The Awakening of China

by W. A. P. Martin

CHAPTER I

CHINA PROPER

Five Grand Divisions—Climate—Area and Population—The Eighteen Provinces

The empire consists of five grand divisions: China Proper, Manchuria, Mongolia, Turkestan, and Tibet. In treating of this huge conglomerate it will be most convenient to begin with the portion that gives name and character to the whole.

Of China Proper it may be affirmed that the sun shines nowhere on an equal area which combines so many of the conditions requisite for the support of an opulent and prosperous people. Lying between 18° and 49° north latitude, her climate is alike exempt from the fierce heat of the torrid zone and the killing cold of the frigid regions. There is not one of her provinces in which wheat, rice, and cotton, the three staples of food and clothing, may not be cultivated with more or less success; but in the southern half wheat gives place to rice, while in the north cotton yields to silk and hemp. In the south cotton is king and rice is queen of the fields.

Traversed in every direction by mountain ranges of moderate elevation whose sides are cultivated in terraces to such a height as to present the appearance of hanging gardens, China possesses fertile valleys in fair proportion, together with vast plains that compare in extent with those of our American prairie states. Furrowed by great rivers whose innumerable affluents supply means of irrigation and transport, her barren tracts are few and small.

A coast-line of three thousand miles indented with gulfs, bays, and inlets affords countless harbours for shipping, so that few countries can compare with her in facilities for ocean commerce.

As to her boundaries, on the east six of her eighteen provinces bathe their feet in the waters of the Pacific; on the south she clasps hands with Indo-China and with British Burma; and on the west the foothills of the Himalayas form a bulwark more secure than the wall that marks her boundary on the north. Greatest of the works of man, the Great Wall serves at present no other purpose than that of a mere geographical expression. Built to protect the fertile fields of the "Flowery Land" from the incursions of northern nomads, it may have been useful for some generations; but it can hardly be pronounced an unqualified success, since China in whole or in part has passed more than half of the twenty-two subsequent centuries under the domination of Tartars.

With an area of about 1,500,000 square miles, or one-half that of Europe, China has a busy population of about four hundred millions; yet, so far from being exhausted, there can be no doubt that with improved methods in agriculture, manufactures, mining, and transportation, she might very easily sustain double the present number of her thrifty children.

Within this favoured domain the products of nature and of human industry vie with each other in extent and variety. A bare enumeration would read like a page of a gazetteer and possibly make no more impression than a column of figures. To form an estimate of the marvellous fecundity of the country and to realise its picturesqueness, one ought to visit the provinces in succession and spend a year in the exploration of each. If one is precluded from such leisurely observation, undoubtedly the next best thing is to see them through the eyes of those who have travelled in and have made a special study of those regions.

To more than half of the provinces I can offer myself as a guide. I spent ten years at Ningpo, and one year at Shanghai, both on the southern seacoast. At the northern capital I spent forty years; and I have recently passed three years at Wuchang on the banks of the Yang-tse Kiang, a special coign of vantage for the study of central China. While residing in the above-mentioned foci it was my privilege to visit six other provinces (some of them more than once), thus gaining a personal acquaintance with ten out of the eighteen and being enabled to gather valuable information at first hand.

A glance at the subjoined table (from the report of the China Inland Mission for 1905) will exhibit the magnitude of the field of investigation before us. The average province corresponds in extent to the average state of the American Union; and the whole exceeds that portion of the United States which lies east of the Mississippi.

CHINA PROPER

PROVINCES	AREA SQ. MILES	POPULATION
Kwangtung (Canton)	99,970	31,865,000
Kwangsi	77,200	5,142,000
Fukien	46,320	22,876,000
Chéhkiang	36,670	11,580,000
Kiangsu	38,600	13,980,000
Shantung	55,970	38,248,000
Chihli	115,800	20,937,000
Shansi	81,830	12,200,000
Shensi	75,270	8,450,000
Kansuh	125,450	10,385,000
Honan	67,940	35,316,000
Hupeh	71,410	35,280,000
Hunan	83,380	22,170,000
Nganhwei(Anhwei)	54,810	23,670,000
Yünnan	146,680	12,325,000
Szechuen	218,480	68,725,000
Kiangsi	69,480	26,532,000
Kweichau	67,160	7,650,000
Totals	1,532,420	407,331,000

CHAPTER II

A JOURNEY THROUGH THE PROVINCES—KWANGTUNG AND KWANGSI

Hong Kong—A Trip to Canton—Macao—Scenes on Pearl River—Canton Christian College—Passion for Gambling—A Typical City—A Chief Source of Emigration

Let us take an imaginary journey through the provinces and begin at Hong Kong, where, in 1850, I began my actual experience of life in China.

From the deck of the good ship Lantao, which had brought me from Boston around the Cape in one hundred and thirty-four days, I gazed with admiration on the Gibraltar of the Orient. Before me was a land-locked harbour in which all the navies of the world might ride in safety. Around me rose a noble chain of hills, their slopes adorned with fine residences, their valleys a chessboard of busy streets, with here and there a British battery perched on a commanding rock.

Under Chinese rule Hong Kong had been an insignificant fishing village, in fact a nest of pirates. In 1841 the island was ceded by China to Great Britain, and the cession was confirmed by the treaty of Nanking in August, 1842. The transformation effected in less than a decade had been magical; yet that was only the bloom of babyhood, compared with the rich maturity of the, present day.

A daily steamer then sufficed for its trade with Canton; a weekly packet connected it with Shanghai; and the bulk of its merchandise was still carried in sailing ships or Chinese junks. How astounding the progress that has marked the last half-century! The streets that meandered, as it were, among the valleys, or fringed the water's edge, now girdle the hills like rows of seats in a huge amphitheatre; a railway lifts the passenger to the mountain top; and other railways whirl him from hill to hill along the dizzy height. I Trade, too, has multiplied twenty fold. In a commercial report for the year ending June, 1905, it is stated that in amount of tonnage Hong Kong has become the banner port of the world.

Though politically Hong Kong is not China, more than 212,000 of its busy population (about 221,000) are Chinese; and it is preëminently the gate of China. By a wise and liberal policy the British Government has made it the chief emporium of the Eastern seas.

We now take a trip to Canton and cross a bay studded with islands. These are clothed with copious verdure, but, like all others on the China coast, lack the crowning beauty of trees. In passing we get a glimpse of Macao, a pretty town under the flag of the Portuguese, the pioneers of Eastern trade. The oldest foreign settlement in China, it dates from 1544—not quite a half-century after the discovery of the route to India, an achievement whose fourth centenary was celebrated in 1898. If it could be ascertained on what day some adventurous argonaut pushed the quest of the Golden Fleece to Farther India, as China was then designated, that exploit might with equal appropriateness be commemorated also.

The city of Macao stands a monument of Lusitanian enterprise. Beautifully situated on a projecting spur of an island, it is a favourite summer resort of foreign residents in the metropolis. It has a population of about 70,000, mostly Chinese, and contains two tombs that make it sacred in my eyes; namely, that of Camöens, author of "The Lusiad" and poet of Gama's voyage, and that of Robert Morrison, the pioneer of Protestant missions, the centennial of whose arrival had in 1907 a brilliant celebration.

Entering the Pearl River, a fine stream 500 miles in length, whose affluents spread like a fan over two provinces, we come to the viceregal capital, as Canton deserves to be called, though the viceroy actually resides in another city. The river is alive with steamboats, large and small, mostly under the British flag; but native craft of the old style have not yet been put to flight. Propelled by sail or oar, the latter creep along the shore; and at Pagoda Anchorage near the city they form a floating town in which families are born and die without ever having a home on terra firma.

Big-footed women are seen earning an honest living by plying the oar, or swinging on the scull-beam with babies strapped on their backs. One may notice also the so-called "flower-boats," embellished like the palaces of water fairies. Moored in one locality, they are a well-known resort of the vicious. In the fields are the tillers of the soil wading barefoot and bareheaded in mud and water, holding plough or harrow drawn by an amphibious creature called a carabao or water-buffalo, burying by hand in the mire the roots of young rice plants, or applying as a fertiliser the ordure and garbage of the city. Such unpoetic toils never could have inspired the georgic muse of Vergil or Thomson.

The most picturesque structure that strikes the eye as one approaches the city is a Christian college—showing how times have changed. In 1850 the foreign quarter was in a suburb near one of the gates. There I dined with Sir John Bowring at the British Consulate, having a letter of introduction from his American cousin, Miss Maylin, a gifted lady of Philadelphia. There, too, I lodged with Dr. Happer, who by the tireless exertions of many years succeeded in laying the foundations of that same Christian college. For him it is a monument more lasting than brass; for China it is only one of many lighthouses now rising at commanding points on the seacoast and in the interior.

In passing the Fati, a recreation-ground near the city, a view is obtained of the amusements of the rich and the profligate. We see a multitude seated around a cockpit intent on a cock-fight; but the cocks are quails, not barnyard fowls. Here, too, is a smaller and more exclusive circle stooping over a pair of crickets engaged in deadly combat. Insects of other sorts or pugnacious birds are sometimes substituted; and it might be supposed that the people must be warlike in their disposition, to enjoy such spectacles. The fact is, they are fond of fighting by proxy. What attracts them most, however, is the chance of winning or losing a wager.

A more intellectual entertainment to be seen in many places is the solving of historical enigmas. Some ancient celebrity is represented by an animal in a rhyming couplet; and the man who detects the hero under this disguise wins a considerable sum. Such is the native passion for gambling that bets are even made on the result of the metropolitan examinations, particularly on the province to which will fall the honour of the first prize, that of the scholar-laureateship.

Officials in all parts and benevolent societies take advantage of this passion for gambling in opening lotteries to raise funds for worthy objects—a policy which is unwise if not immoral. It should not be forgotten, however, that our own forefathers sometimes had recourse to lotteries to build churches.

The foreign settlement now stands on Shamien, a pretty islet in the river, in splendid contrast with the squalor of the native streets. The city wall is not conspicuous, if indeed it is visible beyond the houses of a crowded suburb. Yet one may be sure that it is there; for every large town must have a wall for protection, and the whole empire counts no fewer than 1,553 walled cities. What an index to the insecurity resulting from an ill-regulated police! The Chinese are surprised to hear that in all the United States there is nothing which they would call a city, because the American cities are destitute of walls.

Canton with its suburbs contains over two million people; it is therefore the most populous city in the empire. In general the houses are low, dark, and dirty, and the streets are for the most part too narrow for anything broader than a sedan or a "rickshaw" (jinriksha). Yet in city and suburbs the eye is dazzled by the richness of the shops, especially of those dealing in silks and embroideries. In strong contrast with this luxurious profusion may be seen crowds of beggars displaying their loathsome sores at the doors of the rich in order to extort thereby a penny from those who might not be disposed to give from motives of charity. The narrow streets are thronged with coolies in quality of beasts of burden, having their loads suspended from each end of an elastic pole balanced on the shoulder, or carrying their betters in sedan chairs, two bearers for a commoner, four for a "swell," and six or eight for a magnate. High officials borne in these luxurious vehicles are accompanied by lictors on horse or foot. Bridegrooms and brides are allowed to pose for the nonce as grandees; and the bridal chair, whose drapery blends the rainbow and the butterfly, is heralded by a band of music, the blowing of horns, and the clashing of cymbals. The block and jam thus occasioned are such as no people except the patient Chinese would tolerate. They bow to custom and smile at inconvenience. Of horse-cars or carriages there are none except in new streets. Rickshaws and wheelbarrows push their way in the narrowest alleys, and compete with sedans for a share of the passenger traffic.

In those blue hills that hang like clouds on the verge of the horizon and bear the poetical name of White Cloud, there are gardens that combine in rich variety the fruits of both the torrid and the temperate zones. Tea and silk are grown in many other parts of China; but here they are produced of a superior quality.

Enterprising and intelligent, the people of this province have overflowed into the islands of the Pacific from Singapore to Honolulu. Touching at Java in 1850, I found refreshments at the shop of a Canton man who showed a manifest superiority to the natives of the island. Is it not to be regretted that the Chinese are excluded from the Philippines? Would not the future of that archipelago be brighter if the shiftless native were replaced by the thrifty Chinaman?

It was in Canton that American trade suffered most from the boycott of 1905, because there the ill-treatment of Chinese in America was most deeply felt, the Chinese in California being almost exclusively from the province of Canton.

The viceroy of Canton has also the province of Kwangsi under his jurisdiction. Mountainous and thinly peopled, it is regarded by its associate as a burden, being in an almost chronic state of rebellion and requiring large armies to keep its turbulent inhabitants in order.

CHAPTER III

PROVINCE OF FUKIEN

Amoy—Bold Navigators—Foochow—Mountain of Kushan—The Bridge of Ten Thousand Years

Following the coast to the north some three hundred miles we come to Amoy, the first important seaport in the adjacent province of Fukien. The aspect of the country has undergone a change. Hills attain the altitude of mountains, and the alluvial plains, so conspicuous about Canton, become contracted to narrow valleys.

The people, too, are changed in speech and feature. Taller, coarser in physiognomy, with high cheek-bones and harsh voices, their dialect is totally unintelligible to people of the neighbouring province. As an example of the diversity of dialects in China, may be cited the Chinese word for man. In some parts of Fukien it is long; in Canton, yan or yin; at Ningpo, ning; and at Peking, jin.

One is left in doubt whether the people or the mountains which they inhabit were the most prominent factors in determining the dividing line that separates them from their neighbours on the south and west. In enterprise and energy they rival the Cantonese. They are bold navigators; the grand island of Formosa, now ceded to Japan, was colonised by them; and by them also the savage aborigines were driven over to the east coast. A peculiar sort of black tea is grown on these mountains, and, along with grass cloth, forms a staple in the trade of Amoy. The harbour is not wanting in beauty; and a view from one of the hill-tops, from which hundreds of villages are visible, is highly picturesque. Of the town of Amoy with its 200,000 people there is not much to be said except that several missions, British and American, which opened stations there soon after the first war with Great Britain, have met with encouraging success. At Swatow, a district in Canton Province beyond the boundary, the American Baptists have a flourishing mission.

Entering the Formosan Channel we proceed to the mouth of the Min, a fine river which leads up to Foochow (Fuchau), some thirty miles inland. We do not stop to explore the Island of Formosa because, having been ceded to Japan, it no longer forms a part of the Chinese Empire. From the river the whole province is sometimes described as "the country of Min"; but its official name is Fukien. This name does not signify "happily established," as stated in most books, but is compounded of the names of its two chief cities by taking the first syllable of each, somewhat as the pioneer settlers of Arkansas formed the name of the boundary town of Texarkana. The names of some other provinces of China are formed in the same way; e.g. Kiangsu, Kansuh, and that of the viceregal district of Yünkwei.

Kushan, a mountain on the bank of the river, is famed for its scenery; and, as with mountains everywhere else in China, it has been made the seat of a Buddhist monastery, with some scores of monks passing their time not in contemplation, but in idleness.

The city of Foochow is imposing with its fine wall of stone, and a long stone bridge called Wansuik'iao "the bridge of ten thousand years." It has a population of about 650,000. To add to its importance it has a garrison or colony of Manchus who from the date of the conquest in 1644 have lived apart from the Chinese and have not diminished in numbers.

The American Board and the Methodist Episcopal Board have large and prosperous missions at this great centre, and from this base they have ramified through the surrounding mountains, mostly following the tributaries of the Min up to their sources. In 1850 I was entertained at Foochow by the Rev. Dr. C. C. Baldwin, who, I am glad to say, still lives after the lapse of fifty-five years; but he is no longer in the mission field.

CHAPTER IV

PROVINCE OF CHÉHKIANG

Chusan Archipelago—Putu and Pirates—Queer Fishers and Queer Boats—Ningpo—A Literary Triumph—Search for a Soul—Chinese Psychology—Hangchow—The Great Bore

Chéhkiang, the next province to the north, and the smallest of the eighteen, is a portion of the highlands mentioned in the last chapter. It is about as large as Indiana, while some of the provinces have four or five times that area. There is no apparent reason why it should have a distinct provincial government save that its waters flow to the north, or perhaps because the principality of Yuih (1100 B.C.) had such a boundary, or, again, perhaps because the language of the people is akin to that of the Great Plain in which its chief river finds an outlet. How often does a conqueror sever regions which form a natural unit, merely to provide a principality for some favourite!

Lying off its coast is the Chusan archipelago, in which two islands are worthy of notice. The largest, which gives the archipelago its name, is about half the length of Long Island, N. Y., and is so called from a fancied resemblance to a junk, it having a high promontory at either end. It contains eighteen valleys—a division not connected with the eighteen provinces, but perpetuated in a popular rhyme which reflects severely on the morals of its inhabitants. Shielded by the sea, and near enough to the land to strike with ease at any point of the neighbouring coast, the British forces found here a secure camping-ground in their first war.

To the eastward lies the sacred Isle of Putu, the Iona of the China coast. With a noble landscape, and so little land as to offer no temptation to the worldly, it was inevitable that the Buddhists should fix on it as a natural cloister. For many centuries it has been famous for its monasteries, some of which are built of timbers taken from imperial palaces. Formerly the missionaries from neighbouring seaports found at Putu refuge from the summer heat, but it is now abandoned, since it afforded no shelter from the petty piracy at all times so rife in these waters.

In 1855 Mr. (afterward Bishop) Russell and myself were captured by pirates while on our way to Putu. The most gentlemanly freebooters I ever heard of, they invited us to share their breakfast on the deck of our own junk; but they took possession of all our provisions and our junk too, sending us to our destination in a small boat, and promising to pay us a friendly visit on the island. One of them, who had taken my friend's watch, came to the owner to ask him how to wind it. The Rev. Walter Lowrie, founder of the Presbyterian Mission at Ningpo, was not so fortunate. Attacked by pirates nearly on the same spot, he was thrown into the sea and drowned.

Passing these islands we come to the Ningpo River, with Chinhai, a small city, at its mouth, and Ningpo, a great emporium, some twelve miles inland. This curious arrangement, so different from what one would expect, confronts one in China with the regularity of a natural law: Canton, Shanghai, Foochow, and Tientsin, all conform to it. The small city stands at the anchorage for heavy shipping; but the great city, renouncing this advantage, is located some distance inland, to be safe from sea-robbers and foreign foes.

As we ascend the river we are struck with more than one peculiar mode of taking fish. We see a number of cormorants perched on the sides of a boat. Now and then a bird dives into the water and comes up with a fish in its beak. If the fish be a small one, the bird swallows it as a reward for its services; but a fish of considerable size is hindered in its descent by a ring around the bird's neck and becomes the booty of the fisherman. The birds appear to be well-trained; and their sharp eyes penetrate the depths of the water. Another novelty in fishing is a contrivance by which fish are made to catch themselves—not by running into a net or by swallowing a hook, but by leaping over a white board and falling into a boat. More strange than all are men who, like the cormorants, dive into the water and emerge with fish—sometimes with one in either hand. These fishermen when in the water always have their feet on the ground and grope along the shore. The first time I saw this method in practice I ran to the brink of the river to save, as I thought, the life of a poor man. He no sooner raised his head out of the water, however, than down it went again; and I was laughed at for my want of discernment by a crowd of people who shouted Ko-ng, Ko-ng, "he's catching fish."

The natives have a peculiar mode of propelling a boat. Sitting in the stern the boatman holds the helm with one hand, while with the other he grasps a long pipe which he smokes at leisure. Without mast or sail, he makes speed against wind or current by making use of his feet to drive the oar. He thus gains the advantage of weight and of his strong sartorial muscles. These little craft are the swiftest boats on the river.

At the forks of the river, in a broad plain dotted with villages, rise the stone walls of Ningpo, six miles in circuit, enclosing a network of streets better built than those of the majority of Chinese cities. The foreign settlement is on the north bank of the main stream; but a few missionaries live within the walls, and there I passed the first years of my life in China.

Above the walls, conspicuous at a distance, appears the pinnacle of a lofty pagoda, a structure like most of those bearing the name, with eight corners and nine stories. Originally designed for the mere purposes of look-outs, these airy edifices have degenerated into appliances of superstition to attract good influences and to ward off evil.

Not only has this section of the province a dialect of its own, of the mandarin type, but its people possess a finer physique than those of the south. Taller, with eyes less angular and faces of faultless symmetry, they are a handsome people, famed alike for literary talent and for commercial enterprise. During my residence there the whole city was once thrown into excitement by the news that one of her sons had won the first prize in prose and verse in competition, before the emperor, with the assembled scholars of the empire—an an honour comparable to that of poet laureate or of a victor in the Olympic games. When that distinction falls to a city, it is believed that, in order to equalise matters, the event is sure to be followed by three years of dearth. In this instance, the highest mandarins escorted the wife of the literary athlete to the top of the wall, where she scattered a few handfuls of rice to avert the impending famine.

My house was attached to a new church which was surmounted by a bell-tower. In a place where nothing of the sort had previously existed, that accessory attracted many visitors even before the bell was in position to invite them. One day a weeping mother, attended by an anxious retinue, presented herself and asked permission to climb the tower, which request of course was not refused.

Uncovering a bundle, she said: "This is my boy's clothing. Yesterday he was up in the tower and, taking fright at the height of the building, his little soul forsook his body and he had to go home without it. He is now delirious with fever. We think the soul is hovering about in this huge edifice and that it will recognise these clothes and, taking possession of them, will return home with us."

When a bird escapes from its cage the Chinese sometimes hang the cage on the branch of a tree and the bird returns to its house again. They believe they can capture a fugitive soul in the same way. Sometimes, too, a man may be seen standing on a housetop at night waving a lantern and chanting in dismal tones an invitation to some wandering spirit to return to its abode. Whether in the case just mentioned the poor woman's hopes were fulfilled and whether the animula vagula blandula returned from its wanderings I never learned, but I mention the incident as exhibiting another picturesque superstition.

Chinese psychology recognises three souls, viz., the animal, the spiritual, and the intellectual. The absence of one of the three does not, therefore, involve immediate death, as does the departure of the soul in our dual system.

But I tarry too long at my old home. We have practically an empire still before us, and will, therefore, steer west for Hangchow.

In the thirteenth century this was the residence of an imperial court; and the provincial capital still retains many signs of imperial magnificence. The West Lake with its pavilions and its lilies, a pleasance fit for an emperor; the vast circuit of the city's walls enclosing hill and vale; and its commanding site on the bank of a great river at the head of a broad bay—all combine to invest it with dignity. Well do I recall the day in 1855 when white men first trod its streets. They were the Rev. Henry Rankin and myself. Though not permitted by treaty to penetrate even the rind of the "melon," as the Chinese call their empire, to a distance farther than admitted of our returning to sleep at home, we nevertheless broke bounds and set out for the old capital of the Sungs. On the way we made a halt at the city of Shaohing; and as we were preaching to a numerous and respectful audience in the public square, a well-dressed man pressed through the crowd and invited us to do him the honour of taking tea at his house. His mansion exhibited every evidence of affluence; and he, a scholar by profession, aspiring to the honours of the mandarinate, explained, as he ordered for us an ample repast, that he would have felt ashamed if scholars from the West had been allowed to pass through his city without anyone offering them hospitality. What courtesy! Could Hebrew or Arab hospitality surpass it?

