"As there formerly were, and still are, among them Bachelors and Kien-sens, which is a degree different from that of a Bachelor, I took the liberty of asking them if they rendered homage to Confucius; they replied that they honored him in the same manner as the rest of the literati, and that they assisted them in solemn ceremonies, which are performed in halls dedicated to their great men. They added, that in spring and autumn they practised certain rites in honor of their ancestors, according to the manner of Chinese, in the hall next to their synagogue; that they did not present them the flesh of hogs, but of other animals; that in other ceremonies they were contented with offering them porcelain dishes filled with dainties and sweetmeats, which they accompanied with perfumes and profound reverences or prostrations. I asked them, likewise, if in their houses or Hall of Ancestors, they had tablets in honor of their departed relations; they replied that they used neither tablets, images, nor any thing else, but only a few censers. We must, however, except their mandarins, for whom alone they place in the Hall of Ancestors a tablet inscribed with their name and rank."
Father Gozani adds, that "these Jews, in their inscriptions, call their law the Law of Israel, Yselals-Kiao, which they name also Kon-Kiao, Ancient Law; Tien-Kiao, Law of God, and Tien-Kin-Kiao, to signify that they abstain from blood, and cut the nerves and veins of the animals they kill, in order that the blood may flow more easily from them."
This custom gives to the Jews in China, at the present day, the name of Cut-Nerves. To the present day our story now descends; for, after the time of Father Gozani, blank follows in the way of action. Father Etienne, who meditated a work upon the Sacred Scriptures in reply to the Critici Sacri, was eager to push on investigations. From the letters of Father Gozani, and from those which Father Domingo and Gambil wrote upon it, material was obtained for the memoir published under the direction of M. L. Aimé Martin, in which he remarks that the detail would be regarded with the more curiosity, as it had been often demanded, and as Father du Halde had contented himself with merely promising it in his great work, "Description de la Chine." So we have fairly got out of the past into the present, where our story thus runs on.
In the year 1815, the Chinese Jews endeavored unsuccessfully to communicate with Europe by means of a Hebrew letter addressed to London, which seems not to have been delivered. Last year the Jewish Society of London determined, however, to communicate with them. Miss Cooks, an energetic and devoted Jewess, placed her purse in the hands of the Society; nothing impeded fresh research; the English bishop at Hong Kong co-operated, Dr. Medhurst was consulted, and two Chinese Christians were at length appointed to proceed to Kai-foung-fou. The elder of these two was a bachelor; the younger was a student from the Missionaries' College at Batavia; but the junior was named to head the enterprise, because he had previously displayed zeal and ability, and also because he could write English fluently, and would journalize in that language. His journals, therefore, could be laid before Miss Cooks, uninjured by translation.
Our heroes—for so we will call the two adventurers—set out from Shanghae, on the 15th of last November, by boat to Toing-kiang-tou. In a car, drawn by mules, they were then jolted along, following the track of the Hoang-ho, rising at three o'clock on winter mornings, to save time—a proceeding which involves almost supererogatory self-denial. Population near the Yellow River they found rare and unhealthy. Localities which figure in the geographical charts of the empire as principal places, or as towns of the second class, are but huge piles of rubbish, surrounded by crumbling walls. Here and there a gate, with its inscription half-effaced, informs the traveller that he is entering a mighty town.
Perseverance, and a mule car, brought the travellers to Kai-foung-fou. They found there many Mahometans, openly exercising right of conscience, and flying their religion on a flag displayed over their gate. These Mahometans are, for the most part, hotel-keepers, and with one of them our heroes lodged. Of him they began asking about Cut-Nerves. Mine host of the Crescent said there were still some Jews in Kai-foung-fou, and offered himself as a cicerone to their synagogue. Thither they went. They found its outer wall in ruins; briers and dirt filled the grand entrance; "the pillars of the building, the inscribed marbles, the stone balustrade, before the peristyle of the temple, the ornamental sculpture—all were cracked, broken, and overturned." Under the wings of the synagogue, the chapels built in honor of the patriarchs—nestled together, cold and naked, sleeping on the bare stones, those objects of our European interest, "the Jews in China." Poor and miserable as they are, they had begun to sell the stones of their temple for bread, and a portion of land within their sacred inclosure had been already sold to an adjacent temple of the Buddhists.
Still, there were the cylinders inclosing the sacred rolls of the Old Testament, which, luckily, had not proved eatable. In number, these rolls were about a dozen, each thirty feet long by three feet wide. They are of white sheep-skin, inscribed with very small Hebrew characters.
For fifty years these poor Jews have been without the guidance of a rabbi, and there is not one left who can read a word of Hebrew. In a dozen years, probably, the last trace of the Jews in China will expire. The travellers gave money to the mournful congregation in the synagogue, and received leave to copy the inscriptions, about which the Jesuits had previously informed us. Moreover, they obtained, and have brought home, eight Hebrew manuscripts; six contain portions of the Old Testament, namely, of Exodus, chapters 1-6, and 38-40; of Leviticus, chapters 19, 20; of Numbers, chapters 13, 14, 15; of Deuteronomy, chapters 11-16, and chapter 32; with portions of the Pentateuch, the Psalms, and Prophets. The other two manuscripts are of the Jewish Liturgy. The leaves of these manuscripts "are of a species of card-board, on which the words, as it were, are engraved with a point; the binding is in silk, and bears evident marks of being of foreign origin. Two Israelitish merchants, to whom these books were shown at Shanghae, spoke of having seen similar ones at Aken, and the presence here and there upon the margins of Persian words, interspersed with Hebrew annotations, seemed to indicate that the books came originally from some western country of Asia, perhaps Persia, or some of the high provinces of India, where Persic has from time immemorial been the language used among people of education. Although the annotations mentioned are numerous, and apparently referring to different epochs, no trace of any Chinese character is to be discovered, nor any of those marks or signs which immediately betray Chinese origin. No date exists by which the age can be determined."
We hope the statement is correct which tells us that these manuscripts are to be deposited in the British Museum. Fac-similes are at the same time promised, printed in Hebrew, accompanied with a plan of the synagogue, made on the spot by the Chinese travellers, and the journal of our junior hero, written in English and Chinese. The journal in English would not be a very ponderous affair, the entire expedition having occupied only two months—the residence at Kai-foung-fou, five days. We may usefully remember how the good Chinese, rising so fearfully betimes, did justice to the generosity and zeal of their patroness. Are there not men of might at work upon investigations for the public, who, at their ordinary rate, might have come to abandon this business in forty years, after eliminating fifty pounds of blue-book?