advancing in a ratio according to their merits towards perfection or a pure spiritual existence. They regard existence as a material delusion, and believe that the intellectual or spiritual essence, which is distributed through all matter, is continually employed in freeing itself from material corruption, and purifying itself from delusion. Hence there are various degrees of spiritual probation. Up to the present time four Buddhas have appeared on the earth, and the fifth is announced to appear in the year 4457 of the Christian era. Besides the prevailing religion there is that of Confucius, of Tao-tze, and nearly all the forms of mythology known to history, with deities innumerable, who are supposed to preside over everything in creation, from celestial affairs even down to the economy of the kitchen. Astrology, necromancy, geomancy and divination sway, the deluded masses, and every one possesses spells and charms. They have no Sabbath, and no division of time by weeks, but labor every day in the year, except the first, which they devote to family visiting, and the last which is held sacred to the memory of their ancestors. They celebrate the festival of the full moon with noise and riot, and at the first full moon of each year they celebrate the "feast of lanterns" for two successive nights, when the whole empire is illuminated, and every house and every vessel on the rivers and canals decorated with large painted lanterns. The government of China is in the form of a patriarchal despotism; limited, however, in some degree by the right of representation possessed by certain classes of magistrates, and by the obligation of the emperor to select all government officers from the literati. This class forms an enlightened aristocracy, to which young men of every rank may be admitted, after having passed the successive educational steps necessary to qualify them for the exercise of public functions. The emperor takes the title of "Son of Heaven" and "August Emperor;" he exercises supreme power, chooses his successor from among the legitimate heirs, and believes himself responsible for any calamity that may befall his people, as pestilence, famine, &c., and when such occurs, he publicly accuses himself of having offended Heaven, and imposes upon himself certain penances to propitiate the offended gods. The public functionaries are divided into nine classes, each of which is distinguished by a jewel or ornament peculiar to itself, and which is worn in the caps of the officials. Their common title is "Quan," called by Europeans Mandarins," from the Portuguese verb mandar, to command. 66 There are six ministerial departments or bureaus at Pe-king, the seat of government. The first superintends, selects and promotes all civil officers; the second has charge of the treasury, taxes, coinage, census, &c; the third superintends public ceremonies and the different forms of religion; the fourth manages the affairs of the army and navy; the fifth is the police department, and looks to the detection and punishment of crime; and the sixth or bureau of public works, has charge of all public buildings, mines, canals, bridges, &c. There is also a board of censors, who watch over the words and conduct of the emperor; a board of music; a colonial office; and another board of censors which presides over the deliberations of all the other departments, and reports to the emperor. China Proper is divided into eighteen provinces, which are again subdivided into various districts and sub-districts. These are governed by viceroys, each of whom has generally two or three provinces under his charge; each province has also a deputy governor, a superintendent of the literati, a director of finance, a criminal judge and superintendents of the salt-pits and granaries. Each district and other minor division has also its particular magistrates, who are invested with ministerial and judicial authority. The proportion of public officers is very small in comparison to the population, and probably does not exceed one to every 10,000 inhabitants, and most of these do not receive more than $250 salary per annum. The expenses of the government are consequently small, and the burdens of taxation proportionally light. The revenue, says Mr. Medhurst, " is derived principally from the land tax, which is paid partly in kind and partly in money; it is in general a very light impost, and amounts not, as some suppose, to one tenth, but more usually to one fiftieth, or one hundredth of the produce. There are also taxes on pledged articles; and more particularly a heavy impost on salt; while customs are established on the sea-coast, and at the most important passes in hills and junctions of rivers, so as to secure the mercantile as well as the agricultural population. Some of the revenue thus derived is kept in the provinces to pay the army, navy and police, and to provide against famines, while a considerable portion is forwarded to Pe-king for the immediate service of the emperor and his officers. We cannot, therefore, form a correct estimate of the resources of China, unless we consider all that is sent to the capital and expended in the provinces as being alike drawn from the labor of the people and devoted to the service of the state. revenue of the Chinese empire will appear to be as follows: Thus the $42,327,944 12,692,871 1,974,662 105,689,707 38,273,500 .