Two things for which the city of Shaohing is widely celebrated are (1) a sort of rice wine used throughout the Empire as being indispensable at mandarin feasts, and (2) clever lawyers who are deemed indispensable as legal advisers to mandarins. They are the "Philadelphia lawyers" of China.

As we entered Hangchow the boys shouted Wo tsei lai liao, "the Japanese are coming "—never having seen a European, and having heard their fathers speak of the Japanese as sea-robbers, a terror to the Chinese coast. Up to this date, Japan had no treaty with China, and it had never carried on any sort of regular commerce with or acknowledged the superiority of China. Before many years had passed, these youths became accustomed to Western garb and features; and I never heard that any foreigner suffered insult or injury at their hands.

In 1860 the Rev. J. L. Nevius, one of my colleagues, took possession of the place in the name of Christ. He was soon followed by Bishop Burden, of the English Church Mission, whose apostolic successor, Bishop Moule, now makes it the seat of his immense diocese.

Another claim to distinction not to be overlooked is that its river is a trap for whales. Seven or eight years ago a cetaceous monster was stranded near the river's mouth. The Rev. Dr. Judson, president of the Hangchow Mission College, went to see it and sent me an account of his observations. He estimated the length of the whale at 100 feet; the tail had been removed by the natives. To explain the incident it is necessary to say that, the bay being funnel-shaped, the tides rise to an extraordinary height. Twice a month, at the full and the change of the moon, the attractions of sun and moon combine, and the water rushes in with a roar like that of a tidal wave. The bore of Hangchow is not surpassed by that of the Hooghly or of the Bay of Fundy. Vessels are wrecked by it; and even the monsters of the deep are unable to contend with the fury of its irresistible advance.

CHAPTER V

PROVINCE OF KIANGSU

Nanking—Shanghai—The Yang-tse Kiang—The Yellow River

Bordering on the sea, traversed by the Grand Canal and the Yang-tse Kiang, the chief river of the Empire, rich in agriculture, fisheries, and commerce, Kiangsu is the undisputed queen of the eighteen provinces. In 1905 it was represented to the throne as too heavy a burden for one set of officers. The northern section was therefore detached and erected into a separate province; but before the new government was organised the Empress Dowager yielded to remonstrances and rescinded her hasty decree—showing how reluctant she is to contravene the wishes of her people. What China requires above all things is the ballot box, by which the people may make their wishes known.

The name of the province is derived from its two chief cities, Suchow and Nanking. Suchow, the Paris of the Far East, is coupled with Hangchow in a popular rhyme, which represents the two as paragon cities:

"Shang yu t'ien t'ang hia yu Su-Hang."

"Su and Hang, so rich and fair,
May well with Paradise compare."

The local dialect is so soft and musical that strolling players from Suchow are much sought for in the adjacent provinces. A well-known couplet says:

"I'd rather hear men wrangle in Suchow's dulcet tones
Than hear that mountain jargon, composed of sighs and groans."

Farther inland, near the banks of the "Great River," stands Nanking, the old capital of the Ming dynasty. The Manchus, unwilling to call it a king, i.e. seat of empire, changed its name to Kiangning; but the old title survives in spite of official jealousy. As it will figure prominently in our history we shall not pause there at present, but proceed to Shanghai, a place which more than any other controls the destinies of the State.

Formerly an insignificant town of the third order (provincial capitals and prefectural towns ranking respectively first and second), some sapient Englishman with an eye to commerce perceived the advantage of the site; and in the dictation of the terms of peace in 1842 it was made one of the five ports. It has come to overshadow Canton; and more than all the other ports it displays to the Chinese the marvels of Western skill, knowledge, and enterprise.

On a broad estuary near the mouth of the main artery that penetrates the heart of China, it has become a leading emporium of the world's commerce. The native city still hides its squalor behind low walls of brick, but outside the North Gate lies a tract of land known as the "Foreign Concessions." There a beautiful city styled the "model settlement" has sprung up like a gorgeous pond-lily from the muddy, paddy-fields. Having spent a year there, I regard it with a sort of affection as one of my Oriental homes.

Shanghai presents a spectacle rare amongst the seaports of the world. Its broad streets, well kept and soon to be provided with electric trolleys, extend for miles along the banks of two rivers, lined with opulent business houses and luxurious mansions, most of the latter being surrounded by gardens and embowered in groves of flowering trees. Nor do these magazines and dwelling-houses stand merely for taste and opulence. Within the bounds of the Concessions is the reign of law—not, as elsewhere in China, the arbitrary will of a magistrate, but the offspring of freedom and justice. Foreigners live everywhere under the protection of their own national flags: and within the Concessions. Chinese accused of crimes are tried by a mixed court which serves as an object-lesson in justice and humanity. Had one time to peep into a native yamên, one might see bundles of bamboos, large and small, prepared for the bastinado; one might see, also, thumb-screws, wooden boots, wooden collars, and other instruments of torture, some of them intended to make mince-meat of the human body. The use of these has now been forbidden.[*]

[Footnote *: In another city a farmer having extorted a sum of money from a tailor living within the Concession, the latter appealed to the British consul for Justice. The consul, an inexperienced young man, observing that the case concerned only the Chinese, referred it to the city magistrate, who instantly ordered the tailor to receive a hundred blows for having applied to a foreign court.]

In Shanghai there are schools of all grades, some under the foreign municipal government, others under missionary societies. St. John's College (U. S. Episcopal) and the Anglo-Chinese College (American M. E.) bear the palm in the line of education so long borne by the Roman Catholics of Siccawei. Added to these, newspapers foreign and native—the latter exercising a freedom of opinion impossible beyond the limits of this city of refuge—the Society for the Diffusion of Christian Knowledge and other translation bureaux, foreign and native, turning out books by the thousand with the aid of steam presses, form a combination of forces to which China is no longer insensible.

Resuming our imaginary voyage we proceed northward, and in the space of an hour find ourselves at the mouth of the Yang-tse Kiang, or Ta Kiang, the "Great River," as the Chinese call it. The width of its embouchure suggests an Asiatic rival of the Amazon and La Plata. We now see why this part of the ocean is sometimes described as the Yellow Sea. A river whose volume, it is said, equals that of two hundred and forty-four such rivulets as Father Thames, pours into it its muddy waters, making new islands and advancing the shore far into the domain of Neptune.

Notice on the left those long rows of trees that appear to spring from the bosom of the river. They are the life-belt of the Island of Tsungming which six centuries ago rose like the fabled Delos from the surface of the turbid waters. Accepted as the river's tribute to the Dragon Throne, it now forms a district of the province with a population of over half a million. About the same time, a large tract of land was carried into the sea by the Hwang Ho, the "Yellow River," which gave rise to the popular proverb, "If we lose in Tungking we gain in Tsungming."

The former river comes with its mouth full of pearls; the latter yawns to engulf the adjacent land. At present, however, the Yellow River is dry and thirsty, the unruly stream, the opposite of Horace's uxorius amnis, having about forty years ago forsaken its old bed and rushed away to the Gulf of Pechili (Peh-chihli). This produced as much consternation as the Mississippi would occasion if it should plough its way across the state that bears its name and enter the Gulf of Mexico at Mobile Bay. The same phenomenon has occurred at long intervals in times past. The wilful stream has oscillated with something like periodical regularity from side to side of the Shantung promontory, and sometimes it has flowed with a divided current, converting that territory into an island. Now, however, the river seems to have settled itself in its new channel, entering the gulf at Yang Chia Kow—a place which foreign sailors describe as "Yankee cow"—and making a portentous alteration in the geography of the globe.

CHAPTER VI

PROVINCE OF SHANTUNG

Kiao-Chao—Visit to Confucius's Tomb—Expedition to the Jews of K'ai-fung-fu—The Grand Canal—Chefoo

In Shantung the people appear to be much more robust than their neighbours to the south. Wheat and millet rather than rice are their staple food. In their orchards apples, pears and peaches take the place of oranges.

At Kiao-chao (Kiau-Chau) the Germans, who occupied that port in 1897, have built a beautiful town opposite the Island of Tsingtao, presenting a fine model for imitation, which, however, the Chinese are not in haste to copy. They have constructed also a railway from the sea to Tsinan-fu, very nearly bisecting the province. Weihien is destined to become a railroad centre; and several missionary societies are erecting colleges there to teach the people truths that Confucius never knew. More than half a century ago, when a missionary distributed Christian books in that region, the people brought them back saying, "We have the works of our Sage, and they are sufficient for us." Will not the new arts and sciences of the West convince them that their Sage was not omniscient?

In 1866 I earned the honours of a hadji by visiting the tomb of Confucius—a magnificent mausoleum surrounded by his descendants of the seventieth generation, one of whom in quality of high priest to China's greatest teacher enjoys the rank of a hereditary duke.

On that occasion, I had come up from a visit to the Jews in Honan. Having profited by a winter vacation to make an expedition to K'ai-fung-fu, I had the intention of pushing on athwart the province to Hankow. The interior, however, as I learned to my intense disappointment, was convulsed with rebellion. No cart driver was willing to venture his neck, his steed, and his vehicle by going in that direction. I accordingly steered for the Mecca of Shantung, and, having paid my respects to the memory of China's greatest sage, struck the Grand Canal and proceeded to Shanghai. From K'ai-fung-fu I had come by land slowly, painfully, and not without danger. From Tsi-ning I drifted down with luxurious ease in a well-appointed house-boat, meditating poetic terms in which to describe the contrast.

The canal deserves the name of "grand" as the wall on the north deserves the name of "great." Memorials of ancient times, they both still stand unrivalled by anything the Western world has to show, if one except the Siberian Railway. The Great Wan is an effete relic no longer of use; and it appears to be satire on human foresight that the Grand Canal should have been built by the very people whom the Great Wall was intended to exclude from China. The canal is as useful to-day as it was six centuries ago, and remains the chief glory of the Mongol dynasty.

Kublai having set up his throne in the north, and completed the conquest of the eighteen provinces, ordered the construction of this magnificent waterway, which extends 800 miles from Peking to Hangchow and connects with other waterways which put the northern capital in roundabout communication with provinces of the extreme south. His object was to tap the rice-fields of Central China and obtain a food supply which could not be interfered with by those daring sea-robbers, the redoubtable Japanese, who had destroyed his fleets and rendered abortive his attempt at conquest. Of the Great Wall, it may be said that the oppression inseparable from its construction hastened the overthrow of the house of its builder. The same is probably true of the Grand Canal. The myriads of unpaid labourers who were drafted by corvée from among the Chinese people subsequently enlisted, they or their children, under the revolutionary banner which expelled the oppressive Mongols.

Another port in this province which we cannot pass without an admiring glance, is Chefoo (Chifu). On a fine hill rising from the sea wave the flags of several nations; in the harbour is a cluster of islands; and above the settlement another noble hill rears its head crowned with a temple and groves of trees. On its sides and near the seashore are the residences of missionaries. There I have more than once found a refuge from the summer heat, under the hospitable roof of Mrs. Nevius, the widow of my friend Dr. J. L. Nevius, who, after opening a mission in Hangchow, became one of the pioneers of Shantung. In Chefoo he planted not only a church, but a fruit garden. To the Chinese eye this garden was a striking symbol of what his gospel proposed to effect for the people.

CHAPTER VII

PROVINCE OF CHIHLI

Taku—Tientsin—Peking—The Summer Palace—Patachu—Temples of Heaven, Earth, and Agriculture—Foreign Quarter—The Forbidden City—King-Han Railway—Paoting-fu

Crossing the gulf we reach Taku, at the mouth of the Peiho, and, passing the dismantled forts, ascend the river to Tientsin.

In 1858 I spent two months at Taku and Tientsin in connection with the tedious negotiations of that year. At the latter place I became familiar with the dusty road to the treaty temple; and at the former witnessed the capture of the forts by the combined squadrons of Great Britain and France. The next year on the same ground I saw the allied forces repulsed with heavy loss—a defeat avenged by the capture of Peking in 1860.

In the Boxer War the relief force met with formidable opposition at Tientsin. The place has, however, risen with new splendour from its half-ruined condition, and now poses as the principal residence of the most powerful of the viceroys. Connected by the river with the seaboard, by the Grand Canal with several provinces to the south, and by rail with Peking, Hankow and Manchuria, Tientsin commands the chief lines of communication in northern China. In point of trade it ranks as the third in importance of the treaty ports.

Three hours by rail bring us to the gates of Peking, the northern capital. Formerly it took another hour to get within the city. Superstition or suspicion kept the railway station at a distance; now, however, it is at the Great Central Gate. Unlike Nanking, Peking has nothing picturesque or commanding in its location. On the west and north, at a distance of ten to twenty miles, ranges of blue hills form a feature in the landscape. Within these limits the eye rests on nothing but flat fields, interspersed with clumps of trees overshadowing some family cemetery or the grave of some grandee.

Between the city and the hills are the Yuen Ming Yuen, the Emperor's summer palace, burnt in 1860 and still an unsightly ruin, and the Eho Yuen, the summer residence of the Empress Dowager. Enclosing two or three pretty hills and near to a lofty range, the latter occupies a site of rare beauty. It also possesses mountain water in rich abundance. No fewer than twenty-four springs gush from the base of one of its hills, feeding a pretty lake and numberless canals. Partly destroyed in 1860, this palace was for many years as silent as the halls of Palmyra. I have often wandered through its neglected grounds. Now, every prominent rock is crowned with pagoda or pavilion. There are, however, some things which the slave of the lamp is unable to produce even at the command of an empress—there are no venerable oaks or tall pines to lend their majesty to the scene.

Patachu, in the adjacent hills, used to be a favourite summer resort for the legations and other foreigners before the seaside became accessible by rail. Its name, signifying the "eight great places," denotes that number of Buddhist temples, built one above another in a winding gorge on the hillside. In the highest, called Pearl Grotto, 1,200 feet above the sea, I have found repose for many a summer. I am there now (June, 1906), and there I expect to write the closing chapters of this work. These temples are at my feet; the great city is in full view. To that shrine the emperors sometimes made excursions to obtain a distant prospect of the world. One of them, Kien Lung, somewhat noted as a poet, has left, inscribed on a rock, a few lines commemorative of his visit:

"Why have I scaled this dizzy height?
Why sought this mountain den?
I tread as on enchanted ground,
Unlike the abode of men.

"Beneath my feet my realm I see
As in a map unrolled,
Above my head a canopy
Adorned with clouds of gold."

The capital consists of two parts: the Tartar city, a square of four miles; and the Chinese city, measuring five miles by three. They are separated by imposing walls with lofty towers, the outer wall being twenty-one miles in circuit. At present the subject people are permitted to mingle freely with their conquerors; but most of the business is done in the Chinese city. Resembling other Chinese towns in its unsavoury condition, this section contains two imperial temples of great sanctity. One of these, the Temple of Heaven, has a circular altar of fine white marble with an azure dome in its centre in imitation of the celestial vault. Here the Emperor announces his accession, prays for rain, and offers an ox as a burnt sacrifice at the winter solstice—addressing himself to Shang-ti, the supreme ruler, "by whom kings reign and princes decree justice."

The Temple of Agriculture, which stands at a short distance from that just mentioned, was erected in honour of the first man who cultivated the earth. In Chinese, he has no name, his title, Shin-nung signifying the "divine husbandman"—a masculine Ceres. Might we not call the place the Temple of Cain? There the Emperor does honour to husbandry by ploughing a few furrows at the vernal equinox. His example no doubt tends to encourage and comfort his toiling subjects.

Another temple associated with these is that of Mother Earth, the personified consort of Heaven; but it is not in this locality. The eternal fitness of things requires that it should be outside of the walls and on the north. It has a square altar, because the earth is supposed to have "four corners." "Heaven is round and Earth square," is the first line of a school reader for boys. The Tartar city is laid out with perfect regularity, and its streets and alleys are all of convenient width.

Passing from the Chinese city through the Great Central Gate we enter Legation Street, so called because most of the legations are situated on or near it. Architecturally they make no show, being of one story, or at most two stories, in height and hidden behind high walls. So high and strong are the walls of the British Legation that in the Boxer War of 1900 it served the whole community for a fortress, wherein we sustained a siege of eight weeks. A marble obelisk near the Legation gate commemorates the siege, and a marble gateway on a neighbouring street marks the spot where Baron Ketteler was shot. Since that war a foreign quarter has been marked out, the approaches to which have been partially fortified. The streets are now greatly improved; ruined buildings have been repaired; and the general appearance of the old city has been altered for the better.

Two more walled enclosures have to be passed before we arrive at the palace. One of them forms a protected barrack or camping-ground for the palace guards and other officials attendant on the court. The other is a sacred precinct shielded from vulgar eyes and intrusive feet, and bears the name "Forbidden City." In the year following the flight of the court these palaces were guarded by foreign troops, and were thrown open to foreign visitors.

Marble bridges, balustrades, and stairways bewilder a stranger. Dragons, phœnixes and other imaginary monsters carved on doorways and pillars warn him that he is treading on sacred ground. The ground, though paved with granite, is far from clean; and the costly carvings within remind one of the saying of an Oriental monarch, "The spider taketh hold with her hands and is in kings' houses." None of the buildings has more than one story, but the throne-rooms and great halls are so lofty as to suggest the dome of a cathedral. The roofs are all covered with tiles of a yellow hue, a colour which even princes are not permitted to use.

Separated from the palace by a moat and a wall is Prospect Hill, a charming elevation which serves as an imperial garden. On the fall of the city in 1643 the last of the Mings hanged himself there—after having stabbed his daughter, like another Virginius, as a last proof of paternal affection.

From the gate of the Forbidden City to the palace officials high and low must go on foot, unless His Majesty by special favour confers the privilege of riding on horseback, a distinction which is always announced in the Gazette by the statement that His Majesty has "given a horse" to So-and-So. No trolleys are to be seen in the streets, and four-wheeled carriages are rare and recent. Carts, camels, wheel-barrows, and the ubiquitous rickshaw are the means of transport and locomotion. The canals are open sewers never used for boats.

Not lacking in barbaric splendour, as regards the convenience of living this famous capital will not compare with a country village of the Western world. On the same parallel as Philadelphia, but dryer, hotter, and colder, the climate is so superb that the city, though lacking a system of sanitation, has a remarkably low death-rate. In 1859 I first entered its gates. In 1863 I came here to reside. More than any other place on earth it has been to me a home; and here I am not unlikely to close my pilgrimage.

On my first visit, I made use of Byron's lines on Lisbon to express my impressions of Peking. Though there are now some signs of improvement in the city the quotation can hardly be considered as inapplicable at the present time. Here it is for the convenience of the next traveller:

"...Whoso entereth within this town,
That, sheening far, celestial seems to be,
Disconsolate will wander up and down,
'Mid many things unsightly to strange ee:
For hut and palace show like filthily:
The dingy denizens are rear'd in dirt;
Ne personage of high or mean degree
Doth care for cleanness of surtout or shirt..."
(Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto the First, st. xvii.)

Returning to the station we face about for the south and take tickets for Paoting-fu. We are on the first grand trunk railway of this empire. It might indeed be described as a vertebral column from which iron roads will ere long be extended laterally on either side, like ribs, to support and bind together the huge frame. Undertaken about twelve years ago it has only recently been completed as far as Hankow, about six hundred miles. The last spike in the bridge across the Yellow River was driven in August, 1905, and since that time through trains have been running from the capital to the banks of the Yang-tse Kiang.

This portion has been constructed by a Belgian syndicate, and their task has been admirably performed. I wish I could say as much of the other half (from Hankow to Canton), the contract for which was given to an American company. After a preliminary survey this company did no work, but, under pretext of waiting for tranquil times, watched the fluctuations of the share market. The whole enterprise was eventually taken over by a native company opposed to foreign ownership—at an advance of 300 per cent. It was a clever deal; but the Americans sacrificed the credit and the influence of their country, and a grand opportunity was lost through cupidity and want of patriotism.

This iron highway is destined in the near future to exert a mighty influence on people and government. It will bring the provinces together and make them feel their unity. It will also insure that communication between the north and the south shall not be interrupted as it might be were it dependent on sea or canal. These advantages must have been so patent as to overcome an inbred hostility to development. Instead of being a danger, these railways are bound to become a source of incalculable strength.

Paoting-fu was the scene of a sad tragedy in 1900, and when avenging troops appeared on the scene, and saw the charred bones of missionaries among the ashes of their dwellings, they were bent on destroying the whole city, but a missionary who served as guide begged them to spare the place. So grateful were the inhabitants for his kindly intervention that they bestowed on the mission a large plot of ground—showing that, however easily wrought up, they were not altogether destitute of the better feelings of humanity.

Continuing our journey through half a dozen considerable cities, at one of which, Shunteh-fu, an American mission has recently been opened, we reach the borders of the province of Honan.

CHAPTER VIII

PROVINCE OF HONAN

A Great Bridge—K'ai-fung-fu—Yellow Jews

Passing the border city of Weihwei-fu, we find ourselves arrested by the Hwang Ho—not that we experience any difficulty in reaching the other bank; but we wish to indulge our curiosity in inspecting the means of transit. It is a bridge, and such a bridge as has no parallel on earth. Five miles in length, it is longer than any other bridge built for the passage of a river. It is not, however, as has been said, the longest bridge in the world; the elevated railway of New York is a bridge of much greater length. So are some of the bridges that carry railways across swamp-lands on the Pacific Coast. Bridges of that sort, however, are of comparatively easy construction. They have no rebellious stream or treacherous quicksands to contend with. Cæsar's bridge over the Rhine was an achievement worthy to be recorded among the victories of his Gallic wars; but it was a child's plaything in comparison with the bridge over the Yellow River. Cæsar's bridge rested on sesquipedalian beams of solid timber. The Belgian bridge is supported on tubular piles of steel of sesquipedalian diameter driven by steam or screwed down into the sand to a depth of fifty feet.

There have been other bridges near this very spot with which it might be compared. One of them was called Ta-liang, the "Great Bridge," and gave name to a city. Another was Pien-liang, "The Bridge of Pien," one of the names of the present city of K'ai-fung-fu. That bridge has long since disappeared; but the name adheres to the city.

What an unstable foundation on which to erect a seat of empire! Yet the capital has been located in this vicinity more than once or twice within the last twenty-five centuries. The first occasion was during the dynasty of Chou (1100 B. c.), when the king, to be more central, or perhaps dreading the incursions of the Tartars, forsook his capital in Shensi and followed the stream down almost to the sea, braving the quicksands and the floods rather than face those terrible foes. Again, in the Sung period, it was the seat of government for a century and a half.

