[68] It is impossible to translate the names of vessels of different descriptions. The large are the Chang lung, or great dragon vessels which by the Chinese law are forbidden to be used by any private person; these are the Mandarin, or government vessels. The pirates nevertheless had such vessels, as likewise the daring smugglers, who bring the opium from Lintin, or Linting, to Canton. The amount of the opium trade in the port of Canton was, in the year 1829-30, equal to 12,057,157 Sp. dollars.
[69] One of the English sailors, who had been taken prisoner. "The pirates frequently obliged my men to go on shore and fight with the muskets, which did great execution; the Chinese principally using bows and arrows. They have match-locks, but use them very unskilfully."—See Appendix.
[70] A shih, or stone, contains four keun: a keun thirty kin or catty, the well known Chinese weight: a catty is equal to one pound and a third English.
[71] Nan hae hëen. Its area amounts to 278 le, and it pays 63,731 leang. The European factories in Canton lie in this district, and the monastery opposite to the factories is usually from the name of the district called the Hae nan sze, the temple of Hae nan. The district of every place is called by the name of the the place, and we must therefore speak of the town and district Nan hae.
[72] This simple note of the Chinese author better illustrates the religion of China than many learned dissertations. All the deities, those of Greece and Rome, of China and India, are derived from two sources; both the powers of nature and highly gifted human beings were deified. These powers of nature, and the virtues and vices of men being in every community nearly similar, the same gods and goddesses are found everywhere; only their external form and shape is different. Every province, every town, and every village of China has its particular tutulary saint, or god, and on the day of his festival his effigy is carried in public. There is no essential difference in this respect between China and those countries where Roman Catholicism is yet in its highest vigour. The effigies of the Chinese gods and goddesses are all of the human shape; they have no monsters like India and Egypt, under which it was once the fashion to seek for extraordinary wisdom and astonishing science. Lucian has already taken the liberty of laughing at these deities, and at the writers, the prophets, and sophists, who try to find some sense in all this vulgar display of nonsense, by which the people are deluded. Lucian de Sacreficiis s. f. where he laughs at the Jupiter with a ram's head, at the good fellow Mercurius with the countenance of a dog, etc. [Greek: Krioprosôpon men ton Dia, chynoprosôpon de ton beltison Ermên chai ton Pana holon tragon], etc. See the pleasant story of Jupiter with the ram's head in Herodotus, II. 42.
[73] The strong winds (Tay fung) in the Chinese sea begin about the middle of September, or just before the equinox.
[74] It is not stated in the Chinese text, whose father rushed forward, whether it was the father of the lady, or of Wei tang chow.
[75] I must again remark that there is a false character in our text: it should be Nëĕ, 7974 in the Tonical Dictionary of Dr. M.
[76] I am compelled to give a free translation of this verse, and confess myself not quite certain of the signification of the poetical figures used by our author. Fūng signifies a hollow pyramid filled with combustibles; yĕn signifies the smoke caused by combustion; tseāng signifies the spar or yard in a boat or ship, to which the sail is attached, and ying is shadow. It seems that the author alludes to the spar or yard-arm, at which Mei ying was fastened by the pirate; but what he means by shadow I do not really know, perhaps ying is in the place of Mei ying.
[77] The Chinese characters are printed like the other portion of the work. I have divided them according to the verses. Only the first eight lines have a regular metre of five feet, or words, and as the author himself says, his song is then at an end; but the language still remains poetical, and for that reason it was thought proper to divide also the remaining lines like verses. Every word must be considered as consisting of one syllable or sound, even if we write it with three or four vowels. Poetry is perhaps more esteemed in China, than in any other country in the world. The late governor-general of Kwang tung and Kwang se, his Excellency Yuen, published the poems of his daughter, who died when only nineteen years of age. Most of the emperors of China wrote verses, and I have, if I remember rightly, an imperial collection printed at the command of Këa king of many volumes, containing the poetry of the crowned heads of China. The reader may easily imagine that the Chinese have many works on poetry; I am also in possession of a Chinese Gradus ad Parnassum in ten large volumes, in which are to be found, divided under different heads, all the fine expression and poetical images of the classical poets. Mr. Davis has given some excellent specimens of Chinese poetry in his elegant dissertation on that subject.