themum in the twelfth century. Cyclopaedias appear in
the fifth century. Romance and Fiction appear very
early in the Christian era, if not before it.
The first Index at the close of Mr. Wylie's Notes gives
* Wylie, Notes on Chinese Literature, p. 86.
278 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
the titles of 1,212 books, ancient and modern, described
and referred to in the Notes ; and as many of these are
Encyclopaedias, and collections of many smaller works
in one or more volumes, besides a number of recognised
" Collections of Reprints," some idea may be formed
of the extent and range of Chinese literature. For this
collection forms but a tithe of the books included in the
immense thesaurus printed by movable copper types
near the close of the seventeenth century. The printed
catalogue of a collection made for the Emperor himself
and known as the Ssu-k'n-ch'uan-shu-mii'lu, contains
3,440 separate books, with 78,000 chapters, besides 6,764
other works in 73,242 chapters not included in the great
Imperial reprint.
The press in China has been remarkably free. There
is a censorate, but mild in operation. The Index
lihrorum prolnbitonim, mentioning (in 1867) about 140
prohibited books of at reasonable or licentious tendency,
is circulated by order amongst the book shops.
Now, turning from this brief conspectus of the literary
activity of the Chinese, and of their passion for literature,
we offer an analysis of what is known as the Confucian
Canon, and forms the main subject and pabulum of the
old system of education, and which especially, and up
to quite recent times, provided almost the sole source for
the subjects set in the periodical competitive examina-
tions. In passing, however, we notice one other evidence
of this hterary taste and passion of the Chinese, and
one giving some hope that amidst the upheavals and
hurried changes of these latest times, there may be some
vil. THE FIVE CLASSICS 279
true conservation of this instinct and genius of the
nation. There exists in Pekin a group of antiquaries
into whose hands, for instance, some of the most valuable
manuscripts discovered in the sealed cell at Tun-huang
have been committed ; and they are searching with great
activity and jealous care for similar literary treasures ;
to be, in special cases, edited and printed for the literary
world to examine.
The Wu Ching or Five Classics, stand first in order
and authority in the Canon, and the I-ching, or Book
of Changes, stands first among the five. It is probably
the most ancient of the five so far as individual author-
ship can be ascertained. The celebrated and most
mystical eight diagrams or symbols, including our old
friends the Yang (No. i Ch'ien, or the Expanse of Heaven)
and the Yin (No. 8 K'un, or the Earth), the two prin-
ciples of generation and change evolved from the one
ultimate principle of being, the T'ai-chi (" the Supreme
Apex " or " Most Ultimate," as de Groot renders the
words), interacting, harmonious, and not originally
antagonistic, and producing in their turn the four shapes
or seasons — these diagrams are ascribed to Fu-hsi, the
reputed founder of the Chinese polity (2852 B.C.), and
by him ascribed to the markings on the back of the
" dragon-horse," the tortoise, which placid and mysterious
creature appears continually in Chinese divination.
These eight diagrams, together with the eight times
eight hexagrams composed by Fu-hsi or his successors,
formed probably the basis of philosophy and divination
up to the twelfth century B.C., when Wen Wang, the
28o THE CHINESE PEOPLE
founder of the Chou dynasty (1143 B.C.), spent his time
while in prison for some supposed state crime, in poring
over and studying and explaining what he could divine
of the mysteries hidden in these symbols and their
Imperial commentaries. This is the origin of the I-ching,
and Confucius when editing and transmitting the book
added his own observations ; and since his time about
fourteen hundred and fifty treatises on the I-ching have
been produced, including Chu Hsi's attempted exposition
of the aphoristic expressions in this classic, but all
leaving it an unsolved yet profoundly suggestive mystery.
As a rehgious work it cannot be classed or examined, for
it has no such aim or ambition, unless it be to formulate
and endorse the superstitions and exorcism which so
early usurped the idea of religion with the Chinese. As
an ethical work, its value is as assumptive as the assump-
tions on which it is based, for it deducts the principles
of human good conduct from observing the combinations
and successive evolutions of the Yin and Yang in nature
(the electrons, is it ?) interacting in nature and in man
physical and spiritual. " Idolatry in China, sc. Religion,
means the worship of the gods " not from adoration, love
or devotion, but " in order to disarm demons by their
means." Ethics, according to this " holy, ancient
venerable " book, are the goodness which proceeds from
the Tao, manifested in the universal Yin and the uni.
versal Yang, Heaven and Earth, powers now represented
as "in perpetual conflict," now as " benevolently co-
operating;" and sacrifice and worship are spoken of as
the due Divine offering to the jarring yet harmonious
THE FIVE CLASSICS
servants and handmaids of the Tao, and men's goodness
consists in imitating the goodness of nature. The value
and influence of this book in education would seem to be
negative, if effective at all ; mystifying to the intellect,
and obscuring to the moral sense. Perhaps we misjudge
it, but if China regains her balance of sober sense and
reforms, instead of, as now, wrecking her ancient educa-
tional system, this I-ching, the only book spared by the
vandal Shih Huang-ti, shall be the only one sacrificed
to the vandalism of this new enlightened China. Yet,
unless Confucius himself is finally dethroned, it will not
be easy to dethrone that book from an educational
curriculum, of whose value the great Sage exclaimed :
" If several years more of life were granted me, I
would give fifty to the study of the /, and then I
might live without any considerable errors." {Analects,
VII. xvi.)
The second and third in the Ust of the five classics are
not ascribed to any individual author, but their present,
or rather their ancient, form of compilation or editing
or redaction, is due to Confucius. The Book of History
is composed of the historical records of the dynasty of
Yii (2852-2205 B.C.), of the Hsia (2205-1766 B.C.), the
Shang (1766-1122 B.C.), and the Chou (from 1122 B.C.
down to the seventh century B.C.), when history
proper is supposed to commence. We are not informed
as to the condition in which these records, ancient even
to far off Confucius, came into his hands, and whether
he simply transmitted them or introduced an\- editorial
changes. The preface to the collected records is ascribed
282 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
altogether to Confucius. The oldest document in the
series or compilation is the Canon of Yao, who reigned
2356-2258 B.C. Confucius himself complains of the
carelessness of some of the historiographers in the minor
subject states of these earhest dynasties, and of their
unreliability, so that we must conclude that he had
satisfied himself as to the genuineness and authenticity
of those which he finally collected, edited, annotated
and transmitted. " The Master would not expose him-
self to the risk of relating or teaching what he could
not substantiate by abundant evidence," so writes Dr,
Legge ; and we may add that the same scholarly and
honest research and care must have guided Confucius
and his disciple Tso, in the composition of the Spring
and Autumn Annals, and the amplification of the same.
That narrative carries on the history especially of Con-
fucius' native state Lu, from 722 B.C., near the terminus
of the Shu-ching, to 484 B.C., the Sage's own time.
These Annals form the fifth of the five great Classics,
and with the Shu have instructed in history the Chinese,
in their curriculum of education and examination all
down the ages. If it be deemed a work of uncivilised
ignorance that China has known history to so limited
an extent for two thousand years and more, we must
remember first that the history she did know and study
forms no mean or insignificant chapter in the world's
story; and secondly, that if we deem China a barbarian
for her ignorance of the great West, how comparatively
recently the enlightened and civilised West might
have been termed barbarian for her crass ignorance
VII. THE FIVE CLASSICS 283
of the history, and geography, and antiquities, and
civiHsation of China, representing a quarter of the
human race.
The third Classic, the Shih-ching or Book of Odes,
consists, like the History Classic, not of the work of a
single author, but of ballads, national songs and odes,
set and sung to different lyres in different periods of
China's old time. The Emperor Shun, the Cincinnatus
of China, 2317-2208 B.C., is regarded as the father of
poetry, with his minister Kao Yao as collaborator and,
perchance, critic. This Chinese Burns or Barnes learnt
thus the art of song from the birds singing to him as they
weeded his fields or twittered among the sedge banks
while he was busy with his nets. There are obscure
allusions in the Li Chi or Book of Rites to an ancient
custom of the Son of Heaven, when making tours of
enquiry through the realm, to have the odes, recently or
more remotely composed, of each region declaimed by
the grand master of music, so that the condition of
morals and order in the state might be ascertained.
Possibly from this function of the odes the place of
the Book of Odes in the curriculum of education may
have been determined. Shun could not ascertain
so much what he wanted in his remote days of rule,
for poetry and song existed we are told at that time
only in this ancestor poet's mind or on his own lips.
But he may have so framed his song as to make song
henceforth ethical, educational, and civilising. Now
these odes floating about in the time of Confucius,
and the series having apparently come to an end, the
284 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
Sage, awed bj^ the beauty and power of all things ancient,
made a collection of 311 excerpts as some say (the
great historian Ssii-ma Ch'ien is the chief authority
here)— an anthology carefully selected from the three
thousand or more actualh^ in existence. Other author-
ities assert that he simply accepted, as they existed
in his day, the odes at that time surviving ; and that
he reverently transcribed and learnt them, and, com-
mending them, handed them down to posterity. The
odes seem so far to have been national, that though
many of them have a local colouring and application,
they were interchanged with other local ballads and
generally circulated. After the death of Confucius, and
during the Han dynasty, four different editions or ver-
sions of the Confucian canon of poetry were published
by as many redactors, but only one has survived the
burning of the books and the perils besetting literature
which we have described above. This special version
now in our hands is ascribed by its compiler and copyist,
Mao Ch'ang, to the direct handing down of his master's
work by Tzu-hsia, a well-known disciple of Confucius.
It is noteworthy that in both of these very ancient
compilations, the Shu and the Shih, the name and title
and attributes of a Supreme God are much more clear
and definite than in the ancient /.
Rhyme is found very frequently in Chinese poetry,
probably the earliest appearance in the literature of the
world of this graceful adjunct, or, as some will have it,
this artificial constraint of verse. Their rhymes, even
the legal and authorised rhymes dealt out at the public
vn. THE FIVE CLASSICS 285
examinations to the extemporaneous writers of a short
Seatonian or Newdigate, seem to our ear uncertain and
untrue at times, but this may be accounted for by
varieties of enunciation, and by the gradual changes
which have taken place in the ancient sounds, tone also
as well as sound being an important factor and one not
easily seized by a European ear. The Odes are divided
into four main sections, each with sub-divisions, and
these most numerous under section I. These four
divisions are entitled the Characteristics of States, the
Lesser Eulogium, the Greater Eulogium, and the Songs
of Homage, or, as Dr. Legge renders the title. Sacrificial
Odes and Praise Songs. Any adequate description of
these ancient songs is quite impossible in a handbook ;
but there is one special feature in them worthy of par-
ticular notice (besides the absorbing interest in these
ballads and love songs, and paeans, and dirges, which
have been sounding for three thousand years or more),
and it is this — the normal characteristic of a Chinese ode.
Each stanza, consisting, say, of four lines, will commence
with a picture from nature, slightly varied though still
the same scene in the different verses ; and this is fol-
lowed in each case by a brief narrative of human joys,
and woes, and hopes, and fears, not always obviously in
harmony with the picture from nature, though with
some recondite meaning implied. Occasionally a refrain
without variation follows the varied description of
nature in each verse. Here, for instance, is an ode of
the simplest description written at about the time of
Solomon, in which the refrain occurs without change
286 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
in the original, though we have slightly shuffled the same
words in the translation :
" Peach tree so fair,
Thick the flowers bloom.
Deftly to rule,
Goes the bride home.
" Peach tree so fair,
Fruit bends thy boughs.
Deftly to rule,
Home the bride goes.
" Peach tree so fair,
Leaves thy stem hide.
Deftly to rule.
Home goes the bride."
The extreme difficulty of rendering this concise antique
verse into English of the same rhythm and metre is
caused by the monosyllabic character of the Chinese
language. Our epithets, for instance, for flowers and
foliage, such as gorgeous, splendid, luxuriant, fragrant,
umbrageous, and the like, are represented in Chinese by
words every whit as expressive, but each idea is packed
into one syllable, the nouns as well being monosyllabic.
The verse, therefore, is far fuller and more expressive
than English can hope to become within the same com-
pass. " Deftly to rule," in the ode given above, is a
rough rendering in four syllables of the Chinese four
words which mean literally " she will set in order her
chamber and her house."
Here is another of these ancient Chinese odes in stanzas
of six lines instead of the more usual four, but still with
only four words in each line. The ode describes the
desolation and despair of a patriot when contemplating
vir. THE FIVE CLASSICS 287
the confusion and anarchy of China about the beginning
of the seventh century, b.c.
" North wind blows cold,
Thick falls the snow !
Lovers and friends.
Join hands and go.
All false, all vain,
Haste, haste away.
" Moans the sad wind,
Thick drifts the snow !
Lovers and friends,
Home let us go.
All false, all vain,
Haste, haste away.
" Red fox for flowers,
Black crow for gloom !
Lovers and friends,
Ride with me home.
All false, all vain,
Haste, haste away."
The country is described as so completely wrapped
in its winding sheet of snow, that the only dash of colour
or symptoms of the flowers of Spring or shade of Summer
ever returning were the vision of the red fox and the
black crow, and the anarchy-desolated land showed an
almost more hopeless outlook than the stretches of
unrelieved snow.
Now the educative power of poetry over elegance of
expression, and refinement of thought, and the flower
of imagination, and over the moral nature itself for good
or harm is undoubted, but just possibly this nature
painting and corresponding moral picture in the Odes
may be, however unconsciously, a carrying out of the
2 88 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
idea named above, that human goodness is swayed by
the contemplation of the virtues of nature, and of her
interacting principles.
The books on ritual, with the now general title of Li
Chi, formed the fourth of the Five Classics. The rituals
are really three in number, the Chou Li or Ritual of
Chou, the / Li or Ritual of Decorum, and that which alone
is included in the Five Classics, the Li Chi or Book of
Rites. The first two are generally attributed to Chou
Kung, the Duke of Chou (1181-1105 b.c), the virtual
founder of the great dynasty of Chou which lasted
1122-255 B.C., for he was the wise and strong assistant and
counsellor of • his elder brother, Wu Wang, the first
Emperor of the line, and as the guardian and presiding
genius of the newly created dynasty he is ranked in
Chinese history for virtue, wisdom, and honour, as only
yielding the first place to the great Yao and Shun. The
Chou Li treats of the order and duties in decorum of the
various subordinate magistrates of the dynasty ; the
/ Li treats rather of social and individual duties of order
and decorum in private life and under varying circum-
stances. The present Li Chi is a recension and com-
pilation of the scattered, and in some places fragmentary
copies of the ancient rituals made during the first century,
B.C. ; for these books, having suffered more than any other
of the classics from wilful or accidental injury and mutila-
tion, are of less established genuineness and authenticity
than the others. It is this latest work which by Imperial
order takes now full rank as fourth in the canonical
classics. The discovery of the " south-pointing chariot,"
THE FIVE CLASSICS
iioo B.C., is, but on doubtful authority, attributed to
Chou Kung ; and in one of the later edited rituals, the
Ta tai U (an earlier edition of the Li Chi), a Calendar of
the Hsia dynasty is given, which, if genuine, presents us
with an astronomical document four thousand years old.
The purport of these treatises may be surmised from the
various but cognate meanings attached to the word U.
All that pertains to propriety, etiquette, ceremonies,
rites of worship and reverence to higher powers ; and
besides this, decorum, good manners, politeness, becom-
ing attitude regulated by station, and courtesy in all
ranks, such are the subjects treated of in these ancient
records, " sorted silk threads " as the word chi may
denote. Their value is so intrinsically great in Chinese
eyes that they hold, and have held for nearly two thousand
years, a prominent position in the education of the
people. They are interesting to Western students as
presenting, in Callery's words, " the most exact and
complete monography which the Chinese nation has
been able to give of itself to the rest of the world," and,
he adds, " more also about the religion of ancient China
than can be learned from all the other Classics." But
Callery, too cynically and too drastically, seems to sum
up Chinese character as ceremonialism and formal
etiquette, and her reHgious thought and ritual as marked
by mingled speculation and what is almost indifference.
Yet the educational value of such books must be more
than the infliction and perpetuation of mere stiff and
lifeless etiquette when reverence, filial piety, obedience,
subordination to lawful authority, and courtesy as a
T
290 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
right from man to man, and not as a rite merely, are
inculcated.
The fifth in order of the five classics, The Spring and
Autumn Annals or The Years, we have noticed above, and
now follow the Four Books, which complete the Nine
Canonical Treatises and compilations of Chinese authori-
tative and sacred Hterature. These four are the Ta
Hsiieh, or Great Instruction, the plan of which is a dis-
sertation on the two stages in education and moral regu-
lation, namely, the individual self and the family, the
State and the Empire. The second book is the Chung
Yung, The Invariable Medium, composed by a grandson
and worthy successor of Confucius. This book treats of
human conduct as distinct from its motives and sources,
which had been discussed in the Great Instruction. The
third book is the Lun-yii, or Miscellaneous Conversations
of Confucius, a book with strains of disappointing
pettiness, yet full also of noble sententious sayings and
high-toned morality as between man and man. The
fourth of these sacred books consists of the more philo-
sophical and courageous, if not audacious, conversations
and aphorisms of Mencius — a disciple of the grandson
of the Sage, who was the author of the Chung Yung, or
more exactly, perhaps, a disciple of this teacher's pupil.
We have noticed in an earlier chapter the character of
the teaching of Mencius and how he supplements the
teaching of Confucius whilst at the same time accepting
and endorsing the great Sage's authority. These, then,
are the books which were read and learned and studied
and taught in the curriculum of Chinese education and
THE FOUR BOOKS 29!
examination. The Classic of Music, arranged by Con-
fucius and mentioned in ancient times as one of the
six classics, is quite lost, and it throws an air of pro-
bability over the story of the recovery of the other
books that no attempt has been made in this case to
introduce a claimant or substitute for the lost book.
The Book of Filial Piety, in twenty-two chapters,
containing conversations between Confucius and Tseng
Ts'an, was found after the burning of the books con-
cealed in the wall of the Sage's house, as well as the
book Erh-ya, or literary exposition of the terms used
in the classics, composed by another of Confucius'
disciples. These are both included within the sacred
area, though not in the precise list of the classics of
China, and were read in schools, but not included in the
subjects for public examinations.
The system of competitive examinations and of
placing office in civil rank and in the services within
the reach of any student high or low, rich or poor, was
introduced in comparatively recent times — a.d. 627.
But education — and that not a State-paid or subsidised
enterprise, though encouraged by the State, voluntary,
and provided without local taxation in each town and
considerable village, yet from custom and pride almost
a compulsory institution — this is alluded to and narrated
as a feature in China's civilised life in times stretching
far behind the thirteen hundred years of the com-
petitive examination system. This whole system of
education and examination, and even the very Uterature
which formed its Ufe and food, seem, as we write, in
292 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
danger of extinction — not, we believe, without grave
harm and loss to the country. But though it become
a thing of the past it cannot pass from the interest and
study of all students of history and civilisation, and
we therefore give a brief account of this system of
education, and with as pecial proposal in view, just pos-
sibly not too late for the consideration of the new and
tentative boards of education in China. We shall find
the power and influence of this ancient system so great
and so beneficial, and at the same time its failures and
deficiencies so obvious, that the double and yet not
contradictory conclusion is forced upon us : first, that
a method of education so effective, and literature which
has been its source of power so good, cannot be dethroned
and expelled as a drastic measure of reform without
permanent injury ; and, secondly, that sound reform
lies in the conservation of the structure and, in most
cases, of the method of education, whilst both the
subjects and objects of education are widened and
enlarged, and some of the methods in some grades
themselves lifted out of stiff grooves of_ old custom into
the living hues of more sympathetic touch between
master and pupil. We take the definition given by
Mencius of what man should set before him as the
object of dihgent and unremitting search, and which
teachers and students must take as the office and
function of education, namely, to seek for and draw
out from ignorance and slumber the lost soul, the lost
mind ; or, to adopt the latest utterance of one of China's
Westernised young men, who thinks in his new-born
EDUCATION 293
pride of intelligence that education must be kept clear
of religion: "Education," he says, "has as its one
ideal and goal the acquisition of knowledge, the formation
of character." We must note that among the ancient
Chinese and through the whole system of education,
character is placed before knowledge. " The filling the
head with knowledge was not to be compared with the
discipline of the heart and the purifying of the affec-
tions." " Better little and fine than much and coarse."
Now, watch a representative Chinese boy anywhere
during the past thousand years, say, commencing his
school hfe and educational career. The school, if it be
in a market town or village, assembles in a room lent
or hired in the village temple. There are also scattered
about the country endowed charity schools, and these
would be held on the premises owned by the trust. The
scholarship and teaching powers of the masters vary
much, but a man without average acquaintance with
Chinese literature and composition would certainly not
be hired by the village elders, nor long hold his position.
As a rule, the village schoolmaster is honoured, well
treated, and a man of considerable influence. The
little boy, six or seven years old, is brought to school —
day schools being the usual custom — by his father.
Father, son, and master worship then before the picture
or shrine of the god of Literature or of Confucius, and
the boy alone then prostrates himself before his master,
and knocks his small head on the floor in token of awe
and reverence and promised obedience. He begins his
study. The Trinietrical Classic forms his "horn-book,"
294 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
the foundation of his learning. The original of this
book was composed six hundred years ago, by Wang
Po-hou. It contains i,o68 words, arranged in 178
couplets, with three words in each line. The book
treats of the nature of man and of the importance of
educating that nature, and proceeds to a dissertation on
filial and fraternal duties. It gives details also as to
the powers of heaven and earth, the seasons, the compass,
the elements, the virtues, the vegetable and animal
kingdoms ; the dynasties of the Empire also are given,
and it concludes with examples of successful study and
honourable service. This book is learned by rote. The
master starts a sentence and the boys repeat after him,
and each word is carefully enunciated, intonated, and
explained. They are then sent back to their seats to
repeat, not silently and to themselves, but in loud
voice for all to hear, and perfect the repetition thus
learned ; and then, summoned to their master's im-
mediate presence again, they "back" the lesson and
receive praise or resounding blame.
The boys pass then from this Trimetrical Classic to
the Millenary Classic, a book with a similar arrange-
ment of subjects. This consists of a thousand distinct
words — no two characters or word-signs being alike in
form or meaning. This book was written a.d. 550.
From this small text -book the boys pass straight to the
great Four Books and Five Classics. But these books,
though learned also and committed to memory by rote,
must be read also, and from them the art of composition
in prose and verse must be acquired ; and here com-
vir. EDUCATION 295
menced the real drudgery, and yet, when mastered, the
supreme charm and power of Chinese script and idiom
and richness of expression and treasured thought. To
our mind one of the most serious defects of Chinese
education lay just here. The individual characters
were learnt one by one, by sheer memory, as enunciated
by the master, just as he enunciated the clauses and
sentences of the horn-book ; and the writing of these
characters — there being no accessories of alphabet or
syllables to guide the composition of the word, but only
the number and right order of stroke, dot, dash or
curve — was acquired also by mere habituation, the
boys cop5dng the slips doled out" to them every afternoon
either on tissue-paper placed over the copy slips or
direct from the copy. But in neither case, of reading
or of writing, was the true meaning of the characters or
collection of characters thus learned, nor, indeed, the
meaning of the classics they were committing to memory
given by the master till too late, surely, in the course.
Interest and enthusiasm and diligence in study, which
depend in earlier students only on pride of place and
fear of the master's rod, could be awakened much sooner
if they knew what they were learning, and sympathy
between master and pupil could thus be much earlier
cemented.
We have called this system of education universal in
China as regards boys and men ; and this has been
true so far that, in Professor Giles' words, " Every
Chinese boy may be said to have his chance. The
slightest sign of a capacity for book-learning is watched
295 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
for, even amongst the poorest " — unless we except
here the vast fishing population, in such centres as
Foochow or Canton, who live in whole families afloat ;
and the races in Chekiang and elsewhere, who for some
political crime in old days were degraded and disfran-
chised and forbidden any literary career — a disability
removed by an act of grace by the late Empress Dowager
in 1905. The day school fees were very low — say two
dollars, or about four shillings, a year on an average —
and " besides the opportunity of free schools, a clever
boy will soon find a patron ; and in many cases the
funds for carrying on a curriculum, and for entering
the first of the great competitions (that for the degree
of Hsiu-ts'ai) will be subscribed in the district, on which
the candidate will confer a lasting honour by his success."
During the T'ang dynasty six degrees were conferred.
There weire latterly only four : Hsiii-ts'ai or " flowering
talent," call it B.A. ; Chii-jen, " promoted man," M.A. ;
Chin-shih, " entered scholar," Litt.D., really the highest
of all, as Ha7i-lm, the fourth so-called degree, was more
an ofhce and position of dignity in " the Forest of
Pencils," the Imperial Academy in Pekin, though won,
like the rest, by competitive examination. The writer
knew a Chinese scholar, the son of a labourer in the fields,
who, owning as his first alma mater a small primary
Christian school in the country, climbed through the
long series of study and examination by his own merit and
without favour or patronage ; the examinations being
almost without exception above suspicion of dishonesty
or bribery from examiners or candidates. It is the fact
vn. EDUCATION 297
that the rule has long been for every boy to go to school,
for a time at any rate. But a comparatively small
proportion stay longer than for one or two years, during
which no kind of proficiency can be acquired, and they
scarcely touch the skirts of the classics, but with the
abihty to write clumsily a bill or a brief letter, and to
spell out with many shps the notice of the opening of a
new shop, or a proclamation posted in public, a faint
literary aroma clings to them through life which is lack-
ing in those who have never been to school at all. Large
numbers of lads continued their education a little longer,
and then went as apprentices into trade, or worked as
artisans, or went back to the fields, the most honourable
work in Chinese estimation next to the scholar's, and
above both artisan and merchant ; and they retained in
their different functions a trace and touch and hint of
their school life and training not without advantage to
themselves and their neighbours. A very large number,
again, passed through the whole educational curriculum,
and faihng time after time in the annual examinations
for the first degree and the second examination for the
second degree, which qualifies for ofiice, they " became
tutors in private families, schoolmasters, doctors, fortune-
tellers, geomancers, or booksellers' hacks " (Giles,
Civilization of China) . The number of the well-educated
in China, of those, namely, who are either graduates,
or undergraduates fairly qualified for competition,
it is hard to estimate. In some districts the percentage
is very high, sixty or seventy per cent of those who
have been to school at all ; in others — and this is a
298 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
more general estimate — not more than twenty per
cent at the utmost, and elsewhere scarcely five per
cent. Some approximate estimate may be found from
the fact that during the latter years of this educational
system there would come forward in each provincial
capital to compete for the second degree about ten
thousand graduates, or, say, two hundred thousand for
the Empire ; and as at each district city for the yearly
examination for the first degree there would be an
average of a million out of the whole population, it will
be well within the bounds of accuracy to speak of a
million and a quarter of the Chinese male population as
educated scholars.
But the real educative and character-forming effect
of this education was probably operative — and how
very largely this has been the case, Chinese history
and character demonstrate — during the earlier stages of
their course, and not when the ambition of distinction
and place and office rather than the love and dignity
of learning inspired the scholar. And the influence of
this education has in all probability, if not quite certainly,
operated far more widely than the microcosm of each
scholar's individual character is concerned. Even in
remote villages, with perhaps one or two at the most with
the pretension of being scholars, yet good manners are
exhibited and imitated, and veneration for age and
authority, filial piety, courtesy and welcome of strangers,
integrity and morality, outwardly at least, are recog-
nised and honoured. Professor Giles sums up the
methods and effects of education and examination in
vit. EDUCATION 299
China thus — too cursorily and hghtly, perhaps, but with
some significant descriptive touches :
" A good deal of ridicule has been heaped of late "
by, we presume he means, Chinese reformers inspired
from the West, "on the Chinese competitive examinations,
the subjects of which were drawn exclusively from the
Confucian Canon, and included a knowledge of ancient
history, of a comprehensive scheme of morality, . . .
and an aptitude for essay-writing and the composition
of verse. The whole curriculum may be fitly compared
with such an education as was given to William Pitt
and others among our own great statesmen, in which
an ability to read the Greek and Roman classics, coupled
with an intimate knowledge of the Peloponnesian War,
carried the student about as far as it was deemed neces-
sary for him to go. The Chinese course, too, has certainly
brought to the front in its time a great many eminent
men, who have held their own in diplomacy, if not in
warfare, with the subtlest intellects of the West."
We believe that education in China during these two
thousand years has gone deeper and higher and wider
too than this. There must be something in the nature
even of the formalities of the system and the structure of
the language — the biHngual study, we may almost call
it, which all scholars engage in — and the fascination of
shape and variety and combination of their script, to have
saved the nation from early and hopeless weariness, and
to have turned drudgery into almost enthusiastic perse-
verance, and the formahty and stiffness of the methods
* The Civilization of China, p. 112.
300 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
into elastic interest and devotion. All this is an educa-
tive process — the vision of form and its elegancies, the
vision of ancient wisdom and reverence for yet higher
wisdom, the vision of the unselfish transmission of that
wisdom, the subordination even of the highest sages and
heroes to the authority of age or experience, the
vision of the ancient renown of their country, and a.
renown, too, largely moral and not of war and conquest.
This influence, touching perhaps imperceptibly even
the duller scholars, must last and be operative through
life. And then when they find, beyond the drudgery of
the acquisition of reading and writing, the wider fields
of harvest ripe for them, the fruit of the so\dngs of the
ethics and philanthropy, and songs and records of ancient
times, very much must be done to summon back, if not
wholty to reclaim, the lost minds of men. The strength
of the old system lay in the very points which seem so
much out of place to modern Europe or America (where
schooling seems to be education no longer), its drudgery,
namely, and its narrow range. It was the drudgery that
made character strong, and the hmited but lofty range
of subjects taught that sent scholars into the world with
the mind not crammed and jaded with scraps of informa-
tion, but nobly trained and ready for use. But without
doubt it had its defects. The horizon fixed for know-
ledge and wisdom, too, is limited, the fountains of research
and of truth are sealed up, and those only of local value
and fulness are available. The scientia scientiarum itself,
soaring above and yet embracing and guiding all science,
the knowledge and \oxe and worship and salvation of the
EDUCATION 301
Most High, the foundation and topstone of all true
education — these are not exhibited or inculcated save with
even greater vagueness and more halting tones than the
founders and authors of Cliinese literature themselves
had used. But the general effect on the morals and
manners, the intelhgence and integrity, of the Chinese
has been so great (very far deeper and more lasting than
is the influence for good of Rome's golden literature on
Rome and Europe, and hfting the Chinese nation far
above her neighbours in the fame of morality and order
and good government), that we cannot regard the passing
of this old order and the disappearance of her literature
and educational system from China without something
more than regret — something nearer to dismay. The
system must doubtless be readjusted, its methods made
more elastic. The world is too much in a hurry, and we
cannot stop it now to submit to the deliberate, if more
thorough, apparatus of old times. And its subjects must
be carefully supplemented and expanded in history,
geography, mathematics and science generally, and the
great text-book of all, the Woid of God, the Classic of
time and eternity, must be introduced, if the system is to
possess true spiritual and moral dynamics. But the old
framework and its ancient drapery cannot, without grave
loss, be dispensed with as a true auxiliary force in the
education of the China that is to be.
CHAPTER VIII
Christianity in China
EARLY christian MISSIONS
AND OTHER RELIGIOUS INFLUENCES FROM THE WEST
In previous chapters we have studied the subject of
indigenous rehgious thought in China, and the effect
on such thought and on the whole course of social and
political order and developement exercised by her chief
leaders in philosophy and in ethics up to the Christian
era and beyond. In this chapter we propose to review
the advent and the influence of religious teaching and
belief from the West. The coming and the long stay of
Buddhism in the first century we have already sufficiently
noticed, the departure of this Northern Buddhism from
the original faith and order, apparently coinciding with
its contact with Nestorian Christianity, its adaptation to
the prejudices and genius of these new peoples, and
its assimilation of local superstitions and beliefs, or its
capture and appropriation of them. We need not, then,
include in the present chapter that great movement from
the West.
But we cannot dismiss it without relating what
either history or legend tells us of the circumstances
under which Buddhism reached China nearly nineteen
hundred years ago. There is an ambiguous utterance
302
VIII. MING TI'S DREAM 303
ascribed to Confucius in which he himself expects and
encourages his disciples to expect some teacher or
influence from the West. But what West — whether
within the quarter of China's own compass or beyond —
cannot be determined.
It is, however, a well-known fact of history that the
trade relations and intercourse between China and the
West, through Persia (as noticed above) and by other
lines, were exceedingly active during the years shortly
before the advent of the King of kings, and this com-
mercial and friendly intercourse may have made the
Chinese expectant and ready when messengers and
envoys of religion began to arrive. It seems probable
that Buddhist emissaries in the days of their earher
zeal, and stimulated by their comparative failure in
the regions of the birth of their religion, had reached
China by spasmodic effort, bringing a golden image
with them, some httle time before Christ's great coming.
But their welcome and more permanent rooting in the
land did not occur till about the year a.d. 70. The story
of that welcome appears in two forms. The Emperor
Ming Ti, of the Han dynasty, is said by the one legend
to have been warned in a dream by the appearance
of a golden image (suggested, if so, by the previous
visit of Buddhist messengers) to send an embassy
in search of teachers of this faith. The other story
— far more pathetic as implying a state of ex-
pectancy amongst the people generally and not in the
sovereign's mind alone — is to the effect that evening
after evening for a month and more there appeared
304 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
about the setting of the sun, and after its setting,
gorgeous and resplendent colours glorifying the sunset,
as eighteen centuries and a half later the sunset skies
of the world were glorified by the dust of the eruption
of Krakatoa, caught up into the regions of the higher
ether and shined on in the West.
This phenomenon seemed to both Emperor and
people to be Heaven's hand of glory beckoning them to
go westwards and enquire for some great treasure of
wisdom or religion. An Imperial embassy was des-
patched westwards ; and, instead of pressing on to the
Ta-ch'in country, Judsea, with the news of the Gospel
for all mankind freshly sounding and resounding, they
stopped in India, captivated and awed by the placid
and majestic ritual and objects of Buddhist worship
there ; and the Buddhists answered the call by sending
an embassy, with priests and full ceremonial, to China.
The question naturally arises : Did Christianity in
any form antedate or anticipate this Buddhist mission —
this response to the cry, " Come over and help us," a
cry as articulate in a sense as that of the man of Mace-
donia ? And we are met at once by the assurance from
authorities, which we describe below, to the effect that
this seems really to have occurred, and that about the
time of the Buddhist invasion of China St. Thomas
himself, accompanied in his earher evangelistic journeys
by St. Bartholomew, was evangelising first, apparently,
southern India, the Malabar coast and districts nearer
still to Madras, and then China. If this or even part
of this narrative be history, it suggests the gracious
ST. THOMAS 305
way in which the Lord of the Church uses His " chosen
vessels " in the founding of His Church. Here are two
" honest " but strangely rugged " doubters." The
doubts " except " this and that — the conditions of man's
own imperfect judgement — are satisfied, " I will not
believe, " and the doubt " Can any good thing come
out of Nazareth ? " are changed into noble confessions —
" My Lord, my God," " Thou art the Son of God, the
King of Israel." And then the confessors, commissioned
and sent further afield, beyond the bounds of the Roman
world, than St. Paul even and St. Peter had reached, as
witnesses and martyrs seal their testimony. The story
of St. Thomas's Chinese ministry, however, is not found
in authoritative Church history. Eusebius, writing in
the fourth century, speaks definitely of St. Thomas as
having Parthia assigned to him as his special evan-
gelistic field. Parthia and Persia are mentioned else-
where in early Church history as the scene of his
martyrdom by a lance thrust. These countries, with
the common name of Parthia, were conterminous with
the boundaries of Indo-Scythia, and possibly by sea
and not by a long overland progress down India, he
may have reached the Coromandel coast and the
Carnatic ; and if impelled still further eastward, " they
that go down to the sea in ships " could perhaps have
taken him again by sea, instead of the trackless paths of
Scythia extra Imaum to the southern Sinae, the modern
Cambodia and Tonkin, or to the Sinse further north in
Honan, and Serica stretching far into Mongolia. It is
noteworthy that St. Thomas is commemorated in the
U
3o6 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
breviary of the very ancient Syrian Church of the
Malabar coast as the apostoHc founder of that Church,
and as the apostle also of the Singe. It has been cus-
tomary with modern students to lay aside that claim
as apocryphal, and to ascribe the origin of the name
" the Church of St. Thomas " to a merchant and mis-
sionary named Thomas labouring near the modern
Madras in the fourth century. If we mistake not, the
belief in the historicity of the persistent claim of the
Syrian Church is rather gaining ground through recent
inquiries ; and if so, the Chinese part of St. Thomas's
career, which seems to form part of this story, may also
be rehabilitated. At present, so far as contemporary
history leads us, the earliest mention of Christianity in
China is from the writings of Arnobius {circa a.d. 300),
who remarks that " the work done in India, among the
Seres, the Persians and the Medes, may be counted and
come in for the purpose of reckoning" ; and if there be
no doubt about the identity of the Seres this seems to
show that Arnobius believed that missionary work had
been done in China before the end of the third century.
Cosmas (a.d. 535) says :
" In the Island of Taprobana (Ceylon, according to
Arrowsmith) in inner India, where the Indian Ocean is,
there is a Church of Christians, where clergy and believers
are found. Whether (there are Christians) beyond that
[i.e., in Southern Singe] also I do not know."