The safest refuge for a fugitive court which, once established there, has no reason to fear attack by sea or river, it is somewhat strange that in 1900 the Empress Dowager did not direct her steps toward K'ai-fung-fu, instead of escaping to Si-ngan. Being, however, herself a Tartar, she might have been expected to act in a way contrary to precedents set by Chinese dynasties. Obviously, she chose the latter as a place of refuge because it lay near the borders of Tartary. It is noteworthy that a loyal governor of Honan at that very time prepared a palace for her accommodation in K'ai-fung-fu, and when the court was invited to return to Peking, he implored her not to risk herself in the northern capital.

Honan is a province rich in agricultural, and probably in mineral, resources, but it has no outlet in the way of trade. What a boon this railway is destined to be, as a channel of communication with neighbouring provinces!

I crossed the Yellow River in 1866, but there was then no bridge of any kind. Two-thirds of a mile in width, with a furious current, the management of the ferry-boat was no easy task. On that occasion an object which presented stronger attractions than this wonderful bridge had drawn me to K'ai-fung-fu—a colony of Jews, a fragment of the Lost Tribes of Israel. As mentioned in a previous chapter, I had come by land over the very track now followed by the railroad, but under conditions in strong contrast with the luxuries of a railway carriage—"Alone, unfriended, solitary, slow," I had made my way painfully, shifting from horse to cart, and sometimes compelled by the narrowness of a path to descend to a wheelbarrow. How I longed for the advent of the iron horse. Now I have with me a jovial company; and we may enjoy the mental stimulus of an uninterrupted session of the Oriental Society, while making more distance in an hour than I then made in a day.

Of the condition of the Jews of K'ai-fung-fu, as I found them, I have given a detailed account elsewhere.[*] Suffice it to say here that the so-called colony consisted of about four hundred persons, belonging to seven families or clans. Undermined by a flood of the Yellow River, their synagogue had become ruinous, and, being unable to repair it, they had disposed of its timbers to relieve the pressure of their dire poverty. Nothing remained but the vacant space, marked by a single stone recording the varying fortunes of these forlorn Israelites. It avers that their remoter ancestors arrived in China by way of India in the Han dynasty, before the Christian era, and that the founders of this particular colony found their way to K'ai-fung-fu in the T'ang dynasty about 800 A. D. It also gives an outline of their Holy Faith, showing that, in all their wanderings, they had not forsaken the God of their fathers. They still possessed some rolls of the Law, written in Hebrew, on sheepskins, but they no longer had a rabbi to expound them. They had forgotten the sacred tongue, and some of them had wandered into the fold of Mohammed, whose creed resembled their own. Some too had embraced the religion of Buddha.

[Footnote *: See "Cycle of Cathay." Revell & Co., New York.]

My report was listened to with much interest by the rich Jews of Shanghai, but not one of them put his hand in his pocket to rebuild the ruined synagogue; and without that for a rallying-place the colony must ere long fade away, and be absorbed in the surrounding heathenism, or be led to embrace Christianity.

I now learn that the Jews of Shanghai have manifested enough interest to bring a few of their youth to that port for instruction in the Hebrew language. Also that some of these K'ai-fung-fu Jews are frequent attendants in Christian chapels, which have now been opened in that city. To my view, the resuscitation of that ancient colony would be as much of a miracle as the return from captivity in the days of Cyrus.

CHAPTER IX

THE RIVER PROVINCES

Hupeh—Hankow—Hanyang Iron Works—A Centre of Missionary Activity—Hunan—Kiangsi—Anhwei—Native Province of Li Hung Chang

By the term "river provinces" are to be understood those provinces of central and western China which are made accessible to intercourse and trade by means of the Yang-tse Kiang.

Pursuing our journey, in twelve hours by rail we reach the frontier of Hupeh. At that point we see above us a fortification perched on the side of a lofty hill which stands beyond the line. At a height more than double that of this crenelated wall is a summer resort of foreigners from Hankow and other parts of the interior. I visited this place in 1905. In Chinese, the plateau on which it stands is called, from a projecting rock, the "Rooster's Crest"; shortened into the more expressive name, the "Roost," it is suggestive of the repose of summer. It presents a magnificent prospect, extending over a broad belt of both provinces.

Six hours more and we arrive in Hankow, which is one of three cities built at the junction of the Han and the Yang-tse, the Tripolis of China, a tripod of empire, the hub of the universe, as the Chinese fondly regard it. The other two cities are Wuchang, the capital of the viceroyalty, and Hanyang, on the opposite bank of the river.

In Hankow one beholds a Shanghai on a smaller scale, and in the other two cities the eye is struck by indications of the change which is coming over the externals of Chinese life.

At Hanyang, which is reached by a bridge, may be seen an extensive and well-appointed system of iron-works, daily turning out large quantities of steel rails for the continuation of the railway. It also produces large quantities of iron ordnance for the contingencies of war. This is the pet enterprise of the enlightened Viceroy Chang Chi-tung; but on the other side of the Yang-tse we have cheering evidence that he has not confined his reforms to transportation and the army. There, on the south bank, you may see the long walls and tall chimneys of numerous manufacturing establishments—cotton-mills, silk filatures, rope-walks, glass-works, tile-works, powder-works—all designed to introduce the arts of the West, and to wage an industrial war with the powers of Christendom. There, too, in a pretty house overlooking the Great River, I spent three years as aid to the viceroy in educational work. In the heart of China, it was a watch-tower from which I could look up and down the river and study the condition of these inland provinces.

This great centre was early preëmpted by the pioneers of missionary enterprise. Here Griffith John set up the banner of the cross forty years ago and by indefatigable and not unfruitful labours earned for himself the name of "the Apostle of Central China." In addition he has founded a college for the training of native preachers. The year 1905 was the jubilee of his arrival in the empire. Here, too, came David Hill, a saintly man combining the characters of St. Paul and of John Howard, as one of the pioneers of the churches of Great Britain. These leaders have been followed by a host who, if less distinguished, have perhaps accomplished more for the advancement of the Kingdom of Christ. Without the coöperation of such agencies all reformatory movements like those initiated by the viceroy must fall short of elevating the people to the level of Christian civilisation.

The London Mission, the English Wesleyans, and the American Episcopalians, all have flourishing stations at Wuchang. The Boone school, under the auspices of the last-named society, is an admirable institution, and takes rank with the best colleges in China.

At Hankow the China Inland Mission is represented by a superintendent and a home for missionaries in transit. At that home the Rev. J. Hudson Taylor, the founder of that great society, whom I call the Loyola of Protestant missions, spent a few days in 1906; and there Dr. John and I sat with him for a group of the "Three Senior Missionaries" in China.

The river provinces may be divided into lower and upper, the dividing-line being at Ichang near the gorges of the Yang-tse. Hupeh and Hunan, Kiangsi and Anhwei occupy the lower reach; Szechuen, Kweichau, and Yünnan, the upper one. The first two form one viceregal district, with a population exceeding that of any European country excepting Russia.

Hupeh signifies "north of the lake"; Hunan, "south of the lake"—the great lake of Tungting lying between the two. Hupeh has been open to trade and residence for over forty years; but the sister province was long hermetically sealed against the footprints of the white man. Twenty or even ten years ago to venture within its limits would have cost a European his life. Its capital, Changsha, was the seat of an anti-foreign propaganda from which issued masses of foul literature; but the lawless hostility of the people has been held in check by the judicious firmness of the present viceroy, and that city is now the seat of numerous mission bodies which are vying with each other in their efforts to diffuse light and knowledge. It is also open to commerce as a port of trade.

One of the greatest distinctions of the province is its production of brave men, one of the bravest of whom was the first Marquis Tseng who, at the head of a patriotic force from his native province, recaptured the city of Nanking and put an end to the chaotic government of the Taiping rebels—a service which has ever since been recognised by the Chinese Government in conferring the viceroyalty of Nanking on a native of Hunan.

Lying to the south of the river, is the province of Kiangsi, containing the Poyang Lake, next in size to the Tungting. Above its entrance at Kiukiang rises a lone mountain which bears the name of Kuling. Beautifully situated, and commanding a wide view of lake and river, its sides are dotted with pretty cottages, erected as summer resorts for people from all the inland ports. Here may be seen the flags of many nations, and here the hard-worked missionary finds rest and recreation, without idleness; for he finds clubs for the discussion of politics and philosophy, and libraries which more than supply the absence of his own. Just opposite the entrance to the lake stands the "Little Orphan," a vine-clad rock 200 feet in height, with a small temple on the top. It looks like a fragment torn from the mountain-side and planted in the bosom of the stream. Fancy fails to picture the convulsion of which the "Little Orphan" is the monument.

Farther down is the province of Anhwei which takes its name from its chief two cities, Anking and Weichou. In general resembling Kiangsi, it has two flourishing ports on the river, Anking, the capital, and Wuhu. Of the people nothing noteworthy is to be observed, save that they are unusually turbulent, and their lawless spirit has not been curbed by any strong hand like that of the viceroy at Wuchang.[*] The province is distinguished for its production of great men, of whom Li Hung Chang was one.

[Footnote *: This was written before the Nanchang riot of March, 1906.]

CHAPTER X

PROVINCES OF THE UPPER YANG-TSE

A Perilous Passage—Szechuen—Kweichau, the Poorest Province in China—Yünnan—Tribes of Aborigines

Thus far our voyage of exploration, like one of Cook's tours, has been personally conducted. From this point, however, I must depend upon the experience of others: the guide himself must seek a guide to conduct him through the remaining portions of the empire.

We enter the Upper Yang-tse by a long and tortuous passage through which the "Great River" rushes with a force and a roar like the cataracts of the Rhine, only on a vastly greater scale. In some bygone age volcanic forces tore asunder a mountain range, and the waters of the great stream furrowed out a channel; but the obstructing rocks, so far from being worn away, remain as permanent obstacles to steam navigation and are a cause of frequent shipwrecks. Yet, undeterred by dangers that eclipse Scylla and Charybdis, the laborious Chinese have for centuries past carried on an immense traffic through this perilous passage. In making the ascent their junks are drawn against the current by teams of coolies, tens or hundreds of the latter being harnessed to the tow-lines of one boat and driven like a bullock train in South Africa. Slow and difficult is the ascent, but swift and perilous the downward passage.

No doubt engineering may succeed in removing some of the obstacles and in minifying the dangers of this passage. Steam, too, may supply another mode of traction to take the place of these teams of men. A still revolution is in prospect, namely a ship canal or railway. The latter, perhaps, might be made to lift the junks bodily out of the water and transport them beyond the rapids. Two cities, however, would suffer somewhat by this change in the mode of navigation, namely, Ichang at the foot and Chungking at the head of the rapids. The latter is the chief river port of Szechuen, a province having four times the average area.

The great province of Szechuen, if it only had the advantages of a seacoast, would take the lead in importance. As it is, it is deemed sufficiently important, like Chihli, to have a viceroy of its own. The name signifies the "four rivers," and the province has as many ranges of mountains. One of them, the Omeshan, is celebrated for its beauty and majesty. The mountains give the province a great variety of climate, and the rivers supply means of transportation and irrigation. Its people, too, are more uniform in language and character than those of most other regions. Their language partakes of the Northern mandarin. Near the end of the Ming dynasty the whole population is said to have been destroyed in the fratricidal wars of that sanguinary period. The population accordingly is comparatively sparse, and the cities are said to present a new and prosperous aspect. Above Szechuen lie the two provinces of Kweichau and Yünnan, forming one viceroyalty under the name of Yünkwei.

Kweichau has the reputation of being the poorest province in China, with a very sparse population, nearly one-half of whom are aborigines, called shans, lolos, and miaotzes.

Yünnan (signifying not "cloudy south," but "south of the cloudy mountains") is next in area to Szechuen. Its resources are as yet undeveloped, and it certainly has a great future. Its climate, if it may be said to have one, is reputed to be unhealthful, and among its hills are many deep gorges which the Chinese say are full of chang chi, "poisonous gases" which are fatal to men and animals—like the Grotto del Cane in Italy. But these gorges and cliffs abound in better things also. They are rich in unexploited coal measures and they contain also many mines of the purest copper ore. The river that washes its borders here bears the name of Kinsha, the river of "golden sands." Some of its rivers have the curious peculiarity of flowing the reverse way, that is, to the west and south instead of toward the eastern sea. The Chinese accordingly call the province "Tiensheng" the country of the "converse streams."

Within the borders of Yünnan there are said to be more than a hundred tribes of aborigines all more or less akin to those of Kweichau and Burma, but each under its own separate chief. Some of them are fine-looking, vigorous people; but the Chinese describe them as living in a state of utter savagery. Missionaries, however, have recently begun work for them; and we may hope that, as for the Karens of Burma, a better day will soon dawn on the Yünnan aborigines.

The French, having colonies on the border, are naturally desirous of exploiting the provinces of this southern belt, and China is intensely suspicious of encroachment from that quarter.

CHAPTER XI

NORTHWESTERN PROVINCES

Shansi—Shensi—Earliest Known Home of the Chinese—Kansuh

Of the three northwestern provinces, the richest is Shansi. More favoured in climate and soil than the other members of the group, its population is more dense. Divided from Chihli by a range of hills, its whole surface is hilly, but not mountainous. The highlands give variety to its temperature—condensing the moisture and supplying water for irrigation. The valleys are extremely fertile, and of them it may be said in the words of Job, "As for the earth, out of it cometh bread: and underneath it is turned up as it were fire." Not only do the fields yield fine crops of wheat and millet, but there are extensive coal measures of excellent quality. Iron ore also is found in great abundance. Mining enterprises have accordingly been carried on from ancient times, and they have now, with the advent of steam, acquired a fresh impetus. It follows, of course, that the province is prolific of bankers. Shansi bankers monopolise the business of finance in all the adjacent provinces.

Next on the west comes the province of Shensi, from shen, a "strait or pass" (not shan a "hill"), and si, "west."

Here was the earliest home of the Chinese race of which there is any record. On the Yellow River, which here forms the boundary of two provinces, stands the city of Si-ngan where the Chou dynasty set up its throne in the twelfth century B. C. Since that date many dynasties have made it the seat of empire. Their palaces have disappeared; but most of them have left monumental inscriptions from which a connected history might be extracted. To us the most interesting monument is a stone, erected about 800 A. D. to commemorate the introduction of Christianity by some Nestorian missionaries from western Asia.

The province of Kansuh is comparatively barren. Its boundaries extend far out into regions peopled by Mongol tribes; and the neighbourhood of great deserts gives it an arid climate unfavourable to agriculture. Many of its inhabitants are immigrants from Central Asia and profess the Mohammedan faith. It is almost surrounded by the Yellow River, like a picture set in a gilded frame, reminding one of that river of paradise which "encompasseth the whole land of Havilah where there is gold." Whether there is gold in Kansuh we have yet to learn; but no doubt some grains of the precious metal might be picked up amongst its shifting sands.

CHAPTER XII

OUTLYING TERRITORIES

Manchuria—Mongolia—Turkestan—Tibet, the Roof of the World—Journey of Huc and Gabet.

Beyond the eastern extremity of the Great Wall, bounded on the west by Mongolia, on the north by the Amur, on the east by the Russian seaboard, and on the south by Korea and the Gulf of Pechili, lies the home of the Manchus—the race now dominant in the Chinese Empire. China claims it, just as Great Britain claimed Normandy, because her conquerors came from that region; and now that two of her neighbours have exhausted themselves in fighting for it, she will take good care that neither of them shall filch the jewel from her crown.

That remarkable achievement, the conquest of China by a few thousand semi-civilised Tartars, is treated in the second part of this work.

Manchuria consists of three regions now denominated provinces, Shengking, Kairin, and Helungkiang. They are all under one governor-general whose seat is at Mukden, a city sacred in the eyes of every Manchu, because there are the tombs of the fathers of the dynasty.

The native population of Manchuria having been drafted off to garrison and colonise the conquered country, their deserted districts were thrown open to Chinese settlers. The population of the three provinces is mainly Chinese, and, assimilated in government to those of China, they are reckoned as completing the number of twenty-one. Opulent in grain-fields, forests, and minerals, with every facility for commerce, no part of the empire has a brighter future. So thinly peopled is its northern portion that it continues to be a vast hunting-ground which supplies the Chinese market with sables and tiger-skins besides other peltries. The tiger-skins are particularly valuable as having longer and richer fur than those of Bengal.

Of the Manchus as a people, I shall speak later on.[*] Those remaining in their original habitat are extremely rude and ignorant; yet even these hitherto neglected regions are now coming under the enlightening influence of a system of government schools.

[Footnote *: Part II. page [140] and [142]; part III, pages [267-280]]

Mongolia, the largest division of Tartary, if not of the Empire, is scarcely better known than the mountain regions of Tibet, a large portion of its area being covered with deserts as uninviting and as seldom visited as the African Sahara. One route, however, has been well trodden by Russian travellers, namely, that lying between Kiachta and Peking.

In the reign of Kanghi the Russians were granted the privilege of establishing an ecclesiastical mission to minister to a Cossack garrison which the Emperor had captured at Albazin trespassing on his grounds. Like another Nebuchadnezzar, he transplanted them to the soil of China. He also permitted the Russians to bring tribute to the "Son of Heaven" once in ten years. That implied a right to trade, so that the Russians, like other envoys, in Chinese phrase "came lean and went away fat." But they were not allowed to leave the beaten track: they were merchants, not travellers. Not till the removal of the taboo within the last half-century have these outlying dependencies been explored by men like Richthofen and Sven Hedin. Formerly the makers of maps garnished those unknown regions

"With caravans for want of towns."

Sooth to say, there are no towns, except Urga, a shrine for pilgrimage, the residence of a living Buddha, and Kiachta and Kalgan, terminal points of the caravan route already referred to.

Kiachta is a double town—one-half of it on each side of the Russo-Chinese boundary—presenting in striking contrast the magnificence of a Russian city and the poverty and filth of a Tartar encampment. The whole country is called in Chinese "the land of grass." Its inhabitants have sheepfolds and cattle ranches, but neither fields nor houses, unless tents and temporary huts may be so designated. To this day, nomadic in their habits, they migrate from place to place with their flocks and herds as the exigencies of water and pasturage may require.

Lines of demarcation exist for large tracts belonging to a tribe, but no minor divisions such as individual holdings. The members of a clan all enjoy their grazing range in common, and hold themselves ready to fight for the rights of their chieftain. Bloody feuds lasting for generations, such as would rival those of the Scottish clans, are not of infrequent occurrence. Their Manchu overlord treats these tribal conflicts with sublime indifference, as he does the village wars in China.

The Mongolian chiefs, or "princes" as they are called, are forty-eight in number. The "forty-eight princes" is a phrase as familiar to the Chinese ear as the "eighteen provinces" is to ours. Like the Manchus they are arranged in groups under eight banners. Some of them took part in the conquest, but the Manchus are too suspicious to permit them to do garrison duty in the Middle Kingdom, lest the memories of Kublai Khan and his glory should be awakened. They are, however, held liable to military service. Seng Ko Lin Sin ("Sam Collinson" as the British dubbed him), a Lama prince, headed the northern armies against the Tai-ping rebels and afterwards suffered defeat at the hands of the British and French before the gates of Peking.

In the winter the Mongol princes come with their clansmen to revel in the delights of Cambalu, the city of the great Khan, as they have continued to call Peking ever since the days of Kublai, whose magnificence has been celebrated by Marco Polo. Their camping-ground is the Mongolian Square which is crowded with tabernacles built of bamboo and covered with felt. In a sort of bazaar may be seen pyramids of butter and cheese, two commodities that are abominations to the Chinese of the south, but are much appreciated by Chinese in Peking as well as by the Manchus. One may see also mountains of venison perfectly fresh; the frozen carcasses of "yellow sheep" (really not sheep, but antelopes); then come wild boars in profusion, along with badgers, hares, and troops of live dogs—the latter only needing to be wild to make them edible. This will give some faint idea of Mongolia's contribution to the luxuries of the metropolis. Devout Buddhist as he is, the average Mongol deems abstinence from animal food a degree of sanctity unattainable by him.

Mongols of the common classes are clad in dirty sheepskins. Their gentry and priesthood dress themselves in the spoils of wolf or fox—more costly but not more clean. Furs, felt, and woollen fabrics of the coarsest texture may also be noticed. Raiment of camel's hair, strapped with a leathern girdle after the manner of John the Baptist, may be seen any day, and the wearers are not regarded as objects of commiseration.

Their camel, too, is wonderfully adapted to its habitat. Provided with two humps, it carries a natural saddle; and, clothed in long wool, yellow, brown or black, it looks in winter a lordly beast. Its fleece is never shorn, but is shed in summer. At that season the poor naked animal is the most pitiable of creatures. In the absence of railways and carriage roads, it fills the place of the ship of the desert and performs the heaviest tasks, such as the transporting of coals and salt. Most docile of slaves, at a word from its master it kneels down and quietly accepts its burden.

At Peking there is a lamasary where four hundred Mongol monks are maintained in idleness at the expense of the Emperor. Their manners are those of highwaymen. They have been known to lay rough hands on visitors in order to extort a charitable dole; and, if rumour may be trusted, their morals are far from exemplary.

My knowledge of the Mongols is derived chiefly from what I have seen of them in Peking. I have also had a glimpse of their country at Kalgan, beyond the Great Wall. A few lines from a caravan song by the Rev. Mark Williams give a picture of a long journey by those slow coaches:

"Inching along, we are inching along,
At the pace of a snail, we are inching along,
Our horses are hardy, our camels are strong,
We all shall reach Urga by inching along.

"The things that are common, all men will despise;
But these in the desert we most highly prize.
For water is worth more than huge bags of gold
And argols than diamonds of value untold."
—A Flight for Life, Pilgrim Press, Boston.

Politically Turkestan is not Mongolia, but Tamerlane, though born there, was a Mongol. His descendants were the Moguls of India. At different epochs peoples called Turks and Huns have wandered over the Mongolian plateau, and Mongols have swept over Turkestan. To draw a line of demarcation is neither easy nor important. In the Turkestan of to-day the majority of the people follow the prophet of Mecca. Russia has absorbed most of the khanates, and has tried more than once to encroach on portions belonging to China. In one instance she was foiled and compelled to disgorge by the courage of Viceroy Chang, a story which I reserve for the sequel. The coveted region was Ili, and Russia's pretext for crossing the boundary was the chronic state of warfare in which the inhabitants existed.

Tibet is the land of the Grand Lama. Is it merely tributary or is it a portion of the Chinese Empire? This is a question that has been warmly agitated during the last two years—brought to the front by Colonel Younghusband's expedition and by a treaty made in Lhasa. Instead of laying their complaints before the court of Peking, the Indian Government chose to settle matters on the spot, ignoring the authority of China. Naturally China has been provoked to instruct her resident at Lhasa to maintain her rights.

A presumptive claim might be based on the fact, that the Grand Lama took refuge at Urga, where he remained until the Empress Dowager ordered him to return to his abandoned post. China has always had a representative at his court; but his function would appear to be that of a political spy rather than an overseer, governor, or even adviser. Chinese influence in Tibet is nearly nil. For China to assert authority by interference and to make herself responsible for Tibet's shortcomings would be a questionable policy, against which two wars ought to be a sufficient warning. She was involved with France by her interference in Tongking and with Japan by interference in Korea. Too much intermeddling in Tibet might easily embroil her with Great Britain.