$200,958,694 This revenue, when divided among the total population, amounts only to about 56 cents per head, and if that only which is sent to Pe-king be reckoned, namely $56,996,687, it will not amount to much more than 15 cents per head. This is certainly a small sum on which to manage such a government; but the small pay of the officers, and there being no national debt, sufficiently account for it. Every statement is alike on this subject, and each attests that from one to two per cent. of the produce is the utmost of what is exacted by the government in the shape of a land tax. According to the communication of Father Bitshurin to the academy of Arts and Sciences at St. Petersburg in 1837, the standing army of the emperor, in time of peace, amounts to about 1,000,000, but it is supposed that in war 10,000,000 of soldiers may be levied. The army is, however, an inefficient, undisciplined rabble, armed with matchlocks, bows and spears. With the exception of the men stationed on the frontiers, the army is employed in preserving order throughout the provinces, and may be regarded in fact more as an armed police than a body of troops. The imperial navy is said to consist of 1,763 vessels, of which 1,036 are employed in police duty on the great rivers, and the rest are stationed on the sea-coast. The largest vessels do not carry over 20 guns and from 200 to 400 soldiers and seamen. About 60,000 men are employed on a peace establishment. The pay of a Chinese soldier is only eight cents per day. The Chinese as a people are extremely industrious-even to a slavish application, and their skill in various arts is wonderful to the people of more enlightened regions. Their silk and cotton fabrics, their porcelain, embroidery, dyeing, varnishing, ivory cutting, colors, paper, ink, and many other articles of art and skill, Europeans have in vain endeavored to equal. They have long been acquainted with the art of working metals; they make musical instruments, filigré work, cut and polish precious stones; engraving on wood, and printing from blocks, is with them as old as the tenth century, and their powers of copying and reproducing works of art from other countries is astonishing. Besides, their rates of wages are so low that they are often employed by strangers to produce for a comparative trifle that which in foreign countries would be extremely expensive. In agriculture every acre of arable land is employed in raising food; even the mountains are cut into successive terraces for cultivation, and irrigated with water drawn up by machinery from the streams below. For this purpose also large reservoirs are built on the tops of the mountains to collect the rain, and bamboo pipes conduct it thence to the fields. The women rear silk worms, and make cotton goods and some woollens. The Chinese use no butter or cheese, and very little milk, simply because they cannot spare soil sufficient to sustain more cattle than are actually necessary for agricultural labor. For the same reason horses are few, and sheep are only seen on the mountains where the land cannot be ploughed. The principal animal food of the Chinese is pork. Owing also to the nature of the soil, roads are few and narrow, being little more than pathways through the fields, or lanes over and around the mountains. Wheel carriages are rare, and ornamental gardens are scarcely ever seen. Since the opening of the ports of Canton, Amoy, Fuh-chau-fu, Ningpo and Shang-hai, by treaty with England in 1842, the inaritime commerce of China has greatly increased; yet the internal trade is by far the most important. It is carried on through the empire by means of the rivers and canals; and thence from various trading posts on the northern, western, and south-western frontiers, into Russia, Turkestan, and Hindoostan. Prior to the British treaty the whole maritime trade was monopolized by a privileged class at Canton, called the "Hong-Merchants," and all foreign trade was conducted through them; no foreigner was permitted to trade with the natives, except through this channel; and none were permitted to reside with their families at Canton. By this treaty, however, all these restrictions are removed; foreign merchants now trade with whom they please; five ports are opened to them instead of one, and their families are permitted to reside in the country. Tea is the principal article of export; but besides this, a large export trade is carried on in the articles of Nanking cloth, porcelain, rhubarb, musk, ginger, mercury, zinc, borax, shawls, mother-of-pearl, tortoise-shell, ivory goods, and many other articles. The imports are chiefly cloths and woollen stuffs, furs, gold and silver ware, glass, mirrors, lead, coral, cochineal, prussian blue, cobalt, wines, clocks and watches, gun-powder, sandal-wood, ebony, ivory, tin, copper, bird'snests, incense, camphor, tobacco, &c. Opium is contraband; but as all classes use it to a great extent, it is smuggled in enormous quantities, and is even the most valuable of all the imports. In 1836, so many as 26,018 chests were imported, valued at $17,106,903. The value of edible bird'snests imported from the islands of India and the peninsula of Malacca is said to exceed one million and a half dollars annually. Ginseng is also largely imported. The principal seat of the Chinese trade with Russia is at Kiachta, and the Mongolian frontier establishment at Maimaichin. Second in importance to that emporium is the commerce maintained at Khokand by caravans from Orenburg. The Chinese and Usbeck merchants from Turkestan and H'lassa, assemble at these points to meet the Russian traders, who carry on a valuable traffic. From these regions, as well as north-western China, small parties of native merchants also start for Semipalatinsk and Troisk in Siberia, where a similar, but not such an extensive traffic, takes place. A great deal of illicit bartering has existed to the east of Kiachta, between the nomades of the respective frontiers, and often indirectly by European merchants. The commerce carried on at Kiachta, however, is a mere barter trade; tea is the principal