Neither of these early witnesses contradicts the claim
of St. Thomas as the proto-evangelist in India and in
China ; and, coming lower down the tide of time, we find
ST. THOMAS 307
testimonies documentary and oral to that claim which
can scarcely be set aside save by the charge of forgery,
hard to substantiate, on the part of the Malabar Church
itself, or by the Nestorians or Jesuits, who would have
little private interest in such a fabrication. In the
fourteenth century —
" Ebedjesus Sobensis (that is, of Nisibis, from
which centre — the Missionary Training College of the
Nestorians after their expulsion from Edessa — A-lo-pen,
leader of the first Nestorian Mission, perhaps came)
and Amrus son of Matthew, who call Thomas the Apostle
of the Chinese, follow the general opinion of their day
in referring the story of the conversion of the Chinese
to the faith of Christ (which they took from the old
records of their Church) to Thomas himself rather than
to his disciples."*
In the seventeenth century Antonius de Gouvea records
the tradition as follows : After preaching in Arabia
Felix and Socotra (it is pathetic to notice how often
this island at the entrance from the Red Sea and Aden
into the Indian Ocean, and scarcely noticed now save
as a desert and somewhat wild and inhospitable shore,
and the sad scene of tragic shipwreck, is mentioned in
early Christian story, and at one time as the see of a
bishopric), St. Thomas came to Cranganor, where the
King of Malabar lived ; and when he had founded
several churches there he moved to Coulan, a cit}' of
the same country. Thence he went to Coromandel and
* Assemani, Bibliotheca Orientalts, tom. III., pt. II.
p. DXVIII.
3o8 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
lived at Meliapore ; and thence he set out for China
and preached the Gospel in the city of Camballe and
built churches. From the old records of the diocese
of Angamala it is clear that a bishop used to be sent to
that coast with the title of Archbishop of the Indians,
and that he had two suffragans, one in the island of
Socotra, one in the country of Masina — this last name
representing China. From China St. Thomas returned
to Meliapore, where, having incurred the hatred of two
Brahmans, he was put to death, being first stoned and
then pierced with a spear. Camballe, which St. Thomas
is said by this tradition to have visited, is doubtless
Pekin ; but though Pekin existed in the time of St.
Thomas under the name of Chi, or Yen, it was not known
then as Khanbalig (Camballe), and does not seem to have
been the capital even of North China till the tenth century.
The most circumstantial asseveration of the truth of
St. Thomas's work in India and China is found in the
voluminous treatise De Christiana expeditione apud
Sinas suscepta ah Societate Jesn, written by Nicolaus
Trigautius at Rome and pubhshed in the year 1615, and
founded on Matteo Ricci's reports and narratives (a.d.
1583-1610). Trigault tells us first of the extreme
difficulty which Ricci experienced for some time in
finding traces of early Christianity in China, the very
memory of which seemed ready to vanish away, and
after relating the paucity of these traces, derived mainly
from the testimony and information supplied by a Jew
named Ai, the narrative proceeds, evidently in Ricci's
own words :
ST. THOMA$ 309
" We are able to refer the origin of Christianity in
these realms to a still earlier source, from what we have
had extracted from the Syriac manuscripts of the Malabar
coast. The fact that that coast was added to Christ by
means of St. Thomas the Apostle is too plain to be
called in question by even the most obstinate. In those
manuscripts, then, we read very plainly that the faith
was carried to the Sinae by the same Apostle of Christ,
and that several Churches were founded in that kingdom."
Ricci then informs us that a translation of these manu-
scripts was made from Syriac into Latin by Father
Campori, by order of the Jesuit Archbishop Roitz — the
Malabar Syrian Church being then under Jesuit control —
from which we make the following extracts. In the
Syriac breviary we read thus :
" Through Mar Thomas,* the error of idolatry vanished
from the Indies. Through Mar Thomas the Sinae and
the Ethiopians were converted to the truth. Through
Mar Thomas they have kept the faith of one God which
they had received. Through Mar Thomas the kingdom
of the heavens has flown and ascended to the Sinse."
The date of the original from which these extracts
were translated must be uncertain, since the Malabar
services are not now extant in their unrevised form ;
but it is certainly implied that the extracts are taken
from the old portions of the books, and one can scarcely
bring himself to imagine any fundamental and particular
forgery or contradiction introduced by revision into the
original memorials.
* " Mar " is a Syrian title meaning "lord." Cf. Maranatha
I Cor., xvi. 22.
3IO THE CHINESE PEOPLE
The story may not be history after all,* but its interest
and sacred pathos are so deep that we have thought it
only just to give the tale as carefully as possible. It
looks like an archway, veiled perhaps in summer haze
leading into the long vista of a day of hght and shade,
of sunshine, dead calm, thunder-gust and tempest
alternating— /Ag day of Christianity in China — to close,
we trust, soon and for ever, not in dark night, but with
the dawn of the eternal day of the kingdom of God.
And we may almost venture to join in the words of
the Antiphon from the Syriac Malabar breviary and say,
" The Indians, the Sinae . . . offer adoration to Thy
Holy Name in memory of Mar Thomas."
Before proceeding to a narrative most undeniably
historical of the introduction of Christianity into China
by the Nestorians, the Franciscans, the Jesuits, and by
the Churches of the Reformation, and in order not to
break the thread of the Christian story (broken too often
by the slumber or neglect of the Church), we give first in
brief detail a narrative of the early arrival in China of
other rehgious emissaries either as commercial or political
pioneers, or as teachers of new faiths. Neither is this
narrative wholly out of connection with the history of
Christianity in China ; and the interacting influences and
effects produced by these almost coincident arrivals (as
also is the case with original and later Buddhism)
* That it may be of quite late origin is suggested by the fact
that John de Monte Cor vino, who was famiHar with both Persia
and India late in the thirteenth century (spending a year at
the Church of St. Thomas), and would have known their traditions,
wrote about China : "To these regions there never came any
Apostle or disciple of the Apostles."
PR ESTER JOHN 311
possess an interest, tantalizing, significant, perplexing,
and well repaying closer study.
In the story of the assembling of the council of Nicasa
related by Dean Stanley {History of the Eastern Church,
p. 98), with graphic power and minute detail, we read
that amongst the gathering crowd of bishops and
delegates, and as the fourth in a band of representatives
of four famous Churches, appeared in this famous
year a.d. 325 " John the Persian, Metropolitan of
India." In a footnote it is suggested that his name,
thus emphatically stated, may be connected with the
name, not the notorious person afterwards bearing the
name, Prester John. This " invisible Apostle of Asia,"
priest, king of the Kerait or Krit Tartars, and dominating
a great part of Eastern Tartary, north of the Chinese
wall, and near the river Amur (the region which
eventually felt the sway of the great Genghis Khan, and
the power which dominated China for a while), was
either an adventurous Nestorian priest who, by intrigue
or by force, possessed himself of the throne, or he was
the Ung Khan himself after his conversion, assuming in
humility the title Prester as yet nobler than Khan. The
first supposition rests on the testimony of Wilham of
Tripoh, Bishop of Gabat, in the early days of the twelfth
century, and states that this bold crusading Nestorian
priest took advantage of the death of Kenchen {i.e.,
Gurkhan, of the Khitai Tartars), the king of those far
Eastern regions, to seize by force the reins of power,
and that Prester before he mounted the throne, Prester
he continued to be called ; and, moreover, that Prester
31 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
John was the hereditary title of that line, till brought
to an end by the great Genghis Khan a century later.
Meanwhile the fame of his fabulous wealth and power
and dominion as a Christian king and priest, set aflame
by his own vainglorious embassies and proclamations
to the Roman Emperor Frederick I., to the Greek
Emperor Manuel and to other potentates, dominated
the Western mind from the twelfth century onwards.
Pope after pope sent embassies and messengers to the
elusive Prester — the Nestorians apparently fostering
the illusion purposely. The other version of the story
of Prester John is laid in the same region of the Kerait
tribe, but in the year a.d. 900, or more than two cen-
turies earlier. But here again the Nestorian element
appears. The Tartar king, lost in the wilderness when
out hunting, is guided by a saint (a Nestorian anchorite
or hermit presumably) out of his perilous position, and,
accepting the hermit's faith, is baptised by the Arch-
bishop of Meru, Ebedjesus, by the name John, either
after the hermit, or possibly after the Nestorian Patriarch
John, to whom, in those early tenth century days, the
report was sent. The converted and baptised king took
the title of Prester John, and his 200,000 subjects entered
the faith at the same time. (I. S. Assemani, Bihliotheca
Orientalis.) In the fifteenth century, whether jealous of
this Nestorian triumph or from genuine curiosity, John II,
King of Portugal, directed Peter Corillanus to make
inquiries respecting the kingdom of Prester John ; and
he professed to have found in Abyssinia, in the person
and surroundings of royalty there, what corresponded
PRESTER JOHN 313
with the Prester, who was reported to have Hved and
flourished in further Asia. Once again the invisible
Prester John has been identified with the Dalai Lama
of Tibet, which draws the story near China again ; and
it is significant that it was in the beginning of the twelfth
century that the regal and priestly power were joined
in the person of the Grand Lama. One thing is certain,
namely, that when the regions connected with these
narratives, legendary or historic, of Prester John were
eventually reached and explored, it was found that from
the twelfth century numbers of Nestorian Christians had
lived there as an established Church, and apparently
having no direct connection with the great Mission under
the Nestorian A-lo-pen in the seventh century, which
claims our special attention. Dean Stanley's footnote,
quoted above, seems to suggest the possibility of a far
earlier Mission to the Farthest-East and the Seres, by the
Chaldean Church, tracing their descent as they did from
the earhest of all Eastern Christian Missions, that of
Thaddffius to Abgarus — Edessa being the cradle of all
ecclesiastical history also, as the birthplace of Abraham.
That Church was in its earlier days an active,
energetic, Missionary Church, and their more primitive
Prester John may have prepared the ground for the
harvests of successive Presters.
It must be noted that the Christianity of Prester John
(that is, of Ung Khan, the Kerait chief) is not hinted at
by Chinese writers ; but the body (or image) of his niece,
who was the mother of Mangu or Hsien Tsung (third in
succession to Genghis Khan) 1251, and of Kublai (who
314 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
succeeded his brother Mangu in 1259, and was actually
seated on the throne of all China a.d. 1280), is recorded
to have been laid in the Cross Monastery in Kansu.
Mongol Christianity is further connected with Nestorian
influences through King George, a Tartar chieftain under
the great Khan, to whom both Marco Polo and John de
Monte Cor vino make frequent allusion. He was origin-
ally a Nestorian Christian, and was converted to the
Catholic faith by Monte Corvino himself. King George's
father and uncle are mentioned as saying, "We take
much trouble to procure monks and bishops from the
West," in the story of Mar Jabalaha III. (a.d. 1245 —
1317), another remarkable character of that period.
Mark and Bar Sauma were Nestorian monks— Uigurs
born in Shansi and Pekin respectively. They travelled
to the West in 1275, and Mark was consecrated Metro-
pohtan of Cathay and Wang (Ongut), and Bar Sauma
was appointed Visitor. They remained in the West ;
and in 1281 Mark was appointed Patriarch of the Nes-
torian Church, with the title Jabalaha III., a post which
he held through days of prosperity and persecution till
his death in 1317. Bar Sauma was sent by Arghun Khan
of Persia to Europe to incite the Pope to a new Crusade.
Nestorian as he was, he was allowed to celebrate Mass at
Rome, and received the Communion from the Pope. He
saw Edward I. in Gascony, and Edward received the
Communion from him. So strangely was there giving
and taking and interchange of influence between the
West and the Farthest-East in those half -known
mediaeval days.
VIII. ISLAM 315
The earlier history of Islam, and its entrance into
China, has a yet more mysterious and perplexing con-
nection with Nestorian Christianity. It is supposed that
the rise of Mohammed's power in Mecca was considerably
aided by a circle of earnest people there, the slave Zeyd
amongst them, who were predisposed to accept a purer
faith than the gross paganism of Arabia, and that
probably through intercourse with Eastern churches,
from Abyssinia or Syria. Mohammed himself, during one
of his earlier journeys with his uncle Abu Taleb, met with
and conversed with a mysterious character, a Syrian
or Nestorian monk, the reputed abbot of the monastery
of Bostra or Basra (Berydhus of Bostra is said to have
been converted by Origen a.d. 232), who prophesied to
his uncle the coming greatness of the youthful Prophet,
and became one of Mohammed's companions and first and
favourite friend. Probably from him Mohammed was
instructed not in the genuine canonical Gospels, which
he seems scarcely even to have seen, but in the apocryphal
tales of the Gospel of the Infancy, of Nicodemus, or of
Joseph. The Collyridians also, deifying the Mother of
Jesus — an early anticipation of the official Mariolatry of
the eleventh century — and worshipping her as a member
of the Holy Three, suggested to Mohammed the tritheism,
as he supposed, of the Christian faith, and did more than
anything to turn him into a denouncer and an antagonist.
And yet, strange irony of the fate of error, to the Koran
in the first instance is the fable of the Immaculate Con-
ception of the Blessed Virgin to be traced.
The story of the introduction of Islam into China by
31 6 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
Mohammed's uncle, Saad Wakkas, supposed to be buried
at Canton, early in the seventh century (Mohammed died
June 8, A.D. 632), is not of ancient authority ; there
is no trace of such an event in the inscription at Hsi-an
dated a.d. 742, though this itself is also not certainly
genuine, and it first appears in the Geography called
Ta Ming i i'ung chih, a.d. 1461, and later, in an inscrip-
tion of the latter seventeenth century at Hangchow,
whereas an inscription in the same city of 1452 has no
suspicion of such an important event. It is significant,
however, that in the Mo chuang man lu of the twelfth
century, the religionists there called the Hsien-shen are
said to have come to China with the Nestorians and
Mohammedans. Now, laying aside for the time the possi-
bilities which we have referred to above of an earlier
arrival, the Nestorian Mission under A-lo-pen did most
certainly arrive at Ch'ang-an, or Hsi-an, then the capital
of China, in the year a.d. 635, or three years after
Mohammed's death ; and the arrival of Islam at about that
date seems quite probable from the above quotation.
Thus much is certain, that Mohammedanism in China, in
its most powerful days, has not been pre-eminently anti-
Christian ; and, moreover, it is said that the school of
Islam, specially dominant in China, expressly affirms
its belief and expectation, not of a return of the Prophet,
but of the return in glory of the greater Prophet after all,
Jesus Christ. Though the actual date and circumstances
of the introduction of Islam into China cannot be traced
with certainty further back than the thirteenth century,
yet the existence of settlements of foreign Moslems with
VIII. ISLAM 317
their Mosques at Ganfu (Canton) during the T'ang
dynasty (a.d. 618 — 907) is certain, and later they spread
to Ch'iian-chou and to Kan-p'u, Hangchow, and perhaps
to Ningpo and Shanghai. These were not preaching or
proselytising inroads, but commercial enterprises, and
in the latter half of the eighth century there were Moslem
troops in Shensi, 3,000 men, under Abu Giafar, coming
to support the dethroned Emperor in a.d. 756. In the
thirteenth century the influence of individual Moslems
was immense, especially that of the Seyyid Edjell Shams
ed-Din Omar, who served the Mongol Khans till his
death in Yiinnan a.d. 1279. His family still exists in
Yiinnan, and has taken a prominent part in Moslem
affairs in China.
The present Moslem element in China is most numerous
in Yunnan and Kansu ; and the most learned Moslems
reside chiefly in Ssach'uan, the majority of their books
being printed in the capital city, Ch'eng-tu. Kansu is
perhaps the most dominantly Mohammedan province in
China, and here many different sects are found, and
mosques with minarets used by the orthodox muezzin
caUing to prayer, and in one place veiled women are
met with. These, however, are not Turks or Saracens,
but for the most part pure Chinese. The total Moslem
population is probably under 4,000,000, though other
statistical estimates, always uncertain in China, vary
from thirty to ten millions ; but the figures given here
are the most reliable at present obtainable, and when
it is remembered that Islam in China has not been to
any great extent a preaching or propagandist power by
31 8 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
force or the sword, it is difficult to understand the
survival and existence of such a large number as that,
small, indeed, compared with former estimates, but
surely a very large and vigorous element. It seems
almost as though the masterful genius for war and
conquest had been drunk in by these Chinese Moslem
millions with the teaching which they had accepted ;
for the three great Mohammedan rebellions which marked
the middle and the closing years of the nineteenth
century, breaking out in Yiinnan, Kansu, and Shensi,
during two of which the writer was in China, seem
to have had no special provocative cause, and no special
objective, except the awful joy of fighting. These
uprisings required all the force and strategy of Chinese
military leaders successfully to overthrow and suppress
their power — the great Moslem leader in the earlier
Shensi and Kansu rebelhon being opposed with Fabian
tactics by the greater leader, Tso Cunctator. The
apprehension of the advancing rebels hung for many
months over even central China, and photographs of
the coming Moslem Emperor were distributed in vast
numbers secretly as far south as Hangchow. Previous
to the early days of the Manchu dynasty there seems to
have been no friction between the Mohammedan Chinese
and the Imperial Chinese rule, and both Jewish and
Moslem inscriptions state, in a judicious spirit of
friendly compromise, that their doctrines were identical
with those of Confucius and his great school. So that
the conflict, and these rebelhons as the chmax, were not
rehgious wars so much as the old conquering spirit
vili. THE JEWS 319
(provoked by petty quarrels or accidents) awake again.
We seem to trace the same spirit of compromise, possibly
to the verge of the surrender or suppression of vital
truths, in their contact, and that without apparent
antagonism and protest, with the other Western invaders
of China — Jews, Manicheans, Parsis, and Buddhists —
who claim a brief additional notice further on.
What led the Jews to enter China, and to bring with
them not their commercial and business instinct alone,
but their religion also, and that not for purposes of
propagandism again, but for self-preservation and
sacred memory, we have no historical data to guide us.
Our apparently sole informant resides in the inscriptions
on large stones in the city of K'ai-feng, the capital of
Honan — one built into the wall of an adjoining house,
another on its pedestal in the open — and bearing three
dates, June, a.d. 1489, August 3, 1512, and June, 1663.
The earUest dated inscription gives the latest date for
the arrival of a party of seventeen famihes of Jews in
China in the Sung dynasty (probably 960-1127), who
were invited by the Emperor to settle in Pien-hang or
K'ai-feng, at that time the capital of China. The next
inscription says that they reached China in the Han
dynasty, and just possibly in the first century of our
era — probably, if so, after the fall of Jerusalem — and
about the time of St. Thomas's reputed mission, and
the early Buddhist missions. The latest dated inscrip-
tion pushes back the Jewish arrival further still, to the
days of the Chou dynasty, i.e., before 250 B.C. Just
possibly Isaiah's words, " these from the land of Sinim."
320 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
may point among other included interpretations to
Jewish colonists in China about the middle of the Chou
dynasty. Marco Polo speaks of the Jews in a.d. 1286
as sufficiently numerous to exercise pohtical influence.
Ricci, when making inquiries about a possible Christian
element surviving in China, came into communication
with a Jew named Ai, from K'ai-feng itself ; from whom
he learned that there were ten or twelve families of
Jews, with a fine synagogue, still living in that city,
and that in Hangchow, the capital of Chekiang, they were
more numerous, with a synagogue of their own ; but
that in other places whither they had spread they were
dying out, being without a synagogue and without the
Law {i.e. the Pentateuch) which they had long cherished
at K'ai-feng. The K'ai-feng synagogue had been
repaired in a.d. 1279, 1421, 1445, 1461, c. 1480, 1512,
and rebuilt just after the middle of the seventeenth
century. During the devastation of the city by the
bursting of the Yellow River in 1642 the synagogue was
destroyed, and the copies of the Law precariously rescued
by piecing together fragments from the flood. Two
old copies of the Law had been received in the fifteenth
century from Ningpo, showing the existence of a large
Jewish colony there. Jews are mentioned also as living
in Yang-chou in Kiangsu, and in Ning-hsia in Kansu,
in Ganfu or Canton (ninth century), at Khanbalig
(Pekin) by Marco Polo in the thirteenth century, and
at Zaitun in Fukien, and finally at Khansa, Kinsay or
Hangchow. Scarcely any traces of these colonies now
remain. Bishop White, of Honan, writing in 1912 of
viir. RELICS OF CHRISTIANITY 321
a visit to K'ai-feng, speaks of the " few tens of Jews
to be found there now, as some Christian inquirers,
some Mohammedans, the rest heathen." From this
same Jew, Ai, Ricci gathered further information of a
melancholy and pathetic nature as to the survival of
Christianity, though in a moribund state, and apparently
of the friendly relations in the past between the Christians
and the Jews. This Israelite at first professed ignorance
on the subject, but when the cross, represented in the
Chinese figure of ten, was mentioned, he at once in-
formed Ricci that in K'ai-feng, and in Lin-ch'ing in the
province of Shantung, and in Shansi also, there were
foreigners living whose ancestors had come from the
West, who worshipped the cross, and used the sign of
it when they ate or drank, and also made the sign in
ink on infants' foreheads as a charm. The Jew further
stated — and here we meet with a possible hint of this
want of antagonism between the Christians, the Moham-
medans, and the Jews, and, as we notice below, the Budd-
hists also (whether it were a mark of Christian charity
or a symptom of Christian laxity we do not presume to
declare) — that worshippers of the cross took part of the
doctrine which they used to recite from the Jewish books,
and thus it was common to them both.
He declared that they, the Christians, had been very
numerous, especially in the northern provinces, but that
their great prosperity, both in civil and military careers,
excited suspicion of Christian revolutionary intrigues in
the minds of the Chinese, fostered, this Jew suggested,
by the Saracens, or Mohammedans, and the Christians in
X
322 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
terror fled in all directions, and those who could not
escape capture abjured the faith, declaring themselves
to be Moslems, Jews, or idolaters. Ricci, sending a
brother to visit K'ai-feng, found it even so ; not one
of those known to have been Christian would confess
the faith. It is more probable that the success of a
Portuguese Dominican missionary in preaching, coupled
with the violence of some foreign traders on the coast at
this time, rather than Saracen enmity and intrigue,
accounted for this sudden persecution and apparent
suppression of Christianity. Christians, Jews, and
Saracens were for the time called by the same name —
Hui-hui : a further, though not very conclusive, evidence
of a certain friendly intercourse and relationship between
the three.*
It is worth recording here that while we write (Feb-
ruary 7, 1913) news has arrived of the purchase by
the Canadian Anglican Mission in Honan of the ancient
site of the Jewish synagogue at K'ai-feng fu, with the
memorial stones which bear witness to the fact that the
synagogue was erected there in a.d. 1163.
The influence of Nestorian Christianity on the teaching
of Buddhism in China, to which allusion has already
been made, may be regarded as a matter of extreme
probability, if not as a fact of history, however difficult
it is to trace its precise points of contact. But it is
♦ Fo-chiao is the Chinese name of Buddhism ; Hui-hui of
the Moslems ; Ching-chiao of Nestorian Christianity ; Mo-ni of
the Manicheans; Mu-hu-hsien of the Parsees, i.e., worshippers of
Hsien-shgn. Chu-hu are the Jews ; Tieh-hsieh or Yeh-li-k'o-w^n,
Christians in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries,
NESTORIANS 323
evident that the earlier orthodox Buddhist cult, intro-
duced by invitation in the first century^ did not make
any marked advance till the Amidabha cult had almost
overshadowed the old faith, and that cult of Amidabha
in its later miraculous environment and furniture was
largely coloured by what the Buddhists possibly learned
and appropriated from the Nestorians, just at that time
entering China. Some intercourse between the two is
attested not obscurely by the fact that a Nestorian priest.
Ching-ching, the author of the great Christian inscrip-
tion, had helped an Indian missionary to translate in the
eighth century a Buddhist sutra into Chinese. Whether
this was a mere interchange of courtesy — the Buddhist
copying and appropriating Christian sutras and the
Christian patronising a Buddhist sutra — or whether it
denoted a symptom of compromise on the Christian side,
we cannot tell. The activity and vigour of the monk
Ching-ching in the eighth century, testified to by three
separate authorities, and the historical arrival of the
Syrian Mission in the seventh century, with three or
four separate records of this event, are beyond all
praise, and in a measure atone for the backwardness of
missionary zeal which the great Eastern Church has
shown in later centuries and almost to the present time.
Yet we cannot but be arrested by the fact that
symptoms of the imperfection, if not downright error, of
this ancient Christian teaching appear very early. How
comes it that on the great Nestorian tablet, the work
of Ching-ching, while a cross appears above, the mean-
ing and efficacy of the cross through the sacrifice of
324 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
atonement offered there by the Son of God, the great
and dominant article of the faith, are not mentioned, save
by a vague reference to salvation and blessing stretching
to the four points of the compass ? Was it so suppressed
from the perversion of this doctrine which Nestorius
hardly taught himself, but which his followers too soon
adopted from the intricacies of his views, namely, that
the Saviour of the world, the Person Divine-Human in
one, was not the Son of God in suffering and dying and
atoning, but the Man Christ Jesus, separate as such,
mysteriously though not personally united ? Or was it
that, lest this perversion should be challenged or doubted,
the declaration of faith and doctrine was silent just
where silence was criminal ? Neither does the name
of Jesus occur in the two thousand words of the great
tablet, or in the nearly seven hundred words of a
paper roll written by a Chinese Christian eleven centuries
ago, and recently discovered by Professor Paul Pelhot
in a sealed-up cave near Tun-huang, in the province
of Kansu. The religion is named on this paper roll,
as on the tablet, " The Illustrious Rehgion," identifying
it with the Nestorian faith ; the Holy Trinity is men-
tioned and adored, but the Divine Name above every
name is suppressed or forgotten.
The coming of the Manicheans to China, professing
the wild creed which in North Africa held Augustine
in its toils for nine years — the attempt it would seem
to reconcile an adapted and emasculated and perverted
Christianity with the old doctrines of Zoroaster, a
religion owing probably a good deal to the influence of
VIII. ZOROASTRIANS AND MANICHEANS 325
Indian Buddhism, and with dualistic teaching not
unlike the Chinese dual influences in the order of the
world, the Yang and the Yin — occurred apparently as
early as a.d. 584 ; and that of the Parsees, with a
simpler worship of fire, and especially of the sun, at
least as early as a.d. 621. The latter had a temple at
Chinkiang until the thirteenth century. They did
not, however, introduce the worship of fire and of the
sun into China, for such a cult is much older than the
date of their arrival. It is an impressive sight to watch
the Parsees of the present day in China (recent immi-
grants of the Parsee race and not Chinese converts), men
as they are of high reputation for intelligence and
integrity in the commercial world, solemnly walking
along the sea shore till they reach a quiet spot facing the
setting sun, and then bowing low in worship. The sun
occupies also a high place in the Chinese Taoist Pantheon ;
whilst the people, when using the word shen for
" god," identify this often in their minds with the god
of fire.
It is difficult to surmise what led the Manicheans and
the Parsees so early to China, unless in the case of the
Manicheans it was the stress of persecution in Persia
to which they were exposed in the third and fourth
centuries, and the pressure also of restrictive edicts of
Christian emperors. They do not seem to have come
as propagandist missionaries, and though Manichean
thought and teaching have affected Japanese Buddhistic
philosophy not a little, and that too derived from China,
their influence and the presence of professors of the
326 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
creed are hardly, if at all, perceptible in China
to-day. A temple with the name " The temple of the
Great Cloud's Bright Light " (probably of Manichean
origin) is to be found in some places, and two important
Manichean manuscripts, doctrinal but not with any his-
torical notes, were found in the sealed-up cave at Tun-
huang in Kansu recently ; but as missionary agencies,
and as influencing with any power Chinese religious
thought, they cannot be seriously considered.
The high honour of being the first emissaries of the
unique Christian Gospel to China, however many their
errors and deficiencies and mistakes may have been,
rests with the Nestorians ; and with their mission
historical Christianity begins in China.
The after stages in the history of Nestorian missions
to China we must only summarise. After the arrival
of A-lo-pen at Hsi-an, in a.d. 635, a Syrian monastery
to house twenty-one monks was granted in this city,
otherwise called Ch'ang-an. It seems probable from
this that A-lo-pen came not alone, as seems imphed
on the great Nestorian tablet described below, but with
companions. The Nestorians seem to have declined in
the ninth century, after the decree of the Emperor
Wu Tsung, in the T'ang dynasty (a.d. 845), suppressing
Buddhist and other foreign rehgious houses. Buddhism
has not often been thus persecuted in China ; but in
A.D. 1221, during the unsettled days of the Southern
Sung dynasty, a similar decree was issued, and the
great pagoda at Ningpo was levelled to the ground and
house* were built on its site. The Nestorian tablet was
VIII. THE NESTORIAN MONUMENT 327
discovered accidentally in the year 1625, during the
digging of trenches for the foundations of a building
near Chou-chih. The story related by an " old in-
habitant " to Etienne Faber was to the effect that it
was notorious that for several winters snow would not
lie on a certain spot of ground, the very spot where
the stone was found. It was buried several feet below
the surface, either purposely hidden or overthrown
after the decree of a.d. 845 ordering the destruction of
vast numbers of Buddhist monasteries and the seculari-
sation of more than 400,000 Buddhist monks and nuns,
and the same secularisation for 2,000 or 3,000 Syrians
(Nestorian Christians) and " Mu-hu-hsien " (Parsees).
The great slab, 9 feet i inch high, about i foot in thick-
ness, and 3 feet wide, lying thus prostrate on its face
for nearly a thousand years, may well have sunk down
deep into the earth by natural causes. The monument
was removed with care and honour by the magistrate
of Chou-chih, and was set up in a temple
about five li outside the west gate of Hsi-an
(the capital of China during the T'ang dynasty). By
a strange coincidence this temple stands quite near the
site of the first Christian church, which was built a.d.
638, or 143 years before the monument was erected.
The stone stayed in this temple tiU October 2, 1907,
when it was moved inside the city walls and placed in
the Pei-lin, a collection of ancient inscriptions. It was
seen by Dr. WilUamson — a great traveller and ex-
plorer about forty years ago — in a state of compara-
tive neglect, and through his representations to the
328 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
authorities it was protected by, we believe, a special
fence placed round it.
It may be noted here, with reference to the translation
of Scripture by the Nestorians, that though the trans-
lations were not printed (that art not coming into full
use till A.D. 952), yet both the tablet and the roll, the
special authorities which guide us here, are careful to
record that books (including no doubt the Bible) were
brought, and some of them at least translated. The
fact of some such translation is specially mentioned on
the tablet.
This tablet, commemorative of the advent of the
Nestorians, was erected probably at the district town
of Chou-chih, thirty or forty miles from Hsi-an, in the
year a.d. 781 ; and Nestorian monasteries existed also
at Ch'eng-tu, and in Kansu, and possibly in Honan.
The inscription on this supremely interesting memorial,
a long prose narrative followed by a summary in verse,
is too long to translate here, but we add a brief sketch
of its import.
The title proposes to describe the diffusion through
China of the illustrious religion of Ta-ch'in. The first
division of the two thousand words, containing 400 or
500 words, describes in redundant and fanciful mixture
of enigma and history, the existence and power of the
eternal Cause of causes, the mysterious Trinity, the true
eternal Lord Elohim. The creation of all things, and
of man, is described, the conflict or interaction of the
dual system, the temptation and fall of man, the coming
in of false doctrines innumerable ; the setting apart
VIII. THE NESTORIAN MONUMENT 329
of the adorable Messiah, his virgin birth in Syria, the
guiding star, the Persian magi ; His fulfihnent of the
ancient law of the twenty-four holy ones {i.e., the Old
Testament), His doctrine of life, destroying death ; His
launching of the boat of mercy, His ascent, the God-Man,
into heaven ; His legacy of the twenty-seven books of
the New Testament ; the institution of baptism by water
and the Spirit ; the Cross as the method of uniting
all people ; the way of life and glory by worshipping
towards the East ; the lives and ceremonies of the
preachers. Truth is here, cut in stone 1,100 years ago,
truth, but with fatal and disastrous and inexplicable
omissions of vital truth — the death and rising, the
atonement offered and accepted by this great Messiah,
the one means of salvation. And with this ominous
omission — the cross again and again specified, but not
the Crucified Lord of Glory — the supreme interest of
the monument fades, and the long and elaborate sequel
commemorating the welcome accorded to A-lo-pen and
his message by the Emperor T'ai Tsung (627-649) ; the
translation of the Scriptures in the Palace library (a
significant fact indeed) ; his patronage and promulgation
of the faith ; the intrigues of Buddhists (a.d. 698-700)
and of Confucian scholars ; the praise of successive
Emperors for their interest and succour ; the erection of
the monument affirming the truth of this Gospel, and
lauding Kao Tsung and his fellows for their faith and
works, ending then with an outburst of praise to the
Three in One — all this cannot restore confidence, or
create anything but disappointment in this mission and
330 THB CHINESE PEOPLE
its sequel, so nobly conceived, so energetically yet
imperfectly promulgated, so sadly failing ; but not, we
believe, without salvation brought to multitudes of souls,
taught that truth in secret, or gathering it from the
translated Word, which Ching-ching would judiciously
suppress in pubhc.
There are no apparent traces of Christians in China
during the eleventh and twelfth centuries — that is, from
the close of the great T'ang dynasty to the close of the
Sung. But in the thirteenth century Nestorian monks,
under a Mongol term, possibly the equivalent of archon,
and Christian tribes such as Prester John's Keraits, and
King George's Onguts, and the Alans are prominent.
Monasteries are known to have existed in widely
separated places — in Kan-chou, for example, and Ta-
t'ung, in Chinkiang, and Hangchow, in Pekin also, in
Yang-chou, in Yunnan, and in Wen-chou in southern
Chekiang ; but native authors do not mention Christian
converts, save once, and that with contempt. In 1289,
under Kublai Khan, a board was established for the
control of the Christian clergy, and there were reported
to be at that time seventy-two quasi-dioceses in the
vast empire.
But with the close of the Mongol dynasty (a.d. 1368)
Nestorians disappear from Chinese history. Sargis (a
Christian name) appears as governor of Hangchow in
1364, and such Christian names as Denha and Solomon (?)
occur in the last scenes of the dynasty at Pekin.
The mission of the Franciscans, the Minor Friars,
under John de Monte Corvino, full of aeal and devotion
vin. MEDIEVAL CHRISTIANS 331
and energy, faithful but all too brief, lasting indeed
less than a hundred years (a.d. 1289-1370), which
next claims our attention, was contemporary with the
last days of the Nestorian Missions. The account given
by William of Rubruquis of the Nestorian monks —
ignorant, polj'gamists, and the boys ordained in infancy
— perhaps coloured by prejudice against these semi-
heretical Christians, is yet dismal and saddening. The
description certainly was not true of the two eminent
men named above, Mark and Bar Sauma, but it points
to the decline and approaching erasure from history of
that once vigorous and enterprising mission. We lose
sight of the mission, but we cannot believe that the
Christians vanished also, and left no trace behind them.
It seems as likely that the degenerate and timid and
renegade Christians, whom Ricci two centuries later
discovered, were Nestorian adherents as that they were
Franciscan converts. But there seems an ominous
silence and a dark chasm of unbelief and apparent
Christian failure during the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries. Western and Central Asia and perhaps parts
of Mongolia and North China, were full of Christians,
Nestorian, Jacobite, Greek, CathoHc, in the thirteenth
and fourteenth centuries ; but in China proper they were
not at any time common during that period except in
some few centres enumerated above, and the story of
Christianity in China, though more continuous than was
at one time believed, yet shows blanks, broad and
echoing with reproach and sadness, which the Church
may well take to heart with penitence and fresh resolve.
332 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
" In the year a.d. 1289, Brother John de Monte
Corvino was sent by Nicholas IV. as Nuncio, and it
seems with full powers, to the lands of the East " {An-
nales Minorum, VI., p. 69). This was the beginning of
the promising but short-lived Mission of the Minor
Friars to China in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries,
generally known as the Franciscan Mission. John was
born at Monte Corvino in the year 1247, ^^^ seems to
have given his whole life to missionary work ; the date
of his first journey is, however, uncertain. But before
this commission from Pope Nicholas, he, with several
companions, had travelled over all the countries of the
East, to which he had been sent by the Minister General
of the Franciscan Order. They had brought home
with them the glad tidings of great multitudes of the
heathen coming over to the unity of the faith ; of the
nations thirsting for the word of God, and of the Princes,
so far from being offended or hindering their work, wel-
coming it and desiring that the faith of Christ might be
spread far and wide. Are not the fields white to the
harvest ? they said. The Pope, overjoyed at the news,
sent them back with scarcely any respite to the fields
where they had been so much blessed, and conferred
on them necessary privileges, with letters to Kublai
(Emperor or Khan of China, August 11, 1259 — Febru-
ary 18, 1294), and to Arghun, his great-nephew (Khan
of Persia, August 15, 1284 — March 12, 1291), neither
of whom were really Christians, though favourable
to the Mission. To Kaidu, also, Kublai's first cousin
once removed and Hfe-long rival, letters were sent.
THE MINOR FRIARS
333
Kaidu ruled in Turkestan, dying in 1301. The " Mis-
sioner " was directed first to Kublai — apparently at
Arghun's friendly suggestion — and reached Khanbalig
(Pekin) most probably in 1294 to find Kublai dead and
his successor absent in the north. John was joined, after
nine or ten years of solitary labour, by Arnold, a German
brother of the Province of Cologne. When Clement
heard of his noble and successful work, he created him
Archbishop of Khanbalig in 1307, and he sent out seven
suffragan Bishops of the same Order to help him, with
the prayer that he might bring back the peoples of the
East, whether infidels, schismatics, or erring Christians,
to the true Christian faith, and that the light of faith
which Jesus Christ had kindled in the realms of the
Tartars, might never be put out. Possibly the Pope
referred thus not obscurely to the Nestorians as erring
Christians, and it is noteworthy that John took letters
to the Nestorian Patriarch, Mar Jabalaha III., as well
as to the Khans. These seven Bishops had a chequered
history, one of the seven turning back soon after they
had started, and three dying in India on their way to
China. But more Bishops were sent out, and with the
same commission — " to help in the work committed to
the said Brother John." In April, 1318, Odoric (only
second to Marco Polo in toil and enterprise of far-extended
travel of that age) left Padua and wandered through
Eastern lands for twelve consecutive years, returning to
Europe in 1330 unrecognisable from the hardships and
exposure of his Mission. He preached the Gospel every-
where, and is said to have baptised more than 20,000
334 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
pagans, Saracens, and other infidels. He is known to
have visited India and China, and to have spent, as he
himself relates, some considerable time at Pekin, where
he speaks of " one of our Brothers " in a way that makes
it almost certain that he means John de Monte Corvino.