In one sense the Buddhist pope may justly claim to be the highest of earthly potentates. No other sits on a throne at an equal elevation above the level of the sea. Like Melchizedeck, he is without father or mother—each occupant of the throne being a fresh incarnation of Buddha. The signs of Buddhaship are known only to the initiated; but they are supposed to consist in the recognition of places, persons, and apparel. These lamas never die of old age.

While in other parts of the Empire polygamy prevails for those who can afford it, in Tibet polyandry crops up. Which is the more offensive to good morals we need not decide; but is it not evident that Confucianism shows its weakness on one side as Buddhism does on the other? A people that tolerates either or both hardly deserves to be regarded as civilised.

The Chinese call Tibet the "roof of the world," and most of it is as barren as the roof of a house. Still the roof, though producing nothing, collects water to irrigate a garden. Tibet is the mother of great rivers, and she feeds them from her eternal snows. On her highlands is a lake or cluster of lakes which the Chinese describe as Sing Su Hai, the "sea of stars." From this the Yellow River takes its rise and perhaps the Yang-tse Kiang. A Chinese legend says that Chang Chien poled a raft up to the source of the Yellow River and found himself in the Milky Way, Tienho, the "River of Heaven."

Fifty years ago two intrepid French missionaries, Huc and Gabet, made their way to Lhasa, but they were not allowed to remain there. The Chinese residents made them prisoners, under pretext of giving them protection, and sent them to the seacoast through the heart of the empire. They were thus enabled to see the vast interior at a time when it was barred alike to traveller and missionary. Of this adventurous journey Huc's published "Travels" is the immortal monument.

We have thus gone over China and glanced at most of her outlying dependencies. The further exploration of Tibet we may postpone until she has made good her claims to dominion in that mountain region. The vastness of the Chinese Empire and the immensity of its population awaken in the mind a multitude of questions to which nothing but history can give an adequate reply. We come therefore to the oracle whose responses may perhaps be less dubious than those of Delphi.

PART II

HISTORY IN OUTLINE FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES TO THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

CHAPTER XIII

ORIGIN OF THE CHINESE

Parent Stock a Migratory People—They Invade China from the Northwest and Colonise the Banks of the Yellow River and of the Han—Their Conflicts with the Aborigines—Native Tribes Absorbed by Conquerors

That the parent stock in which the Chinese nation had its origin was a small migratory people, like the tribes of Israel, and that they entered the land of promise from the northwest is tolerably certain; but to trace their previous wanderings back to Shinar, India, or Persia would be a waste of time, as the necessary data are lacking. Even within their appointed domain the accounts of their early history are too obscure to be accepted as to any extent reliable.

They appear to have begun their career of conquest by colonising the banks of the Yellow River and those of the Han. By slow stages they moved eastward to the central plain and southward to the Yang-tse Kiang. At that early epoch, between 3000 and 2000 B. C., they found the country already occupied by various wild tribes whom they considered as savages. In their early traditions they describe these tribes respectively by four words: those of the south are called Man (a word with the silk radical); those on the east, Yi (with the bow radical); those on the north, Tih (represented by a dog and fire); and those on the west, Jung ("war-like, fierce," the symbol for their ideograph being a spear). Each of these names points to something distinctive. Some of these tribes were, perhaps, spinners of silk; some, hunters; and all of them, formidable enemies.

The earliest book of history opens with conflicts with aborigines. There can be no question that the slow progress made by the invaders in following the course of those streams on which the most ancient capitals of the Chinese were subsequently located was owing to the necessity of fighting their way. Shun, the second sovereign of whose reign there is record (2200 B. c.), is said to have waged war with San Miao, three tribes of miaotze or aborigines, a term still applied to the independent tribes of the southwest. Beaten in the field, or at least suffering a temporary check, he betook himself to the rites of religion, making offerings and praying to Shang-ti, the supreme ruler. "After forty days," it is stated, "the natives submitted."

In the absence of any explanation it may be concluded that during the suspension of hostilities negotiations were proceeding which resulted not in the destruction of the natives, but in their incorporation with their more civilised neighbours. This first recorded amalgamation of the kind was doubtless an instance of a process of growth that continued for many centuries, resulting in the absorption of all the native tribes on the north of the Yang-tse and of most of those on the south. The expanding state was eventually composed of a vast body of natives who submitted to their civilised conquerors, much as the people of Mexico and Peru consented to be ruled by a handful of Spaniards.[*]

[Footnote *: To this day, the bulk of the people in those countries show but small traces of Spanish blood. Juarez, the famous dictator, was a pure Indian.]

As late as the Christian era any authentic account of permanent conquests in China to the south of the "Great River" is still wanting, though warlike expeditions in that direction were not infrequent. The people of the northern provinces called themselves Han-jin, "men of Han" or "sons of Han," while those of the south styled themselves T'ang-jin, "men of T'ang." Does not this indicate that, while the former were moulded into unity by the great dynasty which took its name from the river Han (206 B. c.), the latter did not become Chinese until the brilliant period of the T'angs, nearly a thousand years later? Further confirmation need not be adduced to show that the empire of the Far East contemporary with, and superior in civilisation to, ancient Rome, embraced less than the eighteen provinces of China Proper. Of the nine districts into which it was divided by Ta-yü, 2100 B. C. not one was south of the "Great River."

CHAPTER XIV

THE MYTHICAL PERIOD

Account of Creation—P'an-ku, the Ancient Founder—The Three Sovereigns—The Five Rulers, the Beginnings of Human Civilisation—The Golden Age—Yau, the Unselfish Monarch—Shun, the Paragon of Domestic Virtues—Story of Ta-yü—Rise of Hereditary Monarchy

Unlike the Greeks and Hindoos, the Chinese are deficient in the sort of imagination that breeds a poetical mythology. They are not, however, wanting in that pride of race which is prone to lay claim to the past as well as to the future. They have accordingly constructed, not a mythology, but a fictitious history which begins with the creation of the world.

How men and animals were made they do not say; but they assert that heaven and earth were united in a state of chaos until a divine man, whom they call P'an-ku, the "ancient founder," rent them asunder. Pictures show him wielding his sledge-hammer and disengaging sun and moon from overlying hills—a grotesque conception in strong contrast with the simple and sublime statement, "God said, 'Let there be light' and there was light." P'an-ku was followed by a divine being named Nü-wa, in regard to whom it is doubtful whether to speak in the feminine or in the masculine gender. Designated queen more frequently than king, it is said of her that, a portion of the sky having fallen down (probably owing to the defective work of her predecessor), she rebuilt it with precious stones of many colours. Lien shih pu tien, "to patch the sky with precious stones," is a set phrase by which the Chinese indicate that which is fabulous and absurd.

Instead of filling the long interval between the creation of the world and the birth of history with gods and fairies, the Chinese cover that period by three sovereigns whom they call after their favourite triad, heaven, earth, and man, giving them the respective titles Tién-hwang, Ti-hwang, and Jin-hwang. Each of these reigned eighteen thousand years; but what they reigned over is not apparent. At all events they seem to have contributed little to the comfort of their people; for at the close of that long period the wretched inhabitants of the empire—the only country then known to exist on earth—had no houses, no clothes, no laws, and no letters.

Now come five personages who, in accordance with Chinese historical propriety, are likewise invested with imperial dignity and are called Wu-ti, "the five rulers." Collectively they represent the first appearance of the useful arts, the rude beginnings of human civilisation. One of these rulers, noticing that birds constructed nests, taught his people to build huts, from which he is called the "nest builder." Another was the Prometheus of his day and obtained fire, not, however, by stealing it from the sun, but by honestly working for it with two pieces of wood which he rubbed together. The third of these rulers, named Fuhi, appears to have been the teacher of his people in the art of rearing domestic animals; in other words, the initiator of pastoral life, and possibly the originator of sacrificial offerings. The fourth in order introduced husbandry. As has been stated in a previous chapter (see [page 36]), he has no name except Shin-nung, "divine husbandman"; and under that title he continues to be worshipped at the present day as the Ceres of China. The Emperor every spring repairs to his temple to plough a few furrows by way of encouragement to his people. The last of the five personages is called the "yellow ruler," whether from the colour of his robes, or as ruler of the yellow race, is left in doubt. He is credited with the invention of letters and the cycle of sixty years, the foundation of Chinese chronology (2700 B. C.).

Unlike the long twilight which precedes the dawn in high latitudes, the semi-mythical age was brief, covering no more than two reigns, those of Yao and Shun. Confucius regarded these as included in the "five rulers." To make room for them, he omits the first two; and he seldom refers to the others, but appears to accept them as real personages. He is no critic; but he has shown good sense in drawing the line no further back. He has made the epoch of these last a golden age (2356-2206) which is not the creation of a poet, but the conception of a philosopher who wished to have an open space on which to build up his political theories. He found, moreover, in these primitive times some features by which he was greatly fascinated. The simplicity and freedom which appeared to prevail in those far-off days were to him very attractive.

It is related that Yao, the type of an unselfish monarch, while on a tour of inspection in the disguise of a peasant, heard an old man singing this song to the notes of his guitar:

"I plough my ground and eat my own bread,
I dig my well and drink my own water:
What use have I for king or court?"

Yao returned to his palace, rejoicing that the state of his country was such that his people were able to forget him.

Another feature which the Chinese hold up in bold relief is the fact that in those days the occupancy of the throne was not hereditary. Yao is said to have reigned a hundred years. When he was growing old he saw with grief that his son showed no signs of being a worthy successor. Setting him aside, therefore, he asked his ministers to recommend someone as his heir. They all agreed in nominating Shun. "What are his merits?" asked the King. "Filial piety and fraternal kindness," they replied. "By these virtues he has wrought a reform in a family noted for perverseness." The King desiring to know the facts, they related the following story:

"Shun's father is an ill-natured, blind man. He has a cruel stepmother and a selfish, petulant younger brother. This boy, the pet of his parents, treated Shun with insolence; and the father and mother joined in persecuting the elder son. Shun, without showing resentment, cried aloud to Heaven and obtained patience to bear their harshness. By duty and affection he has won the hearts of all three." "Bring him before me," said the King; "I have yet another trial by which to test his virtues." Yao made him his son-in-law, giving him his two daughters at once. He wished to see whether the good son and brother would also be a good husband and father—an example for his people in all their domestic relations. Shun accepted the test with becoming resignation and comported himself to the satisfaction of the old king, who raised him to the throne. After a reign of fifty years, partly as Yao's associate, Shun followed the example of his father-in-law. Passing by his own son, he left the throne to Ta-yü or Yü, a man who had been subjected to trials far more serious than that of having to live in the same house with a pair of pretty princesses.

A question discussed in the school of Mencius, many centuries later, may be cited here for the light it throws on the use made by Chinese schoolmen of the examples of this period. "Suppose," said one of his students, "that Shun's father had killed a man, would Shun, being king, have allowed him to be condemned?" "No," replied the master; "he would have renounced the throne and, taking his father on his shoulders, he would have fled away to the seaside, rejoicing in the consciousness of having performed the duty of a filial son." Shun continues to be cited as the paragon of domestic virtues, occupying the first place in a list of twenty-four who are noted for filial piety.

The trial by which the virtues of Ta-yü were proved was an extraordinary feat of engineering—nothing less than the subduing of the waters of a deluge. "The waters," said the King, "embosom the high hills and insolently menace heaven itself. Who will find us a man to take them in hand and keep them in place?" His ministers recommended one Kun. Kun failed to accomplish the task, and Shun, who in this case hardly serves for the model of a just ruler, put him to death. Then the task was imposed on Ta-yü, the son of the man who had been executed. After nine years of incredible hardships he brought the work to a successful termination. During this time he extended his care to the rivers of more than one province, dredging, ditching, and diking. Three times he passed his own door and, though he heard the cries of his infant son, he did not once enter his house. The son of a criminal who had suffered death, a throne was the meed of his diligence and ability.

A temple in Hanyang, at the confluence of two rivers, commemorates Ta-yü's exploit, which certainly throws the labours of Hercules completely into the shade. On the opposite side of the river stands a pillar, inscribed in antique hieroglyphics, which professes to record this great achievement. It is a copy of one which stands on Mount Hang; and the characters, in the tadpole style, are so ancient that doubts as to their actual meaning exist among scholars of the present day. Each letter is accordingly accompanied by its equivalent in modern Chinese. The stone purports to have been erected by Ta-yü himself—good ground for suspicion—but it has been proved to be a fabrication of a later age, though still very ancient.[*]

[Footnote *: Dr. Hänisch of Berlin has taken great pains to expose the imposture.]

In the two preceding reigns the sovereign had always consulted the public good rather than family interest—a form of monarchy which the Chinese call elective, but which has never been followed, save that the Emperor exercises the right of choice among his sons irrespective of primogeniture. The man who bears the odium of having departed from the unselfish policy of Yao and Shun is this same Ta-yü. He left the throne to his son and, as the Chinese say, "made of the empire a family estate."

This narrative comes from the Shu-King or "Book of History," the most venerated of the Five Classics edited by Confucius; but the reader will readily perceive that it is no more historical than the stories of Codrus or Numa Pompilius.

In the reign of Yao we have an account of astronomical observations made with a view to fixing the length of the year. The King tells one man to go to the east and another to the west, to observe the culmination and transit of certain stars. As a result he says they will find that the year consists of 366 days, a close approximation for that epoch. The absurdity of this style, which attributes omniscience to the prince and leaves to his agents nothing but the task of verification, should not be allowed to detract from the credit due to their observations. The result arrived at was about the same as that reached by the Babylonians at the same date (2356 B. c.)

Other rulers who are credited with great inventions probably made them in the same way. Whether under Fuhi or Hwang-ti, Ts'ang-kié is recognised as the Cadmus of China, the author of its written characters; and Tanao, a minister of Hwang-ti, is admitted to be the author of the cycle of sixty. Both of those emperors may be imagined as calling up their ministers and saying to one, "Go and invent the art of writing," and to the other, "Work out a system of chronology."

In the same way, the inception of the culture of the silkworm and the discovery of the magnetic needle are attributed to the predecessors of Yao, probably on the principle that treasure-trove was the property of the King and that if no claimant for the honour could be found it must be attributed to some ancient monarch. The production of silk, as woman's work, they profess to assign to the consort of one of those worthies—a thing improbable if not impossible, her place of residence being in the north of China. Their picture-writing tells a different tale. Their word for a southern barbarian, compounded of "silk" and "worm," points to the south as the source of that useful industry, much as our word "silk," derived from sericum, points to China as its origin.

CHAPTER XV

THE THREE DYNASTIES

The House of Hia—Ta-yu's Consideration for His Subjects—Kié's Excesses—The House of Shang—Shang-tang, the Founder, Offers Himself as a Sacrificial Victim, and Brings Rain—Chou-sin Sets Fire to His Own Palace and Perishes in the Flames—The House of Chou

The Hia, Shang and Chou dynasties together extend over the twenty-two centuries preceding the Christian Era. The first occupies 440 years; the second, 644; and the last, in the midst of turmoil and anarchy, drags out a miserable existence of 874 years. They are grouped together as the San Tai or San Wang, "the Three Houses of Kings," because that title was employed by the founder of each. Some of their successors were called Ti; but Hwang-ti, the term for "emperor" now in use, was never employed until it was assumed by the builder of the Great Wall on the overthrow of the feudal states and the consolidation of the empire, 240 B. C.

THE HOUSE OF HIA, 2205-1766 B. C.
(17 kings, 2 usurpers)

Unlike most founders of royal houses, who come to the throne through a deluge of blood, Ta-yü, as has been shown in the last chapter, climbed to that eminence through a deluge of water. Like Noah, the hero of an earlier deluge, he seems to have indulged, for once at least, too freely in the use of wine. A chapter in the "Book of History," entitled "A Warning Against Wine," informs us that one Yiti having made wine presented it to his prince. Ta-yü was delighted with it, but discontinued its use, saying that in time to come kings would lose their thrones through a fondness for the beverage. In China "wine" is a common name for all intoxicating drinks. That referred to in this passage was doubtless a distillation from rice or millet.

In the discharge of his public duties Ta-yü showed himself no less diligent than in contending with the waters. He hung at his door a bell which the poorest of his subjects might ring and thus obtain immediate attention. It is said that when taking a bath, if he heard the bell he sometimes rushed out without adjusting his raiment and that while partaking of a meal, if the bell rang he did not allow himself time to swallow his rice.

Prior to laying down his toilsome dignity Ta-yü caused to be cast nine brazen tripods, each bearing an outline map or a description of one of the provinces of the empire. In later ages these were deemed preeminently the patent of imperial power. On one occasion a feudal prince asked the question, "How heavy are these tripods?" A minister of state, suspecting an intention to remove them and usurp the power, replied in a long speech, proving the divine commission of his master, and asked in conclusion, "Why then should you inquire the weight of these tripods?"

Of the subsequent reigns nothing worth repetition is recorded except the fall of the dynasty. This, however, is due more to the meagreness of the language of that day than to the insignificance of the seventeen kings. Is it not probable that they were occupied in making good their claim to the nine provinces emblazoned on the tripods?

Kié, the last king, is said to have fallen under the fascination of a beautiful woman and to have spent his time in undignified carousals. He built a mountain of flesh and filled a tank with wine, and to amuse her he caused 3,000 of his courtiers to go on all fours and drink from the tank like so many cows.

THE SHANG DYNASTY, 1766-1122 B. C.
(28 kings)

The founder of this dynasty was Shang-tang, or Cheng-tang, who to great valour added the virtues of humanity and justice. Pitying the oppressions of the people, he came to them as a deliverer; and the frivolous tyrant was compelled to retire into obscurity. A more remarkable exhibition of public spirit was the offering of himself as a victim to propitiate the wrath of Heaven. In a prolonged famine, his prayers having failed to bring rain, the soothsayers said that a human victim was required. "It shall be myself," he replied; and, stripping off his regal robes, he laid himself on the altar. A copious shower was the response to this act of devotion.

The successor of Shang-tang was his grandson T'ai-kia, who was under the tutelage of a wise minister named I-yin. Observing the indolence and pleasure-loving disposition of the young man, the minister sent him into retirement for three years that he might acquire habits of sobriety and diligence. The circumstance that makes this incident worth recording is that the minister, instead of retaining the power in his own family, restored the throne to its rightful occupant.

Another king of this house, by name P'an-keng, has no claim to distinction other than that of having moved his capital five times. As we are not told that he was pursued by vindictive enemies, we are left to the conjecture that he was escaping from disastrous floods, or, perhaps under the influence of a silly superstition, was in quest of some luckier site.

Things went from bad to worse, and finally Chou-sin surpassed in evil excesses the man who had brought ruin upon the House of Hia. The House of Shang of course suffered the same fate. An ambitious but kind-hearted prince came forward to succour the people, and was welcomed by them as a deliverer. The tyrant, seeing that all was lost, arrayed himself in festal robes, set fire to his own palace, and, like another Sardanapalus, perished in the flames.

He and Kié make a couple who are held up to everlasting execration as a warning to tyrannical princes. Like his remote predecessor, Chou-sin is reputed to have been led into his evil courses by a wicked woman, named Ta-ki. One suspects that neither one nor the other stood in need of such prompting. According to history, bad kings are generally worse than bad queens. In China, however, a woman is considered out of place when she lays her hand on the helm of state. Hence the tendency to blacken the names of those famous court beauties.

If Mencius may be believed, the tyrants themselves were not quite so profligate as the story makes them. He says, "Dirty water has a tendency to accumulate in the lowest sinks"; and he warns the princes of his time not to put themselves in a position in which future ages will continue to heap opprobrium on their memory.

Of the wise founders of this dynasty it is said that they "made religion the basis of education," as did the Romans, who prided themselves on devotion to their gods. In both cases natural religion degenerated into gross superstition. In the number of their gods the Chinese have exceeded the Romans; and they refer the worship of many of them to the Shang dynasty.

The following dynasty, that of Chou (35 sovereigns, 1122-249 B. C.) merits a separate chapter.

CHAPTER XVI

HOUSE OF CHOU

Wen-wang, the founder—Rise and Progress of Culture—Communistic Land Tenure—Origin of the term "Middle Kingdom"—Duke Chou and Cheng wang, "The Completer"—A Royal Traveller—Li and Yu, two bad kings

The merciful conqueror who at this time rescued the people from oppression was Wu-wang, the martial king. He found, it is said, the people "hanging with their heads downward" and set them on their feet. On the eve of the decisive battle he harangued his troops, appealing to the Deity as the arbiter, and expressing confidence in the result. "The tyrant," he said, "has ten myriads of soldiers, and I have but one myriad. His soldiers, however, have ten myriads of hearts, while my army has but one heart."

When the battle had been fought and won he turned his war-horses out to pasture and ordained that they should be forever free from yoke and saddle. Could he have been less humane in the treatment of his new subjects?

The credit of his victory he gave to ten wise counsellors, one of whom was his mother. History, however, ascribes it in a large degree to his father, Wen-wang, who was then dead, but who had prepared the way for his son's triumph.

Wen-wang, the Beauclerc of the Chous, is one of the most notable figures in the ancient history of China. A vassal prince, by wise management rather than by military prowess he succeeded in enlarging his dominions so that he became possessor of two-thirds of the empire. He is applauded for his wisdom in still paying homage to his feeble chief. The latter, however, must have regarded him with no little suspicion, as Wen-wang was thrown into prison, and only regained his liberty at the cost of a heavy ransom. Wen-wang apparently anticipated a mortal struggle; for it is related that, seeing an old man fishing, he detected in him an able general who had fled the service of the tyrant. "You," said he, "are the very man I have been looking for"; and, taking him up into his chariot, as Jehu did Jonadab, he rejoiced in the assurance of coming victory. The fisherman was Kiang Tai Kung, the ancestor of the royal House of Ts'i in Shantung. Though eighty-one years of age he took command of the cavalry and presided in the councils of his new master.

Fitting it was that the Beauclerc, Wen-wang should be the real founder of the new dynasty; for now for the first time those pictured symbols become living blossoms from which the fruits of learning and philosophy are to be gathered. The rise and progress of a generous culture is the chief characteristic of the House of Chou. Besides encouraging letters Wen-wang contributed much to the new literature. He is known as a commentator in the Yih-King, "Book of Changes," pronounced by Confucius the profoundest of the ancient classics—a book which he never understood.

In theory there was under this and the preceding dynasty no private ownership of land. The arable ground was laid out in plots of nine squares, thus:

Eight of these were assigned to the people to cultivate for themselves; and the middle square was reserved for the government and tilled by the joint labour of all. The simple-hearted souls of that day are said to have prayed that the rains might first descend on the public field and then visit their private grounds.

In later years this communistic scheme was found not to work perfectly, owing, it is said, to the decay of public virtue. A statesman, named Shangyang, converted the tenure of land into fee simple—a natural evolution which was, however, regarded as quite too revolutionary and earned for him the execrations of the populace.

