Far Off; Or, Asia and Australia Described / With Anecdotes and Illustrations

by Favell Lee Mortimer

It is the Tartars who forced the Chinese to shave their heads, for they used to tie up their hair in a knot at the top of their heads. Many of the Chinese preferred losing their heads to their hair. Was it not cruel to cut off their heads, merely because they would not shave them? But the Tartars were very cruel to the Chinese.

KNOWLEDGE AND INVENTIONS.—We must allow that the Chinese are very clever. They found out how to print, and they found out how to make gunpowder, and they found out the use of the loadstone. What is that? A piece of steel rubbed against the loadstone will always point to the north. The Chinese found out these three things, printing, gunpowder, and the use of the loadstone, before we in Europe found them out. But they did not teach them to us; we found them out ourselves.

But there are two arts that the Chinese did teach us: how to make silk, and how to make china or porcelain. And yet I should not say they taught us; for they tried to prevent our learning their arts; but we saw their silk and their porcelain, and by degrees we learned to make them ourselves. A sly monk brought some silk-worm's eggs from China hidden in a hollow walking-stick.

LANGUAGE.—There is no other language at all like the Chinese. Instead of having letters to spell words, they have a picture for each word. I call it a picture, but it is more like a figure than a picture. The Chinese use brushes for writing instead of pens; and they rub cakes of ink on a little marble dish, first dipping them in a little water, as we dip cakes of paint. There is a hollow place in the marble dish, to hold the water. What do you think the Chinese mean by "the four precious things?" They mean the ink, the brush, the marble dish, and the water. They call them precious because they are so fond of writing. Schoolmasters are held in great honor in China, as indeed they ought to be everywhere. Yet schools in China are much like those in Turkey, more fit for parrots than children; only Chinese boys sit in chairs with desks before them, instead of sitting cross-legged on the ground, as in Turkey. They learn first to paint the words, and next to repeat lessons by heart. This they do in a loud scream; always turning their backs to their masters while they are saying their lessons to him.

The first book which children read is full of stories, with a picture on each page. Would you like to hear one of these stories?

"There was a boy of eight years old, named Um-wen. His parents were so poor that they could not afford to buy a gauze curtain for their bed, to keep off the flies in summer. This boy could not bear that his parents should be bitten by the flies; so he stood by their bedside, and uncovered his little bosom and his back that the flies might bite him, instead of his parents. 'For,' said he, 'if they fill themselves with my blood, they will let my parents rest.'"

Would it be right for a little boy to behave in this way? Certainly not; for it would grieve kind parents that their little boys should be bitten. Poor little Chinese boys! They do not know about Him who was bitten by the old serpent that we might not be devoured and destroyed.

PUNISHMENT.—The Chinese are very quiet and orderly; and no wonder, because they are afraid of the great bamboo stick.

The mandarins (or rulers of towns) often sentence offenders to lie upon the ground, and to have thirty strokes of the bamboo. But the wooden collar is worse than the bamboo stick. It is a great piece of wood with a hole for a man to put his head through. The men in wooden collars are brought out of their prisons every morning, and chained to a wall, where everybody passing by can see them. They cannot feed themselves in their wooden collars, because they cannot bring their hands to their mouths; but sometimes a son may be seen feeding his father, as he stands chained to the wall. There are men also whose business it is to feed the prisoners. For great crimes men are strangled or beheaded.

CHARACTER.—A Chinaman's character cannot be known at first. You might suppose from his way of speaking that a Chinaman was very humble; because he calls himself "the worthless fellow," or "the stupid one," and he calls his son "the son of a dog;" but if you were to tell him he had an evil heart, he would be very much offended; for he only gives himself these names Thai he may seem humble. He calls his acquaintance "venerable uncle," "honorable brother." This he does to please them. The Chinese are very proud of their country, and think there is none like it. They have given it the name of the "Heavenly or Celestial Empire." They look upon foreigners as monkeys and devils. Often a woman may he heard in the streets saying to her little child, "There is a foreign devil (or a Fan Quei"). The Chinese think the English very ugly, and called them the "red-haired nation."