Odoric died January 14, 1331, while making plans
to return to the East. Had he gone he would have
found the faithful and long-serving John at rest, dying
as he did at his post at Khanbalig in 1328 or 1329,
after thirty-five years devoted unceasingly to the con-
version of the heathen and the instruction of the
Christians. One of the noblest and most fruitful of his
labours was the early translation of the New Testament
and of the Psalms into " the Tartar language," as he him-
self tells us, and his preaching openly and freely " the
testimony of the law of Christ." This great leader was
succeeded after very long delay in travel by Nicholas,
accompanied by twenty priests and six lay brothers,
and only reaching Almalig, the court of the Chagatai
Hne of Khans, in 1338.
Early in that same year of Nicholas' arrival, an em-
bassy from the Emperor Shun Ti, the last of the Mongol
dynasty, and from the Christian Alan chiefs, reached
Avignon with letters for the Pope. They left again for
the Far East in July with letters in reply and the promise
that legates and more letters should follow. These
legates did actually leave in December, 1338, and caught
up the Tartar envoys, who were loitering in Italy, and
after many delays in their long and adventurous journey,
they reached Almalig in September, 1341, and Khanbalig
VIII. THE MINOR FRIARS 335
not till August, 1342. There they stayed and worked
presumably for three or four years, and then went to
Zaitun in south China, and leaving Zaitun in 1347, they
visited Malabar and the Coromandel coast to see the
shrine of St. Thomas, and reached Avignon finally in
1353. Such a leisurely sight-seeing expedition accords
ill with what were really the expiring times of the great
Mission they had been sent to visit and assist, though
indeed it was more an official embassy than a mission ;
and one would rather express profound astonishment at
the sublime courage and devotion which led these early
missionaries to travel at all, when facilities of travel
did not exist compared with our modern luxuries —
astonishment also at the prompt and eager and almost
multitudinous responses to call after call which reached
Christendom, to " come over and help us."
The Mission disappears after the murder of James, the
last Bishop of Zaitun, in 1362. That Bishopric was
founded a.d. 1313 or earlier, Andrew of Perugia being
the best-known holder of the see. A final Mission, with
the Mongols gone and the Ming on the throne, was sent
by Urban V., consisting of an Archbishop for Khanbalig,
1370, and a legate with twelve companions, of whom
nothing was afterward heard. And so we pass on
through a desolate silence of two hundred years, till the
arrival of the Jesuit Mission at first under Valignani in
1574 at Macao, and then moving northwards under
Matteo Ricci and his illustrious companions.
The great venture in the Jesuit " Christian expedition
to China " was made by Francis Xavier, who in 1552
336 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
started from Goa with an ambassador to China. But
the ambassador Pereyra, with his ship, was detained
from suspicion and jealousy by the governor of Malacca,
and Xavier went on alone. He was foiled in his yearning
desire to land on Chinese soil and preach Christ in the
Chinese tongue ; and his untiring life of restless activity
and enterprise and zeal in India and in Japan, with
imperfection in doctrine, in teaching, in method, but
with perfection of devotion and love, closed, his heart
broken, it is said, by disappointment and the intrigues
of his countrymen round him. His dying eyes looked
out on the hills of China visible from the island of Shang-
ch'uan, which he had reached, and though the words
ascribed to him may have been actually uttered later by
Valignani, yet those words and that longing, not unmixed
with hope in the coming triumph of the Cross, were surely
in his heart : " Oh, rock, rock, when wilt thou open to
thy Lord ? "
The Portuguese took Macao in 1560, and Alexander
Valignani, who had had Matteo Ricci as one of his
pupils at Rome, sailed for the Indies in 1574 as Visitor
of the Far Eastern Missions. On his way to Japan,
where most of his missionary hfe was spent, stopping at
Macao, he decided to make that island the base of the
long- projected " Christian expedition to China ; " and
thither Michael Ruggieri (1579), Pasio and Ricci (1582),
proceeded on their appointment to China. Finding
missionary operations hampered in Macao, and with no
proper facihties for learning Chinese there, Ruggieri,
who must have been possessed of indomitable zeal,
XIV. — XAVIER AND RICCI
[To /ace p. 336.
viit. THE JESUITS 337
obtained leave to reside on Chinese ground at Canton,
with the Portuguese ships lying in the river, on sufferance
apparently, or perhaps offering his services as interpreter
for a time, an experience of precarious residence much
like Robert Morrison's in the same region 230 years later.
In 1582 Ruggieri was sent by Bishop Leonard de Saa,
possibly by the authority and advice of Valignani again,
to Chao-ch'ing to call on the Viceroy, who received him
graciously and invited him to return and reside in that
city. He did so, and with the newly-arrived Pasio, took
up his residence in a Buddhist temple at Chao-ch'ing,
and the date of their arrival, December 18, 1582, may
be regarded in a sense as the birthday of more modern
Christian missions to China. After a short absence in
Macao, whither they had been sent through the unfriend-
liness of the officials during the interregnum between
the departure of their old friend and the arrival of a new
Viceroy, Ruggieri returned, Ricci now accompanying
him, and finally settled in Chao-ch'ing. Either from
over-confidence in their security and the favour of the
Viceroy, or from " measuring too many things with a
European rule," to quote the narrator's own words,
or from a mistaken idea that European superiority in
architecture, as well as in mathematical and astronomical
science, was an evidence of the superiority of the Christian
faith, Ruggieri built a house in European style instead
of the quarters and surroundings of their former residence
in a Buddhist temple. It is hard to understand the
logic of the many apparent inconsistencies in the methods
tried in those early days. There was the adoption by
Y
338 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
Ricci of the dress of a Buddhist bonze ; and then, obey-
ing the remonstrances of VaUgnani, in 1594 he put
this off for the dress and manner of a Confucian scholar
and teacher. Disguise, also, was frequently adopted by
him and his long Hne of followers, not merely of dress,
but also in profession of their design in coming ; while
he adapted native rites (notably ancestral worship, to
which we draw attention later) to Christian custom, or
even condoned them. His own grave at Pekin is said to
have the usual stone altar in front of it for offerings to
the spirit of the departed. These inconsistencies, and the
apparent subordination of the translation and circulation
of the Scriptures of truth to the teaching of science and
the manufacture of scientific instruments and machines
of peace or war, it is not easy to judge with censure or
excuse till we can transport ourselves to those times,
and hve that Hfe over again amidst the surroundings of
that courageous and devoted Mission. This we must say
for the personal character of the great missionary, of
whom a modern Protestant critic, in impassioned words,
has said that " no missionary of any denomination has
ever exerted in China, especially on her rulers and
officials, a tithe of the influence that Ricci exercised."
And when, in these recent days, Protestant missionaries
with zeal and self-denial, and perhaps \vithout knowledge,
will adopt the dress and habit of a fakir in their tours,
or in somewhat earher days would put on the semi-
disguise of the native dress so as to pass unobserved
inland, it is not easy to censure unheard one whose voice
ceased to teach and preach 300 years ago (he died with
viir. THE JESUITS 339
full faith and hope on May 11, a.d. 1610, at the age of
fifty-eight). But this due recognition of personal merit
and of individual conscientiousness does not imply that
we condone the preaching of an adapted or additional
Gospel beyond " the law and the testimony of prophets
and apostles," neither can such a Gospel so preached
and so accepted be rightly said to set up the kingdom of
God on earth. An additional Mediator besides the one
only Name, an additional source and dispenser of grace
besides the one Fount and Author of grace, is surely anti-
Christian. And such teaching has, we greatly fear,
characterised the work of Jesuits, Dominicans, Francis-
cans, through the three centuries of their chequered but
nobly persistent course. Yet the sure behef remains,
that as with the imperfect utterances of official
Nestorianism, so with the " teaching for doctrines
the commandments of men" in the Roman Missions,
numbers untold, brushing aside or pressing past these
grave errors, clasped the central truth of the Atonement
and the true meaning of the Cross of Christ, which
Rome has never, to her honour, denied, though she
obscures it too often, and enervates its single and
lasting efficacy.
It must be remembered that Ricci's detractors, as well
as his enthusiastic admirers, were of the same faith and
of the same Church. " Who shall deny that he was a
truly great and pious man ? " exclaims a biographer at
the close of a minutely graphic narrative of his extraor-
dinary career, a narrative which we can do no more
than sketch in bare outline.
340 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
Another writes :
" Ricci was active, skilful, full of schemes, and en-
dowed with all the talents necessary to render him
agreeable to the great. . . more a pohtician than a
theologian. . . . Kings found in him a man full of
complaisance ; the pagans a minister who accommodated
himself to their superstitions. ... He preached in
China the religion of Christ according to his own fancy ;
. . . adopting the sacrifices offered to Confucius and
ancestors, and teaching the Christians to assist at the
worship of idols, provided they only addressed their
devotions to a cross covered with flowers."
Now these words also come from a Roman pen.
They allude probably to the grave catastrophe and
scandal which overtook the Church about thirty years
after Ricci's death. He had left rules for the direction
of the Jesuits in which he described these ancestral rites
as merely civil and secular, and as such to be tolerated
in their converts. Morales, a Spanish Dominican, op-
posed this view, declaring these rites to be idolatrous
and sinful, and the Propaganda condemned them. Pope
Innocent X. confirming this sentence in 1645. In the
year 1656 Pope Alexander VII., persuaded by Martini
and the Tribunal of Inquisition, accepted their view,
that is, Ricci's view, that ancestor worship was merely of
a civil nature ; and his decree, though cautiously and
diplomatically worded, so as not expressly to contradict
that of Innocent, was in fact opposed to it and reversed
it. In 1665 a Conference of Jesuits was held at Canton,
and they thankfully accepted Alexander's decision, " as
vin. THE JESUIT CONTROVERSY 341
thus the dire calamity would be avoided of shutting the
door of faith in the face of innumerable Chinese, who
would abandon our Christian religion if forbidden to
attend to these things which they may lawfully and
without injury to their faith adhere to."
The dispute was soon renewed, and in 1693 Maigrot,
Vicar-ApostoHc of Fukien, issued a decree on his own
authority in opposition to the decision of the Pope
(Alexander) and of the Inquisition. In 1699 the Jesuits
appealed to the non-Christian power of the great Emperor
K'ang-hsi against Maigrot's spiritual jurisdiction. K'ang-
hsi replied in 1700, affirming the civil and non-rehgious
character of ancestral rites. Pope Clement XI. refused
to accept this Imperial gloss, as he regarded it, and issued
a Bull approving of Maigrot's decree. The Emperor,
on his side, refused to submit to the Pope, and in 1706
announced that he would countenance those only who
preached the doctrines of Ricci, and that he would
persecute those who followed Maigrot. Tournon, arriv-
ing from Rome as Apostohc Vicar and Visitor (with, it
is presumed, either a fulminating edict, or with con-
cihatory suggestions), was rejected at Court, imprisoned
at Macao by the Jesuit Bishop of that place, and actually
died in confinement. A rapid advance of the Roman
Catholic faith followed under this Imperial patronage ;
but the dispute and the calamitous denouement of the
controversy, gravely clouding and marring the name and
fame of the great Ricci, damaging the boasted claim of
absolute harmony and unity in the Holy Church, and
almost ruining and uprooting the Christian Mission
342 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
formed indeed a dangerous crisis, which was speedily
followed by persecution and repression both under
K'ang-hsi and under his son and successor, Yung-cheng.
Before retracing our steps and completing the story
of Ricci's Hfe (which we give perhaps with dispro-
portionate length, when the long roll of conspicuously
able and devoted lives of his own colleagues and suc-
cessors, and of the missionaries of the Reformation is
considered ; but then he stands out as chief head and
founder of this greatest of Far Eastern Missions of late
mediaeval and earlier modern times, and a type of the
character of the Jesuit workers), it will be in place, then,
here, as applying also to other missions recent and still
in operation, to notice the reason of this disruption
and nearly this ruin of the Roman Catholic cause in
China.
The teaching and practice with reference to ancestor
worship which Ricci sanctioned, and which caused
something hke a rupture and schism in the Church, were
justified by, so Intorcetta tells us in his Confucius Sin-
arum Philosophus, and possibly K'ang-hsi himself was
guided by, the familiar saying of Confucius as to the filial
piety of King Wu and the Duke of Chou in ancient times.
Filial piety, he says, is the skilful carrying on of
the undertakings of parents and ancestors. The filial
pious reverence those whom their fathers honoured, that
is, their ancestors, and love those whom they regarded
with affection. " Thus they served the dead as they
would have served them alive." {Doctrine of the Mean,
XIX., 2. 5.)
VIII. THE JESUIT CONTROVERSY 343
On the supposition, then (so argued the Jesuits), that
anything of divine honour is meant by these rites, how
could Confucius use these exphcit words ? If divine
honour and worship are paid to the Hving parents or
seniors, then only can it be objected that divine adora-
tion is paid to the spirits of the dead, for the service is
described as quite identical.
Dr. Legge calls this ingenious reasoning. The fact is
that if this passage can explain and condone and trans-
figure all the idolatrous and superstitious ancestral rites
which followed, and which instructed Chinese are the
most stern in condemning — instructed, that is, first in
inspired Divine teaching and by intimate knowledge of
what the rites mean — the reasoning is clear, logical, and
conclusive. It is not sufficient, and Ricci was surely
wrong. Ancestral worship is not now permitted in the
Roman Church, and the danger of the old clashing
between the different Roman orders is partially obviated
by division of territory and jurisdiction between the
Lazarists, the Jesuits, and the Dominicans.
But unless the ruthless and precipitate action of the
new Rule in China sweeps away all traces of ancient
Chinese literature and education, civiHsation and im-
memorial custom, this episode and the whole subject
of ancestor worship bring forward the question whether
the Church should not interfere, and suggest to the
awakened and educated Chinese generally the duty and
the advisabiHty of reverting to their primitive principles
and definitions of reverent and loving commemoration
and memory and continuance of the hves and example
344 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
of the long dead, stripped of superstition and false
worship. A Christian rite may further be sanctioned for
the Christian dead, fully satisfying all Chinese cHnging to
the past, and fully justifying Christians against the
charge of undutifulness and neglect of the memory and
love of the departed — a landatio fiuiehris such as that
with which our Burial Service closes, but periodical on
the birthday and on the higher natal day of departure
— not prayer to the dead, nor for the dead, but thanks
for the lives closed on earth and wrapped in immor-
tality ; and praise
" to His name
Who is our life and victory." '
Such was the primitive ancestral worship of the
Church. " The Christians of Smyrna, it is said in the
narrative of Polycarp's death {Martyrium S. Polycarpi,
c. xvii.), drew a careful distinction between their love
{ayaTrwjuev) for the Martyrs and their worship {ae/SeaOai,
irpoaKvvovixiv) of the Saviour."
" Think always of your ancestors,
Talk of and imitate their virtues."
So we have it in the ancient Chinese odes {Odes
III, I. i.) three thousand years ago ; and some such
Christian rite of commemoration may sound loudly the
Christian hope of immortaUty, while it reheves Chinese
thought from the incubus of superstitious fears and
idolatries, and conserves all that is pure and right in
their fihal piety and ancestral reverence.
We left Ricci with Ruggieri pressing inland from
Canton and Macao in 1583, and while Ruggieri made a
MATTEO RtCCl 345
long exploratory tour through Central China as far as
Chekiang, which has almost ever since those days been
a centre of Roman propagandism, Ricci with his scholar-
ship and science and persuasive presence was gaining
strong influence over the minds of the educated Chinese.
Then reverses fell on the mission. Ruggieri left in
despair to entreat the Pope to send an embassy to
Pekin and never returned. Ricci was driven out, but
returned before long undaunted to the interior, and
though colleague after colleague died, he clung to the
hope of reaching the capital itself. In May, 1595, he
started northwards and reached Nankin, but expelled
from that great city, he returned southward again to
Nan-ch'ang, and being now appointed Superior- General
of the Missions to China, and feehng the supreme
importance of Imperial recognition and sanction, he
again endeavoured to reach Pekin. Supplied by the
watchful Valignani with various objects of curiosity and
value to present at court, and helped by an official named
Wang, he started, and reached the capital September
7, 1598. Through some misunderstanding and the sus-
picion in those early days that they were Japanese
spies, audience was refused, and they retired again to
Nankin, commencing on the way the task which was
one of Morrison's great enterprises two hundred years
later — the making of a Chinese dictionary. There is no
reference to Ricci's translation of any portion of the
Scriptures ; too busy was he with other problems. But
his well-known treatise on the doctrine of God (an
extract from which appears in the great Noiitia LingucB
346 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
Sinicce, an invaluable guide to the language by his
scholarly co-religionist, Premare) was composed about
this time. On May i8, 1600, Ricci and de Pantoja
started once more for the capital, and after encountering
violence, and obloquy and spoliation from a rapacious
eunuch. Ma T'ang, they at last, upon summons from
the Emperor, who had heard the fame of their striking
clocks, arrived (January 24, 1601) and were honour-
ably received.
Having won his way, by heroism and indefatigable
zeal, to the capital, he spent the last nine years of his
life there in comparative rest from opposition and
danger, but overwhelmed with " the care of all the
churches " settled now through the Empire. About
this time occurs the remarkable conversion of Paul Li
(September, 1602), "a veritable apostle" as he is
described ; and later of Paul Hsii, baptised at Nankin, a
man of the highest literary attainments, who, with his
widowed daughter Candida, gave up their energies and
his possessions to the spread of the faith — Christian
professors, in those difficult days, " whose praise is " still
living " in all the churches," and whose memory is
perpetuated in the great Jesuit establishment near
Shanghai — at Zikawei (Hsii-chia-wei) — occupying the
family estate presented by the father and his noble
daughter to the Church. Paul Hsii was a courageous
champion of the faith in troublous times, and did all in
his power to ward off or mitigate the troubles which
soon beset the Church.
We can merely name some of Ricci' s eminent
viii. PERSECUTION 347
colleagues or successors — scholars, historians, authors, and
all missionaries of the Cross — Trigault, Schall, Martini,
Verbiest, Ripa (not himself a Jesuit and a severe critic
of many of the Jesuit methods and the companion for a
time of the imprisoned Tournon), Gaubil, Amiot, and
many others. In 1631 the Dominicans and Franciscans
arrived.
K'ang-hsi never became a Christian, but he built a
magnificent church for the Jesuits in Pekin. Serious
and widespread persecution and suppression followed
after K'ang-hsi's death (1722), and both Yung-cheng
(1724) and his successor, Ch'ien-lung (1736-1796) en-
couraged a general attack on the missionaries and on
the converts, during which calamitous time hundreds
of Chinese and ten European missionaries lost their
lives.
The suppression of the Jesuits by Clement XIV. in
1773, the overbearing attitude of the Portuguese traders
at Macao, the doubtful attitude of the East India
Company, and all the complicated circumstances of
China's arrogant exclusive policy, and Western per-
tinacious invasion — these and the overthrow temporarily
of the Papacy in 1809, all affected or accompanied the
rapid decline of the Roman Catholic Missions in China
during the latter portion of the eighteenth and the
opening years of the nineteenth century. With the
re-establishment of the Order of the Jesuits in 1822,
missionary activity in China revived, but the period of
partial eclipse lasted really for more than a hundred
years, and up to the years 1858-1860 and the treaties
348 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
which re-opened the long-closed gates and formed prac-
tically the starting point of the era of modern missions.
Christianity was not extinct during those dark years,
and there shine through the gloom tales of heroic testi-
mony even to death by missionaries and converts,
showing that faith in the Crucified and love were not
dead. The gravest censure must in all honesty be
applied to the Roman policy of violent and sometimes
truculent assault on, and opposition to, Anglican mis-
sions and non-Roman missions generally, rarely if ever,
be it observed, instigated by aggressive or unfriendly
action (but very much the reverse) on the part of Pro-
testant missions. Such a policy has suggested the fear
sometimes that the spirit which set on foot and carried
out the Inquisition may still be alive. Grave con-
demnation also must be added of their teaching, openly,
the most dangerous of Roman errors. Yet we cannot
but thank God that China, so often left by the rest of
the churches with stretches of silent darkness, heard
through two hundred and fifty years the Gospel sound-
ing from Roman lips, and that the labour of that long
line of missionaries has not been in vain in the Lord.
We close the story of Roman Catholic Missions with
an account * of the origin and aims of the French
Missionary Society, or Societe des Missions etranghres.
This society is an association of secular priests hailing
from various dioceses in France, who devote their whole
Uves to the work of preaching the Gospel to the heathen.
* Taken from the China Review, July-August, 1889. " History
of the Churches . . . entrusted to the Society of the ' Missions
Etrangdres ' " — Translated by E. H. Parker,
VIII. SOCI£t£ DES missions ETRANGERES 349
It originated thus. The Jesuit Father Alexander de
Rhodes, missionary in Tonkin, revisited Europe in 1649,
in order to beg the Holy See that Bishops might be
appointed to the missions, already so flourishing, of the
East Indies ; which Bishops, with a view to setting
those Missions on a firmer basis, should make it their
special care to create a native secular clergy. This
proposal was approved by Innocent X., and his successor,
Alexander VII., in carrying it out in the year 1658,
raised three excellent French priests of exemplary life
to the episcopal dignity, to wit, Francis Pallue, Peter de
Lamothe-Lambert, and Ignatius Cotolendi — the last to
be Vicar Apostolic of the Nankin diocese.
Before departing for their Missions, the Vicars Apos-
tolic, in order that the work thus begun should not fall
through and perish in the event of their decease, left at
Paris certain men, attached to them by friendship and
by community of life, with the understanding that the
latter should establish a seminary where should be
examined and trained up such persons as should offer
themselves as partners in the work, and co-operators in
the evangelising of the infidels. It was thus first at
this time, and by this agreement between the Bishop
and the founders and moderators of the Seminary, that
the Society, as it is called, of Foreign Missions was
founded and constituted.
The first and foremost end of the Society was the
institution of native priests in those places where the
Gospel was preached. As soon as ever, then, the first
Bishops arrived in the lands committed to their charge,
3SO THE CHINESE PEOPLE
they established a seminary for the training of native
clergy. This seminary was first founded in Ayuthia,
which was then the capital of Siam, and then was trans-
ferred, first to Annam, then to India, and was finally,
in the year 1807, established in the island of Penang.
Besides the three Vicariates in India, the Society of
Foreign Missions preaches in Burmah, Siam, Laos, in
the Malay Peninsula, Cambodia, Cochin-China, Tonkin,
Tibet, in five provinces of China (Kuangsi, Yiinnan,
Kueichou, Ssuch'uan, Liaotung), and in Korea and Japan.
The journal of Andrew Li (a product of the Seminary,
where he had received no less than twenty-one years'
training), when he was left alone in Ssuch'uan in charge
of the Christians there during the persecution of the
eighteenth century, is a book of considerable interest
and value, and a fine testimonial to the good work of the
Society. Speaking of his own long training, Li says
that the Jesuits " baptise a man to-day and ordain him
to-morrow " — a statement, if it has any truth in it, in
curious contrast with the high reputation for learning
which the Jesuit Missionaries and some at least of their
native priests still maintain.
The Greek Church, as such, can hardly be reckoned
amongst the Missionary agencies in China. It was es-
tablished in Pekin more than two hundred years ago,
and apparently in connection with the early border wars
between Russia and China in the time of K'ang-hsi.
A colony of Christian Tartars, with a priest among their
number, having been carried captive from the fort
Albazin on the Amur, in 1685, Russia used the outrage
VIII. THE RUSSIAN MISSION 351
as a pretext for the establishment of an ecclesiastical
mission, presumably as a Christian protectorate, with an
Archimandrite as its head. An attempt to send a Bishop
to Pekin was foiled by the Emperor in the eighteenth
century. The Mission, still in possession at Pekin, has
never been active in any direct effort to make Chinese
proselytes — though the Bible and other Christian books
were translated into Chinese — till within the past few
years, when its emissaries have appeared as far south as
Chekiang, establishing Churches and professing friendly
relations with the Anghcan Church. During the year
1900 four hundred of the seven hundred native adherents
are said to have been massacred by the Boxers ; but
afterwards the Mission was re-established and placed at
last on a firmer footing, with a Bishop at its head ; and
it is no doubt to this circumstance that the present
activity is due. And we must not close this paragraph
without mention of the Archimandrite Palladius, who
had charge of the Mission in the latter half of the nine-
teenth century — one of the most learned and painstaking
students of Chinese that Europe has yet produced, whose
researches in the history of Christianity in China espec-
ially have left comparatively little for his followers to
discover.
CHAPTER IX
Christianity in China
Missions of the Churches of the Reformation
The Missions, legendary and historical, tentative and
effective, which we have described above, have covered,
with long intervals, i,8oo years. The story of Missions
of the Churches of the Reformation — some, such as
the Anghcan Church, recovering ancient conformity
to the primitive and ApostoHc Catholic faith, through
emancipation from the nonconformity of Rome — some
Free Churches, and, as we venture to affirm, unneces-
sarily and unwisely free from the bond of unity with this
great protesting and attesting Anglican body — yet all
loving the Lord Jesus Christ and His word and Gospel
sincerely, and all loyal to His last command — this story
covers scarcely one hundred years, and only half of that
period with the narrative of work which in any effective
way has attempted to cover the whole area of China.
The story is a living, breathing narrative of patient
waiting, of well-laid lines in preparations of works of eager
watchfulness, of bold and adventurous forward move-
ments, of success, of failure, of literary, evangelistic,
educational, medical methods, and work early initiated
and now vastly developed, of solitary conversions, of
mass-movements, of savage massacre and noble martyr-
353
EARLY APATHY 353
dom, of treachery and kindest welcome, of sowing in
tears, and reaping in joy, with a long hst of leaders and
not less blest and noble workers in obscurity and in far-off
regions — and now with triumph not far off, yet with
signs of slackening zeal and dechning resources, and
study, rather than solving by action, of problems. This
story, so rich in incident and adventure, yet as covering
so short a part of the era under review, we must again
only briefly summarise.
It is perhaps not difficult to account for the com-
parative apathy with reference to foreign Mission work,
and notably with reference to work in China, which
affected the Churches of the Reformation, both in Europe
and in England, after that great enhghtening and eman-
cipating event in the story of the Church. The excuses,
however, apply to failure rather in a human enterprise,
and in earthly warfare, than in an enterprise wholly
Divine, in which superhuman aid might have been looked
for and invoked under any circumstances. And it must
be remembered further, not only that these earher
Christian campaigns which we have been reviewing
seem not to have waited for what are called sometimes
too complacently Providential openings, but to have
made their ventures, believing the Divine commission
of continuous urgency ; but, also, that when the
Church did awake, and her great Missionary agencies
and tentative Missions were set on foot, the world seemed
more fast closed than ever, till the iron gates leading into
the City opened to them, unexpectedly so often, and as if
of their own accord.
354 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
Let the reader allow the names and actors to pass in
fancy across the stage of time and of life in Europe from
Luther's year (1517) onward. He will then under-
stand that with this restless tide of change and
clamorous roar of unrest and conflict, material,
spiritual, practical, religious — the sky so dark above —
the near and far horizon so shrouded in mist and
gloom — it must have seemed impossible for churches
or individuals to find time or heart for thought about
fabulous and far-distant China. And when, in the
middle of the eighteenth century (or rather earlier than
that), deep sleep fell on the Church and on the sects
also, not so much of rest after toil and conflict, as of
the indifference of formality and ill-concealed unbelief
— till Law, and Butler, and Wesley, and Whitefield,
and Fletcher, woke the dead inside the Church and out-
side— whence was the Missionary spirit to arise, and
where could the messengers of the Church be enlisted ?
Yet in 1698 the S.P.C.K. was founded by Dr. Thomas
Bray, Rector of Sheldon, and four lay friends. This
Society in turn became the nurse, if not the mother, of
the venerable S.P.G. (the oldest Missionary Society in
England), founded in 1701. For a Missionary spirit had
been awake some little time ; Sir Humphrey Gilbert,
sailing the seas in 1578, " was filled with compassion
for the poor infidels led captive by the devil." The
Commons of England were stirred by the first breathings
of this spirit. " They felt bound to assist in the work "
of which they had heard, amongst the Red Indians, and
in John Eliot's labours. The new charter of the New
FIRST EFFORTS 355
England Company provided that care should be taken
to propagate the Gospel, and a collection was made
throughout England on behalf of the Indians. These
funds, which had been subsequently seized, were re-
stored through Richard Baxter's disinterested and
magnanimous efforts ; and a new Charter of Incorpora-
tion was granted to the S.P.C.K., out of which grew
the now venerable and world-wide worker, the S.P.G.,
the Incorporation of which expressed the first distinct
and general recognition of Missionary duty.* Then
awoke also the piety and apostolic zeal of the Moravians
— that most whole-hearted Missionary Church (and
one very near in doctrine and order to the EngUsh
Church), a Church which can offer one out of every twelve
Communicants as a Missionary to foreign parts — our
EngUsh Church proportion being one in every two
thousand. They went forth everywhere, preaching
the word, and very early reached Greenland and South
Africa ; and to them belongs the honour later of being
the first to attempt to enter Tibet, more a hermit region
than Korea, and to penetrate and occupy Lhassa and
Lower Tibet. f Schwartz, meanwhile, was working
almost alone in India (1750-1798) at Tranquebar, under
the earlier Danish Mission, and at Trichinopoly and
Tanjore under the S.P.C.K. ; winning the reverent con-
fidence of the East Indian Government on one side,
and of men Uke Hyder Ali and the ryots on the other,
* Bishop Boyd Carpenter, A Popular History of the Church of
England, p. 335.
t The Moravian Church, of a community never exceeding
70,000, has sent out 2,000 missionaries.
356 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
by his conspicuously virtuous and disinterested life,
his deep piety and faithful preaching and teaching —
and Mohammedans, Hindus, and Christians joined in
reverence for his memory. Yet China is still un-
touched, unblessed, by this more modern Missionary
zeal. But now, as the nineteenth century dawned, a
change draws on. One year after Schwartz's death
(1799) the C.M.S. was founded, a loyal, and now most
vigorous handmaid of the English Church. Its title
bears the words descriptive of its aims and scope : " For
Africa and the East." The S.P.G. was, and still is,
largely absorbed in work for those foreign parts which
formed in old days the " plantations," and now the
Colonies and Eastern Empire of England — with special
Missions amongst the races and tribes surrounding —
as well as providing for the spiritual needs of our fellow-
countrymen abroad. The C.M.S. aimed chiefly at the
vast regions in partibus infidelium, and beyond and
outside the British Empire of those days. And to the
Farthest East, even to China, the earhest attention of
the infant society was drawn. The story which we
must narrate but in a sentence or two, is, one would hope,
if it be not too late for the hope, prophetic of a yet closer
and practical union between Nonconformity and the
ancient Church of England than the true union of
sympathy, and trust, and devotion which we relate,
implied. A Nonconformist minister, Moseley, in the
Midlands, fired as he had been for some ^'•ears by a
longing for the evangelisation of the world, and searching
and looking for some practical means for his enterprise,
IX. ROBERT MORRISON 357
which he knew to be his Lord's command, found in the
British Museum a Chinese manuscript, unsigned and
undated (the authorship of the translation or copy is
unknown, and may have been Franciscan of the
fourteenth century, or Jesuit of the sixteenth!, containing
the Gospels, with a harmony, and the Epistles, not quite
complete, in Chinese. Moseley at once formed the plan
of printing these most precious pages, and distributing
them by some means in China. He raised a considerable
sum of money for the purpose, and finding no other
available agency, he offered the money, and the manu-
script to be copied, to the C.M.S., with an earnest request
that they would undertake the work. They accepted
there sponsibility, and in the Report of 1804 appears
the item : " China Fund, /3,ooo." Through strange
and unaccountable recommendations made and obstacles
raised, the C.M.S. was constrained to abandon the task
and offer it to the S.P.C.K.* That Society, too much
occupied with other work, declined it, and it passed
then into the hands of Robert Morrison and the L.M.S.,
recently founded and joined at first by Churchmen and
Dissenters ahke. Morrison went out alone to China
in 1807, taking with him a copy of the manuscript
mentioned above, and if it was his own handiwork,
the writer can testify to the excellence of the transcript,
and the toil, and almost genius for such work of copy
displayed by this unskilled and 'prentice hand. He
was obliged, like Carey entering India, to travel by
* Dr. Eugene Stock, History of the C.M.S., Vol. i., pp. 74 and
465.
358 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
way of America, and with obstacles of Chinese suspicion
and even murderous hostihty (for a price was set
on the head of any Chinese who would dare to help
this intruding foreigner in study or translation),
and obstacles from Western officials of either indiffer-
ence or dread of the effect of his work and relationship
with the Chinese — greater obstacles than either A-lo-pen,
John de Monte Corvino or Ricci ever encountered —
he yet held his ground for twenty-seven years, trans-
lating the whole Bible into Chinese (1823), compiHng a
Dictionary of the Chinese language, and founding an
Anglo-Chinese College at Malacca ; never able to preach
in pubhc, and baptising at most half a score of converts ;
his Bible and Dictionary superseded in later years, yet
laying foundations which have helped in uphfting and
upholding the great superstructure of Bibhcal versions
and religious and general literature of rare and classical
excellence. By his strong lead, a high example of
patient and exulting faith, this " last and boot-tree
maker " stands prominently as one of the chief founders
of the Church in China, even as his noble brother, the
consecrated cobbler Carey, stands for India. Lassar
and Marshman's great version of the Bible into Chinese,
1822, executed under more peaceful circumstances, be-
cause on Indian ground at Serampore, yet under far
greater disadvantages as to Chinese scholarly assistance,
must not be forgotten in the story of these century-old
events.
The supreme importance of the translating and
printing and circulation of the Bible in the foundation
IX. GUTZLAFF 559
and edification of the Church in China must be remem-
bered when we note that though printing had been
discovered very early in these 1900 years under review,
and practised in China nine hundred years before
Morrison, neither A-lo-pen nor the Franciscans, nor the
Jesuits seem ever to have printed and circulated generally
their Bible translations.
Morrison worked for the most part alone all his life.
Milne joined him, an able, adventurous man, whose
name and memory have not quite died out in Chekiang,
which he visited about the time of Morrison's death.
Gutzlaff also was the free lance of these stormy days
amidst the gathering shame and catastrophe of the
opium trade. The country coastwise and inland was
fast closed — yet nothing could turn him from his pur-
pose of depositing somehow and somewhere his precious
treasure of Bibles on Chinese soil, and within reach of
Chinese readers. His name lives on up and down the
China coast, in lighthouse and beacon, on pilot-boat and
launch ; even as his heart's desire was to kindle a brighter
light to guide the Chinese home. The C.M.S,, not for-
getful of their early love and care, conferred with
Morrison himself in 1824, during his one visit to Eng-
land— and again by letter in 1835, to which letter, as
Morrison had gone to his rest, Gutzlaff replied — as to
possible strategic points for mission adventure ; and he
named Singapore as a first parallel of approach, where
now there are strong missions among Chinese and
Malays (with the great Borneo Mission near) and the
noble cathedral founded by the writer's venerable uncle.
36o THE CHINESE PEOPLE
Gutzlaff further recommended, with almost audacious
prophecy, Hangchow in Chekiang, which is inland, and
was actually occupied for residence and permanent and
expansive work by the C.M.S. in 1864, the first attempt
at inland missions away from the sea or river ports.
In 1836, partly in consequence of Gutzlaf^'s report,
the C.M.S. sent out a mission of inquiry to China ; but
with the disputes and wrongs and treacheries which led
to the first opium war (July 5, 1841 — September 15,
1842) impending, nothing was attempted, till in 1844
the C.M.S. occupied Shanghai, the great commercial
metropolis of the Far East — joined there in the following
year by the American Protestant Episcopal Church,
which had carried on tentative work previously in
Java and in Amoy.
They found missionaries of other societies in Shanghai,
American and English, for early advantage had been
taken of the opening of the five ports. Canton, Amoy,
Foochow, Ningpo and Shanghai, for trade and for
residence after the war ; but the edict of toleration, and
the revocation of the persecuting edicts of 1724 and
later, were of little benefit till after the second war, and
the Treaty of Tientsin subsequently in i860. The
C.M.S. occupied Ningpo in 1848 (after tentative work in
1844), from which centre her missions have broadened
out to Pekin, 1862, subsequently (1880) passed to the
care and jurisdiction of the S.P.G. ; to Hangchow,
1864; Shao-hsing, 1861, and permanently 1870; Chu-
chi, 1877 ; T'ai-chou, 1887 . And earlier Foochow was
entered in 1850 ; and Hongkong, a Crown colony since
XV. — SHEN EN-TE
[ To face p. 360.