The charming simplicity of the above little diagram would seem to have suggested the arrangement of fiefs in the state, in which the irregular feudality of former times became moulded into a symmetrical system. The sovereign state was in the centre; and those of the feudal barons were ranged on the four sides in successive rows. The central portion was designated Chung Kwoh, "Middle Kingdom," a title which has come to be applied to the whole empire, implying, of course, that all the nations of the earth are its vassals.

Laid out with the order of a camp and ruled with martial vigour, the new state prospered for a few reigns. At length, however, smitten with a disease of the heart the members no longer obeyed the behests of the head. Decay and anarchy are written on the last pages of the history of the House of Chou.

The martial king died young, leaving his infant heir under the regency of his brother, the Duke of Chou. The latter, who inherited the tastes and talents of Wen-wang, was avowedly the character which the great Sage took for his pattern. With fidelity and ability he completed the pacification of the state. The credit of that achievement inured to his ward, who received the title of Cheng-wang, "The Completer."

Accused of scheming to usurp the throne, the Duke resigned his powers and withdrew from the court. The young prince, opening a golden casket, found in it a prayer of his uncle, made and sealed up during a serious illness of the King, imploring Heaven to accept his life as a ransom for his royal ward. This touching proof of devotion dispelled all doubt; and the faithful duke was recalled to the side of the now full-grown monarch.

Even during the minority of his nephew the Duke never entered his presence in other than full court costume. On one occasion the youthful king, playing with a younger brother, handed him a palm leaf saying, "This shall be your patent of nobility. I make you duke of such and such a place." The regent remonstrated, whereupon the King excused himself by saying, "I was only in sport." The Duke replied, "A king has no right to indulge in such sports," and insisted that the younger lad receive the investiture and emoluments. He was also, it is said, so careful of the sacred person that he never left on it the mark of his rod. When the little king deserved chastisement, the guardian always called up his own son, Pechin, and thrashed him soundly. One pities the poor fellow who was the innocent substitute more than one admires the scrupulous and severe regent. The Chinese have a proverb which runs, "Whip an ass and let a horse see it."

What shall be said of the successors of Cheng-wang? To account for the meagre chronicles of previous dynasties one may invoke the poverty of a language not yet sufficiently mature for the requirements of history; but for the seeming insignificance of the long line of Chous, who lived in the early bloom, if not the rich fruitage, of the classic period, no such apology is admissible.

Some there were, doubtless, who failed to achieve distinction because they had no foreign foe to oppose, no internal rebellion to suppress. Others, again, were so hampered by system that they had nothing better to do than to receive the homage of vassals. So wearied was one among them, Mu-wang, the fifth in succession, with those monotonous ceremonies that he betook himself to foreign travel as a relief from ennui, or perhaps impelled by an innate love of adventure. He delighted in horses; and, yoking eight fine steeds to his chariot, he set off to see the world. A book full of fables professes to record the narrative of his travels. He had, it says, a magic whip which possessed the property of compressing the surface of the earth into a small space. To-day Chinese envoys, with steam and electricity at command, are frequently heard to exclaim: "Now at last we have got the swift steeds and the magic whip of Mu-wang."

Two other kings, Li and Yu, are pointed at with the finger of scorn as examples of what a king ought not to be. The latter set aside his queen and her son in favour of a concubine and her son; and so offended was high heaven by this unkingly conduct that the sun hid his face in a total eclipse. This happened 775 B. C.; and it furnishes the starting-point for a reliable chronology. For her amusement the king caused the signal-fires to be lighted. She laughed heartily to see the great barons rush to the rescue and find it was a false alarm; but she did not smile when, not long after this, the capital was attacked by a real foe, the father of her injured rival. The signal-fires were again lighted; but the barons, having once been deceived by the cry of "Wolf," took care not to expose themselves again to derision.

The other king has not been lifted into the fierce light that beats upon a throne by anything so tragic as a burning palace; but his name is coupled with that of the former as a synonym of all that is weak and contemptible.

The story of the House of Chou is not to be disposed of in a few paragraphs, like the accounts of the preceding dynasties, because it was preëminently the formative period of ancient China; the age of her greatest sages, and the birthday of poetry and philosophy. I shall therefore devote a chapter to the sages and another to the reign of anarchy before closing the Book of Chou.

CHAPTER XVII

THE SAGES OF CHINA

Confucius—Describes Himself as Editor, not Author—"Model Teacher of All Ages"—Mencius—More Eloquent than his Great Master—Lao-tse, the Founder of Taoism

I shall not introduce the reader to all who justly bear the august title of sage; for China has had more and wiser sages than any other ancient country. Some of them may be referred to in the sequel; but this chapter I shall devote chiefly to the two who by universal consent have no equals in the history of the Empire—Confucius and Mencius. These great men owe much of their fame to the learned Jesuits who first brought them on the stage, clad in the Roman toga, and made them citizens of the world by giving them the euphonious names by which they are popularly known. Stripped of their disguise they appear respectively as K'ung Fu-tse and Meng-tse. Exchanging the ore rotunda of Rome for the sibillation of China, they never could have been naturalised as they are now.

CONFUCIUS

Born in the year 549 B. C., Confucius was contemporaneous with Isaiah and Socrates. Of a respectable but not opulent family he had to struggle for his education—a fact which in after years he was so far from concealing that he ascribed to it much of his success in life. To one who asked him, "How comes it that you are able to do so many things," he replied, "I was born poor and had to learn." His schoolmasters are unknown; and it might be asked of him, as it was of a greater than Confucius, "How knoweth this man letters, having never learned?"

Of his self-education, which continued through life, he gives the following concise account: "At fifteen I entered on a life of study; at thirty I took my stand as a scholar; at forty my opinions were fixed; at fifty I knew how to judge and select; at sixty I never relapsed into a known fault; at seventy I could follow my inclinations without going wrong." Note how each stage marks an advance towards moral excellence. Mark also that this passage gives an outline of self-discipline. It says nothing of his books or of his work as a statesman and a reformer.

He is said to have had, first and last, three thousand disciples. Those longest under instruction numbered twelve. They studied, not with lectures and textbooks, as in modern schools, but by following his footsteps and taking the impress of his character, much as Peter and John followed the steps and studied the life of Christ. Some of them followed Confucius when, bent on effecting a political as well as an ethical reform, he travelled from court to court among the petty principalities. They have placed it on record that once, when exposed to great peril, he comforted them by saying, "If Heaven has made me the depositary of these teachings, what can my enemies do against me?" Nobly conscious of a more than human mission, so pure were his teachings that, though he taught morals, not religion, he might fairly, with Socrates, be allowed to claim a sort of inspiration.

The one God, of whom he knew little, he called Heaven, and he always spoke of Heaven with the profoundest reverence. When neglected or misunderstood he consoled himself by saying, "Heaven knows me." During a serious illness a disciple inquired if he should pray for him, meaning the making of offerings at some temple. Confucius answered, "I have long prayed," or "I have long been in the habit of praying."

In letters he described himself as an "editor, not an author," meaning that he had revised the works of the ancients, but had published nothing of his own. Out of their poetry he culled three hundred odes and declared that "purity of thought" might be stamped on the whole collection. Into a confused mass of traditional ceremonies be brought something like order, making the Chinese (if a trifle too ceremonious) the politest people on earth. Out of their myths and chronicles he extracted a trustworthy history, and by his treatment of vice he made princes tremble, lest their heads should be exposed on the gibbet of history. He gave much time to editing the music of the ancients, but his work in that line has perished. This, however, cannot be regarded as a very great loss, in view of the rude condition in which Chinese music is still found. However deficient his knowledge of the art, his passion for music was extraordinary. After hearing a fine performance "he was unable for three months to enjoy his food." A fifth task was the editing of the Yih-King,[*] the book of divination compiled by Wen-wang. How thoroughly he believed in it is apparent from his saying, "Should it please Heaven to grant me five or ten years to study this book, I would not be in danger of falling into great errors." He meant that he would then be able to shape his conduct by the calculation of chances.

[Footnote *: This and the preceding are the Five Classics, which, like the five books of Moses, lie at the root of a nation's religion and learning.]

Great as were his labours in laying the foundation of literary culture, the impression made by his personal intercourse and by his collected sayings has been ten-fold more influential. They form the substance of the Four Books which, from a similar numerical coincidence, the Chinese are fond of comparing with our Four Gospels. Confucius certainly gives the Golden Rule as the essence of his teaching. True, he puts it in a negative form, "Do not unto others what you would not have them do to you"; but he also says, "My doctrine is comprehended in two words, chung and shu." The former denotes fidelity; the latter signifies putting oneself in the place of another, but it falls short of that active charity which has changed the face of the world.

It were easy to point out Confucius' limitations and mistakes; yet on the whole his merits were such that his people can hardly be blamed for the exaggerated honours which they show to his memory. They style him the "model teacher of all ages," but they do not invoke him as a tutelary deity, nor do they represent him by an image. Excessively honorific, their worship of Confucius is not idolatry.

MENCIUS

A hundred years later Mencius was born, and received his doctrine through the grandson of the Sage. More eloquent than his great master, more bold in rebuking the vices of princes, he was less original. One specimen of his teaching must suffice. One of the princes asking him, "How do you know that I have it in me to become a good ruler?" he replied, "I am told that, seeing the extreme terror of an ox that was being led to the altar, you released it and commanded a sheep to be offered in its stead. The ox was before your eyes and you pitied it; the sheep was not before your eyes and you had no pity on it. Now with such a heart if you would only think of your people, so as to bring them before your eyes, you might become the best of rulers."

Mencius lost his father in his infancy, but his mother showed rare good sense in the bringing up of her only child. Living near a butcher, she noticed that the boy mimicked the cries of the pigs. She then removed to the gate of a cemetery; but, noticing that the child changed his tune and mocked the wailing of mourners, she struck her tent and took up her abode near a high school. There she observed with joy that he learned the manners and acquired the tastes of a student. Perceiving, however, that he was in danger of becoming lazy and dilatory, she cut the warp of her web and said, "My son, this is what you are doing with the web of life."

The tomb of each of these sages is in the keeping of one of his descendants, who enjoys the emoluments of a hereditary noble. Mencius himself says of the master whom he never saw, "Since men were born on earth there has been no man like Confucius."

LAO-TSE

I cannot close this chapter without a word or two on Lao-tse, the founder of Taoism. He bore the family name of Li, "plum-tree," either from the fact that his cottage was in a garden or possibly because, like the Academics, he placed his school in a grove of plum-trees. The name by which he is now known signifies "old master," probably because he was older than Confucius. The latter is said to have paid him a visit to inquire about rites and ceremonies; but Lao-tse, with his love of solitude and abstract speculation, seems not to have exerted much influence on the mind of the rising philosopher. In allusion to him, Confucius said, "Away from men there is no philosophy—no tao."

Less honoured by the official class, Lao-tse's influence with the masses of China has been scarcely less than that of his younger rival. Like the other two sages he, too, has to-day a representative, who enjoys an official status as high priest of the Taoist sect. Chang Tien-shi dwells in a stately palace on the summit of the Tiger and Dragon Mountain, in Kiangsi, as the head of one of the three religions. But, alas! the sublime teachings of the founder of Taoism have degenerated into a contemptible mixture of jugglery and witchcraft.

Not till five centuries later did Buddhism enter China and complete the triad of religions—a triad strangely inharmonious; indeed one can scarcely conceive of three creeds more radically antagonistic.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE WARRING STATES

Five Dictators—Diplomacy and Strategy—A Brave Envoy—Heroes Reconciled—Ts'in Extinguishes the House of Chou

In the first half of the Chou dynasty the machinery moved with such regularity that Confucius could think of no form of government more admirable, saying, "The policy of the future may be foretold for a hundred generations—it will be to follow the House of Chou." The latter half was a period of misrule and anarchy.

Ambitions and jealousies led to petty wars. The King being too feeble to repress them, these petty wars grew into vast combinations like the leagues of modern Europe. Five of the states acquired at different times such a preponderance that their rulers are styled Wu Pa, the "five dictators." One of these, Duke Hwan of western Shantung, is famous for having nine times convoked the States-General. The dictator always presided at such meetings and he was recognised as the real sovereign—as were the mayors of the palace in France in the Merovingian epoch, or the shoguns in Japan during the long period in which the Mikado was called the "spiritual emperor."

The legitimate sovereign still sat on his throne in the central state; but he complained that his only function was to offer sacrifices. The Chinese dictatorship was not hereditary, or the world might have witnessed an exact parallel to the duplicate sovereignty in Japan, where one held the power and the other retained the title for seven hundred years.

In China the shifting of power from hand to hand made those four centuries an age of diplomacy. Whenever some great baron was suspected of aspiring to the leadership, combinations were formed to curb his ambitions; embassies sped from court to court; and armies were marshalled in the field. Envoys became noted for courage and cunning, and generals acquired fame by their skill in handling large bodies of soldiers. Diplomacy became an art, and war a science.

An international code to control the intercourse of states began to take shape; but the diplomat was not embarrassed by a multiplicity of rules. In negotiations individual character counted for more than it does at the present day; nor must it be supposed that in the absence of our modern artillery there was no room for generalship. On the contrary, as battles were not decided by the weight of metal, there was more demand for strategy.

All this was going on in Greece at this very epoch: and, as Plutarch indulges in parallels, we might point to compeers of Themistocles and Epaminondas. The cause which in the two countries led to this state of things was the existence of a family of states with a common language and similar institutions; but in the Asiatic empire the theatre was vastly more extensive, and the operations in politics and war on a grander scale.

To the honour of the Chinese it must be admitted that they showed themselves more civilised than the Greeks. The Persian invasion was provoked by the murder of ambassadors by the Athenians. Of such an act there is no recorded instance among the warring states of China. It was reserved for our own day to witness in Peking that exhibition of Tartar ferocity. The following two typical incidents from the voluminous chronicles of those times may be appropriately presented here:

A BRAVE ENVOY

The Prince of Ts'in, a semi-barbarous state in the northwest, answering to Macedonia in Greece, had offered to give fifteen cities for a kohinoor, a jewel belonging to the Prince of Chao (not Chou). Lin Sian Ju was sent to deliver the jewel and to complete the transaction. The conditions not being complied with, he boldly put the jewel into his bosom and returned to his own state. That he was allowed to do so—does it not speak as much for the morality of Ts'in as for the courage of Lin? The latter is the accepted type of a brave and faithful envoy.

HEROES RECONCILED

Jealous of his fame, Lien P'o, a general of Chao, announced that he would kill Lin at sight. The latter took pains to avoid a meeting. Lien P'o, taxing him with cowardice, sent him a challenge, to which Lin responded, "You and I are the pillars of our state. If either falls, our country is lost. This is why I have shunned an encounter." So impressed was the general with the spirit of this reply that he took a rod in his hand and presented himself at the door of his rival, not to thrash the latter, but to beg that he himself might be castigated. Forgetting their feud the two joined hands to build up their native state much as Aristides and Themistocles buried their enmity in view of the war with Persia.

As the Athenian orators thundered against Macedon so the statesmen of China formed leagues and counterplots for and against the rising power of the northwest. The type of patient, shrewd diplomacy is Su Ts'in who, at the cost of incredible hardships in journeying from court to court, succeeded in bringing six of the leading states into line to bar the southward movement of their common foe. His machinations were all in vain, however; for not only was his ultimate success thwarted by the counterplots of Chang Yee, an equally able diplomatist, but his reputation, like that of Parnell in our own times, was ruined by his own passions. The rising power of Ts'in, like a glacier, was advancing by slow degrees to universal sway. In the next generation it absorbed all the feudal states. Chau-siang subjugated Tung-chou-Kiun, the last monarch of the Chou dynasty, and the House of Chou was exterminated by Chwang-siang, who, however, enjoyed the supreme power for only three years (249-246 B. C).

CHAPTER XIX

THE HOUSE OF TS'IN, 246-206 B. C.
(2 Emperors)

Ts'in Shi-hwang-ti, "Emperor First"—The Great Wall—The Centralised Monarchy—The title Hwang-ti—Origin of the name China—Burning of the Books—Expedition to Japan—Revolution Places the House of Han on the Throne

"Viewed in the light of philosophy," says Schiller, "Cain killed Abel because Abel's sheep trespassed on Cain's cornfield." From that day to this farmers and shepherds have not been able to live together in peace. A monument of that eternal conflict is the Great Wall of China. Like the Roman Wall in North Britain, to compare great things with small, its object was not to keep out the Tartars but to reënforce the vigilance of the military pickets. That end it seems to have accomplished for a long time. It was, the Chinese say, the destruction of one generation and the salvation of many. We shall soon see how it came to be a mere geographical expression. For our present purpose it may also be regarded as a chronological landmark, dividing ancient from mediæval China.

With the House of Chou the old feudal divisions disappeared forever. The whole country was brought under the direct sway of one emperor who, for the first time in the history of the people, had built up a dominion worthy of that august title. This was the achievement of Yin Cheng, the Prince of Ts'in. He thereupon assumed the new style of Hwang-ti. Hwangs and Tis were no novelty; but the combination made it a new coinage and justified the additional appellation of "the First," or Shi-hwang-ti. Four imperishable monuments perpetuate his memory: the Great Wall, the centralised monarchy, the title Hwang-ti, and the name of China itself—the last derived from a principality which under him expanded to embrace the empire. Where is there another conqueror in the annals of the world who has such solid claims to everlasting renown? Alexander overthrew many nations; but he set up nothing permanent. Julius Cæsar instituted the Roman Empire; but its duration was ephemeral in comparison with that of the empire founded by Shi-hwang-ti, the builder of the Wall.

Though Shi-hwang-ti completed it, the wall was not the work of his reign alone. Similarly the triumphs of his arms and arts were due in large measure to his predecessors, who for centuries had aspired to universal sway. Conscious of inferiority in culture, they welcomed the aid and rewarded the services of men of talent from every quarter. Some came as penniless adventurers from rival or hostile states and were raised to the highest honours.

Six great chancellors stand conspicuous as having introduced law and order into a rude society, and paved the way for final success. Every one of these was a "foreigner." The princes whom they served deserve no small praise for having the good sense to appreciate them and the courage to follow their advice. Of some of these it might be said, as Voltaire remarked of Peter the Great, "They civilised their people, but themselves were savages." The world forgets how much the great czar was indebted for education and guidance to Le Fort, a Genevese soldier of fortune. Pondering that history one is able to gauge the merits of those foreign chancellors, perhaps also to understand what foreigners have done for the rulers of China in our day.

Shi-hwang-ti was the real founder of the Chinese Empire. He is one of the heroes of history; yet no man in the long list of dynasties is so abused and misrepresented by Chinese writers. They make him a bastard, a debauchee, and a fool. To this day he is the object of undying hatred to every one who can hold a pen. Why? it may be asked. Simply because he burned the books and persecuted the disciples of Confucius. Those two things, well-nigh incredible to us, are to the Chinese utterly incomprehensible.

Li-Sze, a native of Yen, was his chancellor, a genius more daring and far-sighted than any of the other five. The welding together of the feudal states into a compact unity was his darling scheme, as it was that of his master. "Never," he said, "can you be sure that those warring states will not reappear, so long as the books of Confucius are studied in the schools; for in them feudalism is consecrated as a divine institution." "Then let them be burned," said the tyrant.

The adherents of the Sage were ejected from the schools, and their teachings proscribed. This harsh treatment and the search for their books naturally gave rise to counterplots. "Put them to death," said the tyrant; and they went to the block, not like Christian marytrs for religious convictions, but like the Girondists of France for political principles. Their followers offer the silly explanation that the books were destroyed that the world might never know that there had been other dynasties, and the scholars slaughtered or buried alive to prevent the reproduction of the books.

The First Hwang-ti did not confine his ambition to China. He sent a fleet to Japan; and those isles of the Orient came to view for the first time in the history of the world. The fleet carried, it is said, a crew of three thousand lads and lasses. It never returned; but the traditions of Japan affirm that it arrived, and the islanders ascribe their initiation into Chinese literature to their invasion by that festive company—a company not unlike that with which Bacchus was represented as making the conquest of India. Their further acquaintance with China and its sages was obtained through Korea, which was long a middle point of communication between the two countries. It was, in fact, from the Shantung promontory, near to Korea, that this flotilla of videttes was dispatched.

What was the real object of that strange expedition? Chinese authors assert that it was sent in search of the "elixir of life," but do they not distort everything in the history of the First Hwang-ti? The great monarch was, in fact, a devout believer in the fables of Taoism, among which were stories of the Islands of the Blest, and of a fountain of immortality, such as eighteen centuries later stimulated the researches of Ponce de Leon. The study of alchemy was in full blast among the Chinese at that time. It probably sprang from Taoism; but, in my opinion, the ambitious potentate, sighing for other worlds to conquer, sent that jolly troop as the vanguard of an army.

In spite, however, of elixirs of life and fountains of youth, death put an end to his conquests when he had enjoyed the full glories of imperial power for only twelve years. His son reigned two years; and the first of the imperial dynasties came to an end—overturned by a revolution which placed the House of Han on the vacant throne.

CHAPTER XX

THE HOUSE OF HAN, 206—B. C.—220 A. D.
(24 Emperors, 2 Usurpers)

Liu-pang Founds Illustrious Dynasty—Restoration of the Books—A Female Reign—The Three Religions—Revival of Letters—Sze-ma Ts'ien, the Herodotus of China—Conquests of the Hans

The burning of the books and the slaughter of the scholars had filled the public mind with horror. The oppressions occasioned by the building of the Great Wall had excited a widespread discontent; and Liu-pang, a rough soldier of Central China, took advantage of this state of things to dispossess the feeble heir of the tyrant. He founded a dynasty which is reckoned among the most illustrious in the annals of the Empire. It takes the name of Han from the river on the banks of which it rose to power. When Liu-pang was securely seated on the throne one of his ministers proposed that he should open schools and encourage learning. "Learning," exclaimed the Emperor, "I have none of it myself, nor do I feel the need of it. I got the empire on horseback." "But can you govern the empire on horseback? That is the question," replied the minister. To conciliate the favour of the learned, the Emperor not only rescinded the persecuting edicts, but caused search to be made for the lost books, and instituted sacrificial rites in honour of the Sage.

Old men were still living who had committed those books to memory in boyhood. One such, Fu-seng by name, was noted for his erudition; and from his capacious memory a large portion of the sacred canon was reproduced, being written from his dictation. The copies thus obtained were of course not free from error. Happily a somewhat completer copy, engraved on bamboo tablets, was discovered in the wall of a house belonging to the Confucian family. Yet down to the present day the Chinese classics bear traces of the tyrant's fire. Portions are wanting and the lacunæ are always ascribed to the "fires of Ts'in." The first chapter of the Great Study closes with the pregnant words, "The source of knowledge is in the study of things." Not a syllable is added on that prolific text. A note informs the reader that there was a chapter on the subject, but that it has been lost. Chinese scholars, when taxed with the barrenness of later ages in every branch of science, are wont to make the naïve reply, "Yes, and no wonder—how could it be otherwise when the Sage's chapter on that subject has been lost?"

