monks, is situated close to the wall, and forms one of the best points whence to obtain a view of the entire city.
The Taouists, who follow the Tao, the "way of knowledge," and arrogate to themselves a more profound insight into the mysterious powers of nature, as well as more special acquaintance with and definite powers over good and evil spirits, are disciples of the doctrines of Lao-tse,[134] and are extensively scattered throughout the country, although at present, in consequence of their losing themselves deeper and deeper in a slothful, sensual mode of existence, their proselytism is proceeding at a much slower ratio than formerly. It is purely accidental that there is immediately adjoining the Taoui monastery a convent known as that of the "White nuns," a small one-storey building, kept however singularly neat and clean. Here we saw six Buddhist nuns, with close-shaven heads and in long white dresses, which gave them quite a masculine aspect. They received us with much courtesy,
and escorted us round the various apartments with considerable empressement. They were mostly widows, who pass their lives here in calm retrospective contemplation, and occupy themselves with preparing little articles for the Buddhist ritual, such as censers, tapers, printed sacrificial papers, &c., with which apparently they contrive to support themselves. These associations (Ni-koo) were usually founded by legacies and donations by pious Chinese, and are exceedingly useful as providing an asylum for poor, helpless women, weary of life. Many widows withdraw into these abodes of peace, there to pass the rest of their lives, free from the tumult of the world, in the exercise of devotion and of works of neighbourly love and charity. Nevertheless, if we are to believe common report, works of piety are not the only objects occasionally pursued in these Buddhist convents, and the web of intrigue and amorous adventure, of which they have frequently been the scene, has not a little tended to lower the estimate in which these religious societies are held, and even threatens to cut short their existence. A people of such a materialistic mode of life, and such ant-like industry, as the Chinese, who rarely know what it is to have one holiday in the entire year, must involuntarily look with argus-like eye on all religious communities, which pass their time in luxurious ease and exemption from care, without in any way advancing the well-being of their fellow-creatures by either mental or physical labour.
In the course of our peregrinations through the streets of Shanghai we also came upon the shop of a Chinese apothecary (Yak-Tien), which externally bears a considerable resemblance to a similar establishment in Europe, but widely differs in respect of details. The Chinese Materia Medica is especially abundant in patent medicines, the use and application of which, it must be allowed, is frequently of the most extraordinary nature.
According to the latest researches of Dr. Hobson, of whose important services in the diffusion of European medical science in China we shall have much to say in a future page, we are acquainted with 442 drugs from among the three great kingdoms of Nature, which must be kept in every well-stocked Chinese drug-store, of which 314 belong to the botanical, 78 to the animal, and 50 to the mineral world. We shall, however, in this place only indicate those of which Chinese physicians avail themselves most frequently in the preparation of their medicines, such, for example, as birds' nests, dried red-spotted lizard, the fresh tips of stags' antlers, the shell of the tortoise, dogs' flesh, bones of animals, preparations from various parts of the human body, whale-bone, oyster-shells, skins of snakes, shark's maw and fin, tendons of deer and buffalo, dried silk-worms, their larvæ and excrement, bamboo shavings, the bear's gall, preparations from human fæces, scraped rhinoceros and antelope horn, rabbit dung, cuttle-fish bone, dried varnish, dried leeches and earthworms, red marble, refuse of ivory, preparations from
toads, petrifactions, old copper money,[135] snow-water,[136] human milk,[137] &c. &c.
These pharmaceutics are brought from various parts of China, as well as from Japan, Siam, and the Straits of Malacca, and constitute an important and profitable branch of commerce. Many of them are sold at the druggist's in the raw state, when they are used as sympathetic remedies, amulets, or generally for external use. The Chinese druggists sell their medicaments for the most part in the form of powders or pills. These latter are usually made up in a capsule of bees-wax for greater facility of administration, so
that the dose as it comes from the shop resembles those small wax-cakes used by house-wives for waxing their thread. One such cake contains four or six pills, called Tzi-páu-tan, or very costly pills, which are used as a sort of universal specific against fevers, affections of the digestive organs, headaches, &c. &c.
The most valuable and costly article in the Chinese pharmacopœia is, however, the Ginseng (Panax Ginseng, or Panax Quinquefolia), which is chiefly found in Mantchooria and the deserts to the north of the peninsula of Corea. The circumstance that the Ginseng is still a monopoly of the Chinese Government, only a few privileged individuals being annually permitted to purchase a certain quantity for its weight in pure gold, has much more to do with its efficacy as a panacea than the benefits conferred by its curative powers. The roots are about the size and thickness of a man's little finger, and break short off when bent. When cleaned they are transparent, and of a dark amber colour.