ANGLICAN MISSIONS 361
1842, and the seat of a bishopric since 1849, became
a C.M.S. mission centre in 1861. From thence C.M.S.
missions have extended to Pakhoi (Pai-hai) and Canton,
and to Kuei-lin and Kuangsi, and recently to Northern
Hunan ; whilst to the far west of China, in a large
district of Ssuch'uan, and near the borders of Tibet,
after a tentative mission under the Rev. J. H. Horsburgh,
the C.M.S. is working in the Western China Diocese, by
mutual arrangement with the C.I.M., which had preceded
our church mission thither some time before. The
S.P.G., with the loud and persistent and ever more
urgent calls from her great missions colonial and imperial,
and in non-Christian tribes and nations, could not take
part in English Church work in China till a quarter of
a century later than the C.M.S. But she is strong and
growing now in the north, with a new diocese of Shantung
recently formed ; and with a Canadian bishop in Honan,
and another bishopric projected in Manchuria. The
growth of the native church in the north is slower than
in Mid-China, but that organisation and aggressive
evangelistic work are both prospering. Some earlier
famine work by Bishop Scott, now, after nearly forty
years, retiring, and evangelistic work amongst the
pilgrims at the foot of the T'ai-shan, demand notice.
And now, at last, a remarkable climax has been reached
only a year ago, when, in conjunction with the American
Church (whose advent and growth confined to the
Yang-tse Valley, but strong and vigorous there, have been
remarkable), a general convention and synod of all
Anglican missions and churches was held, as the out-
362 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
come of long and anxious deliberations, and some serious
dissensions for a time ; and the Constitutions and Canons
and Synodical Order of the " Holy CathoHc Church of
China" were formed. This Church is Chinese, observe,
not English, American, Canadian, though in full and,
we beheve, permanent communion with the Anglican
Church. It will be independent, and soon, with its own
Chinese episcopate, self-governing ; — not as indepen-
dent and non-conforming, but " all speaking the same
thing," Holy Scripture the rule and guide ; " no divi-
sions, perfectly joined together in one mind and in one
judgement " and truth.
We have confined our review thus far of mission work
in China since the gradual opening of the fast-closed
gates, chiefly to the operations of the Anglican missions,
both from the impossibility of following in detail the
developement of other missions and churches, and also
from the fact that with the exception of the China
Inland Mission, formulated and founded in 1867, and
working exclusively in China, but working there with
whole-hearted devotion, and helping strongly in the
evangelisation of fourteen or fifteen out of the eighteen
provinces of China — with this great exception, the
missions of the English Church under the C.M.S. are
more widespread and numerous in workers and
converts than those of any other individual Church. But
gratitude and honesty combine in demanding full and
admiring recognition of the men and women, dedicated
and sent out to China during the past sixty or seventy
years, by, it is believed, eighty-three different Christian
IX. MEMORABLE NAMES 363
bodies — there were more than fifty organised churches
actually represented at the great Centenary Conference
in memory of Morrison held in 1907. Thank God for
the zeal and devotion and self-denial and obedience to
the command of the King so exhibited. But is there
not blame — and yet is it so easy to apportion the blame ?
— for this travesty of the Union of Christendom, this
distorted picture of the One Church of the Living God ?
The very roll of names of these hundred years, each
one surrounded, in history which must not die, and in
the records above, by busy scenes, tells first of scholarly
research and study and translation and literary clothing
of the revelation of God in Chinese classical or colloquial
dress — Morrison, Medhurst, Bridgman, Boone, Stronach,
Milne, Edkins, Burdon, Legge, Schereschewsky, Nevius
— we mention those only whose voices are still, and
their strong intellects and scholarly toil and busy pens
at rest for a while. Great preachers also and itinerators
and evangelists and explorers are on the roll — their
voices still, their eager feet at rest, but their works
following — Gutzlaff, Burns, Cobbold, Russell, Rankin,
Muirhead, Lechler, G. E. Moule, Hoare, Ashmore,
Hudson Taylor, David Hill. Great travellers also for
Bible distribution, a work of supreme importance, and
often of great danger and risk — Wyhe, Williamson and
many more. Doctors, too, and nurses, the pioneers of
the medical organisation, of noble hospitals and itinerant
dispensaries, and leper and opium refuges, and asylums,
with the glad sound of the Gospel in every ward and
in every waiting-room — McCartee, Lockhart, Mackenzie,
364 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
Moravian martyr doctors in Tibet, and just lately the
noble Jackson dying as he fought the plague in Harbin.
Martyrs, too, many in the mission ranks — at Ku-cheng,
at Tientsin, at Ch'ang-sha ; and during the awful Boxer
days, so many thousands — the lowest estimate 15,000— of
Chinese men, women and children too, choosing dehber-
ately and against almost passionate entreaty from
friends and kith and kin, the fire, the sword, the flood,
rather than deny and revile their beloved Lord, or spurn
and stamp on His Bible. The heroism of the Chinese
Christians, Roman Catholics and Protestants, during
the siege of the Legations, will ever be remembered.
Great teachers there have been also, who rest from
their labours ; — educationalists, whom modern fancy
supposes to be a class of Christian workers manufactured
by these modern enlightened times. Not so ; we have had
education, primary, secondary, and, quite early in mission
life, higher and liberal as well ; education, that is, sound and
thorough in Chinese language and hterature, and, in all
grades and classes and stages, religious and avowedly
Christian, with Western languages and literature in
some cases superadded, but never, where the education-
problem-hunter was in his senses, superseding the
Chinese and religious and general curriculum.
The epoch-making events, which have broken into
and retarded or accelerated the tide of time during
these seventy years of modern history — events in the
political world and in missionary areas, to each of which
long historical narratives might be attached — we must
again describe by a summary of names and places alone
V,
IX. MODERN EVENTS 365
retaining one great cataclysm, the T'ai-p'ing Rebellion,
for special mention in our closing chapter, with some
fuller details also of the eras and events summarised
here. These leading events then were, say, about twenty
in number — the war between China and England aris-
ing out of the opium trade disputes, 1841-1842 ; the
" Arrow War," 1857-1860, more remotely connected
with the same disastrous causes ; the T'ai-p'ing Rebel-
lion, a semi-Christian and morally-reforming movement,
1846-1850, but a rebelhon and a devastating flood of
conquest and bloodshed and unrest, 1853-1864 ; the
murder of Mr. Margary and the Tientsin massacre ;
the famines, notably that of 1877-1878 — £100,000
contributed by foreigners for their relief, and missionaries
the leading almoners, as well as many noble civilians ;
the dispute with France ; the complaints and aggressive-
ness of Germany, consequent on the murder of two
missionaries ; the war with Japan ; the Reform Edicts
of the Emperor Kuang-hsii, 1898 ; their suppression
and his removal ; the Boxer Rising, 1900 ; the tortuous
yet supremely astute pohcy of the Empress-Dowager ;
the Russo-Japanese War, agitating China and all the
great East to its depths ; the progress of reform and
facilities for trade ; the drastic changes in education,
1905-6 ; the death-knell of the opium trade and sale
and preparation and use of opium struck in China and
in England ; the sudden and uncalled-for Revolution ;
the dethronement of the Manchus, and the erection of
a RepubHc : so history has led us on. And what effects
have resulted, accelerating or retarding the supreme
366 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
subject, Christianity, and the Kingdom of Christ in
China ?
A great conference of missionaries was held in Shanghai,
in 1877, to review the situation at that time ; 29 societies,
473 missionaries, and 13,035 communicants were re-
ported, with a high tone of thankfulness, humilia-
tion, and hope, and a call for co-operation. Again, in
1890, the missionaries met for conference, now 1,296
strong, with 42 societies and 37,217 communicants.
They met again through stress of danger in Shanghai,
1899-1900, during the Boxer troubles; and lately, and
probably finally, so far as the council of China's world
of missions and missionaries on the same scale is con-
cerned (for no hall or covered building on earth will hold
those who should assemble — Chinese, vastly preponder-
ating, and delegates from the Western churches — at the
next council), in 1907. It was found then that the organ-
isations had grown to 80 and more, missionaries to 4,000
or 5,000, communicants to 70,000, Christian adherents
to 500,000 ; and every province was reported as touched
by the Gospel light, and many as flooded bj^ its radiance.
A remarkable awakening has taken place amongst the
so-called aborigines, the Miao-tzu, Hua-miao, Lolos,
where tentative work was begun by American Baptists
so far back as 1865. The statistics of the Roman
missions are not easily accessible, but a million or
probably a million and a half adherents were assumed
as belonging to those churches. The conference met,
crowded almost inconveniently in a hall attached to
Chinese Young Men's Christian Association buildings,
IX. THREATENED RETREAT 367
and erected to the dear memory of the martyrs — Chinese,
Enghsh, American, Scandinavian — who had laid down
their Hves in the Boxer rising. The resounding tone of
the conference, which yet could not become quite
articulate, was a wistful looking for and sighing for
unity ; and to this subject we devote our closing para-
graphs. The growth of the native Church also was
emphasised and illustrated, and also the vast field still
unoccupied, and waiting for occupation, with the need
of 4,000 more workers for the West, and more Chinese
preachers and teachers, if in this generation China is to
be evangelised.
The response to this appeal, and to the clarion call
of the Edinburgh Conference of 1910, seemed to be,
for a while at least, both from Churchmen and from the
Free Churches, retrenchment and reduction, marking
time at best, or threatened retreat, rather than strengthen-
ing the stakes and lengthening the cords. We must
not forget, however, to mention, among signs of progress
and of settled advantage, the very remarkable develope-
ment of native self-support, self-government, and self-
extension near Swatow, and the strong work of the
English Presbyterians and the two other Presbyterian
bodies now amalgamated in Amoy and Formosa, and
the mass movements among the Miao and other tribes
mentioned above — these last chiefly the fruit of the
work of the China Inland Mission.
We venture, in conclusion, to ask what may possibly be
the cause of slumbering interest and diminished zeal and
self-denial, those grave symptoms in the Church's life,
368 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
already, however, as we write, yielding to the gracious
power of the Holy Spirit in response to the Church's
quickened supplications. And we ask further what really
now and in the near future are the pressing needs of
Christian work for Christ in China.
It seems sometimes, and in some directions, as though
the Church of Christ, unconsciously doubtless, but really
so, and with dangerous effect, were bent upon raising
excuses for comparative and imagined failure, by the
expenditure of time and thought and argument on the
discussion of problems, most of them not new or un-
solved, and the new ones the invention partly of imagina-
tion or conjecture. Such discussion and such Con-
ferences draw the attention of the Church, and of her
young and eager and keen volunteers, away from the
main issue — evangelisation, salvation for all by one
Saviour's grace alone, and the call and command 1,900
years old, " Go, preach."
Is there any authorisation for believing that we can
now approach non-Christian systems, and call them not
darkness, but glimmers of the dawn ; not error so much
as guesses at the truth ; not to be condemned and re-
jected, but by judicious concession welcomed as fellow-
helpers ? Turn from dumb idols ; they shall be
utterly abolished. The world by wisdom knew not God ;
all the nations that forget God, and the sinners — and all
have sinned — shall die. Is it anything but presump-
tion to say that these dogmatic assertions, and the semi-
intolerance of the One Faith — believe and be saved,
believe not and be condemned — are antiquated and
iji. Problems 369
obsolete ? And is it an honest suggestion to out-going
missionaries that they should go expecting to learn as
well as to teach ? Does not this uncertain-sounding
trumpet, however sweetly reasonable, make very large
numbers of possible and enquiring volunteers put off their
armour, and hesitate to make themselves ready for the
battle ? The call is not so pressing, they reflect ; the
nations do not need our help so urgently after all. The
Master's command was doubtless meant for other times
than these spacious, enlightened, eirenic days ! Then
the ground is shifted, for that plainly will not account for
failure, neither will it promise success. So students of
problems tell you that China, for instance, will never be
evangelised and saved but through her own people, and
that a foreign Church will never be accepted by them ; that
that stigma must be removed, that it must be an indigen-
ous Christianity which will conquer and cover the land.
And this can only be accomplished through a highly-edu-
cated ministry, such a ministry being, it is imagined, at
present not in evidence. "Take away all Western
elements, then, from your teaching, and your order, and
ceremonies" ; and if we request to know what are the
specially Western elements in the Christianity we preach
and the Church we indicate — a Church not foreign in
origin, but itself an exotic from heaven — our apologetic
friends reply with astonishing bathos, that to make the
native clergy or catechists in India or Japan dress in
black frock-coats and wear white ties is a case in point.
Yet this is a custom never dreamed of or enjoined by
any bishop or missionary in his sober senses, but if ever
2A
370 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
followed, followed and adopted through native insistence.
Our further rejoinder is this : (i) that the Church, the
Bible, the Creeds, the Sacraments, our order and discip-
line and worship are as much Eastern as Western ;
that they are Catholic, and their birthplace and home
are in God's inspiration and the teaching of the Word,
and the life of His Son ; and (2) that the Chinese attach
no stigma to Christianity as a foreign importation.
Their instinct nowadays is strangely and almost madly
receptive of all that is Western — education, inventions,
manufactures, and forms of government — and they only
want to know if this religion brought by foreigners, but
not, they know well, instituted and born and bred
by foreign inspiration, is true and good, or false and
deleterious.
Further, it must be urged that the Chinese and the
native Church are in very many places, and have been
for years, eager and self-denying in self-extension, as
well as increasingly desirous to attain to self-support,
and in due time — a time drawing nearer now — to be self-
governing. Once more, numbers of the native clergy
and catechists and school-teachers are highly educated,
and in that which will preserve them from false doctrine,
heresy, and schism, when intellectual education and
training alone will fail. Another problem is then put
forward, or rather a theory, disastrous because so fal-
lacious if taken as a rule, and not, as it is, a notable
exception — to the effect that Western missionaries
should abstain from preaching, lest the native Christians
neglect their duty, and relegate it all to foreign hands
IX. PREACHING AND EXAMPLE 371
and lips ; and lest foreign lips and tongues and thoughts
should fail to make the Word of God, quick in
itself, sharp as a two-edged sword, and ever bringing
light, intelligible to the native mind ; as if it were
to be revealed only by the native tongue. And
then — strange contradiction in terms — we are exhorted
to refuse to pay with foreign money those very agents so
indispensable for our work, lest it pauperise the
people, and introduce permanent foreign control and
hypocritical profession for the sake of gain. Every
position here is fallacious ; and so the insistence on them
must be again disastrous to the missionary spirit. The
missionary's express commission is to preach and
evangelise. " What care I for service abroad for my
Lord if I may not preach," volunteers will say. And
is example nothing — example to the native in the
foreigner's resolve to preach even with stammering
tongue ; example to the foreigner in learning to preach
from his native colleague or pupil, as he trains him to
preach the truth ? Example, too, in foreign money for
Church subsidy or native agency will surely and certainly
foster, not blight, native self-denial. All this
theorising must surely check and dry up missionary zeal
and missionary giving at home, and this mistaken, how-
ever honest, talk may be a hindrance to missions just
now far more serious, because so apparently new and
suggestive, than any real failure or mistake in the field.
Once more we notice new visions announced, which,
however briUiant and imaginative, can have only one
effect, namely, to draw off the mind and effort of the
372 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
missionary student or volunteer or active worker from
the wholly spiritual and Divine nature of the work he is
engaged in — the reality of sin and the fall on man's side,
and the reality of conversion and regeneration as the Holy
Ghost's almighty and all-blessed prerogative on God's
side. We are told that the formation of character by
education, by practice, by the athletics of body as well
as of mind must precede intelligent and active faith ;
and, per contra, that the Church, Christ's body, and
Christ Himself, are waiting incomplete and dissatisfied
till the mosaic pavement and roof of the Church are com-
plete by some specimens, we presume, being brought in
— we had hoped for all of human colour, and language,
and character, and virtue — in fact, that the Church needs
the sinful and lost world more than the world needs the
converting and renewing grace and salvation of God.
This half-truth, distorted by fancy, spoiling that very
half-truth itself, seems to ignore the fact that it is the
gentleness of the Spirit's peace, not the supposed gentle-
ness of the Hindu, which will be welded with the fine
gold of the Church — that, in fact, conversion and the new
Divine life form character, enlighten the mind, and
clothe the new man with heavenly graces — all things
made new thus, not character and native virtues or
attractions coming first, as a lure and a foundation for
God's work. We do not deny the attractions of such
fancies, as with Bishop Westcott's much perverted and
often misquoted belief, that the keen intellect of the
metaphysical Hindu must come to our aid before we
can fully understand St. John's writings Our point is
rx. UNITY 373
this — that these are neither the times nor the occasions
for the putting forth of theories and fancies ; they can
do nothing of practical value, and may greatly hinder
that considered, and instructed, and enthusiastic pro-
gress of the Church which the world loudly demands now
and for which it lies open. But how shall it advance —
One, visibly — for the world must see it — or divided ?
Conforming ? Non-conforming ? Agreeing to differ, and
not agreeing in corporate, and spiritual, and practical
union ? The matter is a pressing one in China. The
Christians in China — we speak of course here chiefly of
those attached at present to the different non-Roman
bodies in China — are preparing for an independent
Church of China. They are not unmindful altogether
of what they owe to foreign emissaries of the Cross ;
they may, some of them, elect to follow and repeat in
their independence the customs and teachings and forms
of the Churches to which they owe their Christian
faith. But with the native enthusiasm and the national
spirit now abroad, the thoughtful and more enlightened
Christians argue thus : " we wish you had not brought
us your divisions ; we accept the faith, but we look and
search in vain for that Church which Christ Himself
prayed for, and prophesied of, and enjoined, and which
His Apostles described — one Church, in faith, in order,
in discipline, and sacraments, and charity — and there-
fore we imagine you all to be mistaken, and decline to copy
any but a united model, and must select, and extricate,
or create a Church of our own." Can we face such a
challenge as tliis unconcerned, unalarmed ? Is it too
374 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
late before we surrender, as some are already doing,
thankfully and hopefully, all control and government to
the nativ^e Church, to show them even yet that we can
unite on one common basis of Apostolic and Primitive
faith and order and creed and sacrament — one in matters
of Christian conscience, taught and enlightened by the
Scriptures of Truth, and one by laying aside for future
adjustment all wholly minor questions of preference or
prejudice or custom ? It must be carefully noted that
if thoughtful and earnest China does not want our
differences, it most certainly does not want our doubts. If
we are presumptuous enough to offer to them a book
which shall surpass in authority and in wisdom their
old canonical literature, that book must be veracious,
trustworthy, inspired in all its parts. If we present a
religion unique, Catholic, and superseding all human
religions, that too must be dogmatic as with divine
origin and sanction. We have such a book, the Bible.
Have we not such a Church, the English Church — if she
remains true to her faith and order ; not relapsing into later
Roman error and non-conformity ; not patronising or
adopting the rationalistic assumptions and unassured
results of criticism, which, invalidating the authority and
veracity of the Church's rule of faith, invalidates also
that of the Church's Lord (" amazingly modern " is
Professor Gwatkin's remark about the description
quoted by Eusebius of the teaching of the school founded
Theodotus about a.d. 190 — " they lay hands on the
Scriptures without fear, professing to correct them") ?
If now the Church purges herself from error thus on
IX. UNITY 375
either side, here will lie and rest a Church " foursquare,"
a quadrilateral, a one and true basis and trysting place
for Christians. Here, if they will come and see, the
eighty differing Churches in China will find all the truth
they love and need, but in harmony, not in isolation or
exaggeration ; and joining thus and presenting to the
Chinese our Lord's own model and ideal, the Church of
China will be gladly one in Christian communion with
the Church Catholic, and strong for the glory of God and
the increase of His Kingdom.
CHAPTER X
China's Relations with Foreign Powers
We have described in some detail the effect produced
on China and its people by the advent of the teachers
and professors of religion and philosophy from the
West. In the present chapter we propose to notice the
influence, for good or evil, on the political and social
history of China produced by her intercourse with the
West, and the changes in the unchanging East brought
about or stimulated by that intercourse.
The drastic revolution at present in progress must
also be noticed ; but hardly so much as a matter of
history, for it is only history in the making, as a note
of time, and as a phenomenon not without some close
connection with the changes and revolutions which
preceded it.
The earher touch of East and West — or more strictly
of West and East — intercourse attempted by travellers,
explorers, by embassies, or official letter — so far as the
records preserved guide us, lead to the conclusion that
they had much more effect on the restless and inquisi-
tive West, than on the self-satisfied East. So far from
revealing to China the existence of empires and powers,
not so far from them, with civilisation and facilities for
trade, and warlike capabilities also, which might make
376
X. EARLIEST INTERCOURSE 377
it well to placate them and win their friendship, and per-
chance commercial mutual benefit as well, these Western
advances only served to gratify the Chinese rulers by
the evidence of some slight intelligence and perception,
even amongst these Western barbarians, as to the
supreme power and magnificence and central rule of
China. It took a long time to reveal to the West an
adequate idea of the extent and resources and power
of China — her strength and her weakness, her civihsa-
tion and inteUigence, her varying moods of courteous
welcome and jealous exclusion. But it has taken much
longer to reveal to China the fact that the younger
civilisation of the West has some features and sub-
stantial benefits which China may well imitate and
share. And now with the vexatious clumsiness of a
giant's awakening from long slumber, China is stripping
herself of her old raiment, and putting on ill-fitting
because hastily measured and woven new garments.
The first definite attempt at official intercourse, during
the Christian era, was the embassy of inquiry sent by
the Emperor Marcus Antoninus in a.d. 166, to the
Emperor Huan Ti of the Later Han dynasty, who reigned
A.D. 146-167. This is described by Chinese authors as a
mission " with tribute," as from subjects to a great
suzerain ; and as an act of clemency trade was
thenceforward permitted with Canton. The Roman
historian, on the contrary, but with less authentication
for his veracity, represents the Seres and Indians as coming
with awe and veneration to salute as vassals the Majesty
of Rome, bringing presents of elephants, gum, and plants.
378 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
About 150 years later than this, intercourse of a
different kind took place between the near West and
the Chinese border, which brought not merely in great
measure blessing to China, but in its turn and after the
lapse of centuries became one chief stimulant of friendly
commercial intercourse between China and the West.
Tea, we are confidently told, is not indigenous in China.
Its growth and culture there cannot be traced further
back than the middle or early years of the fourth
century. But somewhat earher than this we read of a
people called the Sesatae coming yearly to the frontier
of the Sinse, and in a neutral territory between their
own country and that of Thina, bartering with the
Sinae articles in exchange for malabathrum, which was
probably the tea-leaf, and that these people came from
the mountainous regions of Assam and Yunnan, where
indeed quite recently the tea-bush has been found
growing wild. The two Arab travellers who visited
China a.d. 850 and 877, the first authentic narrators
and observers that we possess, speak of tea as in general
use during the T'ang dynasty. The same travellers
inform us of the very considerable commercial inter-
course which had prevailed between the West and
China, from the time of Justinian, a.d. 482-565, up to
the period of their travels. The silkworm was surrep-
titiously introduced from China into Greece, during
Justinian's reign, and the large number of merchants,
Arabians, Jews, Christians and Parsees, at Ganfu is
described by Abusaid. Ganfu has been identified with
Marco Polo's Canfu or Kan-p'u, a port of Kinsay or
ARAB TRADERS 379
Hangchow, but was more probably Canton, known then
as Kuang-chou or Kuang-fu. No fewer than 120,000
Western adventurers and merchants in Ganfu are said
by Abusaid to have been exterminated at the close of
the ninth century. The magnificent city of Hangchow,
itself a centre of trade and commercial and political
action and splendour in Marco Polo's days (a.d. 1275-
1292), lies on the banks of the Ch'ien-t'ang river, about
forty miles from its funnel-shaped mouth, and the
entrance of the great Bore described above, and about
sixty miles from Cha-p'u, well known in early and
mediaeval days, and 100 or 130 miles from the " Gates
of China," the Chusan Archipelago, and its numerous
channels. There must be something very specially ad-
vantageous and remunerative for commercial intercourse
in Hangchow, from this historical fact of its early
attraction of trade to its borders — and from the fact
that it was selected at first as one of the ports to be
opened for foreign trade after the first opium war with
China. And the reason for the abandonment of this
modern project, namely, the terror of the great Bore
on the river — the only practicable water-communication
for sea-going craft with the outer ocean — is also our
reason for wondering again why a port approached by
waters so dangerous and so crossed by shoals and
shallows should have had such a history. The Heaven-
sent barrier, as the Chinese have called it, the natural
or perchance supernatural defence of Shanghai in its
great tidal bar at Woosung, the outer port of Shanghai.
preventing the promiscuous approach of foreign shipping
38o THE CHINESE PEOPLE
for peace or war, has been at last circumvented and
practically removed ; but the Hangchow Bore is a far
more formidable deterrent, and the trade of Hangchow
finds outlets now by the Grand Canal and its branches
to Shanghai and beyond.
The story of the attempts at commercial intercourse
during the Middle Ages represents to us the pictures of
the West awed by the reputed power of the Far East,
and sending embassies and tentative missions, with
petitions, and what the Chinese construed as tribute
rather than courteous presents ; and meanwhile China
sent no official embassies to the West, contented to
leave the outer Barbarians alone, neither fearing their
power nor much coveting their territory or possessions
— for why should a suzerain fear or attack his vassals ?
And page after page of the long story is flecked by
alternating sunshine and gloom — sunshine of compara-
tively long periods of open doors and freedom for trade
and residence, " thousands of Western traders resorting
to the land of Seres and the valley of the Ganges " ; and
favour as in the Polos' time under the Khans ; and con-
cession for trade to the Portuguese, 1516 and 1517,
and on the occasion of their subsequent embassies of
vassalage. Concessions were granted for a while in
Formosa, during the stormy and calamitous tenure of
that island by the Dutch. Then disturbances and gloom
pass over the picture, in massacres of these Western
strangers by the suspicious and hostile and too often
treacherous Chinese, violence not seldom instigated,
however, by the crimes of the visitors. The Portuguese
X. EUROPEAN EMBASSIES 381
between the years 1521 and 1587 established, apparently
unchallenged, a factory at Ningpo, traces and legends
of which occupation, as well as of the English factory
there in 1759, still survive in the city ; and the writer
has seen a spot on the coast south of Ningpo, near
Nimrod sound, where numbers of Portuguese lie buried,
a part of the 12,000 " Christians" who were destroyed
in 1587 for their un-Christian conduct. The Russians
in earlier days were the only Western power which,
probably from their comparative contiguity, sending
embassies to China, compelled the Chinese, from motives
of prudence, to treat them not as vassals and tribute-
bearers, but as equals ; and yet even the Russian envoy,
Ismailoff, sent by Peter the Great in 1719, did submit
to the humihation of prostrating himself before the
Emperor, with the vague compromise that Chinese
embassies to Russia, if ever sent, should conform to
Russian customs.
The enterprise of England in endeavouring to open
the gates of China — and not merely by private under-
takings— from 1596, when Queen Elizabeth sent an
envoy with a letter to the Emperor, and from 1637,
when, backed by force, Waddell planted the British
colours on the walls of Canton, has had a wider and
more lasting effect than the action of any other Western
power. The story of the next 200 years which passed
after Waddell' s visit, and up to the culmination of the
doubly deplorable opium controversy and conflict in
the war of 1840, is a chapter of history dismal to the
last degree ; and it leads the reader to the conclusion
382 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
that the balance of blame for such long-drawn-out events
cannot be with certainty struck. It is the custom for
historians who affect impartiality to throw the blame
for the most part on the action of Christian powers, and
notably of England. But where accidental homicide is
persistently treated as murder, and a life for a Hfe,
without trial or inquiry, insisted on ; and when murder
is made thus a judicial act by the legal authorities of
the land ; and when, moreover, in the poet and states-
man Su Tung-p'o's maxim, the world is told that the
barbarians are like beasts, and to be ruled only, as the
ancient kings so well understood, by non-rule, then we
cannot so much wonder at, however deeply we deplore,
the " non-rule " of temper, and courtesy, and justice,
which so often characterised the retaliation of the West.
This only must be remembered and insisted upon in
our review of history, that China's welcome, and friendly
attitude towards her Western visitors, however modified
by the arrogant assumption of central and supreme power
and control, preceded her exclusive and hostile and tortu-
ous policy, and this later policy must be explained in part
at least by the faults, and force, and arrogance on the
other side. It was the notoriety of this hostihty of the
Chinese Government and officials to all foreign inter-
course, and to trade as such, which seemed to many to
justify the persistent refusal of the East India Company,
or her traders under the aegis of that powerful and
energetic company — backed, too, so largely by govern-
mental power in England — to listen to the remonstrances,
and entreaties with tears, and threats, and machinations
X. LORD MACARTNEY 383
of the Chinese against the Indo-Chinese trade in opium.
They would not beheve, and England would not for
many years beheve, that any moral motive swayed the
Chinese in their denunciation of this trade. It was
merely a cloak cast round the true motive — an embargo
on foreign trade altogether.
But to retrace our steps, the state of things in China
passed rapidly from bad to worse ; and with a con-
stantly shifting policy in trade, with no acknowledged
tariff, and no acknowledged medium of communication
between the foreign and native residents, no wonder
that smuggling was too much the order of the day, and
that national credit, both Eastern and Western, was in
great danger. The British Government at last roused
itself to appreciate the danger, and they endeavoured
to ameliorate and, if possible, to remove the causes of
these continued troubles, and to place trade and the
relations between Great Britain and China on a well-
ordered and secure footing. Colonel Cathcart was sent
on an embassy to Pekin in 1788, but he died in
the Sunda straits on his way out ; and in 1793 Lord
Macartney, escorted by ships of war, and with a retinue
and complimentary offerings to the Emperor, well
calculated to inspire consideration and courteous wel-
come, reached Jehol. Such courtesy and such a welcome
they did as a matter of fact receive. The demand at
first made for prostrations indicative of vassalage was
r eadily waived ; the entertainment of their guests by
the Chinese was on a sumptuous scale ; Lord Macartney
was even allowed and invited to return through the
384 T^HE CHINESE PEOPLE
inland provinces from Pekin to Canton, and the narra-
tive of his embassy and mission is almost a classic in
modern travel. The veil was largely lifted from Western
eyes which had so long clouded the vision of the real
China, in its power and grandeur, its civihsation and
magnificent pettiness ; and China saw more than before
what England might be or become to her in the courtesy
and reasonableness and intelligence of her representa-
tives.
But China would not even yet be weaned from the
idea that this was the most splendid testimonial of
respect ever paid by a tributary nation to their court,
neither could she yet be diverted from her vexatious
and uncertain policy as to treaties of commerce.
Once again, in 1816, Lord Amherst, who, like Lord
Macartney, had been Governor-General of India, reached
Pekin at the head of an embassy, with every accom-
paniment of friendly intention and courteous offerings ;
but he failed more signally than Lord Macartney, being
refused an audience, as he would not appear as an
envoy of a tributary power ; and though his reception
in the south was more courteous, and more indicative
of some appreciation of England's power and sincerity,
no real advantage followed.
But we have now reached and already entered deeply
into the troubled sea of the opium controversy ; and
the history of that question, now we trust on the very
eve of lasting silence and complete extinction, must be
briefly described. It is noteworthy that thus far the
intercourse between the West and China had produced
X. OPIUM 385
no appreciable effect on China's methods of civilisation
and government ; nor had they prepared the way at all
for the chajiges and convulsions which now shake the
land from end to end.
The history of the poppy in China has been treated in
an official pamphlet prepared and pubhshed by order of
the English Inspector-General of Foreign Customs in
China, and we present the following brief summary of its
statements and conclusions. The poppy seems to have
been unknown in China previous to the T'ang dynasty
(a.d. 618 — 907). It was then introduced by Arab traders
as a soporific drug, and the plant, either as a handsome
garden flower or as a useful medicine, is repeatedly
mentioned down to the seventeenth century. At that
time tobacco-smoking and tobacco cultivation were
introduced from the Philippine Islands (a.d. 1621). In
the time of the last Ming Emperor (a.d. 1627 — 1644),
tobacco-smoking was as vigorously denounced and pro-
hibited as opium-smoking was a hundred years later.
Various ingredients were mixed with tobacco, such as
arsenic with the tobacco used in water-pipes, and opium.
The first Imperial decree against opium-smoking was
issued about a hundred years after the Chinese counter-
blast to tobacco, namely, in a.d. 1729. Opium-smoking
was known in Java before this time, and is described by
the famous traveller, Kaempfer. It must have been a
different habit from the more placid Chinese vice, for
Kaempfer ascribes to this the " hamuk," or " running
amok," not unknown in these modern days. Formosa
seems to bear on her fair name the brand and disgrace
2B
386 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
of having been the original den of opium-smoking ;
and the Japanese have found the regulation or sup-
pression of this vice, in their recent occupation of
Formosa, one of the hardest problems confronting them.
In two native works on Formosa, published in a.d. 1746,
descriptions are given of the habit, and of its results :
" The opium is boiled in a copper-pan. The pipe is
in appearance like a short club. Depraved young men,
without any fixed occupation, meet together by night,
and smoke ; and it soon becomes a habit. Fruit and
sweetmeats are provided for smokers, and no charge is
made the first time, in order to tempt men into the dens.
After a while they cannot stay away, and will forfeit
all their property so as to buy the drug. Soon they find
themselves beyond cure. If they omit smoking for a
day, their faces become shrivelled, their lips stand open,
and they seem ready to die. Another smoke restores
vitality, but in three years they all die. This habit has
entered China ten or more years."
Already a decree against opium of the most stringent
character had been promulgated, and the Chinese Govern-
ment found itself face to face with a dangerous social
evil. Meanwhile the poppy had entered Western China,
introduced partly by Mohammedans, who had cultivated
the plant in Arabia, Persia, and India, and who were a
power in Yunnan before the eighteenth century. The
East India Company, under Warren Hastings in a.d. 1781,
appropriated by right of conquest the monopoly of
opium, and looked about for a profitable market, since
it would not sell well at home. At this time, as we
X. OPIUM 587
gather from a Report of the English House of Commons
(a.d. 1780) :
" The importation of opium into China was forbidden
under very severe penalties. The opium on seizure was
to be burnt, the vessel carrying it conliscated, and the
Chinese salesmen were punished with death."*
In the face of this prohibition, which was well known,
trusting to the cupidity and corruptibility of the Chinese
Government, the first venture of this trade, destined to
expand to vast and deadly proportions, was made by
ships armed to the teeth, as if for some warlike or
piratical enterprise. The coincidence of the supposed
necessity for such an outlet for British commercial enter-
prise with Chinese exclusiveness, based this time on
morality, and largely strengthened, as afterwards ap-
peared, by a jealous policy as to trade generally, was,
to say the least, unfortunate. It is a deplorable considera-
tion that, ahnost to the margin of what are now the
expiring days of the traffic, the only argument in defence
of the trade and its history has been a sneering doubt
as to the honesty of China's long protest, and the asser-
tion that exclusive and almost immoral dishke of all
foreign trade, and not highly moral hatred of opium,
swayed the discussion. Thus much is beyond all
dispute that to this period of the more active British
Indian opium trade can be traced a strong stimulus
applied to the destructive habit. The spectacle is half
pathetic, half grotesque, of the loud denunciation of the
trade and of the habit by the honest Emperor, Tao-
♦ Cf. New Chines an(L Old, pp. 94-96.
388 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
kuang, himself a reformed opium-smoker, and by his
individual censors, and the connivance at the trade on
the part of Viceroys and Governors and Taotais ; till at
last, with a desperate effort for the annihilation of the
evil, and the seizure and destruction of 20,283 chests of
opium at Canton, the war of 1840 was forced on by the
high-handed but disinterested action of Lin Tse-hsii.
Our conclusion of the whole matter at this early stage
of the disastrous history is, " that in the matter of opium,
China was in the right, and England in the wrong ; but
that in many other matters China's attitude cannot be
excused, nor England's annoyance altogether con-
demned. England was not unjustly out of patience
with Chinese diplomacy (the determination, e.g., not to
deal with the foreign barbarians at all, on the basis of
equality), though England was unjustly determined to
force her trade, and more especially her opium traffic."
The short war of 1840 was brought to a close by the
cession of Hongkong to the British in 1841. (The other
two places and points of advantage for trade and for
influence, offered as alternatives, and dechned on a tacit
understanding that no other Western power should hold
them, were the Chusan Archipelago, and the Island of
Formosa.) The Treaty of Nankin was signed, five
ports were thrown open to trade, and through subsequent
treaties with the United States and with France in 1844
and 1845, the toleration of Christianity was obtained,
and the persecuting Edicts of 1724 and later were
rescinded. The grave contention about the opium trade
was, however, left untouched, and the Chinese Govern-
X. OPIUM 389
merit, with the great trouble and danger of the T'ai-p'ing
rebelHon (1850-1864) on their hands, irritated by con-
tinuous opium-smugghng, challenged a second war by
the seizure of the lorcha " Arrow " (October, 1856),
insulting thus the British flag, which, however, was
already insulted by its unauthorised use over a smuggling
craft. The war which followed seemed ended by the
Treaty of Tientsin in 1858, but was renewed by Chinese
audacious treachery at the Taku forts ; and after the
forcing of the passage, and capture of the forts, Pekin
lay at the mercy of the Western powers, and the Treaty
was ratified in Pekin itself. These startling and dra-
matic measures were taken while England was in the
death-struggle of the Indian mutiny, the naval and
military forces despatched to avenge the quarrel with
China being actually diverted to Calcutta for a time, to
succour the hard-pressed British power in India.
The Chinese, while signing as many as nine treaties
with Western powers at this time, and opening the
country far more widely to trade by the adding of ten
sea-board or river ports to the five sanctioned by the
previous treaties, declined even to discuss the dangerous
and disastrous opium question, or to run any risk of a
third war, and unwillingly, save by the impetus of despair,
they admitted opium on the tariff.