After the second reign, that of Hwei-ti, we have the first instance in Chinese history of a woman seizing the reins of government. The Empress Lu made herself supreme, and such were her talents that she held the Empire in absolute subjection for eight years. Like Jezebel she "destroyed all the seed royal," and filled the various offices with her kindred and favourites. At her death they were butchered without mercy, and a male heir to the throne was proclaimed. His posthumous title Wen-ti, meaning the "learned" or "patron of letters," marks the progress made by the revival of learning.

One might imagine that these literary emperors would have been satisfied with the recovery of the Confucian classics; but no, a rumour reached them that "there are sages in the West." The West was India. An embassy was sent, 66 A. D., by Ming-ti to import books and bonzes. The triad of religions was thus completed.

Totally diverse in spirit and essence, the three religions could hardly be expected to harmonise or combine. Confucianism exalts letters, and lays stress on ethics to the neglect of the spiritual world. Taoism inculcates physical discipline; but in practice it has become the mother of degrading superstition—dealing in magic and necromancy. Buddhism saps the foundations of the family and enjoins celibacy as the road to virtue. Metempsychosis is its leading doctrine, and to "think on nothing" its mental discipline. It forbids a flesh diet and deprecates scholarship. Through imperial patronage it acquired a footing in China, but it was long before it felt at home there. As late as the eighth century Han Yu, the greatest writer of the age, ridiculed the relics of Buddha and called on his people to "burn their books, close their temples, and make laity of their monks."

Yet Buddhism seems to have met a want. It has fostered a sympathy for animal life, and served as a protest against the Sadducean tenets of the lettered class. It long ago became so rooted in the minds of the illiterate, who form nine-tenths of the population, that China may be truly described as the leading Buddhist country of the globe.[*]

[Footnote *: THE APOTHEOSIS OF MERCY

A LEGEND OF KUANYIN PUSA—IN NORTHERN BUDDHISM

Two images adorn this mountain shrine,
Not marble chiselled out by Grecian art,
But carved from wood with Oriental skill.
In days of yore adored by pilgrim throngs,
They languish now without a worshipper.

High up a winding flight of stony steps
See Gautama upon his lotus throne!
More near the gate, her lovely face downcast,
Sits Mercy's Goddess, pity in her eye,
To greet the weary climbers and to hear
Their many-coloured tales of woe and want.

The Buddha, in sublime repose, sees not
His prostrate worshippers; and they to him
No prayer address, save hymns of grateful praise.[1]
'Twas he who for a blinded world sought out
The secret of escape from misery;
The splendour of a royal court resigned,
He found in poverty a higher realm!
Yet greater far the victory, when he broke
The chain of Fate and spurned the wheel of change.
To suffering humanity he says,
"Tread in my steps: You, too, may find release."

[Footnote 1: Such as Om mani padmi hum ("O the jewel in the lotus")]

Like him, the Pusa was of princely birth,
But not like him did she forsake a throne,
Nor yet like him did she consent to see
Nirvana's pearly gates behind her close.
A field for charity her regal state.
Her path with ever-blooming flowers she strewed,
Her sympathy to joy a relish gave,
To sorrows manifold it brought relief,
Forgetting self she lived for others' weal
Till higher than Meru her merit rose.[2]

[Footnote 2: Mt. Meru, the Indian Olympus.]

At length a Voice celestial smote her ear.
"Nirvana's portal to thee open stands,
The crown of Buddhaship is thine by right.
No wave of care that shore can ever reach,
No cry of pain again thine ear assail;
But fixed in solitary bliss thou'lt see
The circling ages rolling at thy feet!"

"Shall I then have no tidings of mankind?
Such heaven a throne of glittering ice would be.
That changeless bliss to others thou may'st give.
Happiest am I th' unhappy to upraise.
Oh for a thousand hands[3] the task to ply!
To succour and relieve be mine," she said,
"Bought though it be by share of suffering.
Turn then the wheel,[4] and back to earth again."

[Footnote 3: She is often so represented, as the symbol of present Providence.]

[Footnote 4: Lunhui, the wheel of destiny, within which birth and death succeed without end or interval.]

From out the blue came down the Voice once more:
"Thy great refusal wins a higher prize;
A kingdom new thy charity hath gained.[5]
And there shalt thou, the Queen of Mercy, reign,
Aloof from pain or weakness of thine own,
With quickened sense to hear and power to save."

[Footnote 5: She escapes the wheel, but remains on the border of Nirvana, where, as her name signifies, she "hears the prayers of men.">[

Fair image thou! Almost I worship thee,
Frail shadow of a Christ that hears and feels!

W. A. P. M.

PEARL GROTTO, NEAR PEKING, August 8, 1906.]

Buddhist monasteries are to be seen on every hand. They are often subsidised by the state; and even at the tomb of Confucius a temple was erected called the "Hall of the Three Religions." In it the image of Buddha is said to have occupied the seat of honour, but prior to the date of my visit it had been demolished.

Each of these religions has a hierarchy: that of Confucius with a lineal descendant of the Sage at its head; that of Lao-tse with Chang Tien-shi, the arch-magician, as its high priest; and, higher than all, that of Buddha with the Grand Lama of Tibet.

Under the house of Han a beginning was made in the institution of civil service examinations—a system which has continued to dominate the Chinese intellect down to our time; but it was not fully developed until the dynasty of T'ang. Belles-lettres made a marked advance. The poetry of the period is more finished than that of the Chous. Prose composition, too, is vigorous and lucid. The muse of history claims the place of honour. Sze-ma Ts'ien, the Herodotus of China, was born in this period. A glory to his country, the treatment Sze-ma Ts'ien received at the hands of his people exposes their barbarism. He had recommended Li Ling as a suitable commander to lead an expedition against the Mongols. Li Ling surrendered to the enemy, and Sze-ma Ts'ien, as his sponsor, was liable to suffer death in his stead. Being allowed an alternative, he chose to submit to the disgrace of emasculation, in order that he might live to complete his monumental work—a memorial better than sons and daughters. A pathetic letter of the unfortunate general, who never dared to return to China, is preserved amongst the choice specimens of prose composition.

Not content with the Great Wall for their northern limit nor with the "Great River" for their southern boundary, the Hans attempted to advance their frontiers in both directions. In the north they added the province of Kansuh, and in the other direction they extended their operations as far south as the borders of Annam; but they did not make good the possession of the whole of the conquered territory. Szechuen and Hunan were, however, added to their domain. The latter seems to have served as a penal colony rather than an integral portion of the Empire. A poem by Kiayi, an exiled statesman (200 B. c.), is dated from Changsha, its capital.[*]

[Footnote *: See "Chinese Legends and Other Poems," by W. A. P. Martin.]

In the south the savage tribes by which the Chinese were opposed made a deep impression on the character of the people, but left no record in history. Not so with the powerful foe encountered in the north. Under the title of Shanyu, he was a forerunner of the Grand Khan of Tartary—claiming equality with the emperors of China and exchanging embassies on equal terms. His people, known as the Hiunghu, are supposed to have been ancestors of the Huns.

CHAPTER XXI

THE THREE KINGDOMS, THE NAN-PEH CHAO, AND THE SUI DYNASTY, 214-618 A. D.

The States of Wei, Wu, and Shuh—A Popular Historical Romance—Chu-koh Liang, an Inventive Genius—The "three P's," Pen, Paper, Printing—The Sui Dynasty

After four centuries of undisputed sway, the sceptre is seen ready to fall from the nerveless hands of feeble monarchs. Eunuchs usurp authority, and the hydra of rebellion raises its many heads. Minor aspirants are easily extinguished; but three of them survive a conflict of twenty years, and lay the foundation of short-lived dynasties.

The noble structure erected by the Ts'ins and consolidated by the Hans began to crumble at the beginning of its fifth century of existence. In 221 A. D. its fragments were removed to three cities, each of which claimed to be the seat of empire. The state of Wei was founded by Tsao Tsao, with its capital at Lo-yang, the seat of the Hans. He had the further advantage, as mayor of the palace, of holding in his power the feeble emperor Hwan-ti, the last of the house of Han. The state of Wu, embracing the provinces of Kiangsu, Kiangsi, and Chehkiang, was established by Siun Kien, a man of distinguished ability who secured his full share of the patrimony. The third state was founded by Liu Pi, a scion of the imperial house whose capital was at Chingtu-fu in Szechuen. The historian is here confronted by a problem like that of settling the apostolic succession of the three popes, and he has decided in favour of the last, whom he designates the "Later Han," mainly on the ground of blood relationship.

Authority for this is found in the dynastic history; but reference may also be made to a romance which deals with the wars of those three states. Composed by Lo Kwan-chung and annotated by Kin Sheng Tan, it is the most popular historical novel in the whole range of Chinese literature. Taking the place of a national epic, its heroes are not of one type or all on one side, but its favourites are found among the adherents of Liu Pi. It opens with a scene in which Liu, Kwan, and Chang, like the three Tells on Grütli, meet in a peach-garden and take vows of brotherhood—drinking of a loving-cup tinged with the blood of each and swearing fidelity to their common cause. Of the three brothers the first, Liu Pi, after a long struggle, succeeds in founding a state in western China. The second, Kwan Yü, is the beau-ideal of patriotic courage. In 1594 he was canonised as the god of war. The gifted author has, therefore, the distinction, beyond that of any epic poet of the West, of having created for his countrymen their most popular deity. Chang-fi, the youngest of the three brothers, is the inseparable henchman of the Chinese Mars. He wields a spear eighteen feet in length with a dash and impetuosity which no enemy is able to withstand.

Other characters are equally fixed in the public mind. Tsao Tsao, the chief antagonist of Liu Pi, is not merely a usurper: he is a curious compound of genius, fraud, and cruelty. Another conspicuous actor is Lü Pu, an archer able to split a reed at a hundred paces, and a horseman who performs prodigies on the field of battle. He begins his career by shooting his adopted father, like Brutus perhaps, not because he loved Tung Choh less, but China more.

All these and others too numerous to mention may be seen any day on the boards of the theatre, an institution which, in China at least, serves as a school for the illiterate.[*]

[Footnote *: The stage is usually a platform on the open street where an actor may be seen changing his rôle with his costume, now wearing the mask of one and then of another of the contending chieftains, and changing his voice, always in a falsetto key, to produce something like variety.]

Liu Pi succeeds, after a struggle of twenty years, in establishing himself in the province of Szechuen; but he enjoys undisturbed dominion in his limited realm for three years only, and then transmits his crown to a youthful son whom he commends to the care of a faithful minister. The youth when an infant has been rescued from a burning palace by the brave Chang-fi, who, wrapping the sleeping child in his cloak and mounting a fleet charger, cut his way through the enemy. On reaching a distant point the child was still asleep. The witty annotator adds the remark, "He continued to sleep for thirty years."

The minister to whom the boy had been confided, Chu-koh Liang, is the most versatile and inventive genius of Chinese antiquity. As the founder of the house of Chou discovered in an old fisherman a counsellor of state who paved his way to the throne, so Liu Pi found this man in a humble cottage where he was hiding himself in the garb of a peasant, San Ku Mao Lu, say the Chinese. He "three times visited that thatched hovel" before he succeeded in persuading its occupant to commit himself to his uncertain fortunes. From that moment Chu-koh Liang served him as eyes and ears, teeth and claws, with a skill and fidelity which have won the applause of all succeeding ages. Among other things, he did for Liu Pi what Archimedes did for Dionysius. He constructed military engines that appeared so wonderful that, as tradition has it "he made horses and oxen out of wood."

Entrusted by his dying master with the education of the young prince, he has left two papers full of wise counsels which afford no little help in drawing the line between fact and fiction. Unquestionably Chu-koh Liang was the first man of his age in intellect and in such arts and sciences as were known to his times. Yet no one invention can be pointed to as having been certainly derived from Chu-koh Liang. The author of the above-mentioned romance, who lived as late as the end of the thirteenth century, constantly speaks of his use of gunpowder either to terrify the enemy or to serve for signals; but it is never used to throw a cannon-ball. It probably was known to the Chinese of that date, as the Arab speaks of gunpowder under the designation of "Chinese snow," meaning doubtless the saltpetre which forms a leading ingredient. The Chinese had been dabbling in alchemy for many centuries, and it is scarcely possible that they should have failed to hit on some such explosive. It is, however, believed on good authority that they never made use of cannon in war until the beginning of the fifteenth century.

There are, however, three other inventions or improvements of the known arts, which deserve notice in this connection, namely, the "three Ps"—pen, paper and printing—all preëminently instruments of peaceful culture. The pen in China is a hair pencil resembling a paint-brush. It was invented by Mung-tien in the third century B. c. Paper was invented by Tsai Lun, 100 B. c., and printing by Fungtao in the tenth century of the present era. What is meant by printing in this case is, however, merely the substitution of wood for stone, the Chinese having been for ages in the habit of taking rubbings from stone inscriptions. It was not long before they divided the slab into movable characters and earned for themselves the honour of having anticipated Gutenberg and Faust. Their divisible types were never in general use, however, and block printing continues in vogue; but Western methods are rapidly supplanting both.

The three states were reunited under the Tsin dynasty, 265 A. D. This lasted for a century and a half and then, after a succession of fifteen emperors, went down in a sea of anarchy, from the froth of which arose more than half a score of contending factions, among which four were sufficiently prominent to make for themselves a place in history. Their period is described as that of the Nan-peh Chao, "Northern and Southern Kingdoms." The names of the principals were Sung, Wei, Liang and Chin. The first only was Chinese, the others belonging to various branches of the Tartar race. The chiefs of the Liang family were of Tibetan origin—a circumstance which may perhaps account for their predilection for Buddhism. The second emperor of that house, Wu Ti, became a Buddhist monk and retired to a monastery where he lectured on the philosophy of Buddhism. He reminds one of Charles the Fifth, who in his retirement amused himself less rationally by repairing watches and striving, in vain, to make a number of them keep identical time.

It may be noted that behind these warring factions there is in progress a war of races also. The Tartars are forever encroaching on the Flowery Land. Repulsed or expelled, they return with augmented force; and even at this early epoch the shadow of their coming conquest is plainly visible.

In the confused strife of North and South the preponderance is greatly on the side of the Tartars. The pendulum of destiny then begins to swing in the other direction. Yan Kien, a Chinese general in the service of a Tartar principality, took advantage of their divisions to rally a strong body of his countrymen by whose aid he cut them off in detail and set up the Sui dynasty, The Tartars have always made use of Chinese in the invasion of China; and if the Chinese were always faithful to their own country no invader would succeed in conquering them.

Though the Sui dynasty lasted less than thirty years (589-618, three reigns), it makes a conspicuous figure on account of two events: (1) a victorious expedition in the north which reached the borders of Turkestan, and (2) the opening of canals between the Yellow River and the Yang-tse Kiang. The latter enterprise only hastened the fall of the house. It was effected by forced labour; and the discontented people were made to believe, as their historians continue to assert, that its chief object was to enable a luxurious emperor to display his grandeur to the people of many provinces. We shall see how the extension of those canals precipitated the overthrow of the Mongols as we have already seen how the completion of the Great Wall caused the downfall of the house of Ts'in.

Yang-ti, the second emperor of the Sui dynasty, though not wanting in energy, is notorious for his excesses in display and debauch. He is reported to have hastened his accession to the throne by the murder of his father. A peaceful end to such a reign would have been out of keeping with the course of human events. Li Yuen, one of his generals, rose against him, and he was assassinated in Nanking.

By wisdom and courage Li Yuen succeeded in setting up a new dynasty which he called T'ang (618 A. D.): After a long period of unrest, it brought to the distracted provinces an era of unwonted prosperity; it held the field for nearly three hundred years, and surpassed all its predecessors in splendour.

CHAPTER XXII

THE T'ANG DYNASTY, 618-907 A. D.
(20 Emperors)

An Augustan Age—A Pair of Poets—The Coming of Christianity—The Empress Wu—System of Examinations

I have seen a river plunge into a chasm and disappear. After a subterranean course of many miles it rose to the surface fuller, stronger than before. No man saw from whence it drew its increment of force, but the fact was undeniable. This is just what took place in China at this epoch.

It is comforting to know that during those centuries of turmoil the Chinese were not wholly engrossed with war and rapine. The T'ang dynasty is conspicuously the Augustan Age. Literature reappears in a more perfect form than under the preceding reigns. The prose writers of that period are to the present day studied as models of composition, which cannot be affirmed of the writers of any earlier epoch. Poetry, too, shone forth with dazzling splendour. A galaxy of poets made their appearance, among whom two particular stars were Tufu and Lipai, the Dryden and Pope of Chinese literature.

The following specimen from Lipai who is deemed the highest poetical genius in the annals of China, may show, even in its Western dress, something of his peculiar talent:

ON DRINKING ALONE BY MOONLIGHT[*]

Here are flowers and here is wine,
But where's a friend with me to join
Hand in hand and heart to heart
In one full cup before we part?

Rather than to drink alone,
I'll make bold to ask the moon
To condescend to lend her face
The hour and the scene to grace.

Lo, she answers, and she brings
My shadow on her silver wings;
That makes three, and we shall be.
I ween, a merry company

The modest moon declines the cup,
But shadow promptly takes it up,
And when I dance my shadow fleet
Keeps measure with my flying feet.

But though the moon declines to tipple
She dances in yon shining ripple,
And when I sing, my festive song,
The echoes of the moon prolong.

Say, when shall we next meet together?
Surely not in cloudy weather,
For you my boon companions dear
Come only when the sky is clear.

[Footnote *: From "Chinese Legends and Other Poems," by W. A. P. MARTIN.]

The second emperor, Tai-tsung, made good his claims by killing two of his brothers who were plotting against him. Notwithstanding this inauspicious beginning he became an able and illustrious sovereign. The twenty-three years during which he occupied the throne were the most brilliant of that famous dynasty.

At Si-ngan in Shensi, the capital of the T'angs, is a stone monument which records the introduction of Christianity by Nestorians from Syria. Favoured by the Emperor the new faith made considerable headway. For five hundred years the Nestorian churches held up the banner of the Cross; but eventually, through ignorance and impurity, they sank to the level of heathenism and disappeared. It is sad to think that this early effort to evangelise China has left nothing but a monumental stone.

At the funeral of Tai-tsung his successor, Kao-tsung, saw Wu, one of his father's concubines, who pleased him so much that, contrary to law, he took her into his own harem. Raised to the rank of empress and left mother of an infant son, she swayed the sceptre after Kao-tsung's death for twenty-one years. Beginning as regent she made herself absolute.

A system of civil service examinations which had sprung up with the revival of learning under the Hans was now brought to maturity. For good or for evil it has dominated the mind of the Empire for twelve centuries. Now, however, the leaders of thought have begun to suspect that it is out of date. The new education requires new tests; but what is to hinder their incorporation in the old system? To abolish it would be fraught with danger, and to modify it is a delicate task for the government of the present day.

That the scholar should hold himself in readiness to serve the state no less than the soldier was an acknowledged principle. It was reserved for the statesmen of T'ang to make it the mainspring of the government. To them belongs the honour of constructing a system which would stimulate literary culture and skim the cream of the national talent for the use of the state. It had the further merit of occupying the minds of ambitious youth with studies of absorbing interest, thus diverting them from the dangerous path of political conspiracy.

Never was a more effective patronage given to letters. Without founding or endowing schools the state said: "If you acquire the necessary qualifications, we shall see that your exertions are duly rewarded. Look up to those shining heights—see the gates that are open to welcome you, the garlands that wait to crown your triumphant course!"

Annual examinations were held in every country; and the degree of S. T. (Siu-tsai), equivalent to A. B., was conferred on 3 per cent. of the candidates. To fail was no disgrace; to have entered the lists was a title to respect. Once in three years the budding talent of the province convened in its chief city to compete for the second degree. This was H. L. (Hiao Lien, "Filial and Honest"), showing how ethical ideas continued to dominate the literary tribunals. It is now Chu-jin, and denotes nothing but promotion or prize man. The prize, a degree answering to A. M., poetically described as a sprig of the Olea fragrans, was the more coveted as the competitors were all honour men of the first grade, and it was limited to one in a hundred. Its immediate effect is such social distinction that it is said poor bachelors are common, but poor masters are rare.

If the competition stopped here it would be an Olympic game on a grander scale. But there are loftier heights to be climbed. The new-made masters from all the provinces proceed to the imperial capital to try their strength against the assembled scholars of the Empire. Here the prizes are three in a hundred. The successful student comes forth a Literary Doctor—a Tsin-shi, "fit for office." To all such is assured a footing, high or low, on the official ladder.

But another trial remains by which those who are good at the high leap may at a single bound place themselves very near the top. This final contest takes place in the palace—nominally in the presence of the Emperor, and the questions are actually issued by him. Its object is to select the brightest of the doctors for chairs in the Hanlin Academy—an institution in which the humblest seat is one of exalted dignity. How dazzling the first name on that list! The Chuang Yuen or senior wrangler takes rank with governors and viceroys. An unfading halo rests on the place of his birth. Sometimes in travelling I have seen a triumphal arch proclaiming that "Here was born the laureate of the Empire." Such an advertisement raises the value of real estate; and good families congregate in a place on which the sun shines so auspiciously. A laureate who lived near me married his daughter to a viceroy, and her daughter became consort to the Emperor Tungchi.

What then are the objections to a regulation which is so democratic that it makes a nobleman of every successful scholar and gives to all the inspiration of equal opportunity? They are, in a word, that it has failed to expand with the growing wants of the people. The old curriculum laid down by Confucius, "Begin with poetry; make etiquette your strong point; and finish off with music," was not bad for his day, but is utterly inadequate for ours, unless it be for a young ladies seminary. The Sage's chapter on experiment as the source of knowledge—a chapter which might have anticipated the Novum Organum—having been lost, the statesmen of the T'ang period fell into the error of leaving in their scheme no place for original research. This it was that made the mind of China barren of discoveries for twelve centuries. It was like putting a hood on the keen-eyed hawk and permitting him to fly at only such game as pleased his master.

The chief requirement was superficial polish in prose and verse. The themes were taken exclusively from books, the newest of which was at that time over a thousand years old. To broach a theory not found there was fatal; and to raise a question in physical science was preposterous. Had anyone come forward with a new machine he might have been rewarded; but no such inventor ever came because the best minds in the Empire were trained to trot blindfold on a tread-mill in which there was no possibility of progress. Had the mind of the nation been left free and encouraged to exert its force, who can doubt that the country that produced the mariner's compass might have given birth to a Newton or an Edison?

After Wu none of the monarchs of this dynasty calls for notice. The last emperor was compelled to abdicate; and thus, after a career of nearly three centuries bright with the light of genius and prolific of usages good and bad that set the fashion for after ages, this great house was extinguished.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE SUNG DYNASTY, 960-1280 A. D.
(18 Emperors)

The Five Philosophers—Wang Ngan-shi, Economist—The Kin Tartars—The Southern Sungs—Aid of Mongols Invoked to Drive Out the Kins—Mongols Exterminate Sungs

On the fall of the house of T'ang, a score of factions contended for the succession. During the fifty-three years preceding the establishment of the Sungs, no less than five of them rose to temporary prominence sufficient to admit of being dubbed a "dynasty." Collectively they are spoken of as the "Five Dynasties" (907-960).