export, and woollens the chief import. The value of imports to Northern Asia, declared by Russia, in 1840, was 3,615,130 Russian dollars; and of exports, 6,892,952, of which about 11-12ths was absorbed, either directly or indirectly, in the Chinese trade. The native statements on this subject are very vague, and as the Chinese merchants find ways and means to smuggle a great deal, the custom-house returns cannot be fully relied upon. The commerce between the United States and China is second only to that between Great Britain and China; and in all respects the Americans are on as beneficial a footing as the most favored nations, and have their immunities secured by a treaty with the court of Pe-king. The declared value of this trade, for a series of years, is exhibited in the annexed table: The increase in the amount, both of imports and exports, it will be seen, has been very rapid having nearly doubled in the eight years ending 30th June, 1847; and the exports, which in 1838-9, consisted of only onefourth domestic produce, in 1845-6, are represented in the ratio of eight domestic and one foreign; and it is probable that at the present time the difference in favor of the United States is much wider. This is the result of the Atlantic trade. The addition of the vast territories on the Pacific to the Union, and their geographical position in relation to the Chinese ports, must be looked upon as highly favorable to a more direct commercial intercourse between the two nations; and the establishment of a commercial communication across the Isthmus of Panama, will no doubt greatly extend the trade, not only with China, but with the whole congeries of islands which stud the Pacific. These, however, are affairs belonging to the future; but there cannot be a doubt that before the lapse of many years, when railways shall extend from San Francisco, Monterey, and other Pacific ports, to the Atlantic states; when steam navigation has been fully established on the Pacific, and the isthmian difficulty has been overcome, the commerce between the two nations will be infinitely extended, and surpass that of all other countries. Already, indeed, the United States *ake one-fourth of all the tea exported; the quantity received in 1846-7, was 18,886,237; and the whole quantity exported to other nations, not quite 58,000,000 of pounds. The public works of China infinitely surpass those of any other country in magnitude, if not in importance and skill. The "Great Wall" has been long considered as one of the mightiest of national undertakings. It extends from the shores of the Yellow Sea westward along the borders of Peche-le, Shan-si, and Shen-si, 1,500 miles, ending in rocks and deserts almost impassable. It is formed of an embankment, encased in stone work about 20 feet wide and 30 feet high, along the plains and valleys, where it is also strengthened by square detached towers, at the distance of a bow-shot from each other. There are numerous gates, which are also strongly-fortified and garrisoned; and at the east end is a large bulwark and fort, which command the sea, and at the same time serve as a conspicuous landmark to the sailor. The Imperial Canal," or Yun-ho, extends from Tien-tsin on the Pei-ho, to Hang-chau-fu, on the Yangtsz'-kiang, a distance of 700 miles. It is 200 feet wide, built with flood-gates, but no locks; and, in connection with certain rivers, gives an inland water communication from Pe-king to Canton, interrupted only by a single mountain-range, across which is the celebrated pass of Meilan, for the construction of which, the Mandarin who accomplished it was honored with a statue in one of the neighboring temples. Other important public works have been erected for the purpose of commanding water for irrigation, and to prevent inundation. Their bridges. over rapid streams and broad estuaries are of solid granite, and evince great skill and perseverance in their construction. The division of China into 18 provinces, has been alluded to in a preceding section. We will now exhibit the extent and population of each. Eastern. Northern. Southern. West'n. Cent. Provinces. PE-CHE-LE, or Chihli. SHAN-SI HO-NAN...... KIANG-SU........... NGAN-HWUI...... KIANG-SI.... Capitals.* Area in Sq. M. Pop. in 1812. Pop. to Sq. M. .55,268.. 14,004,210... .65,104....23,037,171....420.... Kai-fung-fu. Kiang-nan S 45,500....37,843,501....850.... Kiang-ning-fu 48,461....34,168,059....705. Ngau-king-fu. .72,176....33,426,999. .39.150. .26,256,784. 422 Nan-chang-fu. 671.... 276. Hang-chau-fu. .......... Fuh-chau-fu. 389 Wu-chang-fu. .255....Chang-sha-fu. 163.... Sing-an-fu. 175.... Lan-chau-fu. 128....Ching-tu-fu. 19,174,030. 241. Kwang-chau-fu .67,400. KAN-SUH. ..86,608. .166,800. 21,435,678. 1,297,999....360,659,901 7,313,895.... 93. Kwei-lin fu. .64,554.... 5,288,219... 82 Kwei.yang-fu. 107,969.... 5,561,320.... 51.... Yun-nan-fu 268....PE-KING. The names of the capitals are from Williams' "Middle Kingdom." The names of places in China are spelt in various ways, and it is always difficult, and sometimes impossible, to express Oriental names by Roman letters, and therefore each foreign nation spells them differently. ↑ It is a remarkable fact that the Chinese cities have no proper names, but are all distinguished by the addition of fu, chau, or hien, of which they are capitals. Canton, for instance, is Kwang-chau-fu, i. e. capital of Kwang-tung, &c. In consequence of there having been in China, occasionally, several simultaneous kingdoms, or from the circumstance of the court having several times changed its residence, the different capitals have received names indicative of their position; as Pe-king, the north court; Nan-king, the south court; and Tung-king, the east court. VOL. II. 35 |