We are concerned here chiefly with the history of the
opium trade, and need not interpose a narrative of the
after history of China's relations with the West and
foreign powers generally, as that narrative does not, till
its later periods, affect this special subject. The Tientsin
390 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
massacre of 1870 (which, but for France being locked in
the arms of her terrible struggle with Germany, would
have led probably to a war disastrous for China) ; the
murder of Mr. R. Margary in 1875 (whom the present
writer saw on the eve of his great journey across China
to the Shan States and the Burmese frontier — accom-
plishing his object, but killed with refined treachery on
his way back) ; war again imminent, and warded off at
the last moment by the surrender of the Chinese and the
signing of the Chefoo Convention, with proclamations
posted and inspected for two years by British officials
throughout the provinces, which also the present writer,
then living inland, witnessed ; the unrest and riots and
outrages to missionaries, and the unchecked circulation
of blasphemous and scurrilous placards and caricatures,
anti-foreign and anti-Christian, along the Yang-tse
valley, and the joint protesting protocol of the Powers
to China in 1891 ; the war without declaration of war
with France, where Chinese chivalry exceeded even the
hereditary chivalry of her foes ; the Ku-cheng (Ku-
t'ien) massacre of August, 1895 ; the Chino- Japanese war
shortly before this event, so disastrous and so widely
awakening to China ; the coup d'etat of 1898 ; the seizure
of Kiao-chow (Chiao-chou) by Germany in consequence
of the murder of two Roman Catholic missionaries ; the
entry of Russia into Manchuria, and the fortification of
Port Arthur, which the Japanese had captured in fair
fight ; the British occupation of Wei-hai-wei as a counter-
blast, and pledge of maintaining Chinese integrity ; and
the various territorial demands and vexatious advances
JL oPiuM S9t
of Western powers, leading up to the great terrors of the
Boxer revenge ; the collapse of that murderous but
patriotic outbreak ; the safe passage through fire and
flood and the sword's sharpness of the Church of Christ ;
these, and the Russo-Japanese war, and the electric
shock which thrilled through all Eastern and Far Eastern
lands by the great triumph of Japan, and the creation
in thought and aspiration and programme of a patriotic
spirit and patriotic national ideals, scarcely uttered
before — all these, except perhaps the last great clash
between East and West, left the dismal opium question
unsolved, and apparently insoluble. The great achieve-
ment of Japan first in defeating her gigantic Eastern
neighbour, China, and then in defeating the great giant
power of the West, most certainly suggested to China
the reflection that one secret of Japan's strength, be-
sides her adoption of so many Western appliances for
peace and war, lay in her complete and almost indignant
rejection and repudiation of any pretence to trade in
opium, or any toleration of the cultivation at home of
the poppy and the manufacture of the drug, or any
toleration of the opium habit. " Now we shall be strong,"
was the enthusiastic note of gratitude from a Chinese
mandarin, when he knew of the hope that England and
the Indian Government would be ready honestly to
co-operate with China honestly suppressing the vicious
use of opium, and the native as well as the foreign growth
and trade.
But to retrace our steps for a moment, we must
remember, and with the profoundest remorse, that the
392 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
story of the opium trade, and of the opium curse, since
the Treaty of i860, was for fully fifty years a story of
the widespread use of the drug ; of fluctuations indeed
in the Indian supply, but rather increase than decrease,
and in China of vast extension of the area of poppy
cultivation. So recently as 1902, shortly after the
suppression of the Boxer outbreak, three most alarming
symptoms were observable in China. First, opium-
smoking was coming out into the glaring hght of day,
unabashed, and not done in secret or concealed as in
former times, but as fashionable, and as common also
in all classes of society, and as much a sign of hospitality
as a cup of tea had been. Secondly, that women were
in large numbers learning the habit. And thirdly, that,
recognising the general and helpless adoption of that
which the people yet knew to be poison and a curse,
steps were being taken to reduce the effects of the habit,
not by total abstinence, but by temperance, and " moder-
ate suicide." The hold which opium had attained
through the Empire so recently as 1907 is illustrated
by the reports from the provinces given at that period
by residents and careful observers. Take Kueichou
for instance (a great opium-producing and exporting
region, it is true) ; — this is the estimate of the number
of opium-smokers only six years ago in that province :
seven out of every ten men over twenty-five years of
age smoked it habitually, and a smaller proportion,
but a large aggregate, of women were smokers. Amongst
the so-called aboriginal tribes, the Miao and others,
opium-smoking was steadily on the increase. In Yun-
X. OPIUM 393
nan, too, the quantity of opium grown was yearly in-
creasing, smoking was much more prevalent amongst the
people, and their character and stamina were manifestly
deteriorating. In the beautiful province of Fukien,
1,700 miles from Yiinnan, the same state of things pre-
vailed in 1907. The cultivation of the poppy was
largely on the increase, and the people were reported as
largely addicted to opium-smoking. In Honan the
progress of the cultivation of the poppy had been con-
siderably extended, and native opium was largely used.
In Southern Chekiang also the notorious T'ai-chou opium,
of evil repute for its strength and for the large quantities
grown sixty years ago, was quite recently to be seen in
its many-coloured deceptive beauty under the bright
sunshine of May skies, covering thousands of acres, and
the native and foreign trade, too, in full prosperity.
Astonishing, then, to the very verge of the belief in a
miraculous effect of God's providence and gracious
power, is the present aspect of China's vast opium-
producing provinces, of the native production and
trade wholesale and retail (and the same is true of the
foreign trade), of the cities and towns and villages of
China, and of her social conditions of family and individ-
ual life. The poppy is uprooted, the sale of native opium
is prohibited, the opium dens and palaces are closed,
holocausts of pipes and lamps and apparatus of smoking
have been offered in very many cities ; opium-smoking
in private is illegal ; the Indian trade is so paralysed as
to necessitate the stoppage, for a time at least, of all
present sales in India for the Chinese market ; and China
394 ftin CHINkSE PEOPLE
seems within sight of complete deliverance from this
great curse, if only she is able to hold fast to her resolu-
tion, and if morphia and foreign spirits and native liquors
in excess do not fill the happy vacuum.
But we must not fail to notice the connection with this
opium question, and also with the other reforms and
changes which are now convulsing China, traceable in
that greatest of all calamities, the T'ai-p'ing Rebelhon,
that cataclysm which nearly overwhelmed China half-
way through the nineteenth century, a century in all its
course, indeed, marked by troubles and unrest. The
T' ai-p'ing Rebelhon is generally regarded by students of
history as a grim and isolated event, with no special
significance, and with no permanent influence in the
fortunes of China or of the rest of the world. Yet, if we
mistake not, it afforded the first symptoms of Western
influence for the good of China, and not for aggression
or dismemberment, or forceful interference. Hitherto,
as we have seen, the West had been pushing Eastward
with mingled awe and inquisitiveness for its own advan-
tage ; now China seemed to be holding her hands West-
wards to lay hold of and adopt reforms and changes and
inventions which might be of practical use in the land.
The tendency and movement were premature — the people
were in no true sense awake to the advantage of such
changes, though profoundly aware of the degradation,
and corruption, and imbecility which had fallen on the
yet ideally high system of the Government and social
order of the Empire. And it is a significant symptom,
in a quarter where we should least expect it, of the
X. TH£ rAi-P'ING REBELLION 395
acknowledgment in the action of the leaders of the great
Rebellion, that the higher duty and function of the ruler
of the people is not to legislate so much for what the
people wish as for what the king perceives that they
really need. Is it not a phenomenon almost unique in
the history of the governed and their governors that,
disregarding the mere voice of popular acclaim, the
leader shall listen only to the voice of justice, and
Integrity, and high morality, and the quiet enumeration
of what will best advance the moral and material pros-
perity of the land ? Not only were schemes proposed and
proclaimed in the best days of the T'ai-p'ing for higher
education, retaining the old system with reforms and
supplementary learning in method and subjects from the
West; for Christian instruction also, and the Bible the
chief text-book ; for faciUties afforded to Western visitors
and merchants for inland travel, and to trade generally in
the inner waters of the great land ; schemes also for rail-
ways and telegraphic communication, and for improved
roadways and inland locomotion generally ; and, again, for
the due elevation of women, and for their education ;
but further — and here the far-seeing ruling spirits ran
quite ahead of the times — the abolition of idolatry was
a rallying cry in battle ; and the abolition of the trade in
opium, and of its native production and vicious use was
the avowed policy of the T'ai-p'ing, coupled with the
doubtless popular cry for the expulsion of the foreign
dynasty of the Manchus. The T'ai-p'ing knew that they
would win the good-will neither of foreign Powers, at
that time so deeply interested in the opium trade, by
396 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
the abolition of the trade, nor of the people generally, still
lying
" on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies " —
neither could it seem yet to the masses of the people a
beneficent and attractive reform to destroy at once and
without previous argument and persuasion their idol
temples, and so to persecute their idols, that their only
refuge was, after precarious rescue from the ruins of the
red and yellow walled Buddhist or Taoist temples,
to place them in ancestral halls, with black colouring,
and so to draw off the T'ai-p'ing iconoclastic search, as no
idol surely could ever be found in these ancestral buildings.
And notwithstanding the after history of the Rebellion —
the unmitigated curse which it became to China, and its
failure in government and in the attainment of its high
ideals — it is unjust and unreasonable too, if we with-
hold any meed of praise to men bold and courageous
enough to anticipate the wants of their native land in
religion and morality, and in social and economic reform,
and, not content with a dream, to awake themselves and
strive by very force to awaken the nation and make the
dream a reality. The most interesting narrative,* and
probably the most reliable, that we possess of the origin
and earher days of the Rebellion, came from the Hps of
Hung Jen, a cousin of the T'ai-p'ing leader. Hung Hsiu-
ch'iian, who had personal interviews with a Basel
missionary in 1853, ^^nd provided him with full details.
Hung Hsiu-ch'iian could trace his pedigree back to the
♦ See Half a Century in China, pp. 25-30,
X. THE TAI-P'ING REBELLION 597
beginning of the twelfth century a.d., when the Emperors
Hui Tsung and Ch'in Tsung were carried captive by the
Chin Tartars on their first inroad. Hung Hao, the
first-known ancestor of the Hungs, was then minister of
state, and showed his loyalty to the throne by endeavour-
ing to follow his Imperial master into the Mongolian
wilds. Five hundred years later, after the Mongols had
wrested the Imperial power from the Sung dynasty, and
the Mongols in turn had been succeeded by the Chinese
Ming dynasty, that dynasty, after two hundred and
seventy years, was overwhelmed by the conquering
Manchus. One of Hung Hsiu-ch' iian's ancestors was
generaHssimo at the time, and led this last campaign of
the Ming dynasty. Had Hung Hsiu-ch' iian raised the
standard of the Ming in his revolt against the Manchus,
and not his own standard and the promise of a new
regime, it is more than probable that the uprising would
have been popular and acclaimed from the first and
everywhere, instead of being dreaded and hated as mere
brute force let loose. For it has been for years past the
aspiration of the secret societies which honeycomb the
land, and the leading object and subject of revolutionary
thought, to restore the Ming dynasty. The Triad
Society, which offered its fighting aid to the T'ai-p'ing
in 1852, put this object definitely forward ; but this
service was dechned by the T'ai-p'ing leader unless they
would conform in all things to his rule and dictation.
Yet after their final defeat and suppression in 1864, a
large body of them, retiring south-westwards, stood
together, and were unmolested from fear by the Imperial
398 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
conquerors, and the seeds of revolution and the seeds also
of reform were kept alive, manifesting their life from
time to time, notably in the " tail-cutting " rumours of
1878-9 ; and their nurturing and inspiring forces were
in all probability behind and beneath the recent and
successful insurrection and upheaval.
Hung Hsiu-ch'iian was born in 1813, in a village thirty
miles north-east of Canton. His father was a Hakka
(K'o-chia), or descendant of settlers from a neighbouring
province, and though headman of his village was only a
poor husbandman. His son, having shown marked
ability, was carefully educated, and distinguished himself
in the preliminary examinations ; but when qualified for
office, a continual bar and ban seemed against him,
preventing his promotion ; and this produced a marked
sense of disappointment with the world, and an almost
rabid irritation against the mandarins and the Govern-
ment generally, to whose favouritism and corruptibility
he traced his ill-fortune. In 1836 he met two men in
the streets of Canton, one evidently, from Hung's own
account, a foreigner, the other in all probability Liang
A-fa, a convert of Dr. Milne, and Dr. Morrison's faithful
but illiterate helper. Liang presented Hung with
Christian tracts and books, which he laid aside unread,
till, falling ill for forty days, and seeing visions which
he always quoted as the cause and explanation of his
great rebellion, he studied these books, and fancied
that he traced in them a confirmation of his views.
The war of 1840-1842 between England and China,
the very thunder of the guns which he must have heard,
X. THE TAI-P'ING REBELLION 399
awoke in him a sense of the power of these strange
foreigners ; and the mingled attraction of power and
wisdom led him to desire closer contact with the men
and their learning.
For a time nobler and higher thoughts controlled him.
The province of Kuangsi was at this time in a low state
socially and morally. Two centres of worship, the idol
Ken-wang and the Temple of Six Caverns, celebrated,
deified, and almost worshipped vice; and Hung Hsiu-
ch'iian, like another Gideon, destroyed these idols. He had
already, with the help of one of his friends and one of
his first converts, Feng Yiin-san, an earnest, simple-
minded man, founded in Kuangsi a Society of the
Worshippers of God, denouncing idolatry, renouncing
the glory and pleasures of this present world, meeting
by night on the " Thistle Mount," without image or
incense or outward display, and bending low in worship
and prayer before the true Shaiig Ti, the Lord and Maker
of these heavens full of stars soaring over their heads.
It is a vision surely of mysterious pathos which rises up
before our fancy, stretching back through nearly seventy
years. The little band, with their able and courageous
leader, became involved soon after in clan fights, without
their own initiation, and had to stand on their defence
against Imperialist soldiers sent to attack them.
They were victorious in this first encounter. The news
spread like fire through South China. Hung Hsiu-ch'iian,
after offering the supreme power to each of his four
captains in turn, was compelled himself to lead, and
raised the standard of the dynasty of Great Peace
400 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
(T'ai-p'ing). He took the title which may be differently
rendered as the King of Great Peace, or King of the
Heavenly Kingdom, or, as some confusion of dialectic
pronunciation gave it. King of Heavenly Virtue. Great
crowds now flocked to his banner ; defence turned into
attack J he became a military leader of conspicuous
ability, and a great conqueror, but the scourge and
devastator of his native land. What might have
happened had he had more careful teaching and wiser
and stronger counsellors, and (it must be added) had
he possessed a fuller appreciation and application to
his conscience of what he did know ? The T'ai-p'ing
Rebellion might have still become a fact of history, but
he would not have led it. He started at length on his
terrible career, to end fourteen years later in defeat,
despair, and suicide ; and we dare not foUow in detail
that wild story of the " Heavenly Dynasty of Great
Peace." In three short years the T'ai-p'ing armies
fought and burnt their way through Kuangsi, Hunan
("trodden in dust and ashes"), through Hupei also,
and Anhui, Kiangsi, and Kiangsu, up to Nankin, which
great city, the ancient southern capital of the empire,
they stormed on March 19th, 1853, and occupied for
ten years. The fighting line consisted of only from
60,000 to 80,000 trusted combatants, with a mixed
multitude, 100,000 strong, of non-combatants — porters,
sappers, and artificers. This force was subsequently
swollen by multitudes of recruits from the White Lotus
and other secret societies ; and the accession of these
motley crowds, without any religion at all, exercised a
X. THE t'AI-P'ING REBELLION 40!
powerful influence in neutralising and eventually obliter-
ating the spiritual elements in the earliest bands which
we noticed above. The great conquering horde ad-
vanced in 1854, with two columns or streams of war,
northwards, and reached a town only seventy miles from
Pekin, where they encamped and went into winter
quarters ; and then, with final victory in sight, the
Tartar horsemen, under the great cavalry leader, San-
kolinsin, checked their further advance. Returning
slowly, and capturing city after city in Chihli, Shantung,
Shansi and Honan, the T'ai-p'ing were at length
beleaguered in Nankin by Imperialist forces. Though
hard pressed and on short rations, and crippled by
terrible fights among rival factions within the walls, yet
in March, i860, they broke through the cordon, and in
light marching order advanced on Hangchow, stormed
and sacked that great city, and after three days of pillage
and bloodshed, and the spectacle of the governor of the
city hanging himself in despair over one of the city
gates — scenes described to the present writer by an
eye-witness who himself narrowly escaped death — the
T'ai-p'ing evacuated the city, wheeled round, and
evaded at some distance the Imperialist host from
Nankin lumbering heavily in pursuit. They reached
Nankin, swept away by sudden assault the half-
defended forts and encampments, and annihilated for
the time being the Government's power in that region,
70,000 soldiers laying down their arms and joining the
rebel host. Soochow, and a large part of Kiangsu,
fell under their sway ; and the peril drew near to the
2C
402 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
great cosmopolitan port, the commercial metropolis of
the whole of the Farthest East, Shanghai. In 1861
two auxiliary armies, one apparently from Soochow and
the other from the south-west, invaded the fair province
of Chekiang, eager to secure a seaport which they had
not possessed before ; and desirous also of friendly
intercourse with Western powers, a hope which seemed
impossible of realisation at Shanghai, which port
foreigners with force forbade them to approach.
They captured Ningpo by a brilliant feat of daring
assault, witnessed by the wTiter, were driven out by
the English and French, returned in great numbers to
avenge their defeat, and after a second repulse they fell
back slowly on Hangchow, and after long siege, evacuat-
ing that city at night, they swept into Kiangsi and
part of Fukien ; and then with the treacherous tragedy
at Sung-chiang (treachery on the part of the Imperialist
commander, which roused the fierce anger of Gordon, his
colleague in command, whose word was thus falsified
by his "fellow's" false faith), and with the subse-
quent storming of Nankin, the tempest died down. The
rebellion was subdued by very weariness of fighting, and
after a long continued aftermath of the harvest of war,
and a long moaning call from the wreck-strewn shore
after the storm, China lived again. But most surely
the great rebellion has not vanished into the past of
history, without influence and permanent trace left in
the subsequent life of China. The programme of
reform promulgated by the T'ai-p'ing leaders fifty years
ago has been adopted unconsciously, no doubt, and in
X. THE REVOLUTIOI^ 403
some senses less wisely, first by the Manchus in their
closing years of rule, and now by the new Republic.
The destruction of idols by the blows of a conquering
host is sanctioned now by the more peaceful argument,
as the people perhaps regard it (though not always with
complacency), of room being wanted for the schoolmaster.
And the anti-opium policy, adopted in principle and
in affirmation, though not always in practice, by the
T'ai-p'ing, has been during the past decade fully endorsed
by the Imperial power in China, and now we trust by
the Republic ; and the conscience of England and of
India has been again by miraculous power awakened
to follow China's moral lead — only the pace of China's
reforming change has proved too fast for conventions
and arrangements.
And now, leaving the subject of the T'ai-p'ing Rebel-
lion, fifty years gone past, and its effect and influence,
which may be traced in the rebellion and in the Republic
its result, just one year old, we offer a brief survey
of this last convulsion in China, its causes and objects,
and its problematical future. " Republics are not made
out of old monarchies," was one of Napoleon's later
sententious sayings. Why was such an experiment
tried ; and can we designate the cause of the upheaval,
and the motives and real objects of those who inspired
and led the movement ? Have we here another, and
perchance the last, occasion of influence from the West
or is the whole movement indigenous and independent ?
It is the ordinary opinion * that the ruin and downfall
• Recent Events and Present Policies in China, J. O. P. Bland,
404 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
of the Manchu dynasty was hastened at any rate, if
not directly caused, by the " fatal error committed by
the Empress Dowager Tzii-hsi in i8g8, when instead of
weaving it into her own policy, and making use of the
do lit des principle of its more patriotic protagonists, she
suppressed the reform movement and executed several
of its leaders." On the supposition that the object of
" Young China " in the Reform movement was honestly
reform for the benefit of the country and people, and
not revolutionary intrigue, then to reject the sagacious
counsels of K'ang Yu-wei and his fellows, and to put them
to death, was suicidal murder, and justly execrated by
all lovers of justice and enlightenment. Yet this final
denouement of the Reform movement, this sudden and
scarcely hinted at (by challenge or previous warning)
attack on the dynasty, and that in the very vortex of
the process of yielding point after point of the people's
claims or petitions, on the Regent's part, confirms the
suspicion that rebellion and anti-dynastic intrigue were
all along the aim of the reformers ; and that the Empress
was in possession not of suspicion alone, but of positive
information, on this point. So that her compelling
the young and promising Emperor, who had eagerly
adopted the Reform programme, to cancel his edict of
approval, was not a mere act of tyrann}^ but an act,
as she regarded it, of highest regard for the Emperor's
safety and her own. It ought in historical justice to
be noticed that the establishment of the Republic was
signahsed by a political murder, or by a politic act of
summary justice — call it which you will — at least as
X. THE REVOLUTION 405
arbitrary and as devoid of previous trial and public
investigation as the old Empress's actions. Yiian Shih-
k'ai ordered the instant execution of two prominent
military leaders at Nankin — an act so startling and so
resented by Mid and South China as to threaten for a
time the very existence of the Republic, but tacitly
acquiesced in by Sun Yat-sen (Sun Wen) when he was
confronted with the President. The two incidents must
stand or fall together, as justifiable arrest of treason,
or as the timid yet tyrannous outcome of suspicion and
fear.
It is further worth recording that the supposed
tergiversation of Yiian Shih-k'ai himself, at first support-
ing the Reform movement, and then turning with the
Empress against it, may have been not altogether a
cowardly act of political forecast, but a loyal act after all,
because of his knowledge of anti-dynastic intrigue behind
the reform. The Reform party, up to the very birth-time
of the Republic, distrusted Yiian, as no genuine friend
of reform, and the Regent turned to him (although
he had been banished, and under a cloud of Imperial
suspicion) as the only strong loyalist who could perchance
save the dynasty. His steadiness again in the Boxer
days may have arisen from a shrewd perception that
the Ko-lao-hui and the I-ho-ch'iian (Boxer Society),
posing like most of China's many secret societies, at
first as benevolent institutions, good for mutual aid and
protection, and then as a patriotic uprising against
foreign oppression, were in reality anti-dynastic ; and
as a loyal servant of the Crown he would have nothing
4o6 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
to do with them. The Dowager Empress, as astute,
and perceiving the imminent danger to the Throne in
this anti-foreign and anti-Christian uprising, by a
desperate throw sought to out-manceuvre the Boxers by
putting herself at their head. Such considerations tend
at any rate to a demonstration of the intricacy in which
these recent changes in China have been involved.
Now revolution is planned and set in motion under the
cloak of reform ; and again the necessity for reform is
pleaded as producing rebeUion and revolution. The
"old Buddha's" action, however, to use the title of
severe and mystic sagacity with which she was credited,
does not account for the Reform movement itself.
Neither do the causes which accelerated the triumph of
the movement, enumerated by Mr. Bland, take us far
back enough in the search for origins. The lack of loyal
and influential viceroys, after the death of Liu K'un-i,
and of Chang Chih-tung, who had so wonderfully held in
check the madness of the Government itself in the
Central Provinces at the time of the Boxer troubles ;
the vacillation and obstinacy at times of the Regent ;
his nepotism in appointing Manchu relations to lucrative
posts ; his continuance of Tartar garrisons in provincial
capital cities ; the tribute levies on behalf of Pekin
Bannermen, and the sale of rank and title instead of
their bestowal as a reward for merit ; and finally the
seeming failure of the Manchus to prevent foreign
aggression — all these may have almost justified, and
have accelerated, but they did not originally suggest or
set on foot the movement.
XVI. — THE MIRROR-rOLISHER
{To face p. 406.
X. THE REVOLUTION 407
We have traced back the programme and beginnings
of reform sixty years ; but we must go back nearly
900 years to meet with China's first recognised reformer,
Wang An-shih, who was born in a.d. 1021. His scheme
ranged from a new survey and measurement of land,
with taxation graduated by fluctuations or differences
in fertility, and obligatory advances from the State to
all cultivators of the soil, up to a drastic reform of the
examination system — a wide acquaintance with practical
subjects counting for more than elegance in style. But
like many other great men, he was in advance of his
age, and he lived only long enough to see the whole of his
pohcy, which had commanded attention for a while,
reversed. The question is now whether modern, and
especially quite recent, reform is not rather behind the
age as to what is sound and permanent in the changes
and reforming growth of the West — whether, that is
to say, the would-be reformers of Young China have
not seriously overshot the mark in their somewhat
hasty and headlong launching of the ship of their reform
on what their Western-trained leaders suppose to be
the flood-tide of Western wisdom and experience. For
that tide has already turned for the ebb in Europe, in
America, in India, and in Japan, and there is danger of
China being left behind, stranded on shoals and reefs
of her own ambition and crude wisdom. This state of
things, which we briefly describe below, may be accounted
for in a measure when we can fairly estimate the primal
sources and causes of the whole movement :
"The Revolution" of which we speak, and "which
4o8 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
began with the revolt of the troops at Wu-ch'ang on
October gth, 1911, issued in February, 1912, in the
abdication of the Manchu dynasty, the estabhshment of
a Repubhc, and the formation of a provisional Re-
publican Government. It may be questioned whether
the new form of Government has behind it any strong
force of widespread popular conviction, but it signalises
the definite entrance of China on the path of material
progress and development in accordance with Western
ideas."*
The writer of these paragraphs would seem to take it
for granted that all wisdom for all the world is involved
in " Western ideas." But in sober reality it must be
remarked that this is by no means an axiom. And it
is a suspicious sign of the possible inadaptability of these
ideas and ideals from the West to Eastern soil and Eastern
minds, that coincident with this craving for supposed
Western wisdom and reform, there is an intense and
growing antipathy to Western persons with influence
and control of any kind. " History," our authority goes
on to say, " furnishes no parallel to changes so radical
and so far-reaching, and affecting so many milhons of
human beings, as those which are now in process in
China " ; and further, " the forces which gave birth to
the Revolution, and which it helped to stimulate, cannot
be stayed." Now here again we demur to this dogmatic
assertion. It is assumption again ; it takes for granted
the fact that these forces of Revolution are legitimate,
wholesome, pure, and disinterested. If they are of this
f International Review of Missions, Vol, II., No. 5, p. i^.
X. THE REVOLUTION 409
description, who would wish them stayed ? If other-
wise, why can they not even yet be moderated ? And
in sober reahty, once more, it must be admitted that the
forces are part of gold, part of iron, part of clay ; strength
and weakness ; virtue, and mere ambition and sheer love
of unrest combined, but not capable in the long run of
such combination. We saw traces of these symptoms
in the strange early days, only a few months gone by,
of the Repubhc. Conscious of the non-Eastern, and
un-Chinese idea of a Republic, and fearing perhaps with
not yet wholly eradicated superstitious thought the
evil-eye of the long-gone Emperors of the Ming dynasty,
whom all China had mourned and longed and waited for
during three centuries, and who were now with the
Manchus driven from their seats by the Repubhc, Dr.
Sun Yat-sen, a professed Christian, and the prime con-
spirator in insurrection, or rather the prime leader in
the successful Revolution, goes to the tombs of the
Ming Emperors, and reverentially informs them of his
treason, or, according to " Western ideas," of his glorious
Revolution.
This is, to our mind, a most disappointing and ominous
symptom. To this is added the announcement that
" the new Education Bill passed by the National Council
eliminates everything pertaining to religion ; and the
Director of Education has refused to permit the venera-
tion even of Confucius in schools," so as to secure,
it would seem, the religious equality of which so loudly,
and yet so vaguely, the West is talking — to secure
thus for religion equality, not in honour and recog-
410 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
nition, but in dishonour and oblivion. Further, the
grounds of the Temple of Heaven, and the Temple of
Agriculture, and, as we have seen with our own eyes
in the closing days of the Manchus, the temple lands
adjoining Taoist temples, are to be used as Govern-
ment experimental farms, although the buildings are to
be carefully preserved as national monuments. Finally,
the ancient classical literature of the land is entirely
omitted in the " Revised course of study for Primary
Schools " (issued by the Board of Education, Pekin,
September 28, 1912), with the charitable and consoUng
explanation, however, that " classical selections will
be incorporated in readers and books on Ethics " ; and
the suggestion is made that the very script in which the
classics are enshrined is to be superseded by a new and
experimental alphabetical script with forty-two letters,
and a revolutionised language for the people. With these
considerations what good ground is there for optimism
in forecasting the future of China ? If this last pro-
posal is carried out and at all generally accepted, it
will lead to the disintegration of the great language
itself, which forms in the ancient script the great welding
force for all China. It is impossible indeed, with these
facts and considerations before us, to feel sure, as, wish-
ing well to the great land, we should like to feel sure,
of the stability of these changes, or to suppress
our doubts as to the indigenous origin of the forces
which set these changes in motion, and as to the exist-
ence of any deep knowledge and experience of what
China really needs in reform, which may be guiding
X. THE REVOLUTION 411
these changes. The motive power, and original source,
of those changes which have wrought good in the land,
and will, if wisely developed, work more, are not far to
seek. The wholesome and legitimate desire for wider
knowledge and information, and for literature and learn-
ing and science rightly so-called, beyond the yet far
horizon of their own country, and of their own history,
and their own great treasures of knowledge; and also
the claim for the education of girls and women, and the
gradual adoption of such education by the Government ;
— all these can be traced directly to the past sixty years of
Christian preaching, and Christian education for girls
as well as for boys. Christian literature also has had
much to do with the loosing of these forces. Besides
the wide circulation of translations of the Bible revised
and re-revised, there has been a broadening stream of
Christian and general literature — translation or com-
position— in almost every department of useful know-
ledge. The S.P.CT<., in connection with this enterprise,
has lately made a grant of ;f6oo for the production of
such literature. The first instalment is in the hands
of the Bishops, who have appointed a competent agent
to prepare statistics of books projected or in the course
of preparation and suitable for publication in China.
Here, then, the reforming forces set in action have
had a healthy and reliably energetic origin ; and the
acknowledgment of China's debt to Mission teachers and
philanthropists from the West is made now officially, and
in earnest language, by the President of the Republic him-
self, and results in the removal of all disabilities which have
\
412 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
hampered and oppressed Christians and the Christian
name for many years, notwithstanding the original
Treaties of toleration and approval. But this thirst for
knowledge and for wider education, and this recognition
and adoption of the best of Western scientific discoveries
and apphances, notably in medical science, do not re-
present all the forces let loose, which seem, we are told,
for good or for harm, irrepressible ; and here, if we
mistake not, we can trace less irreproachable motives
and forces than those just alluded to.
Is it the Chinese Bushido, the Chinese Swadeshi,
which is uplifting the nation ? Patriotism seems to
those who have known China longest a principle, if
indigenous at all, yet surely long dormant. It may
have been there — at any rate a marvellous genius of
cohesion as of one nation has long existed, and of blind
and far off, but genuine, loyalty to one Imperial central
power. But its exhibition now seems Hke the effect of
a sudden electric shock, or a succession of such shocks,
and those from outside ; not like the uplifting influence
of a deep-rooted natural and national principle. Why
should the President of the Republic, himself called in
by the tottering Imperial dynasty to save its fortunes,
and for a time loyally attempting the desperate task,
elevated at last, and partly by the self-effacing patriotism
of Sun Yat-sen, to the President's chair, congratulate
China on her dehverance from the Imperial tyranny of
ages, and her passing into the great freedom of Repub-
Hcan life ? This is not the voice of Chinese patriotism,
but the dictation and suggesting voice of Western
jc. TH^ R^VOLUTIO^ 4i.^
teachers, and of not always wholesome Western in-
fluence. Any Chinaman patriotic in a high sense, and
proud of his country's great past, knows well that
Imperial rule is not a synonym for tyranny ; and any
Chinese student of foreign history knows that a Repubhc
is not the sole panacea for a nation's woes of unrest or
unjust rule. And here we touch the source of some of
these energies of reform and revolution and change in
the old unchanging China — namely, the intriguing and
assertive, and in many cases really and justly influential,
body of students and restless spirits who have for several
years past resided and studied in the United States
and in England. There they were made much of, and
rightly so, distinguishing themselves in many cases at
the Universities, in the arts, in medicine, and apphed
science ; and then, proud of their new attainments, and
feeling it a duty to be ashamed of the so-called crude and
partial enlightenment of the ancient polity and wisdom
of their native land, they think patriotism best exhibited
by denationalising China, by clothing her in the spangled
dress of their Western patrons and admirers, and by
eradicating, not reforming and enriching, the old. They
give no time to the enquiry : Will the clothing suit and
fit our native frame ? And in great haste they take
with them, and offer or impose upon China the ripest
fruits, as they suppose, of Western reform and en-
lightenment, which are, in reality, rejected and dis-
carded, as unwholesome and in decay, by the truest and
deepest thinkers in East and West.
The West is to blame here. Why do we exhibit to
414 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
the world, and teach to the world, our doubts as wiser
than our faith, our deUrium of statesmanship as better
than the ripe and sound wisdom of institutions tried
and tested, but ever capable of sound and conservative
reform ? Young China thinks a school and a college not
the right place for the teaching of religion. She re-
commends even Mission schools to confine themselves
to secular and intellectual instruction. The two sole
aims in education are, we are told, knowledge and
character. Why is this wholly retrograde and unen-
lightened policy enjoined by Republican China (a policy
which, if enjoined universally in education, with the
probable threat of non-recognition if they decline to
conform, may wholly ruin Christian schools) — enjoined,
too, while India cries out for religious education, and
when Japan has discovered that secular education is a
dangerous mistake ? \^'^hy, but that these young keen
leaders of modern China have learned, they beUeve,
that the foremost thinkers in the West think thus — that
religion is a mere matter of opinion, of inclination, of
choice, and that not only are all religions to be treated
in an eirenic attitude as all aiming at a similar object,
but further (and this is to meet the scruples and half
persuasions of the professed Christians who are high in
authority and rank in the new Republic) that China
cannot give her whole sanction to the Christian religion
(though she may be persuaded that it stands first, and is
ready to patronise and smile on it) for the reason that,
from the differences and dissensions amongst Christians,
it is hard to tell what Christianity is ? For in the forma-
X. THE REVOLUTION 415
tion of the Church of China which some of them propose
to estabHsh, faiUng to see in Western Christianity Christ's
own model of a united Church, they think us all probably
mistaken, as we have noticed above, and carry their
patriotism so far as to select and compose a new Church
of their own, at the risk of renewing the dismal story of
the past, in new Chinese false doctrine, heresies, and
schisms. It seems like an unconscious imitation of the
iconoclastic zeal of the T'ai-p'ing, that Republican
mandarins are forbidding idolatrous processions in the
cities and country, and threaten to burn the idols if
they appear in the procession. The T'ai-p'ing, how-
ever, had they subdued China to their sway and dj'nasty,
would apparently have gone further than abolishing the
idols, and rooting out by force false rehgions — they
would have estabhshed (still by force) the worship of the
true God. The same mistake is seen on either side,
the attempt to secure by violence and compulsion that
which should come by conviction and persuasion. But
the Republic seems to be in danger of committing the
graver error. The T'ai-p'ing proposed a substitute for
the discarded faith, knowing that no nation and no
individual can live worthy lives without a religion. And
they proposed to offer to the Chinese the great Divine
Classic as the supreme guide and rule of Faith ; not
discarding the old classics and literature of the land, but
placing the Bible as guide and ruler. The Republic
dismisses the Canonical Confucian Classics as not fully
in accordance with Repubhcan principles, and its officers
ridicule and " starve all the gods of the heathen," but
4i6 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
again, not as inconsistent with the supreme authority
of the \\'ord of God, and with the worship of the Supreme
Shang Ti, but as inconsistent only with modern enhght-
enment and science, and from the dangerous dogma that
education and rehgion must be kept distinct for the
Repubhcan emancipated thinker. The fear may be
chimerical, but it looks ominously like the attempt to
establish agnosticism and a gentle atheism by law,
with the vain hope that, by these negative pro-
cesses, characters will be formed and knowledge
increased. Already the note of warning is uttered in
some quarters by China's own moralists and observers,
that the standard of morality is being lowered in society.
We may further ask, with reference to political changes,
why Yiian Shih-k'ai's first recommendation and proposal
was set aside — namely, that the dynasty, or at any rate
the Imperial power, should be maintained and continued,
only with the democratic changes already yielded in
principle, and partly in reality, by the Manchus, of a
constitution, a parliament, with provincial assemblies,
a first and second chamber of commons and great lords,
and the Sovereign supreme, but assisted thus and
guided in his rule by the views of his faithful lieges in
council, and they thus expressing the voice of the people ?
This would have maintained the great attractive and
rallying power, so omnipotent in Japanese Biishido,
and so potent in Chinese history, the central Imperial
person and control ; while not conceding too much,
perhaps, to the new theories of modern patriotism in
Church and State, where individual rule is rated as
X. THE REVOLUTION 417
nobler than corporate service, and freedom and licence
are deemed more manly and womanly than the nobler
order of all creation's subordination and obedience, for
the moral good of all. It was strange that at this
moment the English Constitution, which had specially
commended itself to China's patriots, should have been
passing through so critical a period of its history.