Their names are without exception a repetition of those of former dynasties, Liang, T'ang, Ts'in, Han, Chou with the prefix "Later"—suggesting that each claimed to be a lineal successor of some previous imperial family. Their struggles for power, not more instructive than a conflict of gladiators, are so devoid of interest that the half-century covered by them may be passed over as a blank. It may, however, be worth while to remind the reader that as the House of Han was followed by the wars of the "Three Kingdoms," and that of Ts'in by a struggle of North and South under four states, so the House of T'ang was now succeeded by five short-lived "dynasties," with a mean duration of scarcely more than ten years. The numerical progression is curious; but it is more important to notice a historical law which native Chinese writers deduce from those scenes of confusion. They state it in this form: "After long union the empire is sure to be divided; after long disruption it is sure to be reunited."

So deep an impression has this historical generalisation made on the public mind that if the empire were now to be divided between foreign nations, as it has been more than once, the people would confidently expect it to be reintegrated under rulers of their own race.

The undivided Sung dynasty held sway from 960 to 1127; that of the southern Sungs from 1127 to 1280. The founder of the house was Chao-kwang-yun, an able leader of soldiers and an astute politician. So popular was he with his troops that they called him to the throne by acclamation. He was drunk, it is said, when his new dignity was announced, and he had no alternative but to wear the yellow robe that was thrown on his shoulders. Undignified as was his debut, his reign was one continued triumph. After a tenure of seventeen years, he left his successor in possession of nearly the whole of China Proper together with a fatal legacy of lands on the north.

The two main features of the Sung period are the rise of a great school of philosophy and the constant encroachment of the Tartars. The two Chengs being brothers, the names of the five leading philosophers fall into an alliterative line of four syllables, Cheo, Cheng, Chang, Chu. Acute in speculation and patient in research, they succeeded in fixing the interpretation of the sacred books, and in establishing a theory of nature and man from which it is heresy to dissent. The rise of their school marks an intellectual advance as compared with the lettered age of the T'angs. It was an age of daring speculation; but, as constantly happens in China, the authority of these great men was converted into a bondage for posterity. The century in which they flourished (1020-1120) is unique in the history of their country as the age of philosophy. In Europe it was a part of the Dark Ages; and at that time the Western world was convulsed by the Crusades.

The most eminent of the five philosophers was Chu Fu-tse. Not the most original, he collected the best thoughts of all into a system; and his erudition was such that the whole range of literature was his domain. Chu Hi, the Coryphæus of mediæval China, stands next in honour after that incomparable pair, Confucius and Mencius. Contemporary with the earlier members of this coterie appeared Wang Ngan-shi, an economist, of rare originality. His leading principle was the absorption by the state of all industrial enterprises—state ownership of land, and in general a paternal system to supersede private initiative. So charming was the picture presented in his book "The Secret of Peace" (still extant) that the Emperor gave him carte blanche to put his theory into practice. In practical life however it was a failure—perhaps because he failed to allow for the strength or weakness of materials and instruments. His book is a Chinese Utopia, nearly akin to those of Plato and Sir John More.

In the northeast beyond the Wall were two Tartar kingdoms, one of which was the Kin or "Golden Horde"—remote ancestors of the Manchu dynasty. A constant menace to the settled population of the "inner land," they obtained possession of Peking in 1118. For a time they were kept at bay by a money payment which reminds one of the Danegeld paid by our forefathers to the sea-robbers of northern Europe. Payments not being punctual, the Tartars occupied portions of the northern provinces, and pushed their way as far south as K'ai-fung-fu, the capital of the Empire. The Emperor retired to Nanking, leaving in command his son, who, unable to resist the Tartars, made a disgraceful peace. A heavy ransom was paid to avert the sacking of the city; and all the region on the north of the Yellow River passed under Tartar sway.

Repenting of their hard bargain, the Chinese provoked a renewal of hostilities, which resulted in a heavier downfall. The capital surrendered after a severe siege, and the Emperor with his court was carried into captivity. The next emperor acknowledged himself a vassal of the Tartars; but peace on such conditions could not be of long duration. An intermittent warfare was kept up for more than a century, in the course of which Nanking was pillaged, and the court fell back successively on Hangchow and Wenchow. When there was no longer a place of safety on the mainland the wretched fugitives sought refuge on an island. Fitting out a fleet the Tartars continued the pursuit; but more used to horses than ships, the fleet was annihilated, and the expiring dynasty obtained a new lease of life.

This was about 1228. The Mongols under Genghis Khan and his successors had carried everything before them in the northwest. Thirsting for revenge, the Chinese appealed for aid to this new power—and the Mongols found an opportunity to bag two birds instead of one. As a Chinese fable puts it: "A sea-bird failing to make a breakfast on a shellfish was held in its grip until a fisherman captured both."

The Kins were driven back into Manchuria; and the Chinese without asking leave of their allies reoccupied their old capital. But the revival of the Sungs was no part of the Mongol programme. The Sungs declining to evacuate K'ai-fung-fu and to cede to the Mongols the northern half of the empire, the latter resolved on a war of extermination. After a bitter struggle of fifteen years, the infant emperor and his guardians again committed their fortunes to the sea. The Mongols, more lucky than the other Tartars, were victorious on water as well as on land; and the last scion of the imperial house drowned himself to escape their fury (1280).

CHAPTER XXIV

THE YUEN OR MONGOL DYNASTY, 1280-1368
(10 Emperors)

Kublai Khan—First Intercourse of China with Europe—Marco Polo—The Grand Canal

Parts of China had been frequently overrun by foreign conquerors; but the Mongols were the first to extend their sway over the whole country. The subjugation of China was the work of Kublai, grandson of Genghis, who came to the throne in 1260, inheriting an empire more extensive than Alexander or Cæsar had dreamed of. In 1264 the new khan fixed his court at Peking and proceeded to reduce the provinces to subjection. Exhausted and disunited as they were the task was not difficult, though it took fifteen years to complete. Ambition alone would have been sufficient motive for the conquest, but his hostility was provoked by perfidy—especially by the murder of envoys sent to announce his accession. "Without good faith," says Confucius, "no nation can exist."

By the absorption of China the dominions of Kublai were made richer, if not greater in extent, than those of his grandfather, while the splendour of his court quite eclipsed that of Genghis Khan.

Unknown to the ancient Romans, China was revealed to their mediæval successors by the Mongol conquest. In 1261 two Venetian merchants, Nicolo and Matteo Polo, made their way to Bokhara, whence, joining an embassy from India, they proceeded to Kublai's capital at Xanadu (or Shangtu) near the site of Peking. They were the first white men the Grand Khan had ever seen, and he seems to have perceived at once that, if not of superior race, they were at least more advanced in civilisation than his own people; for, besides intrusting them with letters to the Pope, he gave them a commission to bring out a hundred Europeans to instruct the Mongols in the arts and sciences of the West.

In 1275 they returned to Peking without other Europeans, but accompanied by Marco Polo, the son of Nicolo. They were received with more honour than on their first visit, and the young man was appointed to several positions of trust in the service of the monarch. After a sojourn of seventeen years, the three Polos obtained permission to join the escort of a Mongol princess who was going to the court of Persia. In Persia they heard of the death of their illustrious patron, and, instead of returning to China, turned their faces homeward, arriving at Venice in 1295.

Having been captured by the Genoese, Marco Polo while in prison dictated his wonderful story. At first it was looked on as a romance and caused its author to receive the sobriquet of "Messer Millione"; but its general accuracy has been fully vindicated.

The chief effect of that narrative was to fire the imagination of another Italian and lead him by steering to the west to seek a short cut to the Eldorado. How strange the occult connection of sublunary things! The Mongol Kublai must be invoked to account for the discovery of America! The same story kindled the fancy of Coleridge, in the following exquisite fragment, which he says came to him in a vision of the night:

"In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man,
Down to a sunless sea."
—Kubla Khan.

Still another Italian claims mention as having made some impression on the court of Kublai. This was Corvino, a missionary sent by the Pope; but of his church, his schools, and his convents, there were left no more traces than of his predecessors, the Nestorians.

The glory of Kublai was not of long duration. The hardy tribes of the north became enervated by the luxury and ease of their rich patrimony. "Capua captured Hannibal." Nine of the founder's descendants followed him, not one of whom displayed either vigour or statesmanship.

Their power ebbed more suddenly than it rose. Shun-ti, the last of the house, took refuge behind the Great Wall from the rising tide of Chinese patriotism; and after a tenure of ninety years, or of two centuries of fluctuating dominion, reckoning from the rise of Genghis Khan, the Yuen dynasty came to an untimely end.

The magnificent waterway, the Grand Canal, remains an imperishable monument of the Mongol sway. As an "alimentary canal" it was needed for the support of the armies that held the people in subjection; and the Mongols only completed a work which other dynasties had undertaken. A description of it from personal observation is given in Part I of this work ([page 31]). It remains to be said that the construction of the Canal, like that of the Great Wall, was a leading cause of the downfall of its builders. Forced labour and aggravated taxation gave birth to discontent; rebellion became rife, and the Mongols were too effeminate to take active measures for its suppression.

CHAPTER XXV

THE MING DYNASTY, 1368-1644 A. D.
(16 Emperors)

Humble Origin of the Founder—Nanking and Peking as Capital—First Arrival of European Ships—Portuguese, Spaniards, and Dutch Traders—Arrival of Missionaries—Tragic End of the Last of the Mings

Humble as was the origin of the founder of the House of Han, spoken of as Pu-i, "A peasant clothed in homespun," that of the Father of the Mings was still more obscure. A novice or servant (sacrificulus) in a Buddhist monastery, Chu Yuen Chang felt called to deliver his people from oppression. At first regarded as a robber chief, one of many, his rivals submitted to his leadership and the people accepted his protection. Securing possession of Nanking, a city of illustrious memories and strong natural defences, he boldly proclaimed his purpose. After twenty years of blood and strategy, he succeeded in placing the Great Wall between him and the retreating Mongols. Proud of his victory he assumed for the title of his reign Hungwu, "Great Warrior," and chose Ming, "Luminous," for that of his dynasty.

Leaving his son, the Prince of Yen, at Peking, to hold the Tartars in check, Hungwu spent the remaining years of his reign at his original capital, and then left the sceptre to his grandson. The Prince of Yen, uncle of the youthful emperor, feeling the slight implied in his father's choice, raised an army and captured Nanking. A charred corpse being shown to him as that of the emperor, he caused it to be interred with becoming rites, and at once assumed the imperial dignity, choosing for his reigning title Yungloh, "Perpetual Joy." He also removed the seat of government to Peking, where it has remained for five centuries. The "Thesaurus of Yungloh," a digest of Chinese literature so extensive as to form a library in itself, remains a monument to his patronage of letters.

A tragic episode in the history of the Mings was the capture of the next emperor by the Mongols, who, however, failed to take Peking. It was easier to make a new emperor than to ransom the captive. His brother having been proclaimed, the Tartars sent their captive back, hoping that a war between the brothers would weaken their enemy. Retiring into private life he appeared to renounce his claim; but after the death of his brother he once more occupied the throne. What a theme for a romance!

Great Britain was described by a Roman as "almost cut off from the whole world" because it was not accessible by land. China had long been cut off from the Western world because it was not accessible by sea. The way to India was opened by Diaz and Gama in 1498; and the first Portuguese ships appeared at Canton in 1511. Well-treated at first, others came in greater numbers. Their armaments were so formidable as to excite suspicion; and their acts of violence kindled resentment. Under these combined motives a massacre of the foreign traders was perpetrated, and Andrade, a sort of envoy at Peking, was thrown into prison and beheaded. The trading-posts were abolished except at Macao, where the Portuguese obtained a footing by paying an annual rent.

After the Portuguese came the Spaniards, who appear to have been satisfied with the Philippine archipelago, rather than provoke a conflict with the Portuguese. The Chinese they had little reason to dread, as the superiority of their arms would have enabled them to seize portions of the seacoast, though not to conquer the Empire as easily as they did the Mexicans and Peruvians. Perhaps, too, they were debarred by the same authority which divided the Western continent between the two Iberian powers. The Chinese becoming too numerous at Manila, the Spaniards slaughtered them without mercy, as if in retaliation for the blood of their cousins, or taking a hint from the policy of China.

In 1622 the Dutch endeavoured to open trade with China, but their advances being rejected, doubtless through secret opposition from the Portuguese, they seized the Pescadores, and later established themselves on Formosa, whence they were eventually expelled by Koxinga, a Chinese freebooter.

The church founded by Corvino at Peking perished in the overthrow of the Mongols. The Portuguese traders disapproved of missions, as tending to impose restraint on their profligacy and to impart to China the strength that comes from knowledge. The narrow policy of the Mings, moreover, closed the door against the introduction of a foreign creed. Yet it is strange that half a century elapsed before any serious attempt was made to give the Gospel to China. In 1552 St. Francis Xavier, the apostle of the Indies, arrived at Macao. He and his fellow Jesuits were indirect fruits of the Protestant Reformation—belonging to an order organised for the purpose of upholding and extending the power of the Holy See. After wonderful success in India, the Straits, and Japan, Xavier appeared in Chinese waters, but he was not allowed to land. He expired on the island of Shang-chuen or St. John's, exclaiming "O rock, rock, when wilt thou open?"

Ricci, who came in 1580, met with better success: but it cost him twenty years of unceasing effort to effect an entrance to Peking. Careful to avoid giving offence, and courtly in manners, his science proved to be the master-key. Among the eminent men who favoured his mission was Sü of Shanghai, whom he baptised by the name of Paul. Not only did he help Ricci to translate Euclid for a people ignorant of the first elements of geometry, but he boldly came to the defence of missionaries when it was proposed to expel them. His memorial in their favour is one of the best documents in the defence of Christianity. Among the converts to the Christian faith there are no brighter names than Paul Sü and his daughter Candida.

The Ming dynasty compares favourably in point of duration with most of the imperial houses that preceded it; but long before the middle of its third century it began to show signs of decay. In Korea it came into collision with the Japanese, and emerged with more credit than did its successor from a war with the same foe, which began on the same ground three centuries later. In the northeast the Mings were able to hold the Manchus at bay, notwithstanding an occasional foray; but a disease of the heart was sapping the vigour of the dynasty and hastening its doom. Rebellion became rife; and two of the aspirants to the throne made themselves masters of whole provinces. One depopulated Szechuen; the other ravaged Shansi and advanced on Peking. Chungchen, the last of the Mings, realising that all was lost, hanged himself in his garden on the Palatine Hill, after stabbing his daughter, as a last proof of paternal affection (1643).

CHAPTER XXVI

THE TA-TS'ING DYNASTY, 1644—

The Manchus, Invited to Aid in Restoring Order, Seat their Own Princes on the Throne—the Traitor, General Wu San-kwei—Reigns of Shunchi and Kanghi—Spread of Christianity—A Papal Blunder—Yung-cheng Succeeded by Kieñlung, who Abdicates Rather than Reign Longer than his Grandfather—Era of Transformation

The Manchus had been preparing for some generations for a descent on China. They had never forgotten that half the Empire had once been in the possession of their forefathers, the Kin Tartars; and after one or two abortive attempts to recover their heritage they settled themselves at Mukden and watched their opportunity. It came with the fall of the Mings.

Wu San-kwei, a Chinese general whose duty it was to keep them in bounds, threw open the gate of the Great Wall and invoked their assistance to expel the successful rebel. His family had been slaughtered in the fall of the capital; he thirsted for revenge, and without doubt indulged the hope of founding a dynasty. The Manchus agreed to his terms, and, combining their forces with his, advanced on Peking. Feeling himself unable to hold the city, the rebel chief burnt his palace and retreated, after enjoying the imperial dignity ten days.

General Wu offered to pay off his mercenaries and asked them to retire beyond the Wall. Smiling at his simplicity, they coolly replied that it was for him to retire or to enter their service. It was the old story of the ass and the stag. An ass easily drove a stag from his pasture-ground by taking a man on his back; but the man remained in the saddle. Forced to submit, the General employed his forces to bring his people into subjection to their hereditary enemy. Rewarded with princely rank, and shielded by the reigning house, he has escaped the infamy which he deserved at the hands of the historians. A traitor to his country, he was also a traitor to his new masters. He died in a vain attempt at counter-revolution.

The new dynasty began with Shunchi, a child of six years, his uncle the Prince Hwai acting as regent. Able and devoted, this great man, whom the Manchus call Amawang, acquitted himself of his task in a manner worthy of the model regent, the Duke of Chou. His task was not an easy one. He had to suppress contending factions, to conciliate a hostile populace, and to capture many cities which refused to submit. In seven years he effected the subjugation of the eighteen provinces, everywhere imposing the tonsure and the "pigtail" as badges of subjection. Many a myriad of the Chinese forfeited their heads by refusing to sacrifice their glossy locks; but the conquest was speedy, and possession secure.

The success of the Manchus was largely due to the fact that they found the empire exhausted by internal strife and came as deliverers. The odium of overturning the Ming dynasty did not rest on them. While at Mukden they had cultivated the language and letters of the "Inner land" and they had before them, for guidance or warning, the history of former conquests.

They have improved on their predecessors, whether Kins or Mongols; and with all their faults they have given to China a better government than any of her native dynasties.

Shunchi (1644-1662) passed off the stage at the age of twenty-four and left the throne to a son, Kanghi (1662-1723), who became the greatest monarch in the history of the Empire. During his long reign of sixty-one years, Kanghi maintained order in his wide domain, corrected abuses in administration, and promoted education for both nationalities. It is notable that the most complete dictionary of the Chinese language bears the imprimatur of Kanghi, a Tartar sovereign.

For his fame in the foreign world, Kanghi is largely indebted to the learned missionaries who enjoyed his patronage, though he took care to distinguish between them and their religion. The latter had been proscribed by the regents, who exercised supreme power during his minority. Their decree was never revoked; and persecution went on in the provinces, without the least interference from the Emperor. Still his patronage of missionaries was not without influence on the status of Christianity in his dominions. It gained ground, and before the close of his reign it had a following of over three hundred thousand converts. Near the close of his reign he pointedly condemned the foreign faith, and commanded the expulsion of its propagators, except a few, who were required in the Board of Astronomy.

The favourable impression made by Ricci had been deepened by Schaal and Verbiest. The former under Shunchi reformed the calendar and obtained the presidency of the Astronomical Board. He also cast cannon to aid the Manchu conquest. The latter did both for Kanghi, and filled the same high post. Schaal employed his influence to procure the building of two churches in Peking. Verbiest made use of his to spread the faith in the provinces. The Church might perhaps have gained a complete victory, had not dissensions arisen within her own ranks. Dominicans and Franciscans entering the field denounced their forerunners for having tolerated heathen rites and accepted heathen names for God. After prolonged discussions and contradictory decrees the final verdict went against the Jesuits. In this decision the Holy See seems not to have been guided by infallible wisdom.

Kanghi, whose opinion had been requested by the Jesuits, asserted that by Tien and Shang-ti the Chinese mean the Ruler of the Universe, and that the worship of Confucius and of ancestors is not idolatry, but a state or family ceremony. By deciding against his views, the Pope committed the blunder of alienating a great monarch, who might have been won by a liberal policy. The prohibition of the cult of ancestors—less objectionable in itself than the worship of saints—had the effect of arming every household against a faith that aimed to subvert their family altars. The dethronement of Shang-ti (a name accepted by most Protestant missionaries) and the substitution of Tien Chu, could not fail to shock the best feelings of devout people. Tien Chu, if not a new coinage, was given by papal fiat an artificial value, equivalent to "Lord of all"—whereas it had previously headed a list of divisional deities, such as Lord of Heaven, Lord of Earth, Lord of the Sea, etc.

What wonder that for two centuries Christianity continued to be a prohibited creed! The ground thus lost by a papal blunder it has never regained. The acceptance of Tien and Shang-ti by Protestants might perhaps do something to retrieve the situation, if backed by some form of respect for ancestors.

Kanghi was succeeded by his son Yungcheng (1722-1736), who was followed by Kienlung (1736-1796), during whose reign the dynasty reached the acme of splendour. Under Kienlung, Turkestan was added to the empire. The Grand Lama of Tibet was also enrolled as a feudatory; but he never accepted the laws of China, and no doubt considered himself repaid by spiritual homage. No territory has since been added, and none lost, if we except the cession of Formosa to Japan and of Hong Kong to Great Britain. The cessions of seaports to other powers are considered as temporary leases.

After a magnificent reign of sixty years, Kienlung abdicated in favour of his fifth son, Kiak'ing, for the whimsical reason that he did not wish to reign longer than his grandfather. In Chinese eyes this was sublime. Why did they not enact a law that no man should surpass the longevity of his father?

As to Kiak'ing, who occupied the throne for twenty-four years, weak and dissolute is a summary of his character.

The next four reigns came under the influence of new forces. They belong to the era of transformation, and may properly be reserved for Part III.

PART III

CHINA IN TRANSFORMATION

CHAPTER XXVII

THE OPENING OF CHINA, A DRAMA IN FIVE ACTS—GOD IN HISTORY

Prologue—Act 1, the Opium War—(Note on the Taiping Rebellion)—Act 2, the "Arrow" War—Act 3, War with France—Act 4, War with Japan—Act 5, the Boxer War

PROLOGUE

If one were asked to name the most important three events that took place in Asia in the last century, he could have no hesitation in pointing to the extension of the Indian Empire and the renovation of Japan as two of them. But where would he look for the third? Possibly to some upheaval in Turkey, Persia, or Asiatic Russia. In my opinion, however, China is the only country whose history supplies the solution of the problem. The opening of that colossal empire to unrestricted intercourse with other countries was not a gradual evolution from within—it was the result of a series of collisions between the conservatism of the extreme Orient and the progressive spirit of the Western world.

Each of those collisions culminated in a war, giving rise to a cloud of ephemeral literature, in which a student might easily lose his way, and which it would require the lifetime of an antediluvian to exhaust. I think, therefore, that I shall do my readers a service if I set before them a concise outline of each of those wars, together with an account of its causes and consequences. Not only will this put them on their guard against misleading statements; it will also furnish them with a syllabus of the modern history of China in relation to her intercourse with other nations.

During the past seven decades the Chinese Empire has been no less than five times in conflict with foreign powers; and on each occasion her policy has undergone a modification more or less extensive. Taking these five conflicts seriatim—without touching on those internal commotions whose rise and fall resembles the tides of the ocean—I shall ask my readers to think of the Flowery Land as a stage on which, within the memory of men now living, a tragedy in five acts has been performed. Its subject was the Opening of China; and its first act was the so-called Opium War (1839-42). Prior to 1839 the Central Empire, as the Chinese proudly call their country, with a population nearly equal to that of Europe and America combined, was hermetically sealed against foreign intercourse, except at one point, viz., the "Factories" at Canton.

