THE FICUS RELIGIOSA.
A kind of banyan tree found in every village of the South and South Central Provinces of China. Its foliage covers an enormous extent of ground. The tree itself is an object of worship, and an altar for the burning of incense is always found beneath it.
THE FICUS RELIGIOSA
THE ALTAR OF
HEAVEN.
A fine picture of an open-air altar outside Foochow City.
THE ALTAR OF
HEAVEN
THE TABLET
OF CONFUCIUS.
Wherever there is a magistrate there is a temple to Confucius, in which the magistrates do homage in memory of the Great Teacher. The tablet is inscribed with a number of his most important sayings having a bearing on the administration of justice. This great man has by his teaching dominated the laws, the teaching, the literature, and the whole social life of nearly half the human race for the last two thousand years. These shrines are absolutely taboo to the foreigner, a fact which was learned by the traveller only after she had entered it and, finding it absolutely empty, had made her photograph.
THE TABLET
OF CONFUCIUS
A PORCELAIN-FRONTED
TEMPLE ON
THE YANGTZE.
The manufacture of porcelain has for centuries made China celebrated. It may be of interest to refer to the fact that we owe the existence of our Worcester porcelain works to the attempt made by a chemist to produce porcelain in England similar to the Chinese. A great many temples in the Empire province of Sze Chuan have their fronts and roofs of this porcelain. They are most gorgeous in colour, and have the appearance of being jewelled.
A PORCELAIN-FRONTED
TEMPLE ON
THE YANGTZE
CHILD EATING RICE
WITH CHOPSTICKS.
The Chinese eat an enormous number of things which the Western turns from, or which he doesn’t know of. As a rule the Chinese are good cooks, and the food is wholesome, steaming being the favourite method. Rice is the staff of life to the masses, who eat it mixed with fried cabbage or some other flavouring ingredient. It is seldom eaten alone. So common and universal is rice eating that, while in French the equivalent of “How do you do?” is “How do you carry yourself?” and in Italian “How do you stay?” in Chinese the equivalent is “Have you eaten rice?”
CHILD EATING RICE
WITH CHOPSTICKS
FORT ON
THE PEKING WALL.
City walls are a great feature of the country. The illustration is of a fort on one of the angles of the wall of Peking, the interest of it lying in the fact that the guns showing in the embrasures are dummies, being simply painted wood. Probably the cost of real guns went into the pockets of some official entrusted with providing the armament of the fort.
FORT ON
THE PEKING WALL
ANOTHER FORT ON
THE WALL OF PEKING.
This fort is filled with carronades, old guns still kept there, though absolutely useless, being honeycombed with disuse and rust.
ANOTHER FORT ON
THE WALL OF PEKING
COLOSSAL ASTRONOMICAL
INSTRUMENTS
ON THE PEKING WALL.
Many hundred years old, but as bronze castings they are reckoned to be amongst the finest in the world. And as astronomical instruments their results differ very little from those obtained by astronomers from appliances of the most modern construction.
COLOSSAL ASTRONOMICAL
INSTRUMENTS
ON THE PEKING WALL