Meanwhile the attitude of the vast masses of the
people generally has settled down, after temporary
excitement and eager expectancy of something new,
into a dull and neutral attitude of observation, and in
many cases of disappointment. If their mandarins can
be so adequately paid as to forbid all excuse for bribery
and corruption in their courts of justice ; if the price
of rice can be regulated, and be prevented from arbitrary
and sudden and violent fluctuations ; if flood and fire
can be forfended by some practical method ; if re-
munerative employment and fair trade be guaranteed
so far as liberty and right permit ; and if China, by a
well-disciplined and well-paid army and navy, can be
protected, not only from foreign aggression but from
internal disorder and violence — patriotism, articulate
and enthusiastic, for Republic, Ming, or Manchu, will
probably relapse into restful slumber.*
Those who know China best and longest admit their
inability to foretell with any certainty her future. A
* As these pages pass through the press, civil war has broken
out afresh along the Yangtse Valley, the southerners chafing
against Yiian's too Imperial Republicanism, Among symptoms
that some check is to be placed on headlong change may be
noted the quite recent restoration of the worship of Confucius
in the schools and colleges,
2D
41 8 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
pessimistic feeling predominates amongst such observers
and judges ; but many of her older friends in the West
and East, who have watched her battling with graver
problems and sterner difficulties than those which now
beset her path, entertain more hopeful views. China
has a marvellous power of recuperation, as well as of
cohesion. Is she at this moment in financial difficulties ?
She manages nevertheless to keep the State going with-
out money ; and meanwhile her credit is high, and her
commercial integrity, if not so notable as in the past, is
still hardly impaired.
If she can secure wiser and more far-seeing exponents
and teachers of what is really beneficial in Western
reforms, and in Western wisdom
(" Knowledge is proud that she has learned so much;
Wisdom is humble that she knows no more,")
and still welcome, with full independence from foreign
control in Church and State, Western teachers and
instructors, sound in faith and doctrine, and scholarly
in the broadest and deepest sense in science and philo-
sophy and polity, then, with God's blessing, China may
yet owe thanks and not execration to that which has
formed our chief subject in this chapter — foreign relation-
ship and Western influence.
It is probable that the hopes of China's present rulers
for the consolidation of the Republic, the maintenance
of the integrity of its domains, and the developement of
its industries and commerce, will depend on the attitude
and action of Japan. It constitutes almost an act of
homage to the supreme position of influence and power
X. THE REVOLUTION 419
which that Empire has won, that the overtures for such
an entente, actually in progress while we write, should
come from China, once in her own belief the suzerain
power of all the world, and, if not the sovereign land,
then the hereditary foe of Japan. And Japan is not
allowed to content herself with the distinction of having
electrified the whole of the great East with the aims
and theories of nationalism and patriotism ; she must
have the further dignity and responsibility, " under the
gift of Providence " (to quote the sentiments of Dr. Sun
Yat-sen in addressing himself to the rulers and thinkers
of Japan), " of the guardianship of the peace of the
Far East." Japan lies, strong, alert and watchful,
between the Republic of the West and whatever of
possible aggression or assertive influence is implied by
the dream of the transformation of the Pacific into an
American lake, on the one side, and the infant Republic,
the survival of the most ancient Empire of the world,
on the other side, with her population and fighting
power, if once awakened, eightfold that of her neigh-
bour ; and over great China she maintains, and is
asked to maintain, a calming and sobering and con-
structive influence. Northwards again she stands
as a barrier, so long as she can be sure of China's
disinterested friendship, between China and the great
expansive and restless progress of Russia, beaten back
for China's integrity so recently, and now by an e^iiente
with Japan, restrained, it would seem, for the mutual
benefit of the three powers concerned. It is perfectly
true that far-seeing Japanese statesmen must know
420 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
that the friendship of China, if she is strong, will be
indispensable to Japan. But this does not diminish the
significance and the practical interest of Japan's present
position, neither does it fail to emphasise the far-seeing
wisdom of Lord Salisbury's policy in consolidating the
English alhance with Japan, as the surest guarantee for
the peace of the Far East, and the avoidance of Western
complications which would be sure to arise from the
Far East at war, " The differences between the Chinese
and the Japanese," so runs the present contention, " are
so infinitesimal as to be negligible ; Japan and China
have the same mutual interests, and China is dependent
on Japan more than on any other nation for the assist-
ance she requires," as described above, " for consolida-
tion, territorial integrity, and developement of industries
and commerce." We seem to be watching the latest
swing of the pendulum — the alternating influence of
East on West, and West on East ; and now the West-
awakened and quickened East is not only re-acting on
the West ; the Far Eastern Japan is also swaying and
steadying the Far Eastern China — and possibly Japan
may exercise beneficial influence of the highest value,
in warning China from her own experience against the
too hasty adoption of the cruder elements in Western
civiUsation and knowledge. Notably in the department of
education and reform, Japan can assure China that uproot-
ing is not so wise as the pruning and cleansing of reforma-
tion ; and that religion in its highest form and energy,
and not mere intellectual enlightenment of knowledge, is
the foundation-stone and the top-stone of all true wisdom.
X. THE REVOLUTION 421
In the Spring of this year tidings reached us from
China of strange significance, filled, we could fain hope,
with portents of good — but just possibly portents of more
sinister results. The news of the assembling and opening
of China's first parliament, and of the impending election
of an actual and not a mere provisional president, and
of the absence of that dissension between south and
north which had been anticipated ; all this, which seemed
to discredit the pessimistic views as to China's future
which have been held by so many, was yet overshadowed,
or rather outshone, by the tidings of the appeal issued
by the Chinese Government to all Christian communities
in China to pray unitedly on Rogation Sunday, April 27,
for the land, its rulers, and its destinies, Chinese
officials were instructed to attend the churches, some
5,000 probably in number, on that prayer day ; not, one
would believe, for surveillance, but rather to exhibit
the sympathy and official co-operation of the Govern-
ment— a striking object-lesson, by the by, to Christen-
dom of what the relations between Church and State
may rightly be, the State not controlling the Church's
spirituahties, or establishing her foundations, but,
while she conserves the legal rights of the Church,
thankfully looking to the Church to establish her
by prayer and by the co-operation of Christian work
and example. We quote here, in full, paragraphs from
the Morning Post of April 18, 1913, which give a useful
summary of these remarkable events; and of the views of
some influential and official Chinese as to the origin and
probable outcome of this startUng religious change in
422 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
the unchanging East. The change thus figured may
be said to have electrified not China alone and to have
brought her in a sense to her knees — it has shaken all
Christendom, and we all were on our knees in prayer
for China on China's Day of Prayer.
The paragraphs in question were as follows :
" Christianity in China.
" With reference to the appeal issued by the Chinese
Cabinet for the prayers of the Christian Churches on
behalf of the Republican Government, Renter's Agency
learns that this has not come as a surprise to Chinese
official circles in London. During the last six years
Christianity has made enormous strides in China, more
especially among the official and influential classes.
Even during the last year or two of the Imperial regime
Government officials were no longer rigorously bound
not to adopt the new religion. Technically, they were
forbidden to do so, but their conversion was openly
winked at. The Revolution introduced complete tolera-
tion. Many of the leaders were Christians themselves,
and their accession to power gave an enormous impetus
to the spread of the faith. ' The majority of intellectual
Chinese incline to-day either towards Christianity or
Free-thought,' said a prominent official. ' Many
members of the newly-elected National Assembly, both
in the Senate and the House of Representatives, are
Christians, and there is every indication that Christianity
will spread still more rapidly when the new Government
has got its educational and social projects into working
order. I do not think the day is so far distant as many
X. RELIGIOUS LIBERTY 423
people imagine when China wiH be numbered among the
Christian nations of the world. A comparison might be
drawn between the China of to-day and the Roman
Empire of the time of Constantine. In both cases
Christianity started among the poor and spread to the
official classes. There is a strong resemblance also
between the attitudes of the Roman and Chinese Govern-
ments. This appeal for the prayers of a new and
growing community is typical of Roman tolerance to-
wards all creeds. The non-Christian Chinese official
takes the same view as the Roman proconsul — that such
prayers can do no harm and may do good, in addition to
securing the support of a powerful section of the people.
But the conviction is gaining ground that if Christianity
is to become a vital factor in Chinese national life it
must be free from foreign control, for it has always been
against the Christian as a foreigner, and not as the
upholder of a new creed, that Chinese resentment has
been raised in the past. There is a vigorous movement
on foot for the formation of a Chinese Free Church,
Protestant in character and free from the control of
European bishops and missionaries. The Minister for
Foreign Affairs and the present Minister in Berlin are
both ardent supporters of this movement, which is
gaining ground steadily.' "
It will be observed that this " prominent Chinese
official " is naturally enough obHvious of the fact that
Christianity, as a divine and supernatural faith, and con-
quering and subduing all creation to God, not by might
nor by power, but by the Eternal Spirit of God, has
424 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
reason to dread patronising popularity, more than perse-
cution and opposition ; and we must add to our prayers
for China's prosperity the petition that conviction and
faith, not poHcy and prescience, may guide official and
national acceptance of Christianity. The authority
quoted above is, naturally again, unaware that what
China will need and should aim at is not so much what
is called " a Chinese Free Church," but a Chinese Church
independent of foreign ministrations and control indeed,
but not independent of the command of the Church's Head
— union. Not a new church, not a new conception of
the one faith, not one more just Eastern or Western
school will benefit China, but the granting freedom of
union with the Church Catholic, in the faith and order
once delivered to the saints.
DYNASTIES 425
A TABLE OF THE DYNASTIES WHICH HAVE
RULED IN CHINA.*
B.C.
Yao 2357
(2i45)t
Shun 2255
(2042)
HsiA 2205
(1989)
Yin (or Shang) ..-..- 1766
(1558)
Chou** 1 122
(1050)
Hsiian Wang 827 J
Ch'in 255
Shih Huang-ti . - - - - 221
Hsi Han (or Ch'ien Han) 206
A.D.
Wang Mang (usurper) . . . - g
Tung Han (or Hou Han) 25
Shu Han§ 221
Hsi Chin 265
Tung Chin 317
Ch'ien Sung 420
Nan Ch'i -------- 479
Nan Liang 502
CH'iN 557
Sui - 590
♦ This table is taken from Chavannes, Mdmoires Historiques,
Tom, I., Introduction, App. III., and especially from the
late P. Hoang, Concordance des Chronologies Neoni4niques Chinoise
et Europienne. Names of Emperors are printed in Italics.
Words in small Roman letters are, if prefixed, descriptive terms
not invariably used.
t The dates in brackets are those of the Chu-shu-chi-nien,
which differ from the accepted chronology of the T'ung-chien-
kang-mu up to the year 827.
** The HsiA, Yin, and Chou together are called San Tai.
X From about this time the chronology is believed to be quite
reliable.
§ This is the chief of the three smaller dynasties which were
known as San Kuo or the Three Kingdoms.
426 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
A.D.
T'ang * 6i8
Hou Liang .-.--.- 907
Hou T'ang ....... 923
Hou Chin -------- 926
Hou Han -------- 947
Hou Chou -J-------- 951
Pei Sung -------- 960
Nan Sung 1127
Yuan . - - 1280
Ming 1368
Ch'ing + 1644
MiN Kuo (Republic) - - - - 12 Feb., 1912
* The Empress Wii Hou, who reigned from 684 to 704, called
the dynasty Chou from 690 to 704.
f The above five brief dynasties are classed together as Wu Tai,
and each of them maj- have Wu Tai substituted for Hou in its
title.
X p. Hoang gives also a list of partial dynasties — fifteen in
number. Several of these are principal dynasties reigning over
a part only of the Empire before they had won or after they
had lost the rule of the whole. The most important of these
partial dynasties were the Pei Wei (T'o-pa Tartars), 398-534;
the LiAO (Tartars), 947-1125; the Chin (Tartars, or Khitai),
II22-3 234 ; and the Yuan (Mongols), 1206-1279, continuing as
a principal dynasty till 1368. From T'o-pa possibly and from
Khitai (Cathay) certainly were derived the names by which
China as a whole was known in central Asia during successive
periods.
PROVINCES
427
A LIST OF THE PROVINCES OF CHINA.
Province.
Anhui - - - .
Chekiang (Che-chiang) -
Chihli - - - -
FuKiEN (Fu-chien)
HONAN - - - -
Hunan -
HuPEIt-
Kansu - - - -
KiANGSi (Chiang-hsi)
KiANGSU (Chiang-su)
KuANGSi (Kuang-hsi)
KUANGTUNG -
KUEICHOU . - -
Shansi (Shan-hsi) -
Shantung
Shensi (Shan-hsi) -
Ssuch'uan -
Yunnan . . .
HSIKANG (?)♦-
Amur (Hei-Iung-chiang)
HsiXCHIANG -
KiRiN (Chi-hn)
Shengching -
Capital.
- An-ch'ing.
- Hang-chou.
- Pao-ting.
- Foochow (Fu-chou).
- K'ai-feng.
- Ch'ang-sha.
- Wu-ch'ang.
- Lan-chou.
- Nan-ch'ang.
- Soochow (Su-choii).
- Nan-ning.
- Canton (Kuang-chou).
- Kuei-yang.
- T'ai-yiian.
- Chi-nan.
- Hsi-an.
- Ch'eng-tu.
- Yiin-nan.
- Batang (Pa-an) (?).
- Tsitsikar (or Pu-k'uei)
- Urumtsi (Ti-hua).
- Kirin (Chi-hn).
- Mukden (Feng-t'ien).
t Hunan and Hupei together are called Hu-kuang.
* Formed out of Western Ssuch'uan and Eastern Tibet in the
Autumn of 1912.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Arranged approximately according to the
Subjects of the foregoing Chapters.*
CHAPTER I
Besides many books of reference and general works
on China, such as those described later, may be men-
tioned :
The Tides (Chapter III., Tides in Rivers). By G. H.
Darwin. London, 1898.
Le Canal Imperial (Var. Sin. No. 4). By D. Gandar.
2nd ed. Shanghai, 1903.
Les deux plus anciens specimens de la cartographie
Chinoise (B.E.F.E.O., vol. iii). By Ed. Chavannes.
Hanoi, 1903.
Notes on Hangchow past and present. By G. E. Moule.
2nd ed. Shanghai, 1907.
Chau Ju-kua : His work on the Chinese and Arab Trade
in the twelfth and thirteenth Centuries entitled Chu-
fan-chi. Transl. by F. Hirth and W. W. Rockhill.
St. Petersburg, 1912.
* It is probably not necessary to point out that the following
lists of books contain hardly a hundredth part of those which
might claim to be included. It is with great regret that several
whole subjects which are now being treated by specialists (as,
for example, Numismatics by Morse and Ramsden) are excluded,
and that very little of the valuable results of the various scientific
missions led by Stein, d'Ollone, Chavannes or Pelliot, now in
course of publication, is included,
428
BIBLIOGRAPHY 429
CHAPTER II
Popular Books
Memoirs and Observations made in a journey through
the Empire of China. By L. Le Comte (transl.).
2nd ed. London, i6g8.
The Fortunate Union. Transl. by J. F. Davis. 2 vols.
London, 1829.
The Chinese. By J. F. Davis. 2 vols. London, 1836.
China. By W. H. Medhurst. London, 1838.
Two visits to the Tea Countries of China. By R. Fortune.
2 vols (originally 2 works). 3rd ed. London, 1853.
A Residence among the Chinese. By R. Fortune.
London, 1857.
China and the Chinese (or Real Life in China). By
W. C. Milne. London, 1858.
Pictures of the Chinese. By R. H. Cobbold. London,
i860.
Yedo and Peking. By R. Fortune. London, 1863.
Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio. Transl. by H. A.
Giles. 2 vols. London, 1880.
The Middle Kingdom. By S. Wells Williams. 2 vols.
New ed. New York, 1883.
New China and Old. By A. E. Moule. 3rd ed. Lon-
don, 1902.
Chinese Characteristics. By A. H. Smith. New ed.
1903.
Village Life iri China. By A. H. Smith. New ed.
1903.
Young China. By A. E. Moule. London, 1908.
Half a Century in China. By A. E. Moule. London,
1911.
The Civilization of China, By H. A. Giles. London,
1911.
430 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
Special Subjects
Chinese Art. By S. W. Bushell. 2 vols. London,
1904, 1906.
Introduction to the Study of Chinese Pictorial Art. By
H. A. Giles. London, 1905.
The Flight of the Dragon. By L. Binyon. London,
1911.
Painting in the Far East. By L. Binyon. New ed.
London, 1913.
Chinese Porcelain. By W. G. Gulland, 2 vols. Lon-
don, 1899, 1902.
Botanicon Sinicum. By E. Bretschneider. London,
1888— 1892.
Agricultural Explorations in the fruit and nut orchards
of China. By F. N. Meyer. Washington, 1911.
De la Musiqiie des Chinois {Memoires concernant les
Chinois, torn. VI.). By J. J. M. Amiot. Paris,
1780.
Des rapports de la musique Grecque avec la musique
Chinoise {Memoires Historiqites, torn. IIL, App.
IL). By Ed. Chavannes. Paris, 1899.
La Musique Chinoise. By L. Laloy. Paris, 1910.
Essai historique sur la musique classique des Chinois.
By M. CouRANT. Paris, 1912.
Causerie sur la peche fluviale en Chine. By Pol
Korrigan. Shanghai, 1909.
The Jesuit Mission at Zikawei, near Shanghai, issues
many valuable works on the Meteorology and Natural
History of China, in addition to their important series
of monographs on miscellaneous subjects — geographical,
historical, social, literary, etc. — entitled Varietes Sinolo-
giques.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 43 1
CHAPTER III
Notices of the medicBval geography and history of Central
and Western Asia (J.C.B.R.A.S. 1876). By E.
Bretschneider.
The Chinese Gover^iment. By W. F. Mayers. Shanghai,
1886.
Prehistoric China (J.C.B.R.A.S., 1890). By E. Faber.
Les Memoires Historiques de Se-ma Ts'ien. Transl. by
Ed. Chavannes. 5 tomes. Paris, 1895-1905.
A Short History of China. By D. C. Boulger. London,
igoo.
China : Past and Present. By E. H. Parker. London,
1903.
Textes historiques. By LiiON Wieger. 3 vols. Ho-
kien-fou, 1903-1905.
Ancient China Simplified. By E. H. Parker. London,
1908.
The Ancient History of China to the end of the Chou
dynasty. By F. Hirth. New York, 1908.
A Sketch of Chinese History. By F. L. Hawks-Pott.
2nd ed. Shanghai, 1908.
MedicBval Researches. By E. Bretschneider. Re-
printed. London, 1910.
China under the Empress Dowager. By J. O. P. Bland
and E. Backhouse. London, 1910.
Le Riforme Cinesi. By M. GusEO. Turin, 1910
The Story of a Chinese Oxford Movement. By Ku Hung-
MiNG. Shanghai, 1910.
Among the Tribes in Sou^h-West China. By S. Clarke.
London, 1911.
Les dernier s barbares (Mission d'Ollone). Paris, 191 1.
Langues des peoples non-Chinois de la Chine (Mission
d'OUone). Paris, 1912.
Ecritures des peuples non-Chinois de la Chine (Mission
d'Ollone). Paris, 1912.
432 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
CHAPTERS IV AND V
Notions of the Chinese concertiing Gods and Spirits (con-
troversial). By J. Legge. Hongkong, 1852.
Handbook of Chinese Buddhism. By E. J. Eitel. 1870.
2nd ed. London, 1888.
^Chinese Buddhism. By J, Edkins. London, 1880.
*The Religions of China. (Lectures.) By J. Legge.
London, 1880 ; reprint, 1910.
Les Fetes annuellement celebrees a Emoui {Amoy). By
J. J. M. DE Groot. 2 vols. Paris, 1886.
The Religious System of China. By J. J. M. de Groot.
In progress ; 6 vols, issued. Leiden, 1892, &c.
Le Code du Mahayana efi Chine. By J. J. M. de Groot.
Amsterdam, 1893.
Sectarianism and Religious Persecution in China. By
J. J. M. de Groot. 2 vols. Amsterdam, 1903,
1904,
*Religions of Ancient China. By H. A. Giles. London,
1905.
*-The Religion of the Chinese. (Lectures.) By J. J. M.
DE Groot. London, 1910.
Le T'ai-chan. Appendix : Le dieu du sol dans la Chine
antique. By Ed. Chavannes. Paris, 1910.
*China and Religion. By E. H. Parker. London, 1910.
Studies i7i Chinese Religion. By E. H. Parker. Lon-
don, 1910.
Religion und Kultus der Chinesen. By W. Grube.
Leipzig, 1910.
Recherches sttr les super stiiioyis en Chine (Var. Sin., Nos.
32 etc.). By H. Dori':. In progress. Shanghai,
1911, &c.
And several less important books, numerous articles
in periodicals, and chapters in popular works on China.
* Indicates books of a more popular nature.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 433
CHAPTERS VI AND VII
The Chinese Classics : with a translation, critical and
exegetical notes, prolegomena, and copious in-
dexes. By James Legge.
Vol. I. — Confucian Analects, The Great Learning,
and The Doctrine of the Mean. Hong-
kong, 1861.
Vol. II. — The Works of Mencius. Hongkong,
1861.
Vol. III. — The Shoo-king [Shu-ching]. Hongkong.
1865.
Vol. IV. — The She-king [Shih-ching]. Hongkong,
1871.
Vol. V. — The Ch'un Ts'ew [Ch'un-ch'iu], with the
Tso Chuen [Tso Chuan]. Hongkong,
1872.
The Yi King [I-ching]. {Sacred Books of
the East, vol. XVI., without the Chinese
text). Oxford, 1882.
The Li Ki [Li-chi]. {Sacred Books of the
East, vols. XXVII. , XXVIII., with-
out the Chinese text). Oxford,
1885.
The Discourses and Sayings of Confucius. Transl. by
Ku HuNG-MiNG. Shanghai, 1898.
The Universal Order [Doctrine of the Mean]. Transl. by
Ku HuNG-MiNG. Shanghai, 1906.
Chuang Tzu : Mystic Moralist and Social Reformer.
Transl. by H. A. Giles. London, 1889.
Lun-Heng : The philosophical essays of Wang Ch'ung.
Transl. by A. Forke. Leipzig, 1907, 1911.
A Chinese Quietist (Lieh-tzu, in Wisdom of the East).
Transl. by L. Giles. London, 1911.
The Tao-te Ching, the reputed work of Lao-tzu, has
been translated very often, e.g., by Julien, Pauthier,
Legge, H. A. Giles, Parker, and many others.
434 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
Of Dictionaries, the most useful for help in reading
books is :
Diclionnaire classique de la languc Chinoise. By S.
CouvREUR. 2n(J ed., 1904. 3rd ed., Ho-kien-fou,
1912;
and for other purposes :
A Chinese-English Dictionary. By H. A. Giles. 1st
ed., 1892 ; 2nd ed., London, 1912.
Of the many more or less technical works useful for
reference we may name :
Notes on Chinese Literature. By A. Wylie. 1867.
Reprinted, Shanghai, 1901.
The Chinese Reader's Manual. By W. F, Mayers.
1874. Reprinted, 1910,
Essays on the Chinese Language. By T. Waiters.
Shanghai, 1889.
Pratique des Examens Litter aires (Var. Sin., No. 5). By"
Etienne Zi [Hsij]. Shanghai, 1894.
A Biographical Dictionary. By H. A. Giles. London,
1898.
Leopns etymologiques. By L. Wieger (in his Rudiments,
Vol. Xn. — " Caracteres "). Ho-kien-fou, 1900.
A History of Chinese Literature. By H. A, Giles.
London, 1901.
Melanges sur I' administration (Var. Sin., No. 21). By
P. HoANG. Shanghai, 1902.
Synchronismes Chinois (Var. Sin., No. 24). By M.
TcHANG. Shanghai, 1905.
La Langue Chinoise (Bulletin de 1' Association Amicale
Franco-Chinoise, No. i). By A. Vissiere. Paris,
1907.
Richard's Comprehensive Geography of the Chinese Em-
pire. Transl. by M. Kennelly. Shanghai, 1908.
Concordance des Chronologies neomeniques Chinoise et
Europeenne (Var. Sin., No. 29). By P. HoANG.
Shanghai, 1910.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 435
EncyclopoBdia Briiannica (articles on "China," &c.).
nth ed. Cambridge, 1910.
Manuale pratico di Corrispoftdenza Ctnese. By M.
GusEO. Pekin, 1912.
A great deal of the most reliable information on
Chinese matters is to be found in the following peri-
odicals :
Astatic Quarterly. Published in Woking.
Bulletin de l' Association Amicale Franco-Chinoise Pub-
lished in Paris.
Bulletin de I'Ecole Franq^aise d' Extreme-Orient. Pub-
lished in Hanoi.
Journal Asiatiqu3. Published in Paris.
Journal of the China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society.
Published in Shanghai.
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society. Published in
London.
Ostasiatische Zeitschrift. Published in Berlin.
Revue du Monde Musulman. Published in Paris.
T'oung-pao. Published in Leiden.
436 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
CHAPTERS VIII AND IX
Nestorian Missions
The Nestorian Tablet of Se-ngan-foo. By A. Wylie.
Shanghai, 1854, 1855 ; reprinted 1897.
La Stele Chretienne de Si-ngan-fou (Var. Sin. Nos. 7, 12,
20). By H. Havret. 3 parts. Shanghai, 1895,
1897, 1902.
L'histoire de Mar Jabalaha III., &c. Transl. by J.-B.
Chabot. Paris, 1895.
Roman Catholic Missions
The history of the early Franciscan Mission must be
searched for in such works as :
Annates Minonmi, Tomes 5-8. By L. Wadding. Rome,
1733-
Cathay and the Way Thither. By H. Yule. 2 vols.
London, 1866. New ed. in the Press.
Les voyages en Asie . . . du frere Odoric. Edited by H.
CoRDiER. Paris, 1891.
The Book of Ser Marco Polo. Transl. by H. Yule.
3rd ed. by H. Cordier. London, 1903.
(The three last-named books contain, of course, an
immense amount of valuable information on other sub-
jects connected with China.)
De Christiana Expediiione apud Sinas. By N. Trigault.
Augsburg, 1615.
For the later history of the Roman Missions, and for
the great Jesuit controversy, the books are innumerable,
but few are quite recent, and very few in Enghsh.
We may mention :
The Jesuits in China. By R. C. Jenkins. London,
1894.
History of the Churches . . . of the Society of the Missions
Etrangeres. Transl. by E. H. Parker. Reprinted
from the China Review of 1889.
Journal d' Andre Ly 1746-1763 (in Latin). Paris, 1906.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 437
Protestant Missions
Annual Reports and Periodicals and Histories of the
various European and American Missionary and
Bible Societies. Reports of various Missionary
Conferences. Some chapters of China, by W. H.
Medhurst (1838), and Real Life in China, by W. C.
Milne (1858), and many other books. Statistics in
the Comprehensive Geography of the Chinese Empire,
1908, &c. ; and many books on special Missions
or subjects, as The Story of the Chekiang Missioyi,
Pastor Hsi, Mission Problems and Mission Methods
in South China, China Mission (C.M.S.), China, by
Bishop NoRRis, Life of Griffith John, &c.
Manicheans
Un traits manicheen retrouve en Chine. Transl. by Ed.
Chavannes and P. Pelliot. [Journal Asiatique).
Paris, 1911, 1913.
Jews
Inscriptions Juives de K'ai-fong-fou (Var. Sin. No. 17).
By J. Tobar. Shanghai, 1900.
Mohammedans
Mahometisme en Chine. By Dabry de Thiersant. 2
vols. Paris, 1878.
Origine de I'Islamisme en Chine. By G. Dev^ria.
Paris, 1895.
Islam in China. By M. Broomhall. London, 1910.
Etudes Sino-mahometanes. By A. Vissiere. ist series,
Paris, 1911. 2nd series, Paris, 1913.
Recherches sur les Musulmans Chinois. By Viscount
d'Ollone, a. Vissiere, &c. Paris, 1911.
438 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
CHAPTER X
An authefiiic account of an Embassy from the King of
Great Britain to the Emperor of China. By G.
Staunton. 2 vols., with i vol., folio, of plates,
London, 1797.
Relation des Voyages fails par les Arahes et les Per sans
dans I'Inde et d la Chine. Transl. by Reinaud,
2 tomes. Paris, 1845.
China and the Roman Orient. By F. Hirth. Leipzig,
1885.
Treaties betwee?i the Empire of China and Foreign Powers.
By W. F. Mayers. Shanghai, 1897.
The Siege of the Peking Legations. By R. Allen.
London, 1901.
Histoire des relations de la Chine avec les Puissances
Occidentales (1860-1900). By Henri Cordier.
3 vols. Paris, 1901, 1902.
Vol. I. — L'Empereur T'oung-tche (1861-1875).
Vol. IL — L'Empereur Kouang-siu (1875-1887).
Vol. IIL — L'Empereur Kouang-siu (1887-1902).
International Relations of the Chinese Empire (1834-1860).
By H. E. Morse. London, 1910.
Changing China. By Lord W. Gascoyne Cecil. Lon-
don, 1911.
China Revolutionised. By J. S. Thomson. London,
La Chine et le Mouvement Constiiutionnel. By Jean
Rodes. Paris, 1913.
Besides such books as Yule's Cathay and the Way
Thither, and Marco Polo, and chapters in Sir J. Davis'
The Chinese, and many more recent popular books.
CHINESE READING
The study of Chinese ought to mean, above all, the
acquisition, with the help of the natives or of a teacher,
of ability to speak ; but it ought also to include the
study of the written language and of the principal
monuments of Chinese literature. I do not here refer
to the scientific work to which the learned would devote
themselves, but simply to such practice in reading as
would be useful to those who are obliged to live among
the Chinese, and wish not to appear in their eyes as
quite uneducated, and would like, therefore, to be in a
position to understand a newspaper article, an official
document, or a piece of modern composition. This,
then, is the curriculum, as I should conceive it, of such
reading exercises — choosing the most attractive possible
subjects. It must not be forgotten that if many Chinese
works seem to repel us by the deliberate dryness of their
style, others are pleasant to read, and of such interest
as to make it possible to make real progress in the
language without any painful effort.
I advise the student to begin with one of those books
of primary instruction of which a great number have
appeared in recent years — since the general changes in
the national methods of education and in the public
examinations. I may mention, amongst others, the
Tsui hsin kuo wen chiao k'o shu {Chinese National
439
440 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
Readers, with illustrations ; Shanghai, Commercial Press,
1905). This work, in large print, well punctuated, and
formed of regularly graduated selections, will be read
through easily. The meaning of the unfamihar words
will be looked for in the New Dictionary (all in Chinese)
or Hsin Tzu-tien (Shanghai, 1912), which is planned on
the principles of European dictionaries. The explana-
tions in this dictionary may often suggest points of
interest. Another lesson-book which may be used is
Ch'eng chung M eng-hsiieh-t' ang izu k'o t'n shuo, a collec-
tion of Chinese words, illustrated, with notes in which
the traditional ideas of the Orient are found side by side
with those of modern science.
The reading of Chinese newspapers, whether in the
colloquial or in the written language, will be undertaken
almost at the same time. One should try to read a
quantity of the contents of the papers without stopping
long over the difficulties which will be met with in
them. These difficulties may arise indeed from mis-
prints, or from rhetorical figures, or from pecuhar or
local expressions, which it is impossible for a beginner
to understand without the help of a teacher.
Official gazettes, collections of Government docu-
ments, or political publications, such as the works of
statesmen like Lin Tse-hsii, Tseng Kuo-fan, Tso Tsung-
t'ang, Li Hung-chang, or Chang Chih-tung, are easy to
get in the bookshops, and their study will allow one to
grow familiar with the style of public business. The
subjects treated of in such books (often questions con-
cerning the relations of China with foreign powers) are
CHINESE READING 441
of a sort to interest a European reader, and their style
is rarely rendered difficult by the ornaments of rhetoric.
Chinese novels will form a recreation, and will teach
many a detail of the modes of expression in different
classes of society, and give insight into the mind and
manners of the nation. Among those which are par-
ticularly eas}^ to read may be mentioned Fin chuang lou
or Hai-knng ta hung p'ao. Historical novels like San
kuo chih, Shut Jm, or Stii T'ang yen i will make the
reader familiar with the epochs of the past which are
well known to every Chinaman. Nearly akin to these
are the collections of fairy tales, Chin ku ch'i kiian and
Liao chai.
It will be well to read some books of travel or diaries
{Jih clii) written by celebrated men or famous travellers.
For example, those by Hsiieh Fu-ch'eng {The Diary of
a Mission to England, France, Italy, and Belgium), or by
Kuo Sung-tao {Records of travel on a Missio7i to the
West).
In every town in China will be found some Chih shu,
or official topographies of the province, or department,
or district — compilations about the geography, history,
products, and literary or archaeological monuments of
the region in question. The study of these works, which
are often very voluminous, will have special attractions
for persons living in the places with which they deal ;
and the various sections of which they are composed
will form an introduction to the different st5des — geo-
graphical, historical, and so forth. If the foreign student
is able, in the place where he lives, to get access to the
442 THE CHINESE PEOPLE
great series of the official dynastic histories called
Erh-shih-ssu shih, or Twenty-four Histories, he will do
well to familiarise himself with their arrangement, and
to read certain parts of them — especially, in the Lieh
chuan, the biographies of famous men.
The student ought to procure one of the Chinese
^manuals of letter-writing, called Ch'ih-tu, to give him-
* self an idea of the peculiar rhythm used in private or
ceremonial correspondence. The composition of such
letters involves a large number of literary or poetic
allusions which the reader will need to have explained to
him. And in the same course of studies — making use also
at times of the help of a native scholar — he will find an
undeniable charm in the reading and translation of
pieces of poetry, and in particular of those of the T'ang
period — T'ang shih.
If I have not yet mentioned the canonical books
[Ching) or the four classical books {Ssii Shu), it is not
because I do not recognise their importance. On the
contrary, these books form the very foundation of the
national teaching and education of the Chinese, and are
quoted incessantly in their literature. But words and
expressions are very frequently met with in them to
which special meanings are attached, which differ from
those of current modern usage — meanings which are
fixed with a greater or less degree of certainty by the
commentaries. A European will find it best not to
attack these texts, where the style is often conventional,
directly, but to study them, simultaneously with any
other reading, in a translation such as Legge's, following
CHINESE READING 44S
at the same time the Chinese text, the English version,
and the notes. The collection called The thirteen canoni-
cal books, with notes and comments {Shih san ching ehu
su), will provide the original text of the principal com-
mentaries, and their examination will not be without
either exegetical or hnguistic advantage.
A. ViSSIERE.
INDEX
Abgarus, 313.
Abraham, 313.
Abu Giafar, 317.
Abusaid, 378, 379.
Abu Taleb, 315.
Abyssinia, 312, 315.
Actors, 121, 156.
Acupuncture, 276.
Aden, 307.
Africa, 324, 355, 356.
Age, calculation of, 201.
Agricultural Explorations, etc.,
430-
Agriculture, 69, 141.
Ai, 308, 320, 321.
Alafa, 155.
Alans, 330, 334.
Albazin, 350.
Alder, 72.
Alexander VII, 340, 341, 349.
Allen, R., 438.
Alligator, 37 ; Sinensis, 89 n.
Almalig, 334.
A-lo-pen, 307, 313, 316, 326,
329, 358. 359-
Alphabet, proposed, 410.
Altai Mnts., 133.
Altar of Heaven, 172.
Altruism, 237.
America, 358, 407 ; Episc.
Church of, 360, 361.
Amherst, Lord, 160, 384.
Amidabha, 177, 180, 181, 183,
213. 256, 323.
Amiot, J. J. M., no n., 251,
347. 430-
Amoy, 74, 85, 87, 150, 360,
367-
Amrus, 307.
Amur, 32, 311, 350, 427.
An, 211.
An-ch'ing, 427.
Anhui, 34, 71, 150, 400, 427.
Analects, 192, 226, 227, 229-
231, 242, 261, 272, 281, 290,
433-
Ananda, 213.
Ancestors, Hall of, 92, 144,
396 ; Worship of, 168, 169,
189, 208, 338, 340, 342-344.
Ancient China Simplified,
126 «., 431.
Ancient History of China, 431.
Ancient inhabitants, 36, 37.
Andrew of Perugia, 155, 335.
Anglican Church, 352, 355,
374- 375 ; Synod of, 361,
362.
Animism, 166, 175, 177.
Annales Minorum, 332, 436.
Anytals, see Spring and Autumn
Annam, 350.
Antiquaries, modern, 279.
Apathy, causes of, 367, seq.
Apples, 71.
Arabia, 41, 315, 386 ; Felix,
307-
Arabs, 47, 378, 385.
Arbor- vitae, 71.
Arbutus, 71.
Archimandrite, 351.
Architecture, 89-91.
Archon, 330.
Arctic circle, 64.
Arghun, 314, 332, 333.
Aristotle, 234, 253.
Army, 161, 417.
Arnobius, 306.
Arnold, 333.
Arrow "War, 365, 389.
444
INDEX
445
Asceticism, 190.
Asclepius, 218.
Ash, 38.
Ashmore, W., 363.
Asia, Mission work in, 332, etc.
Asiatic Quarterly, 435.
Asiatic Society, Journal of,
89 M., 169 «., 435.
Assam, 378.
Assemani, 307 «., 312.
Astrologer, official, 247.
Astronomy, 146, 203, 277.
Asvaghosha, 183.
Augustine, 324.
Aviation, 54.
Avignon, 334, 335.
Ayuthia, 350.
Azalea, 79, 80.
Babel, Tower of, 129.
Backhouse, E., 431.
Bacon, Lord, 192.
Bactria, iii, 112.
Badgers, 88.
Baikal, Lake, 60.
Bamboo, 38, 71-73, 100, 264,
277.
Bamboo Books, 138, 425.
Baptism, 329.
Barley, 71.
Barnes, W., 283.
Bar Sauma, 314, 331.
Bartholomew, St., 304.
Basel, 396.
Basra, 315.
Batang, 427.