This state of things is depicted with a few masterstrokes in a popular work in Chinese entitled "Strange Stories of an Idle Student." The first of these tales describes a traveller meeting in the mountains an old man, in the costume of a former dynasty, whose family had there sought a refuge from the anarchy that preceded the fall of the imperial house. This old fellow had not even heard of the accession of the Manchu conquerors; and though he was eager for information, he disappeared without giving any clue to the Sleepy Hollow in which he was hiding. The author no doubt intended a quiet satire on the seclusion of China, that had nothing to ask of the outside world but to be let alone.

Another of the sketches, which is no satire, but a cautionary hint—perhaps an unconscious prophecy—is entitled "The Magic Carpet of the Red-haired," a vulgar designation for Europeans, in contrast with the Chinese, who style themselves the "Black-haired race." During the former dynasty, it says, a ship arrived from some unknown country, and those aboard desired to engage in commerce. Their request was refused; but when they asked permission to dry their goods on shore, requiring for that purpose no more ground than they could cover with a carpet, their petition was readily granted. The carpet was spread, and the goods were exposed to the sun; then, taking the carpet by its four corners, they stretched it so that it covered several acres. A large body of armed men then planted themselves on it, and striking out in every direction took possession of the country. This elastic carpet reminds one of Dido's bull's hide, which covered space enough for the foundation of Carthage.

ACT 1. THE OPIUM WAR, 1839-1842

The Tartars, who began their conquest in 1644, were naturally suspicious of other foreigners who had secured a foothold in India, where the Great Mogul, a scion of their own race, still held nominal sway. The trading-posts, which the Chinese emperors had permitted foreigners to open as far north as Ningpo, were closed, and only one point of tangency was allowed to remain—the above-mentioned Factories at Canton, a spot, as we shall see, large enough to admit of the spreading of a "magic carpet." Foreign trade was at that time insignificant, in comparison with the enormous expansion which it has now attained. It was mainly in the hands of the British, as it still continues to be; and no small part of it consisted in opium from the poppy-fields of India. Though under the ban of prohibition, this drug was smuggled into every bay and inlet, with scarcely a pretence of concealment. With the introduction of the vicious opium habit the British had nothing to do; but they contrived to turn it to good account.

The Emperor Tao Kwang, moved, it is said, by the unhappy fate of one of his sons who had fallen a victim to the seductive poison, resolved at all hazards to put a stop to a traffic so ruinous to his people. Commissioner Lin, a native of Foochow, was transferred from the viceroyalty of Wuchang to that of Canton and clothed with plenary powers for the execution of this decree. To understand the manner in which he undertook to execute the will of his master it must be remembered that diplomatic intercourse had as yet no existence in China, because she considered herself as sustaining to foreign nations no other relation than that of a suzerain to a vassal. Her mandarins scorned to hold direct communication with any of the superintendents of foreign commerce—receiving petitions and sending mandates through the hong merchants, thirteen native firms which had purchased a monopoly of foreign trade.

In 1834 Lord Napier was appointed to the humble position of superintendent of British trade in China, He arrived at Macao on July 15 of that year, and announced his appointment by a letter to the prefect, which was handed for transmission to the commander of the city gate of Canton—a barrier which no foreigner was permitted to pass. The letter was returned through the brokers without any answer other than a line on the cover informing the "barbarian eye" (consul) that the document was "tossed back" because it was not superscribed with the character pin (or ping), which signifies a "humble petition."

This was the beginning of sorrows for China as well as for poor Napier, who, failing in his efforts to communicate with the mandarins on equal terms, retired to the Portuguese settlement of Macao and died of disappointment. The eminent American statesman, John Quincy Adams, speaking in later years of the war that ensued, declared that its cause was not opium but a pin, i. e., an insolent assumption of superiority on the part of China.

The irrepressible conflict provoked by these indignities was precipitated in 1839 by the action of the new viceroy, who undertook to effect a summary suppression of the traffic in opium. One morning shortly after his arrival, the foreigners at Canton, who were always locked up at night for their own safety, awoke to find themselves surrounded by a body of soldiers and threatened with indiscriminate slaughter unless they surrendered the obnoxious drug, stored on their opium hulks, at an anchorage outside the harbour.

While they were debating as to what action to take, Captain Charles Elliot, the new superintendent, came up from Macao and bravely insisted on sharing the duress of his countrymen. Calling the merchants together he requested them to surrender their opium to him, to be used in the service of the Queen as a ransom for the lives of her subjects, assuring them that Her Majesty's Government would take care that they should be properly indemnified. Twenty thousand chests of opium were handed over to the viceroy (who destroyed the drug by mixing it with quicklime in huge vats); and the prisoners were set at liberty.

The viceroy fondly imagined that the incident was closed, and flattered himself that he had gained an easier victory than he could have done by sending his junks against the armed ships of the smugglers. Little did he suspect that he had lighted a slow-match, that would blow up the walls of his own fortress and place the throne itself at the mercy of the "barbarian."

A strong force was despatched to China to exact an indemnity, for which the honour of the Crown had been pledged, and to punish the Chinese for the cut-throat fashion in which they had sought to suppress a prohibited trade. The proud city of Canton averted a bombardment by paying a ransom of $6,000,000; islands and seaports were occupied by British troops as far north as the River Yang-tse; and Nanking, the ancient capital, was only saved from falling into their hands by the acceptance of such conditions of peace as Sir Henry Pottinger saw fit to impose.

Those conditions were astonishingly moderate for a conqueror who, unembarrassed by the interests of other powers, might have taken the whole empire. They were, besides payment for the destroyed drug, the opening of five ports to British trade, and the cession to Great Britain of Hong Kong, a rocky islet which was then the abode of fishermen and pirates, but which to-day claims to outrank all the seaports of the world in the amount of its tonnage. Not a word, be it noted, about opening up the vast interior, not a syllable in favour of legalising the opium traffic, or tolerating Christianity.

So much for the charge that this war, which bears a malodorous name, was waged for the purpose of compelling China to submit to the continuance of an immoral traffic. That a smuggling trade would go on with impunity was no doubt foreseen and reckoned on by interested parties; but it is morally certain that if the Chinese had understood how to deal with it they might have rid themselves of the incubus without provoking the discharge of another shot.

Here ends the first act, in 1842; and in it I may claim a personal interest from the fact that my attention was first turned to China as a mission field by the boom of British cannon in the Opium War.

China was not opened; but five gates were set ajar against her will. For that she has to thank the pride and ignorance of emperor and viceroy which betrayed them into the blunder of dealing with British merchants as a policeman deals with pickpockets. For the first time in her history she was made aware of the existence of nations with which she would have to communicate on a footing of equality.

The moderation and forbearance of Pottinger in refraining from demanding larger concessions, and in leaving the full consequences of this war to be unfolded by the progress of time, may fairly challenge comparison with the politic procedure of Commodore Perry in dealing with Japan in 1854. One may ask, too, would Japan have come to terms so readily if she had not seen her huge neighbour bowing to superior force?

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An important consequence of the Opium War was the outbreak of rebellions in different parts of the Empire. The prestige of the Tartars was in the dust. Hitherto deemed invincible, they had been beaten by a handful of foreigners. Was not this a sure sign that their divine commission had been withdrawn by the Court of Heaven? If so, might it not be possible to wrest the sceptre from their feeble grasp, and emancipate the Chinese race?

Private ambition was kindled at the prospect, and patriotism was invoked to induce the people to make common cause. Three parties entered the field: the Tai-pings of the South, the "Red-haired" on the seacoast, and the Nienfi in the north. Neither of the latter two deserves notice; but the first-named made for themselves a place in history which one is not at liberty to ignore, even if their story were less romantic than it is. It will be convenient to introduce here the following note on the Tai-ping rebellion.

THE TAI-PING REBELLION

In 1847 a young man of good education and pleasing manners, named Hung Siu-tsuen, presented himself at the American Baptist mission in Canton, saying he had seen their sacred book and desired instruction. This he received from the Rev. Issachar Roberts; and he was duly enrolled as a catechumen. Without receiving the sealing ordinance, or taking his instructor into confidence, Siu-tsuen returned to his home at Hwa-hien and began to propagate his new creed. His talents and zeal won adherents, whom he organised into a society called Shang-ti-hwui, "the Church of the supreme God." Persecution transformed it into a political party, to which multitudes were attracted by a variety of motives.

Following the early Church, in the absence of any modern model, his converts expected and received spiritual gifts. Shall we describe such manifestations as hysteria, hypnotism, or hypocrisy? Their fanaticism was contagious, especially after their flight to the mountains of Kwangsi. There Siu-tsuen boldly raised the flag of rebellion and proclaimed that he had a divine call to restore the throne to the Chinese race, and to deliver the people from the curse of idolatry. In this twofold crusade he was ably seconded by one Yang, who possessed all the qualities of a successful hierophant. Shrewd and calculating, Yang was able at will to bring on cataleptic fits, during which his utterances passed for the words of the Holy Ghost.

The new empire which they were trying to establish, they called Tai-ping Tien-kwoh, "The Kingdom of Heaven and the reign of peace." Hung was emperor, to be saluted with Wansue! (Japanese, Banzai!) "10,000 years!" Yang as prince-premier was saluted with "9,000 years," nine-tenths of a banzai. He was the medium of communication with the Court of Heaven; and all their greater movements were made by command of Shang-ti, the Supreme Ruler.

On one occasion Yang went into a trance and declared that Shang-ti was displeased by something done by his chief, and required the latter to receive a castigation on his naked shoulders. The chief submitted, whether from credulity or from policy it might not be easy to say; but thereby the faith of his followers seems to have been confirmed rather than shaken. Nor did Yang take advantage of his chief's disgrace to usurp his place or to treat him as a puppet.

Through Yang it was revealed that they were to leave their mountain fortress and strike for Nanking, which had been made the capital on the expulsion of the Mongols, and which was destined to enjoy the same dignity on the overthrow of the Manchus. That programme, one of unexampled daring, was promptly put into execution. Descending into the plains of Hunan, like a mountain torrent they swept everything before them and began their march towards the central stronghold fifteen hundred miles distant. Striking the "Great River" at Hankow, they pillaged the three rich cities Wuchang, Hanyang, and Hankow, and, seizing all the junks, committed themselves to its current without a doubt as to the issue of their voyage.

Nanking was carried by assault despite the alleged impregnability of its ramparts, and despite also a garrison of 25,000 Manchus. These last must have fought with the fury of despair; for they well knew what fate awaited them. Not one was spared to tell the tale—this was in 1853. There the Tai-pings held their ground for ten years; and it is safe to affirm that without the aid of foreign missionaries they never would have been dislodged.

The second part of their enterprise—the expulsion of the Manchus from Peking—ended in defeat. A strong detachment was sent north by way of the Grand Canal. At first they met with great success—no town or city was able to check their progress, which resembled Napoleon's invasion of Russia. At the beginning of winter they were met by a strong force under the Mongol prince Sengkolinsin; then came the more dreaded generals—January and February. Unable to make headway, they went into winter quarters, and committed the blunder of dividing themselves between two towns, where they were besieged and cut off in detail.

In the meantime the eyes of the world were turned toward Nanking. Ships of war were sent to reconnoitre and Consul T. T. Meadows, who accompanied the Hermes, made a report full of sympathy; but the failure of their expedition to the north deterred the nation from any formal recognition of the Tai-ping government.

Missionaries were attracted by their profession of Christianity. Among others, I made an unsuccessful attempt to reach them. Unable to induce my boatmen to run the blockade, I returned home and took up the pen in their defence. My letters were well received, but they did not prevent soldiers of fortune, like the American Frederick G. Ward and Colonel Gordon of the British army, throwing their swords into the scale.

Two Sabbatarians hearing that the rebels observed Saturday for their day of rest, posted off to confirm them in that ancient usage. Learning at an outpost that the seeming agreement with their own practice grew out of a mistake in reckoning, they did not continue their journey.

A missionary who actually penetrated to the rebel headquarters was the Rev. Issachar Roberts, the first instructor of the rebel chief. The latter had sent him a message inviting him to court. His stay was not long. He found that his quondam disciple had substituted a new mode of baptism, neither sprinkling nor immersion, but washing the pit of the stomach with a towel dipped in warm water! Who says the Chinese are not original? It is probable that Roberts's dispute lay deeper than a mere ceremony. Professing a New Testament creed, the rebel chief shaped his practice on Old Testament examples—killing men as ruthlessly as David, and, like Solomon, filling his harem with women. A remonstrance on either head was certain to bring danger; it was said indeed that Roberts's life was threatened.

Some queer titles were adopted by the Tai-pings. As stated above, the premier was styled "Father of 9,000 years"; other princes had to content themselves with 7,000, 6,000, etc.—or seven-tenths and six-tenths of a "Live forever!" Christ was the "Heavenly Elder Brother"; and the chief called himself "Younger Brother of Jesus Christ." These designations might excite a smile; but when he called Yang, his adviser, the "Holy Ghost," one felt like stopping one's ears, as did the Hebrews of old. The loose morals of the Tai-pings and their travesty of sacred things horrified the Christian world; and Gordon no doubt felt that he was doing God a service in breaking up a horde of blasphemers and blackguards.

Gordon's victory won an earldom for Li Hung Chang; but the Chinese conferred no posthumous honours on Gordon as they did on Ward, who has a temple and is reckoned among the gods of the empire.

The Tai-pings were commonly called Changmao, "long-haired" rebels, because they rejected the tonsure and "pigtail" as marks of subjection. They printed at Nanking, by what they called "Imperial authority," an edition of the Holy Scriptures. At one time Lord Elgin, disgusted by the conduct of the Peking Government, proposed to make terms with the court at Nanking. The French minister refused to coöperate, partly because the rebels had not been careful to distinguish between the images in Roman Catholic chapels and those in pagan temples, but chiefly from an objection to the ascendency of Protestant influence, coupled with a fear of losing the power that comes from a protectorate of Roman Catholic missions. How different would have been the future of China had the allied powers backed up the Tai-pings against the Manchus!

ACT 2. THE "ARROW" WAR, 1857-1860

Of the second act in this grand drama on the world's wide stage, a vessel, named the Arrow, was, like opium in the former conflict, the occasion, not the cause. The cause was, as before, pride and ignorance on the part of the Chinese, though the British are not to be altogether exonerated. Their flag was compromised; and they sought to protect it. Fifteen years of profitable commerce had passed, during which China had been a double gainer, receiving light and experience in addition to less valuable commodities, when Viceroy Yeh seized the lorcha Arrow, on a charge of piracy. Though owned by Chinese, she was registered in Hong Kong, and sailed under the British flag. Had the viceroy handed her over to a British court for trial, justice would no doubt have been done to the delinquents, and the two nations would not have been embroiled; but, haughty as well as hasty, the viceroy declined to admit that the British Government had any right to interfere with his proceedings. Unfortunately (or fortunately) British interests at Canton were in the hands of Consul Parkes, afterward Sir Harry Parkes, the renowned plenipotentiary at Peking and Tokio.

Sir John Bowring was governor of Hong Kong, with the oversight of British interests in the Empire. A gifted poet, and an enthusiastic advocate of universal peace, he was a man who might be counted on, if in the power of man, to hold the dogs of war in leash. But he, too, had been consul at Canton and he knew by experience the quagmire in which the best intentions were liable to be swamped.

Parkes, whom I came to know as Her Britannic Majesty's minister in Peking, was the soul of honour, as upright as any man who walked the earth. But with all his rectitude, he, like the Viceroy Yeh, was irascible and unyielding. When the viceroy refused his demand for the rendition of the Arrow and her crew, he menaced him with the weight of the lion's paw. Alarmed, but not cowed, the viceroy sent the prisoners in fetters to the consulate, instead of replacing them on board their ship; nor did he vouchsafe a word of courtesy or apology. Parkes, too fiery to overlook such contemptuous informality, sent them back, much as a football is kicked from one to another; and the viceroy, incensed beyond measure, ordered their heads to be chopped off without a trial.

Here was a Gordian knot, which nothing but the sword could loose. War was provoked as before by the rashness of a viceroy. The peace-loving governor did not choose to swallow the affront to his country, nor did the occupant of the Dragon Throne deign to interfere; looking on the situation with the same sublime indifference with which the King of Persia regarded the warlike preparations of the younger Cyrus, when he supposed, as Xenophon tells us, that he was only going to fight out a feud with a neighbouring satrap. How could China be opened; how was a stable equilibrium possible so long as foreign powers were kept at a distance from the capital of the Empire?

In three months the haughty viceroy was a prisoner in India, never to return, and his provincial capital was held by a garrison of British troops. On this occasion the old blunder of admitting the city to ransom was not repeated, else Canton might have continued to be a hotbed of seditious plots and anti-foreign hostilities. Parkes knew the people, and he knew their rulers also. He was accordingly allowed to have his own way in dealing with them. The viceroy being out of the way, he proposed to Pehkwei, the Manchu governor, to take his place and carry on the provincial government as if the two nations were at peace. Strange to say, the governor did not decline the task. That he did not was due to the fact that he disapproved the policy of the viceroy, and that he put faith in the assurance that Great Britain harboured no design against the reigning house or its territorial domain.

To the surprise of the Chinese, who in their native histories find that an Asiatic conqueror always takes possession of as much territory as he is able to hold, it soon became evident that the Queen of England did not make war in the spirit of conquest. Her premier, Lord Palmerston, invited the coöperation of France, Russia, and the United States, in a movement which was expected to issue advantageously to all, especially to China. France, at that time under an ambitious successor of the great Napoleon, seized the opportunity to contribute a strong contingent, with the view of checkmating England and of obtaining for herself a free hand in Indo-China, possibly in China Proper also. For assuming a hostile attitude towards China, she found a pretext in the judicial murder of a missionary in Kwangsi, just as Germany found two of her missionaries similarly useful as an excuse for the occupation of Kiao-Chao in 1897. No wonder the Chinese have grown cautious how they molest a missionary; but they needed practical teaching before they learned the lesson.

Unable to take a morsel of China as long as his powerful ally abstained from territorial aggrandisement, Louis Napoleon subsequently employed his troops to enlarge the borders of a small state which the French claimed in Annam, laying the foundation of a dominion which goes far to console them for the loss of India. America and Russia, having no wrongs to redress, declined to send troops, but consented to give moral support to a movement for placing foreign relations with China on a satisfactory basis.

In the spring of 1858, the representatives of the four powers met at the mouth of the Peiho, coöperating in a loose sort of concert which permitted each one to carryon negotiations on his own account. As interpreter to the Hon. W. B. Reed, the American minister, I enjoyed the best of opportunities for observing what went on behind the scenes, besides being a spectator of more than one battle.

The neutrals, arriving in advance of the belligerents, opened negotiations with the Viceroy of Chihli, which might have added supplementary articles, but must have left the old treaties substantially unchanged. The other envoys coming on the stage insisted that the viceroy should wear the title and be clothed with the powers of a plenipotentiary. When that was refused, as being "incompatible with the absolute sovereignty of the Emperor," they stormed the forts and proceeded to Tientsin where they were met by men whose credentials were made out in due form, though it is doubtful if their powers exceeded those of the crestfallen viceroy. A pitiful artifice to maintain their affectation of superiority was the placing of the names of foreign countries one space lower than that of China in the despatch announcing their appointment. When this covert insult was pointed out they apologised for a clerical error, and had the despatches rectified.

The allies were able to dictate their own terms; and they got all they asked for, though, as will be seen, they did not ask enough. The rest of us got the same, though we had struck no blow and shed no blood. One article, known as "the most-favoured-nation clause" (already in the treaty of 1844), was all that we required to enable us to pick up the fruit when others shook the tree.

Four additional seaports were opened, but Tienstin, where the treaties were drawn up, was not one of them. I remember hearing Lord Elgin, whose will was absolute, say that he was not willing to have it thrown open to commerce, because in that case it would be used to overawe the capital—just as if overaweing were not the very thing needed to make a bigoted government enter on the path of progress. Never did a man in repute for statesmanship show himself more shortsighted. His blunder led to the renewal of the war, and its continuance for two more years.

The next year when the envoys came to the mouth of the river, on their way to Peking to exchange ratified copies of their treaties, they found the forts rebuilt, the river closed, and access to the capital by way of Tientsin bluntly refused. In taking this action, the Chinese were not chargeable with a breach of faith; but the allies, feeling insulted at having the door shut in their faces, decided to force it open. They had a strong squadron; but their gunboats were no match for the forts. Some were sunk; others were beached; and the day ended in disastrous defeat. Though taking no part in the conflict the Americans were not indifferent spectators. Hearing that the British admiral was wounded, their commodore, the brave old Tatnall, went through a shower of bullets to express his sympathy, getting his boat shattered and losing a man on the way. When requested to lend a helping hand, he exclaimed "Blood is thicker than water;" and, throwing neutrality to the winds, he proceeded to tow up a flotilla of British barges. His words have echoed around the world; and his act, though impolitic from the viewpoint of diplomacy, had the effect of knitting closer the ties of two kindred nations.

Seeing the repulse of the allies, the American minister, the Hon. J. E. Ward, resolved to accept an offer which they had declined, namely, to proceed to the capital by land under a Chinese escort. His country was pledged in the treaty, of which he was the bearer, to use her good offices on the occurrence of difficulties with other powers. Without cavilling at the prescribed route or mode of conveyance, he felt it his duty to present himself before the Throne as speedily as possible in the hope of averting a threatened calamity. For him, it was an opportunity to do something great and good; for China, it was the last chance to ward off a crushing blow. But so elated were the Chinese by their unexpected success that they were in no mood to accept the services of a mediator. The Emperor insisted that he should go on his knees like the tribute-bearer from a vassal state. "Tell them," said Mr. Ward, "that I go on my knees only to God and woman"—a speech brave and chivalrous, but undignified for a minister and unintelligible to the Chinese. With this he quitted the capital and left China to her fate. He was not the first envoy to meet a rude rebuff at the Chinese court. In 1816 Lord Amherst was not allowed to see the "Dragon's Face" because he refused to kneel. At that date England was not in a position to punish the insult; but it had something to do with the war of 1839. In 1859 it was pitiful to see a power whose existence was hanging in the scales alienate a friend by unseemly insolence.

The following year (1860) saw the combined forces of two empires at the gates of Peking. The summer palace was laid in ashes to punish the murder of a company of men and officers under a flag of truce; and it continues to be an unsightly ruin. The Emperor fled to Tartary to find a grave; and throne and capital were for the first time at the mercy of an Occidental army. On the accession of Hien-feng, in 1850, an old counsellor advised him to make it his duty to "restore the restrictions all along the coast." His attempt to do this was one source of his misfortunes. Supplementary articles were signed within the walls, by which China relinquished her absurd pretensions, abandoned her long seclusion, and, at the instance of France, threw open the whole empire to the labours of Christian missions. They had been admitted by rescript to the Five Ports, but no further.

Thus ends the second act of the drama; and a spectator must be sadly deficient in spiritual insight if he does not perceive the hand of God overruling the strife of nations and the blunders of statesmen.