Baxter, R., 355.
Bayan-khara, Mnt., 17.
Beans, 35, 71, 74, 79, 97.
Bean-cake, 79.
Bean-curd, 79.
Bears, 84 ; dog-headed, 85.
Beasts of burden, 5 1 .
Bedsteads, 95.
Beggars, 65.
Benares, 183.
Berlin, 423.
Berydhus, 315.
Bible, The, 252, 301, 415.
Bibliotheca Orientalise 307 «, 3 1 2 .
Bibliothecal catastrophes, 262-
266.
Big Game of Central and W.
China, S^.
Binyon, L., 430.
Biographical Dictionary, 275,
434-
Biographies, 275, 442.
Biot, Ed., 134, 135, 140, 145,
147.
Birds, 77-79, 81-83.
Birthday, 196 ; of Sun, 203.
Bishops, Canadian, 361 ;
Franciscan, 333 ; Russian,
351-
Blackbird, 81,
Black-haired people, 134.
Black Sea, 133.
Black wind, 43.
Bland, J. O. P., 403 n., 406,
431-
Blue River, see Chiang.
Boats, 24, 33, i7, 38-41, 54,
59. 60, 99, 119, 142, 200.
Bodhidharma, 178.
Bones, inscribed, 169, 273.
Books, 260-294, etc. ; Bud-
dhist, 179 ; Burning of,
263 ; Destruction of, 263-
266.
Bookshops, 278, 440.
Boone, W. J., 363.
Borage, 81.
Bore on the Ch'ien-t'ang R.,
26-31, 58, 379, 380.
Borneo, 359.
Bostra, 315.
Botanicon Sinicum, 430,
Botany, books on, 277.
Bouddhisme, 166 n.
Boulger, D. C, 431.
Bows, 142.
Boxers, The, 157, 351, 364-
367, 391. 392, 40s, 406.
Boyd Carpenter, Bp., 355 n.
Brahma, 214.
Brahmans, 251.
Brahmi script, 271.
446
INDEX
Brakes, 51.
Bray, T., 354.
Bretschneider, E., 430, 431.
Bricks, inscribed, 126.
Bridegroom flower, 96.
Bridges, 33, 90, 99, 104.
Bridgman, E. C, 363,
British Museum, 271, 356.
Broomhall, M., 437.
Bronze, 104.
Buckwheat, 35.
Buddha, 103, 119, 165, 213,
255.
Buddhas, 165,
Buddhism and Buddhists, 37,
42, 91, 153, 164-166, 176-
184, 190, 191, 205, 213, 214,
220, 231, 234, 246, 251, 255,
256, 265, 266, 275, 302-304,
310, 319, 322, 323, 325-327,
329 ; Japanese, 180 seq., 325.
Buffaloes, 35, 52, 69, 79,
88, 89,
Building, 143.
Bulletin de I' Ass. Antic. Fr.
Chin., 435-
Bulletin de I'Ec. Fr. d'E.-O.,
428, 435-
Buntings, 79.
Burdon, J. S., 363.
Burial customs, 142, 217-
220 ; Service, 344.
Buriat, 60.
Burmah, 177 «., 350 ; frontier,
390.
Burns, R., 283 ; W. C, 363.
Bushell, S. W., 430.
Bustards, 78.
Butler, J., 354.
Cables, 73.
Calcutta, 389.
Calendar, 200.
Gallery. 289'
Camballe, 308.
Cambodia, 305, 350.
Camel, 51.
Camellia, 75, 80.
Camphor tree, 71, 72.
Campori, J. M., 309.
Canal, The Grand, Imperial, or
Transport, see Grand Canal.
Canal Impirial, Le, 428.
Canals, numerous, 32 ; used
for irrigation, 69, etc.
Candle tree, 96.
Canfu, 378.
Canton, 31, 40, 44, 46, 49, 57,
154, 157, 296, 316, 317. 320.
337. 340. 344. 361, 377. 379.
381, 384, 388, 398, 427;
climate of, 65 ; foreign trade
at, 42 ; Gan fu, 42.
Cape route, 60.
Capricornis maxillaris, 88.
Car, Little, 50.
Carey, W., 357, 358.
Carnatic, 305.
Cartographie Chinoise, 428.
Carts, 51, 52, 142 ; water-, 51.
Carving, 103.
Caspian Sea, 133.
Cat. Wild, 85.
Catalogues of books, 276, 278.
Cathay, 35, 426 ; Metropolitan
of. 314.
Cathay and the Way Thither,
436. 438.
Cathcart. Col., 383.
Causerie sur la piche fluviale,
430.
Caves of 1,000 Buddhas, The,
271.
Cecil, W. G.. 438.
CeUbacy. 178.
Central Asia, 49, etc.
Ceremonies, Religious, 196 seqq.
Ceylon, 42, 43, 177 n, 306.
Cha-p'u, 379.
Chabot, J.-B., 436.
Chagatai, 334.
Chairs, 72.
Chaldaean Church, 313.
Chang Ch'ien, 17.
Chang Chih-tung, 57, 406, 440.
Chang Heng, 174.
Chang Ling (or Tao-ling), 163,
174, 177, 249. 251. 255.
INDEX
Chang Lu, 174.
Ch'ang-an, 316, 326.
Ch'ang-chou, 25, 33.
Ch'ang-sha, 364, 427.
Changes, Book of, 140 seq.,
229, 253, 261, 279-281, 284 ;
Appendix to, 141 ; ed. by
Confucius, 280 ; valued by
Confucius, 281.
Changing China, 438.
Chao, 242.
Chao-ch'ing, 337.
Chao-pao, 275.
Characters, 269, 270 ; primi-
tive, 136 seq.
Charcoal, 94.
Charms, 199, 200.
Chau Ju-kua, etc., 43 n., 428.
Chavannes, Ed., 110-112, 169,
185 n., 425, 428, 430, 431.
437-
Che (hill), 28 n. ; (river). 26.
Chefoo Convention, 390.
Chekiang, 15, 34, 53, 71, 73,
77, 78. 84, 85, 88. 118, 128,
136, 150, 205, 264, 296, 320.
330. 345. 351. 359. 360, 393.
402. 427.
Chekiang Mission, Story of the,
437-
Ch'en (dynasty), 425 ; (a
minister), 137 ; (state). 242.
Cheng, 242.
Ch'eng, 245.
Ch'ing Chung . . . tzn-k'o-t'u-
shuo, 440.
Ch'eng-tu, 24, 49, 317, 328,
427.
Cherries, 74.
Chi (god of harvest), 207 ;.
(meaning of), 289 ; (Pekin)
308 ; (river), 22, 23.
Chi-nan, 50, 55, 427.
Chi-ning, 33.
Chi-shih, Mnt., 17.
Ch'i (breath), 215 ; (dynasty),
425 ; (state), 243.
Chia-ch'ing, 160.
Chia-hsing, 33.
Chia-ling, 44.
Chia-t'u, 44.
Chiang, The River, or Yangtse,
23-26, 15, 28, 30, 32, 33. 37,
39. 59. 66, 67, 80, 128, 136,
150, 182.
Chiang (a river), 32.
Chiao-chou, 390.
Chiao-lung, 37.
Chien. river. 26.
Chien-shan, 29.
Ch'ien, 279.
Ch'ien Han (dynasty), 425.
Ch'ien-lung, 248, 347.
Ch'ien Sung (dynasty), 425.
Ch'ien-t'ang (district), 26 ;
(river), 26-31. 39, 52. 53.
58, 276, 379.
Ch'ien-tzu-w&n, 294.
Chih-hsien, 148.
Chihli. 16, 22. 31, 34. 134, 150,
401. 427-
Chih-na, 124.
Chih-shu, 441.
Ch'ih-chou. 26.
Ch'ih-tu, 442,
Children, ceremonies for. 196
seq. ; goddess of, 196.
Chin (dynasty), 265, 277. 425.
426 ; (Samarkand), 123 ;
(state), 242 ; Tartars, 397 ;
(Tartar dynasty), 426.
Chin-ku-ch'i-kuan, 441.
Chin-sha-chiang, 24.
Chin-shih, degree, 209, 296.
Ch'in (dynasty or state), 17,
125, 148, 152, 153, 242, 425 ;
Records of, 263 ; (psaltery),
117.
Ch'in Shih Huang-ti, 263 ; see
Shih Huang-ti.
Ch'in Tsung, 397.
China, passim ; ancient limits
of, 135 ; Church of, 362,
415, 424 ; extent of, 63, 154 ;
names of, 123-125 ; popu-
lation of. 64 ; position of,
15. 63.
China, 437.
448
INDEX
China and Religion, 432.
China and the Chinese, 429.
China and the Roman Orient,
438.
China Inland Mission, 361, 362,
367-
China Mission, 437.
China : Past and Present,
125 w., 431.
China's Place in Philology, 134.
China Review, 348 n.
China Revolutionised, 438.
China under the Empress-
Dowager, 431.
Chinas, 124.
Chine, 233 n.
Chine et le mouvement con-
stitutionnel , La, 438.
Chinese, The, anticipate scien-
tific inventions, 54 ; char-
acter of, 97 seq. ; civil to
strangers, 100, 102 seq. ;
earliest traces of, 126 ; in-
dustrious, 98, 99 ; not origin-
ally maritime, 41, 139 ;
oaths of, 97 ; origin of,
125 seq. ; patient but cheer-
ful, 98 seq. ; talk loud, 97 ;
and passim.
Chinese, The, 429, 438.
Chinese Art, 430.
Chinese Buddhism, 432 ; Hand-
hook of, 432.
Chinese Characteristics, 429.
Chinese Classics, The, 109 «,
433-
Chinese Government, The, 431.
Chinese Language, Essays on
the. 434.
Chinese Literature, History of,
274 n, 434.
Chinese Literature, Notes on,
274, 277 M., 434.
Chinese National Readers, 439.
Chinese Oxford Movement, Story
of a, 431.
Chinese Pictorial Art, 430.
Chinese Porcelain, 430.
Chinese Quietist, A., 433.
Chinese Reader's Manual, 248,
434-
Chinese Reading, 439 seq.
Chinese Repository , 233 n.
Ching : see Classics.
Ching-chiao, 322 n.
Ching-ching, 323, 330.
Ching-chou, 24, 266.
Ch'ing (dynasty), 426.
Ch'ing-chiang-p'u, 32, 33.
Ch'ing-tao, 44.
Chinkiang (Chen-chiang), 24,
25. 32, 33. 325. 330-
Chiu T'ang-shu, 185.
Chopsticks, 72.
Chou (dynasties or state), 125,
136, 148, 152, 208, 228, 238,
241, 242, 247, 248, 253, 254,
277, 280, 281, 288 319, 320,
425, 426 ; Duke .of, 132,
228, 288, 289, 342.
Chou (a boat), 38.
Chou-chih, 327, 328.
Chou Ch'ii-fei, 46.
Chou Hsien, 239.
Chou Kung, see Chou, Duke of,
Chou Li, 288.
Christiana Expeditio, 308, 436.
Christianity, passim ; possible
connection with Buddhism,
182, 184, etc. ; relics of,
308 ; tolerated, 388, etc.
Christians, passim ; Board to
control, 330 ; Catholic, 331,
etc. ; Greek, 331, 350, 351 ;
Jacobite, 331 ; Nestorian,
326-331, etc. ; suppressed,
322 ; Sj'rian, 2>^y, etc. ; in
Yiian dynasty, 155, etc.
Chrysanthemum, Book on,
277.
Chu-fan-chih (Chu-fan-chi), 43-
47-
Chu Hsi, 150, 154, 215, 216,
246-248, 272, 280.
Chu-hu, 322 n.
Chu-shu-chi-nien, 138, 425.
Ch'u, 242.
Ch'uan (a boat), 38.
INDEX
449
Chuang-tzu, 234, 249, 250,
254, 256, 257.
Chuang Tzu, 433.
Chuang-yiian, 209.
Ch'iin-ch'iu, see Spring and
Autumn Annals.
Ch'un-ch'iu, Lu shih, iio-
Chung, 247.
Chung-chiang, 25.
Chung-ch'ing, 59.
Chung Kuo, 125.
Chung- tu, 228.
Chung Yung, see Mean,
Doctrine of.
Church, passim ; Buddhist,
190, 191, etc. ; Chaldaean,
313 ; first Christian, 326,
327 ; State, 190, 191, etc. ;
Taoist, 190, etc.
Church Missionary Society, 87,
356, 357, 359-362.
Chusan (Chou-shan), 205, 379,
388.
Chii-jen, 296.
Ch'ii-chou, 74.
Ch'ia-fu, 50.
Ch'uan-chou, 42, 317.
Citron, 75.
Civilisation, 260, etc. ; cradle
of, 20, 134, etc. ; evidences
of early, 135-151.
Civilization of China, 106,
266 n,. 297, 299 n., 429.
Clarke, S., 431.
Classics, 260 seqq., 279 seqq.
415, 433, 442, 443, etc.
educational value of, 289
engraved, 264 ; printed,
267 ; translated, 267, 433.
Classics, Greek and Roman,
299.
Clay tablets, 126.
Cleanthes, 252.
Clement V., 333 ; XI., 341 ;
XIV., 347.
Climate, 65-68.
Clocks, 346.
Clothes, 141, 201,
Clover, 79.
Coal, 16, 51, 59.
Cobbold, R. H., 363, 429.
Cochin-China, 350.
Cock, white, 217, 218.
Code du Mahayana, Le, 180 n.,
432.
Collection of Standard Essays,
158.
CoUege, Anglo-Chinese, 358.
Colloquial in literature, 268,
CoUyridians, 315.
Cologne, 333.
Commons, House of, 387.
Communication, Means of,
Chap.. I.
Communism, 234.
Compass, 42, 45.
Comprehensive Geography of
the Chinese Empire, 49,
434, 437.
Comprehensive Mirror, etc.,
248.
Concordance des chronologies,
etc., 425, 434.
Conferences, 363, 366, 367.
Confucian, Canon, 278 ;
scholars, 248, 329, 338.
Confucianism, 164.
Confucius, 23, 50, 109, 135,
153, 164, 171, 173, 192, 193,
210, 211, 223-234, 238-242,
244, 245, 249, 250, 253, 256,
261, 272, 273, 281-284, 290,
291, 293, 303, 318, 340, 342,
343, 409, 417 n.,; date of,
225, 233 ; death, 229, 233 ;
disciples, 227, 229, 233, 234,
261 ; doctrine of God, 230 ;
grave, 233 ; influence, 214 ;
life of, 225-229 ; teaching,
227, 230-233 ; worship of,
208 seq., 226.
Confucius Sinarum Philos., 342.
Conscience, 193.
Constantine, 423.
Cook, F. C, 132.
Copper, 16, 151.
Cordier, H., 436, 438.
Cormorants, fishing, 78.
2 F
450
INDEX
Corncrake, 78.
Coromandel, 305, 307, 335.
Corpse, Care for, 220.
Cosmas Indicopleustes, 124,
306.
Cotolendi I., 349.
Cotton, 71.
Coulan, 307.
Country, brown, 95.
Coup d'etat (1898), 390.
Courant, M., 430.
Couriers, 49.
Courtesy, 102 seq.
Couvreur, S., 434.
Cranes, 78.
Cranganor, 307.
Crito, 218.
Cross, 102, 323, 329, etc. ;
monastery of, 314 ; wor-
shippers of, 321.
Crossbill, 79.
Crow, 287.
Crusades, 314.
Cuckoo, 81, 96.
Cumquat, 75.
Currants, 74.
Curlew, 78.
Customs, Maritime, 61, 385.
Cutter, 44.
Cypress, 71, 209.
Cycle of 60 years, 216.
Cyclopaedias, 277.
Da (chief), 137.
Dancing, 118 ; books on, 177.
Darwin, G. H., 31, 428.
Davis, J. F., 429, 438.
Dead, The, 35, 219.
Death, 215, 217-220.
Debts, 200.
De Christiana Expeditione, 308,
436.
Deer, 80, 84.
Degrees, 296.
Deluge, 129.
Demosthenes, 234.
Denha, 330.
Derniers barbares, Les, 431.
Devas, 214.
Deveria, G., 437.
Dhyana, School of, 178 seq.
Diagrams, Eight, 279, 280.
Diaries, 441.
Diary of a Mission to England,
etc., 441.
Dictionaries, 158, 274, 345,
358, 434, 440.
Dieu du sol dans la Chine ant.,
432.
Dioceses, Anglican, 361.
Discourses and sayings of
Confucius, 433.
Disfranchised class, 296.
Divination, 169, 273, 277, 279.
Divination par I'&caille de
tortue, 169 «.
Djaring-nor, 17.
Djong, see Ship.
Doctrine of the Mean, see
Mean.
Dogs, 89.
Dogwood, 264.
Domestic animals, 36, 137, etc.
Dominicans, 322, 339, 340^
343. 347-
Donkeys, 35, 60, 88.
Door, god of, 198.
Dore, H., 432.
Dragon, 89.
Dragon-boat feast, 204.
Drains, 49, 94.
Drama, books on, 277.
Drums, 51.
Dual Principle, 166, 325, and
see Yang and Yin.
Duck, Mandarin, 78.
Dutch, 47, 380.
Dwellings, 90 seq., 142, etc
Dynasties, 425, 426, and
passim.
Eagle, 78.
Earth, The, 206, 216, 279.
Earthenware, 107.
East India Company, 47, 347,
382, 386.
East Indies, 349.
East River, 31.
INDEX
451
Eastern Church, 323.
Ebedjesus (Archbishop), 312 ;
Sobensis, 307.
Ecclesiastes quoted, 54, 235.
Ecritnres des peuples non-
Chinois, 431.
Edessa, 307, 313.
Edinburgh Conference, 367.
Edkins, J., 132, 134, 363, 432.
Education, 161, 260, 278, 291-
301, 364, 409-412 ; anti-
quity of, 291 ; object of,
292, 293 ; secular, 414 seq. ;
strength of, 300 ; Western,
162.
Edward I., 314.
Egret, 78.
Egypt, 123.
Eitel, E. J.. 432-
Elements, 216.
Elephants, 128, 377.
Eliot, J., 354.
Elixir of hfe, 249, 255. 236.
Elizabeth, Queen, 381.
Embassy to the Emperor of
China, 438.
Embroidery, 105.
Emperor, 21, 168, 186 seq.,
and passim.
Empire, 152, etc.
Empress Dowager, 160, 161,
296, 365, 404-406.
Encyclopcedia, Brit., 64, 435 ;
Yung-lo, 266.
Engineers, 21, 23, 57-59.
England, 60, 381-384, 398,
413-
Epicurus, 234, 235.
Erh-shih-ssu shih, 442.
Erh-ya, 291.
Ethiopians, 309.
Etudes Sino-Mahometanes, 437.
Euclid, 275.
Europe, 60, 314, 349, 353,
354. 407-
Eusebius, 305, 374.
Examens littSraires, 434.
Examinations, 153, 278, 291
seq., 398, 407.
Exorcism, 167, 170, 171, 174-
176.
Fa-hsien, 42, 43.
Faber, Er., 135-137. I39,
239 «•. 431-
Faber, Et., 327.
Family life, 198, etc.
Famines, 57, 361.
Fans, 73.
Fate, 256 ; Book of, 277.
Father-and-Mother, 148.
Fen chuang lou, 441.
Feng-shui, 215-217, 247.
Feng-t'ien, 427.
Feng Yiin-san, 399.
Fens, 34.
Fites annnellement cil6br6es "h
Emoui, 432.
Fiction, 277, 441.
Fiddles, 119.
Filial Piety, 220, 342 ; Book of,
291.
Finches, 79.
Fir, 71 ; pollen, 81.
Fire, God of, 252, 325 ; Wor-
shippers of, 325.
Fireworks, 200.
Fish, 137.
Fishing, 41, 100-102.
Five Classics, The, 260, 261,
279, 294.
Flat-peach Clubs, 73.
Fletcher, 354.
Flight of the Dragon, 430.
Flour, 50.
Flowers, 74-76, 79-81, etc. ;
paintings of, 75.
Flutes, 73, 112, 116, 119.
Fo-chiao, 190, 322 n.
Fo-shou, 75.
Foochow, 31, 49, 74, 296, 360,
427.
Foot-binding, 161.
Foreign, dynasty, 155 ; Mis-
sions, Soc. of, 348-350 ;
Relations, 376 seq. ; trade,
155. etc.
Foreigners, many, 155.
452
INDEX
Forestry and forests, 38.
Forke, A., 433.
Formosa. 56, 83, 367, 380,
385. 386, 388.
Fortunate Union, The, 429.
Fortune, R., 429.
Fortune-tellers, 196.
Foster, A., 230.
Four Books, The, 260, 261,
290, 294, 442.
Foxes, 88, 287.
France, 365, 388, 390.
Franciscans, 310, 330-335. 339.
347. 357. 359-
Frederick I., 312.
Free reed, 117.
Friendly societies, 73.
Frogs, 96.
Fu-ch'ai, 28, 36.
Fu-hsi, 143, 248, 279.
Fu-t'ai, 86.
Fuel, 38.
Fukien, 15, 71, 84, 155, 320,
393. 402, 427.
Fukien River, 31.
Funeral customs, 217-220, 344.
Furs, 150.
Gabat, Bishop of, 311,
Gambling, 211.
Gandar, D., 428.
Ganfu (Canton), 42, 154, 317,
320, 378, 379.
Ganges, 380.
Gardens, 75.
Gascony, 314.
Gates, city, 142.
Gaubil, A., 347.
Gautama, 180, 183, 213, 255,
256.
Geese, 78.
Genesis, Book of, 129, 131.
Genghis Khan, 311, 312, 313.
Genoese merchants, 155.
Gentian, 96.
Geographical Journal, 20 n.
Geography, 275.
Geomancy, 215 ; Books, 277.
George, King, 314, 330.
Germany, 60, 365.
Gideon, 399.
Gilbert, Sir H., 354.
Giles, H. A., 103 n., 106, 127,
215, 2:^7, 266 n., 274 n., 275,
295, 297, 298, 429, 430,
432, 433, 434.
Giles, L., 433.
Girls Schools, 262.
Glass, 107.
Gnostics, 183.
Goa, 336.
Gobi, 67.
God, names for, 145 ; trans-
lation of the word, 251,
252 ; Worshippers of, 399.
Goddess of Mercy (Kuan-yin),
102.
Gold, 16, 151.
Gong, 51.
Gooseberries, 74.
Gordon, General, 402.
Gospels, The four, 262.
Gouvea, A. de, 307.
Government, buys Woosung
railway, 56 ; system of, 148;
etc.
Grain (tribute), in 13th cen-
tury, 2i2> '> ^ow sea-borne,
34-
Grand Canal, 22, 2^^, 24, 32,
33, 34, 52.
Grapes, 71.
Grass cloth, 151.
Graves, 34, 35. 79, 215, 217,
220.
Great Instruction, 261, 290,
433-
Great Peace, King of (T'ai-
p'ing wang), 400.
Great River, see Chiang.
Great Wall, 67, 70, 153.
Greece, 378.
Greek Church, 350.
Greek civihsation, iii.
Green Book, 197,
Greenland, 355.
Groot, J. J. M. de, 167, 191,
218,279,432.
INDEX
4S3
Grube, W., 432.
Guide to the Tablets in a Temple
of Confucius, 211 w.
Gulland, W. G., 430.
Gurkhan, 311.
Guseo, M., 431, 435.
Gutzlaff, K. F. A., 359, 360,
363-
Gwatkin, Professor, 374.
Hai-kung ta hung p'ao, 441.
Hainan, 62, 71.
Hai-ning, 29, 30, 275.
Hakka, 398
Half a Century in China, 396«.,
429.
Han (dynasty), 30, 153, 154,
173-175- ^77, 208, 224, 234,
258, 263, 284, 303, 319,
377 ; (Milky way), 146 ;
(Philosopher), 240 ; (River),
IS, 24, 66; (State), 242;
(Yang-chou), 32.
Hankow, 24, 25, 57, 59, 66.
Han-ku, 254.
Han-hn, 296.
Han Wu-ti, 72,, 247.
Han-yang, 24, 66.
Han Yii, 244.
Handbook of Chinese Budd-
hism, 432.
Hang-ch'iang, 208.
Hangchow, 26, 29, 30, 33, 36,
42, 49. 52, S3, 58, 90, IS4,
155, 205, 267, 27s, 316-318,
320, 330, 360, 379, 380, 401,
402, 427, ; Bay, 26, 85 ;
Lake, 54.
Hangchow Past and Present,
428.
Hao T'ien, 187.
Harbin, 60, 364.
Hares, 88.
Harmony, 120.
Hart, R., 61.
Harvest, 79, 96, 99 ; god of,
207.
Havret, H., 436.
Hawks-Pott, F. L., 431,
Heaven, 167, 172, 185, 206,
216, 233, 244, 279 ; Altar or
Temple of, 172, 410, ; Son of,
283.
Hei-lung-chiang (province),
427 ; (river), 32.
Heng, Mnt., 149.
Hemp, 71.
Hereditary Monarchy, 152.
Hereditary Paintings of Cele-
brity, 105.
Hierarchy, 190.
High Ruler, see Shang Ti,
Hill, D., 363.
Hills, 15, 68, etc.
Hill Sheep, 84.
Hinayana, 177, 178.
Hindu, 98, 214, 356, 372.
Hindu Kush, 74.
Hirth, F., 43, 428, 431, 438.
Histoire de Mar Jabalaha, 436.
Histoire des Relations etc., 438.
Historians, 247, 248.
Histories, 274 ; The Twenty-
four, 442.
History, Book of (or Shu-ching),
138, 149, 228, 261, 263, 281,
282, 284.
History of China, Ancient, 431 ;
A Short, 431.
History of the CMS., 357 n.
History of the Churches etc.,
348 «., 436.
History of the Eastern Church,
311-
History of Great Light, 257.
History of the Three States, 154,
174, 441.
Ho (or Yellow R.), 16-23, 32,
35. 39, 52, 67, 125, 128, 133,
136, 320.
Ho (a river), 32.
Ho-k'ou, 18.
Honan, 20, 34, 67, 134, 150,
252, 305. 319, 320, 322, 328.
361, 393, 401, 427.
Hoang, P., 425, 426, 434.
Hoare, J. C., 363.
Holidays, 199 seq.
454
INDEX
Holland, 60.
Holly, 72.
Honeysuckle, 76.
Hongkong, 55, 65, 72, 80,
360, 388.
Hopkins, L. C, 89 «., 169 n.
Horsburgh, J. H., 361.
Horses, 88, 142.
Hou Chi, 145.
Hou Chin, 426.
Hou Chou, 426.
Hou Chiin-chi, 17.
Hou Han, 425, 426.
Hou Han Shu, 174.
Hou Liang, 425.
Hou T'ang, 426.
Houses, 35, 73, 92-95, 200.
Hsi (a priest), 177.
Hsi-an fu, 20, 49, 67, 123, 183,
316, 326, 327, 427.
Hsi Chin, 425.
Hsi- fan, 142.
Hsi Han, 425.
Hsi-hsing, 90.
Hsikang, 427.
Hsi-ning, 49.
Hsi Wang Mu, 73.
Hsia (dynasty), 128, 149, 281,
289, 425.
Hsiao-ching, 291.
Hsiao-shan, 90.
Hsiao-tzu-tang-tang, 82.
Hsieh, river, no.
Hsien-shen, 316, 322 n.
Hsien Tsung, 313.
Hsinchiang, 271, 427.
Hsin Tzu-tien, 440.
Hsing, 215.
Hsiu-ts'ai, 296.
Hsiung-nu, 153.
Hsii, Candida, 346 ; Hsing,
242 ; Paul (Kuang-ch'i),
34^-
Hsxi-chia-wei, 346.
Hsii-chou, 24.
Hsiian, King (or Wang), 145,
242, 243, 425.
Hsiian-tsang, 41, 178.
Hsiieh Fu-ch'^ng, 44X.
Hsiin, 240.
Hu-chou, 36.
Hu-hsien, 252.
Hu-k'ou, 18.
Hu-kuang, 58, 150, 427.
Hunan, 149, 361, 400, 427.
Hupei, 66, 150, 400, 427.
Hua (a boat), 38.
Hua-miao, 366.
Huai, river, 22, 23, 32, 33.
Huai-an, 23.
Huai-ch'ing, 22.
Huai-nan Tzu, no, in,
256.
Huan Ti, 377.
Huang-chung, 113.
Huang Ho, see Ho.
Huang Ti, no, 141, 255,
276.
Huang T'ien, 187.
Hui-hui, 322.
Hui-ch'ao, 272.
Hui Tsung, 397.
Humboldt, W., 68, 130.
Hun (soul), 216.
Hung, Hao, 397 ; Hsiu-ch'iian,
396-400 ; Jen, 396.
Hung-ho, 32.
Hung-tse, 22.
Huns, 153.
Huo-shen, 252, 325.
Hyder Ali, 355.
I, or I-CHiNG, see Changes,
Book of.
I-ch'ang, 24, 59.
I-ho-ch'iian, 405.
I-hsing, 25.
Hi, 63.
/ Li, 2 88.
Ice, 19, 65 ; stored, 41.
Ideal Man of Confucianism,
230.
Iguanodon, 89.
Immaculate Conception, The,
315-
Imperial Canal, see Grand
Canal.
Index Lib. Prohib., I'jB.
tNbE^t
453
India, 41, 68, 183, 221, 254,
275. 304-306, 310, 334, 336,
350, 355, 357. 369. 384, 386,
389, 407 ; Metropolitan of,
311-
Indian, corn, 35, 70- Ocean,
306, 307.
Indians, 354, 355, 377 ; Arch-
bishop of, 308.
Indo-Scythia, 305.
Indra, 214.
Inertia, 257.
Infancy, Gospel of the, 315.
Initiation, 191.
Ink, book on, 277.
Innocent X., 340, 349.
Inoculation, 276.
Inquisition, 340, 341.
Inscriptions, 264 ; Christian,
323, 324, 327 seq. ; Jewish,
318, 319, 322 ; Moslem, 316,
318.
Inscriptions Juives, etc., 437.
Inspectors of Shipping, 42.
Integrity of merchants, 157.
International Relations etc., 438.
International Rev. of Missions,
408 n.
Intorcetta, P., 342.
Invariable Mean (or Medium),
see Mean, Doctrine of.
Irkutsk, 60.
Iron, 16, 57.
Irrigation, 21, 23, 69, 70.
Isaiah, 123.
Islam, 164, and see Moslems.
Islam in China, ^-^j.
Isles of the Immortals, 256.
Ismailoff, 381.
Italy, 334.
Jabalaha III (Patriarch),
314, 331. 333-
Jackson, A., 364.
James, Bishop, 335.
Japan, 80, 177 n, 218, 229,
234. 336. 350, 369, 390, 391.
407 ; attitude of, 418, 419,
420; Buddhism in, 179.
Japanese, in Formosa, 386 ;
war, 365, 390.
Java, 43, 360, 385.
Jehol, 383.
Jenkins, R. C, 436.
Jerusalem, 319.
Jesuit controversy, The, 340-
343-
Jesuits, 155, 172, 251, 307, 310.
335-350, 357. 359-
Jesuits in China, The, 436.
Jesus not named by Nesto-
rians, 324.
Jews, 308, 319, 322, 378.
Jewish inscriptions, 318, 319,
322.
Jih-chi, 441.
Jinrikisha, 54, 89.
John, St., 254 ; Epistles of,
372-
John de Monte Corvino, 310 n,
314, 330, 332-334. 358.
John, Life of Griffith, 437.
John, Patriarch, 312.
John the Persian, 311.
John II., King of Portugal,
312.
Johore, 88.
Joseph, Gospel of, 315.
Journal Asiatique, 435.
Journal of the China Branch
of the Royal Asiatic Society,
435-
Journal of the Royal Asiatic
Society, 435.
Journal d'AndrS Ly, 436.
Jowett, B., 218.
Ju chiao, 190.
Judaism, 164.
Judaea, 254, 304.
Julien, S., 253, 433.
Junk, see Ship.
Jupiter, 252.
Justinian, 378.
K^MPFER, E., 385.
Kaidu, 332, 333.
K'ai-feng fu, 23, 319-322, 427.
Kan-chou, 330.
4S6
INDEX
Kan-p'u, 42, 317, 378.
Kansu, 17, 20, 49, 67, 84,
134. 150. 271, 314, 317,
318, 320. 324, 326, 328,
427.
K'an (to cut), 37 ; (hill), 28 n.
K'ang-hsi, 158, 341, 342, 347,
350; dictionary, 136, 158,274.
K'ang-k'ang-mai-kao, 82.
K'ang Yu-wei, 404.
Kao, 239.
Kao-ch'un, 25.
Kao Tsu, 234.
Kao Tsung, 329.
Kao Yao, 283.
Kao-yu (lake), 22.
Kashgar, 271.
Kashyapa, 213.
Kenchen, 311.
Kgn-wang, 399.
King-chih-t'u-shih, 276.
Kennelly, M., 434.
Keraits, 311-313, 330.
Keys (music), 113.
Khan, see Mongol dynasty, etc.
Khanbalig, 308, 320, 333-335-
Khansa, 320.
Khitai, 311, 426.
Khotan, river of, 17.
Kiangsi, 24, 31, 107, 350, 400,
402, 427.
Kiangsu, 22, 34-36, 150, 320,
400, 401, 427.
Kiao-chow, 390.
Kiepert, H., 124.
Kinder, C. W. ,59.
Kingfisher, 78.
Kinsay, 155, 320, 378.
Kirin, 427.
Kitchen god, 198.
Kites, 78 ; paper, 202 ; harps
fitted to, 202.
Knotted cords, 52, 142.
Ko-lao-hui, 405.
K'o-chia, 398.
Kokand, 63.
Koran, 315.
Korea, 151, 154, 177 «., 180,
350. 355-
Kerrigan, Pol, 430.
Krakatoa, 304.
Krits, 311.
Ku-cheng, 364, 390.
Ku Hung-ming, 431, 433.
Ku K'ai-chih, 105.
Kuku-nor, 17.
Ku-t'ien, 390.
Kuan (a temple), 212.
Kuan-hua, 268.
Kuan-yin, 102, 182, 184, 213.
Kuang-ch'eng-tzii, 255.
Kuang-chou, 31, 379, 427.
Kuang-fu, 379.
Kuang-hsii (Emperor), 365,
404.
Kuangsi, 31, 186, 361, 400,
427.
Kuangtung, 31, 427.
Kuang-wu Ti, 263.
Kublai Khan, 155, 268, 276,
313. 332, 333-
Kuei, 166, 167.
Kuei-chi, 128.
Kueichou, 31, 66, 142, 350,
392, 427.
Kuei-hua, 94.
Kuei-hua-ch'eng (Kukukhoto),
18.
Kuei-lin, 49, 361.
Kuei-yang, 427.
Kumarajiva, 183.
Kun-lun, 17, 74, iii, 112 n.
K'un (The Earth), 279.
Kung (a temple), 212.
K'ung, see Confucius.
K'ung Chi, 210, 234, 238.
Kuo Sung-tao, 441.
Kuo-wSn-chiao-k' o-shu, 439.
Lakes, Baikal, 60 ; Huai valley,
33 ; Hung-tsS, 22 ; Kao-yu,
22 ; Kiangsu, 35 ; Ningpo,
84 ; P'o-yang, 24 ; T'ai-hu,
26 ; Tung-t'ing, 24 ; West
(or Hangchow), 40, 54, 205.
Laloy, L, 430.
Lama, Dalai or Grand, 313.
Lamothe-Lambert, P. de, 349.
INDEX
457
Lan-chou, 17, 427.
Land reforms, 407.
Language, 268-270, 286, etc.
Langue Chinoise, La, 434.
Langues des peuples non-Chinois
431-
Lao-chiin, see Lao-tzu.
Lao-shan, 44.
Lao-tzu, 153, 165, 175, 190,
214, 223, 228, 234, 237, 239-
241, 248-258, 433.
Laos, 350.
Lassar, J., 358;
Later Han dynasty, Books of,
174.
Law, 155. 276, 354.
Lazarists, 343.
Lay, G. T. 106.
Le Comte, L., 429.
Lead, 151.
Lechler, R., 363.
Legons etymologiques, 434.
Legations, Siege of, 266, 364.
Legations, Siege of the Peking,
438.
Legge, J., 109 «., 133, 134,
141, 148, 149, 170-172, 224,
227, 230, 239, 243, 253, 282,
285, 343, 363, 432, 433, 442.
Lei kung, 194.
Lei p'o, 194.
Lemons, 71.
Leonard de Saa, 337.
Leopards, 85.
Letters, English, 268.
Letter-writing, manuals, 442.
Lhassa, 355.
Li (ceremony), 289 ; (law),
167, 215, 216.
Li, 247 ; Andrew, 350, 436 ;
Hung-chang, 440 ; Paul, 346.
Li Chi, see Rites, Book of.
Liang (dynasty), 425, 426 ;
(state), 242.
Liang A-fa, 398.
Liao (dynasty), 426 ; (river),
31-
Lzao chat [Strange Stories), 429,
441.
Liaotung, 350.
Libraries, 75, 263-267, 271,
272, 329.
Lichee, 75.
Lieh, 238.
Lieh chtian, 442.
Lieh-tzu, 234, 249, 250, 433.
Life, Belief in future, 219.
Lightning, 94.
Lime tree, 38.
Liquid ambar, 71.
Lin Tse-hsii, 388, 440,
Lin-an chih, 28 ; Ch'ien-tao,
37 «•
Lin-ch'ing ,321.
Ling Lun, no, iii.
Literature, 154, 261-301 ; God
of, 293.
Liu, An, 257 ; K'un-i, 406 ;
Pei, 154.
Lloyd, A., 183.
Lo, 128.
Lohan feast, 46.
Lolos, 131, 366.
Loquat, 75.
Lo-yang, 264, 265.
Lockhart, W., 363.
Locks, 33.
Locomotion, 54, etc.
Loess, 18.
Logarithms, 277.
London Miss. Society, 357.
Long River, see Chiang.
Lop-nor, 17.
Lu (state), 135, 228, 238, 242,
243, 282.
Lucretius, 235, 251.
Lun-Heng, 433 ; quoted, 171.
Lnn-yu, see Analects.
Lung, 37, 89.
Lung-hua, 275.
Lung-men gorge, 19.
Lung-wang falls, 18.
Luther, M., 354.
Lii, no, 112.
Lii-lii-ching-i, no n.
Lii Shih Ch'un-ch'iu, no.
Lii Pu-wei, no.
Lyra, 146.
45^
INDEX
Ma T'ang, 346.
Macao, 335-337- 341^- 344. 347*
Macartney, Lord, 383, 384.
Mackenzie, J. K., 363.
Madras, 304, 306.
Magi, 329.
Magpies, 81.
Mahayana, 177, 178.
Mahomitisyne en Chine, 437.
Maigrot, C, 341.
Maitreya, 213.
Maize, 35, 70.
Malabar, 304, 306, 307, 309,
310. 335-
Malabathrum, 378.
Malacca, 336, 358.
Malay, 350, 359.
Manchu dynasty, 1 56-1 58, 160,
161, 267, 318, 365, 395, 397,
403, 404, 406, 408-410, 416,
417 ; reforms of, 160, 161 ;
virtues of, 158 seq.
Manchuria, 31, 59, 70, 361, 390.
Mandarin, 78, 148, 268.
Mangu Khan, 313, 314.
Manichaeans, 164, 319, 322 n,
324, 325,; Books, 272, 326.
Manu, 124.
Manuale di Corrispondema,
435-
Manuel, 312.
Manuscripts, 271 ; of Bible,
357-
Mao Ch'ang, 284.
Maple, 97.
Marco Polo, 42, 52, 155, 271,
320, 333. 378-380 ; Book
of Ser, 436, 438.
Marcus Antoninus, 377.
Margary, R., 365, 390.
Mark, (Jabalaha), 314, 331.
Markets, 141.
Marriage, 146, 197, 198.
Mars Hill, 252.
Marshman, J., 358.
Martini, M., 340, 347.
Martins, 79.
Martyr ium S. Poly carpi, 344.
Martyrs, 347, 364, 367.
Masina, 308.
Materia medica, 276.
Mathematics, 275.
Max Miiller, F., 130.
Mayers, W. F., 152, 248, 431,
434. 438-
McAndrew, Major, 18.
McCartee, D. B., 363.
Mean, Doctrine of, 211, 234,
241, 256, 261, 290, 342, 433.
Mecca, 315.
Medes, 306.
Medhurst, W. H., 363, 429,
437-
MedicBval Geography and
History, 431.
MedicBval Researches, 431.
Medical, Missions, 363, 364 ;
Books, 276.
Meditation, School of, 178,
179.
Mekong, 32.
Melanges sur V Administration,
434-
Melchizedek, 172.
Meliapore, 308.
MSmoire sur la Musique, etc.,
no, 430.
M^moires concernant les Chinois,
430-
Mimoires Histonques, no, iii,
425- 431-
Memoirs and Observations, 429.
Memoirs of the Three Kingdoms,
154. 174. 441-
Memory, 262.
Mencius, 105, 109, 143, 153,
211, 234-246, 248, 249, 290,
292 ; his mother, 238, 241,
243 ; opinions on, 244-246.
Mencius, 261, 290, 433.
M6ng, (Meng K'o, Meng-tzti),
238.
MSng-ching, 20.
Meng-hsien, 20.
Merchants, 157, etc.
Merchant Shipping, 41-47, etc ;
Inspectors of, 42.
Meru, Archbishop of, 312.
INDE^
4S9
Meyer, F. N., 430.
Miao (" Confucian " temples),
212.
Miao-tzu, 131, 142, 366, 367,
392.
Middle kingdom, 125.
Middle kingdom, 73 n., 158,
262, 429.
Military, posts, 18, 49 ; treatises,
276.
Millenary Classic, 294.
Millet, 35, 70.
Milne, W., 363, 398 ; W. C,
429. 437-
Min, Mnt, 23, 25 ; river, 24,
25 ; river in Fukien, 31.
Min kuo, 426.
Mind of Mencius, 239 n.
Ming dynasty, 143, 155-161,
244, 261, 266, 267, 274, 276,
335. 385, 397. 409. 417. 426;
porcelain, 104 ; tombs, 104,
409.
Ming Ti, 263, 303.
Minor Friars, see Franciscans.
Mission Problems and Miss.
Methods, 437.
Missionaries, 302 seqq. ; Ameri-
can, 360 ; Buddhist, 177,
190, 323 ; Canadian, 322 ;
Danish, 355 ; Dominican,
322, 347 ; English, 360 ;
Franciscan, 330-335 ; Non-
conformist, 362, 363, etc. ;
Roman, 390, etc. ; Russian,
350, 351 ; Scandinavian,
367 ; Syrian, 323, etc.
Missions, influence of, 411 ;
neglect of, 221 ; problems
and methods, 367-375-
Missions etrangeres, Soc. de,
348-350.
Mistletoe, 72.
Mo-chuang-man-lu, 316.
Mo-ni, 322 n.
Mo Ti, 234-237, 244.
Moats, 144.
Mohammed, 315.
Mohammedan, see Moslems,
Monasteries, at Bostra, 315 ;
Buddhist, 180, 212, 213,
326, 327 ; of the Cross, 314 ;
Nestorian, 314, 326, 328,
330 ; Taoist, 212.
Monasticism, 176, 180, 190.
Mongol, Christians, 314 ; con-
quest, 33, 155 ; dynasty,
267, 330, 334, 335, 380,
426; script., 268, 271.
Mongolia, 18, 70, 177 «., 305,
397-
Mongols, 51, 155.
Monks, Buddhist, 46, 81, 190,
etc.
Monotheism, 170.
Monsoon, 68.
Monte Corvino, 332, and see
John.
Months, Feasts of 5th, 6th,
7th, 8th, 203, 204.
Montucci, 251.
Moore, Captain, 27, 29.
Morales, 340.
Morality declining, 416.
Moravians, 355, 364.
Morning Post, 421.
Morrison, G. J., 22 ; R., 337,
345. 357-359, 363, 398.
Morse, H. E., 428, 438.
Moscow, 60.
Moseley, W., 356, 357.
Moslems, 155, 165, 172, 315-
319, 321, 322, 334. 356, 386.
Moule, A. E., 429.
Moule, G. E., 75, 363, 428.
Mountains, 15-17, 23, 25, 63,
74, III, 133, 149 ; in art,
106.
Mu-hu-hsien, 322 «., 327.
Mu-lan-p'i (Spain), 46.
Muirhead, W., 363.
Mukden, 49, 427.
Mulberry trees, 36, 71.
Mules, 53.
Museum, British, 271, 356 ;
Shanghai, 37.
Music, 35, 108-122 ; Books on,
277 ; Master of, 109, 283.
46o
INDEX
Music, Classic of, 291.
Musical Instruments, 73, 115-
120, 146.
Musical Times, 108 «.
Musique Chinoise, 430.
Musique classique des Chin.,
430.
Musique des Chinois, 430.
Musique Grecque and Mus.
Chin., 430.
Mysteries, School of, 178.
Nagarjuna, 183.
Names, 197.
Nan (Emperor), 238.
Nan-ch'ang, 345, 427.
Nan Ch'i, 425.
Nan-chiang, 25, 26.
Nankin, 24, 25, 58, 265, 345,
346, 349, 388, 400-402, 405.
Nan Liang, 425.
Nan-ning, 427.
Nan Sung, 426, atid see Sung.
Napoleon, 162, 403.
National Assembly, 161.
Native clergy, 349, 350.
Natural objects worshipped,
189.
Navy, 47, 417.
Nazareth, 305.
Negro slaves, 45 n.
Nestorian, inscription, 123,
323, 326-330 ; tract, 272,
324-
Nestorian Tablet of Se-ngan foo,
436.
Nestorians, 177, 183, 307, 310-
315, 322-324, 326-331, 333,
339-
Nestorius, 324.
Nevius, J. L., 363.
New Ch-'na and Old, 77 «.,
387. 429.
New England Co., 355.
New Year, Day, 199 seq. ;
Eve, 198.
Newcastle, 16 «.
Newspapers, 439, 440.
Nicaea, 311.
Nicholas, Archbp., 334.
Nicholas IV., 332.
Nicodemus, Gospel of, 315.
Niebuhr, 131.
Night, The 32nd, 200.
Nightingale, 96.
Nile, 17, 68.
Nimrod Sound, 381.
Nine Provinces, The, 150.
Nine Rivers, The, 22.
Ning-hsia, 17, 320.
Ning-kuo, 26.
Ningpo, 30, 41, 42, 65, 68, 74,
84, 86, 98, 121, 126, 203,
317, 320, 326, 360, 381, 402 ;
river, 275.
Nirvana, 181, 231, 251, 256 ;
Taoist, 255.
Nisibis, 307.
Niuchuang, 31, 79.
Norris, F. L., 437.
North, noxious, 217.
North River, 31.
Notes on Chin. Literature, see
Chinese Literature.
Notions . . on Gods and Spirits,
172 n, 187 M, 432.
Notitia Linguce Siniccs, 345.
Numbers, Theory of, 216.
Numismatics, 428.
Oak, 38, 72.
Odes, Book of, 135, 140, 141,
143-147, 228, 261, 263, 283-
288, 344, 433.
Odes, Form of, 285.
Odoric of Pordenone, 333, 334.
Odoric, Les voyages . . . du
F., 436.
Okhotsk, 63.
Old Moore, 197.
Olea fragrans, 94, 209.
Ollone, d', 428, 431, 437.
Onguts, 314, 330.
Opium, 93, 160, 161, 365, 395,
403 ; Wars, 157, 360, 379,
381-394-
Oranges, 71, 74, 78, 150.
Ordination, Buddhist, 178.
INDEX
461
Organ, 73, 117.
Origen, 315.
Origin of Religions and Lan-
guages, 132 n.
Origine de I'Islamisme, 437.
Oriole, golden, 78, 90.
Ostasiatische Zeitschrift, 435.
Ouzel, 78.
Ox, clay, 202, 203.
Oxen, 35, 79, 142.
Pa-an, 427.
Paddy, 35, and see Rice.
Padua, 333.
Pagodas, 91. 126, 326.
Pai, river, 31.
Pai-hai, 361.
Painting, 105-107, 271 ; Books
on, 277.
Painting in the Far East, 430.
Pakhoi, 361.
Palembang, 47.
Palestine, 123, 124.
Palladius, Arch., 351.
Pallue, F., 349.
Pan-ku, 127.
P'an-kung, 208.
Panthers, 86.
Pantoja, D. de, 346.
Pao Hsi, 141.
Pao-te, 18.
Pao-ting, 427.
Paper, 72, 264, 271.
Paradise, see Western Par.
Paris, 349.
Partridges, 78.
Parker, E. H., 125 seq., 348,
431-433. 436-
Parsees, 319, 322 n., 325, 327,
378.
Parthia, 305.
Pasio, F., 336, 337.
Pastor Hsi, 437.
Patriarch, Nestorian, 312, 314,
333-
Patriotism, 162, 412, 413, 416,
417.
Paul, St., 205, 251, 252, 305.
Pauthier, G., 233 n. 253, 433.
Peach, 71, 286 ; flat, 73.
Peacock pheasant, 78.
Peanuts, 35.
Pears, 70, 71.
Pearl River, 31.
Pease, 71, 74.
Pechihli, Gulf, 65.
Pedestrians, 50.
Pei-chiang, 25.
Peiho, 31.
Pei-lin, 327.
Pei Sung, 426.
Pei Wei, 426.
Pekin, 32, 33, 49, 51. 55, 57.
59. 65, 91, 121, 172, 203, 266,
279. 296, 308, 314, 320, 330,
333. 334. 345. 347. 350. 351.
383. 384. 389, 401. 406, 410.
Pelliot, P., 125 n., 271, 324,
^428, 437-
Pen-ts'ao, 276.
Penal Code, 153.
Penang, 350.
Pencils, 72.
Penitence, School of, 178.
P'eng, 272, 273.
Peony, 75 ; books on, 277.
Percy ra, 336.
Persecution, 347, 350.
Persia, 41, 123, 124, 154, 303,
305. 310. 314. 325. 332. 386.
Persians, 155, 306.
Persimmon, 75.
Pessimism, 193.
Pestle and mortar, 142.
Peter, St., 305 ; Corillanus,
312 ; the Great, 381.
Pheasants, 77, 78.
Philippines, 385.
Phoenix, 78.
Phosphorescence, 43.
Physical, exercises, 190 ;
science, 191.
P'i-lung, 54.
Pictures of the Chinese, 429.
Pien-liang, 319.
Pigeons, 81 ; whistles, 51.
Pilgrims, 42, 205.
Pines, 38, 71.
462
INDEX
P'tng-chou-k'o-t'an, 44.
P'ing Ti, 153.
P'ing-yang, 67.
Pinks, 96.
Pirates, 44, 59.
Pitt, W., 299.
Pity, School of, 178.
Plague, 364.
Plain, the Great, 20, 22, 34-37 ;
Ningpo, 68, 69, 99.
Plato, 234.
Plums, 71.
Po (boat), 38, 41.
Po-hai, 17.
Po-shan, 16.
P'o (soul), 216.
P'o-yang Lake, 24.
Poetry, 154, 284-288, 442.
Poland, 60.
Polycarp, 344.
Polygamy, 36.
Polytheism, 167.
Ponies, 35, 88.
Popes, 312, 314, 332-335, 340.
341, 345 ; Taoist, 165, 175.
Poppy, 385 seq.
Popular Hist, of Ch. of Eng.,
355 "•
Population, 35, 64, 66.
Porcelain, 24, 104.
Port Arthur, 60, 390.
Portuguese, 47, 155, 322, 336,
337. 347. 380, 381.
Post, Office, 61, 62 ; roads, 49.
Potatoes, 35.
Pottery, 45.
Poussin, L. de la V., 165.
Prayers, 185 seq., 231 ; re-
quested, 421.
Prayer Book, 252.
Preaching, 95, 368 seq.
Prehistoric China, 431.
Premare, J. M. de, 346.
Presbyterians, 367.
President, 412.
Prester, John, 311-314, 330;
his niece, 313.
Pride-of-India, 72.
Priestesses, 170.
Priests, 81. 167, 170, 171, 175-
177, 189.
Printing, 264, 265, 267, 278.
Processions, 214.
Protest against superstition,
171-173-
Protocol (1891), 390.
Proverbs, 192 seq.
Provinces, 427.
Psalms, 334.
Ptolemy, 124.
Pu-k'uei, 427.
P'u (or pao), 49.
P'udu (P'u-t'o), 182, 205.
Pulse, Book on, 276.
Pumeloes, 71, 74, 150.
Pumps, 69, 79.
Pure Land (Ching-t'u), School
of, 177, 178, 180.
Pythagoras, 234 ; scale of, 11 1.
Quail, 78.
Quilon, 42, 47.
Rabbits, 88.
Radicals, 136, 274.
Rafts, 94.
Railways, 40, 55-60, 161.
Rain, coats, 73 ; -fall, 68.
Ramsden, H. A., 428.
Rankin, H., 363.
Raspberries, 74.
Rattles, 51.
Ravens, 81.
Real Life in China, 429, 437.
Rebellions, Mohammedan, 57,
318 ; and see T'ai-p'ing.
Recent events etc., 403 n.
Recherches snr les Musulmans,
437-
Recherches sur les Superstitions,
432-
Records of Travel etc., 441.
Red Sea, 307.
Reeds, 25, 34 ; musical, 117,
119.
Reforms (ancient), 407 ; (1908),
365, 404, 405 ; recent, 406
seq., etc.
INDEX
463
Reformed Churches, 352-375 ;
apathy of, 353-355-
Regent, 161, 404, 405.
Reinaud, 438.
Relations des Voyages etc., 438.
ReUgion, Chinese, 37, 164-259,
289 ; Summary of, 189-191 ;
and see Buddhism, etc.
Religion of the Chinese, 432.
Religion u. Kultus der Chinesen,
432-
Religions of Anctent China,
432.
Religions of China, 171, 432.
Rehgious, ceremonies etc., 192
seqq. ; toleration, 432.
Religious System of China, 167,
170-172, 175, 177. 432.
Remusat, A., 251.
Repentance, 194.
Reprints, 278.
Repubhc, 87, 156, 162, 365,
403-405, 408, 409 etc., 426.
Residence among the Chinese,
429.
Rest-sheds, 49.
Revolution, 162, 406, etc.
Revue du monde Musulman,
435-
Rewards and Punishments, Book
of. 250.
Rhodes, A. de, 348.
Rhyme, 284.
Ricci, M., 275, 308, 320-322,
331, 335-346, 358.
Rice, 35, 36, 68-71, 79, 96 ;
price of, 69, 417.
Richard's Geography, see
Compr. Geogr.
Riforme Cinesi, he, 431.
Ripa. 347.
Rites, Book of, 261, 283, 288,
289, 433-
Rivers, 15-34, ^tc. ; and see
Amur, Chiang, Che, Chien,
Ch'ien - fang, Chin - sha,
Chung-chiang, East, Han,
Hei-lung-chiang, Ho, Huai,
Hung, Liao, Mekong, Min,
Nan-chiang, Nine, Ningpo,
North, Pai, Pearl, Pei -
chiang, Peiho, Red, Salween,
Tarim, Wei, West, Ya-lu,
Ya-lung, Yij, etc.
Rivets, 107.
Roads, 48, 49, 55.
Rockhill, W. W., 43, 428.
Rodes, J., 438.
Roe-deer, 84.
Rogers, S., 147.
Roitz, F., 309.
Roman Missions, 339, 347, 348,
423, etc.
Rome, 301, 308, 3x4, 341, 377.
Roofs, 90, 93.
Rooks, 81.
Roses, 75, 76.
Rubbings, 264, 272.
Ruggieri, M., 336, 337, 344,
345-
Rushes, Sword of. 203.
Russell, W. A., 363.
Russia, 350, 381, 390, 419.
Russo-Japanese War, 365,
391-
Sa.\d Wakkas, 316.
Sachiu (Sha-chou), 271.
Sacred Edict, 158, 159.
Sacrifices, 185, 189 n, 217 ;
to ancestors, 220, 340 ; to
Confucius, 209, 226, 340.
Salisbury, Lord, 420.
Salt, 139.
Salween, 32.
Samarkand, 123.
San kuo, 154, 425.
San-kuo-chih, see Hist, of Three
States.
San-men, 20.
San-tzu ching, 293, 294.
Sandstone, 18.
Sanitation, 94.
Sankolinsin, 401.
Saracens, see Moslems.
Sargis, 330.
Satin, 104.
Scales, musical, no-117.
464
INDEX
Schall von Bell, J. A., 347.
Scherewschewsky, S. I. J.,
363-
Schools, 293 s&q. ; Girls (Mis-
sion), 262.
Schwartz, W., 355, 356.
Scott, C. P., 361.
Scrolls, 92.
Scythia, 305 ; king of, 183.
Sea, 41-47, 59, 65, loi, 139 ;
birds, 78 ; serpent, 46 ;
wall, 29-31.
Seals, 264.
Search and Enquiry, 276.
Secret Blessings, Book of, 250.
Secret Societies, 191.
Sectarianism etc., 432.
Sects, 177-179, etc.
Sedan chairs, 52-55.
Seminary, at Paris, 349 ; at
Penang, 350.
Septuagint, 123, 124.
Sera, 124.
Serampore, 358.
Seres, 306, 313, 377, 380.
Serica, 124, 305.
Serow, 84.
Sesame, 35.
Sesatae, 378.
Seyyid Edjell Omar, 317.
Shakespeare, 193.
Shakra, 214.
Shakyamuni, 165, 255 ; see
Buddha.
Shan, sect, 179 ; states, 390.
Shan-ch'iieh, 81.
Shan-hai-kuan, 15.
Shansi, 16, 67, 83, 133, 314,
321, 401, 427.
Shan-tao, 183.
Shantung, 15, 22, 34, 36, 37,
44. 50. 52, 53. 150. 207, 239,
321, 361, 401, 427.
Shang, dynasty, 134, 141, 152,
272, 281, 425.
Shang-ch'uan, 336.
Shanghai, 22, 37, 42, 50, 55, 58,
59. 65. 73. 98, 275, 317, 360,
366, 379. 380, 402, 430.
Shang Ti, 145, 172, 173, 185-
189, 230, 233, 244, 251, 252,
399, 416 ; supremacy of,
185-189, etc. ; the one true
God, 172.
Shao-hsing, 39, 128, 361.
She, see Soil, God of.
Sheldon, 354.
Shen, 166-168, 185, 251, 252,
325 ; -ming, 252.
Shen Nung, 127, 141.
Shensi, 19, 67, 134, 150, 317,
318, 427.
Shen-tao, 256.
Shen-yii, 20.
ShSng, 117.
Shengching, 427.
Shih (a family), 137.
Shih Chi, 28, 32, iii ; cf. 247.
Shih-ching, see Odes, Book of,
Shih Huang-ti, 140, 152, 153,
234, 263, 281, 425.
Shih-san ching chu su, 443.
Shih Tsung, 187.
Shin sect, 180.
Shinto, 256.
Ships, 41-47, loi ; steam, 24,
47. 57. 59-
Shops, 91, 103.
Shu (number), 215, 216.
Shu or Shu-ching, see History,
Book of.
Shu Han, 425.
Shui (a river), 32.
Shui-hu, 441.
Shun, 127-129, 138, 141, 242,
283, 288, 425.
Shun Ti, 334.
Siam, 41, 177 n, 350.
Siberia, 60.
Sicawei (Zikawei), 346, 430.
Silk, 24, 36, 104, 264, 271 ;
age of, 105, 138, 151 ;
-worms, 36, 71, 276, 378.
Silver, 16, 151 ; pheasant, 77.
Sin, 123.
Sinae, 124, 305, 306, 309, 310,
378.
Sinai, 123.
INDEX
46S
Singapore, 88, 89, 359.
Sinim, 123, 319.
Sinkiang, 271, 427.
Sketch of Chinese Hist., 431.
Slaves, 45.
Smith, A. H., 429.
Smyrna, 344.
Snipe, 78.
Snow, 66, 287.
Socialism, 234, 237.
S.P.C.K.. 354. 355, 357, 411.
S.P.G., 354-356. 360, 361.
Socotra, 307, 308.
Socrates, 218, 253.
Soil, God of, 206, 207, 218.
Solomon, 54, 235, 285, 330.
Solstice, winter, 204.
Son of Heaven, 148.
Songaria, 67.
Soochow, 33, 36, 40, 205, 401,
402, 427.
Sophora Japonica, 207.
Sorghum, 35, 70.
Soul, nature of the, 216-219.
South, beneficent, 217.
South-pointing chariot, 288.
Spain, 46.
Sparrows, Tree, 79.
Spectres, War against, 167,
168.
Spirits, 204, etc.
Splendour of a Great Hope, 70 n.
Spring, First day of, 202.
Spring and Autumn Annals,
229, 261, 274, 282, 290, 433.
Ssu (a monastery), 211.
Ssiicli'uan, 23, 24, 67, 71, 150,
174. 275. 317. 350, 361, 427-
Ssu-k' u-ch' iian-shu-mu-lu, 278.
Ssii-ma, Cheng, 247 ; Ch'ien,
21, 238, 247, 248, 284 ;
Kuang, 158, 246, 248 ; Piao
(the Less), 247 ; T'an, 247.
Ssu Shu, see Four Books.
Ssu-shui, 50.
Staff, musical, 113 n.
Stanley, A. P., 311, 313.
State Religion, 164, 173, 190,
214.
Statesman's Year Book, 64.
Statuettes, 271.
Staunton, G., 438.
Steam launches, 41, 59, 60.
Steel, 151.
Stein, M. A., 271, 428.
Stile Chritienne de St-ngan'
fou, 436.
Stock, E., 357 n.
Stone, 48, 90, 103, etc. ;
implements, 37 ; the word,
37-
Storks, 78.
Strange Stories etc., 429.
Strawberries, 74.
Stronach, J., 363.
Students, 413.
Studies in Chin. Rel., 432.
Style, 268, 270.
Su Tung-p'o, 382.
Sui, dj'nasty, 267, 425.
Sui T'ang yen-i, 441.
Sun, The, 203, 218, 325.
Sun, Ch'iian, 154 ; Wu, 276 ;
Yat-sen (Wen), 405, 409,
412, 419.
Sunda Straits, 383.
Sung, dynasty, 42, 106, 154,
178, 215, 267, 268, 319, 330,
397, 426 ; Nan (or S.), 154,
155. 326, 426 ; Minor (or
Ch'ien), 265, 425 ; State, 242.
Sung-chiang, 402.
Superstition, Protest against,
171, etc.
Swans, 78.
Swatow, 74, 367.
Swifts, 79.
Swinhoe, R., 77.
Sword, rush, 203.
Synagogue, 320, 322.
Synchronismes Chinois, 434.
Synod, Anglican, 361, 362.
Syria, 315, 329.
Ta-ch'in, 304, 328.
Ta-hsia, 110-112.
Ta Hsiieh, 261, 290, 433.
Ta jen, 137.
2 G
466
INDEX
Taku Forts, 389.
Ta-lu, 22.
Ta Ming i-t'ung-chih, 316.
Ta-shih, 47.
Ta tai It, 289.
Ta-t'ung, 330.
Tables, 72.
Tablet, ancestral, 219.
T'ai (fort), 49.
T'ai-an, 21.
T'ai-chan, Lc, 185 «., 432.
T'ai-chi, 279.
T'ai-chou, 74, 360, 393.
T'ai-hu, 26.
T'ai-p'ing Rebellion, 157, 160,
162, 365, 389, 394-403, 415 ;
iconoclastic, 396, 403 ; re-
forming, 395, 396.
T'ai-shan, 53, 186, 361.
T'ai Tsu, 186.
T'ai Tsung, 329.
T'ai-yiian, 427.
Takin, 83.
Tan-t'u, 25.
T'an-fu, 143.
Tan j ore, 355.
Tang, Decades of, 145.
T'ang (Ch'eng), 134; (dynasty),
105, 151, 154, 244, 267, 296,
317, 326, 327, 330, 378, 385,
426 ; poetry of, 244, 267,
442.
T'ang-hsi, 26, 33.
T'ang-ku, 59.
T'ang-shan, 59.
T'ang Shih, 442.
Tao, 166, 167, 175, 176, 184,
191, 195, 206, 250, 254, 256-
259, 280, 281 ; -ism, etc., 164,
174, 190, 246, 248, 325 ; and
see Temples.
Tao chiao, 190.
Tao-kuang, 160, 387.
Tao Shih, 171, 175-177.
Tao-ie Ching, 165, 249, 251,
254. 433-
Tao-t'ai (Taotai), 86.
Taprobana, 306.
Tarim, 17.
Tartars, 90, 153, 311, 333, 334,
350, 401, 406, 426.
Tattooing, 36, 37.
Taurus, Mnt., 133.
Taxation, 407.
Taylor, J. H., 363.
Tchang, M., 434.
Te (virtue), 254.
Tea, 49, 59, 71. 378-
Tea Classic, 277.
Tea Countries of China, 429.
Telegraph, 56.
Temperament (music), iii,
113-
Temple, of Agriculture, 410 ;
of Confucius, 208-211 ; of
Great Cloud, 326 ; of
Heaven, 172, 410 ; Parsee,
325 ; of Six Caverns, 399.
Temples, Buddhist or Taoist,
80, 208, 212-214, 219, 337,
396, 410 ; colour of, 208,
209; secularization of, 211.
327, 403, 410 ; used for
schools, 293, 403.
T'eng (State), 242.
Terrace cultivation, 69, 73.
Term Controversy, 252.
Testament, New, 329, 334 ; Old,
329-
Textes historiques, 431.
Thaddaeus, 313.
Theatre, 120, 121.
Theodotus, 374.
Thiersant, D. de, 437.
Thina, 378.
Thirteen Canonical Books, 443.
Thistle Mount, 399.
Thomas, St., 304-310, 335 ;
merchant, 306.
Thomson, J. S., 438.
Threshold, high, 92, 200.
Three States (San kuo), 154,
425-
Thrush, 78, 81.
Thunder, God of, 194, 204.
Ti, 132, 145, 188 ; see God and
Shang Ti.
Ti-hua, 427.
INDEX
467
T'i-t'ai, 86.
Tibet, 24, 67, 142, 177 «., 350,
355. 361, 364. 427 ; script.
271.
Tides, 21 ; see Bore ; Book on,
275-
Tides, The, 428.
Tide-gate Hill, 28.
Tieh-hsieh, 322 n.
Tientsin, 22, 31, 59, 156, 360,
364. 365. 389-
T'ien, 172, 186, 189, and see
Shang Ti.
T'ien-Chu, 252.
T'ien-shih, 174.
T'ien-t'ai, 93, 205 ; School, 178.
Tigers, 84-88.
Tiles, 93, 107.
Times Lit. Supplement, 105 n.
Ting, Duke, 228 ; Tsu, 169.
Tits, 79.
T'o-pa Tartars, 426.
Tobacco, 71, 385 ; pipes, 73, 95.
Tobar, J., 437.
Tokyo, 184.
Tombs, see Graves.
Tonkin, 305, 349, 350.
Topographies, 275, 441.
Tortoise-shell, 169, 279.
T'oung-pao, 125 «., 435.
Tournon, C. M. de, 341, 347.
Trade, foreign, 154, 322, and
see Ships, etc.
Trades, grouped, 91.
Traiti manicMen retrouvi en
Chine, 437.
Tranquebar, 355.
Translation, of Bible, 252, 268,
328, 329, 334, 345, 351, 357-
359, 411 ; of " God," 247,
251, 252 ; of Odes, 286, 287 ;
of Sutra, 323.
Transmigration, 220.
Travel, Books of, 275, 441.
Treaties etc., 438.
Treaty Ports, 379, 388, 389.
Trees, 35, 36, 38, 46, 71, 72,
76, 80, 81, etc. ; dwarfed,
262 ; worshipped, 207.
Trench, Archbishop, 192.
Triad Society, 397.
Tribes in S.-W. China, 431.
Tributaries, 20, 24, see Rivers.
Tribute, 33, 34, 160, 377, 384.
Trichinopoly, 355.
Trigault, N., 308, 347, 436.
Trigonometry, 277.
Trimetrical Classic, 293, 294.
Tropics, 64.
Tsai Yii, no seq., 121.
Ts'ai Lun, 264.
Ts'ao Ts'ao, 174.
Tseng, (Tzii), 210 ; Kuo-fan,
440 ; Ts'an, 291.
Tsin, 123.
Tsin-stan, 123.
Tsing-tau, 44.
Tsitsikar, 427.
Tso, (Ch'iu-ming), 282 ; Tsung-
t'ang, 318, 440.
Tso Chuan, 28, 32, cf. 282.
Tsou-k'o, 83.
Tsuan-feng-t'ing, 29.
T'u-fan, 142.
Tun-huang, 49, 271, 272, 279,
324. 326.
Tung Chin, 425.
Tung Han, 425.
Tung-t'ing Lake, 24.
T'ung-chien-kang-mu, 425.
T'ung-kuan (-t'ing). 18, 20, 67.
Turkestan, 183, 333.
Turkeys, 78.
Turks, 317.
Two-hand cars, 50.
Type, moveable, 278.
Tzii-hsi, 404, see Empress-
Dowager.
Tzii-hsia, 284.
Tzu-hsii, 28, 29.
Tzii-kung, 233.
Tzu-ssu, 210, 234, 238.
Uigur, 271, 314.
Ung Khan, 311, 313.
United States, 388, 413.
Unity, plea for, 373-375-
Universal Order, 433.
468
INDEX
Universe, 166, 167.
Urban V., 335.
Urumtsi, 427.
Vaccination, 277.
Valignani, A.. 335-338. 345-
Vanity of riches, 195.
Varietes Sinologiques, 428, 430,
432, 434. 436, 437-
Varnish, 151.
Vehicles, 37, 48, 50-52, etc. ;
(Buddhist), 177.
Venus, 146.
Verbiest, F., 347.
Village Life in China, 429.
Vissiere, A., 434, 437, 443.
Vladivostock, 60.
Votive inscriptions, 207.
Voyages, 41-47, 60.
Vulgate, 123.
Waddell, 381.
Wadding, L., 436.
Waggons, 52.
Wai-po (rice), 96.
Wallace, H. F., 83, 84.
Walls, City, 75, 76, 144 ; God
of, 214.
Wang, 345; (Ongut), 314;
An-shih, 407; Ch'ung, 171,
248, 433 ; Kuo-hsien, see
Sun Yat-sen ; Mang, 425 ;
Po-hou, 294 ; Wei, 105 ;
Yu-pu, 159.
Wapiti, 84.
War, ancient, 147 ; civil (191 3),
417 M., etc.
Warren Hastings, 386.
Water supply in towns, 21.
Waterfall, 18.
Waterfowl, 78.
Watters, T., 211 «., 434.
Weather, foretold, 202, 203.
Wei (river), 15, 20, 84 ; (state),
242.
Wei-hai-wei, 390.
Wen, King (or Wang), 143, 279.
W6n-chou, 42, 73, 330.
Wen-li, 268, 269.
W6n-miao, 208.
Wesley. J., 354.
West, Lake, see Lakes ; River,
see Rivers.
Westcott, B. F., 217, 372.
Western, ideas, 408 seq., Para-
dise, 181, 236.
Wheat, 35, 70, 79, 97.
Wheelbarrows, 50, 51.
Whistling, 1x9.
White, W. C, 320.
White Lotus Society, 400.
Whitefield, 354.
Wieger, L., 431, 434.
Wild animals, 83-88.
Wild-boar, 88.
Wildfowl, 96.
William, of Rubruquis, 331 ;
of Tripoli, 311.
Williams, S. W., 73 «., 77,
158, 233, 262, 429.
Williamson, A., 327, 363.
Willow, 72.
Wind, 43, 65, 93.
Windows, 200.
Wistaria, 80.
Wolves, 84, 85.
Woodcock, 78.
Woosung, 55, 56, 379.
Wordsworth, W., 106, 253.
Worship, 144 seq., 168 seq.,
189, 190, etc.
Worshippers mostly women,
208.
Writing, 127, 132, 140 ; evi-
dence from, 135-140 ;
materials, 127, 264.
Wu (kingdom), 32, 242 ;
(priests), 171, 176, 177 ;
(Soochow), 28.
Wu Tzii-hsii, 28, 29.
Wu-ch'ang, 24, 66, 408, 427.
Wu-chiang, 26.
WU'Ching, see Five Classics,
Wu Hou, 426 n.
Wu-hsi-k'uai boat, 40.
Wu-hu, 26.
Wu-pa, 25.
Wu Tai, 436 n.
INDEX
469
Wu Ti, 73.
Wu Tsung, 326.
Wu Wang (or King), 152, 288,
342-
Wylie, A., 106, 262, 273, 274,
277 «- 363. 434. 435-
Xavier, F., 335, 336.
Yabliono, 63.
Ya-lu (chiang), 32.
Ya-lung (river), 24.
Yang, 166-170, 176, 184, 206-
208, 232, 256, 257, 279,
280, 325.
Yang (scholar), 245, 246.
Yang-chou, 32, 33, 40, 320,
330 ; province, 36, 37, 150.
Yang Chu, 234-237, 244.
Yang-mei, 71.
Yangtse (Yang-tzu), see Chiang;
Valley, 361, 390, 417 n.
Yao, 67, 127, 134, 138, 141,
288, 425 ; Canon of, 282.
Years, The, see Spring and
Autumn Annals.
Yedo and Peking, 429.
Yeh-li-k'o-wen, 322 n.
Yellow River, see Ho.
Yen (Pekin), 308.
Yen Hui, 210.
Yin, 166, 168, 169, 170, 176,
184, 206, 207, 209, 232,
256, 257, 279, 280, 325.
Yin (dynasty), 169, 425.
Yin Hsi, 254.
YingShao, 37.
Young China, 429.
Y.M.C.A., 366.
Yule, H., 436, 438.
Yung-cheng, 158, 342, 347.
Yung-lo, 266.
Yung-lo-ta-tien (encycl.), 266.
Yii, The Great, 21, 32, 128 seq.,
138, 140, 149, 152, 281,
Yii (river), see Wei.
Yii-ho, see Grand Canal.
Yii-huang Shang-ti, 214.
Yil-kung, 17, 25, 149 seq.
Yii-lin-kan Bay, 63.
Yii-men-k'ou, 18-20.
Yia-p'u, 29.
Yii-yao, 26, 128.
Yiian (dynasty), 42, 155, 185,
267, 426.
Yiian Shih, 22.
Yiian Shih-k'ai, 405, 416,
417 n.
Yiian Ti, 265.
Yiian-yii, no, iii.
Yiin-ho, see Grand Canal
Yiinnan, 24, 31, 32, 49, 66,
317. 318, 330, 350, 378, 386,
392, 393. 427-
Zaitun, 42, 155, 320, 335.
Zen sect, 179.
Zendo, 183.
Zeno, 234.
Zeyd, 315.
Zi, E., 434.
Zikawei, 346, 430.
Zin, 123.
Zoroaster, 324.
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