Chapter IV (9)

In fact there are no great farms in China. The inhabitants enjoy every advantage which may be supposed to arise from the lands being pretty equally divided among them, an advantage of which the effects might probably answer the expectations of those who lean towards such a system, were they not counteracted by circumstances that are not less prejudicial, perhaps, to the benefit of the public, than monopolizing farmers are by such persons supposed to be in our own country. One of the circumstances I allude to is the common practice, in almost every part of the country, of assembling together in towns and villages, between which very frequently the intermediate space of ground has not a single habitation upon it; and the reason assigned for this custom is the dread of the bands of robbers that infest the weak and unprotected parts of the country. The consequence of such a system is, that although the lands adjoining the villages be kept in the highest state of cultivation, yet those at a distance are suffered to remain almost useless; for having no beasts of burden, it would be an endless task of human labour to bear the manure that would be required, for several miles, upon the ground, and its produce from thence back again to the village. That such robbers do exist who, in formidable gangs, plunder the peasantry, is very certain: _She-fo-pao_ was watching his grain to prevent its being stolen, when he had the misfortune of shooting his relation, who had also gone out for the same purpose. They are sometimes indeed so numerous, as to threaten their most populous cities. The frequency of such robberies and the alarm they occasion to the inhabitants are neither favourable to the high notions that have been entertained of the Chinese government, nor of the morals of the people. Another, and perhaps the chief, disadvantage arising from landed property being pretty equally divided, will be noticed in speaking of the population and the frequent famines.

The province of _Kiang-nan_ extends from about 31° to 34-1/2° of northern latitude; and the mean temperature, according to Fahrenheit's thermometer, from the 30th of October to the 9th of November, was 54° at sun-rise and 66° at noon; the sky uniformly clear.

The province of _Tche-kiang_ abounds in lakes and is intersected with rivers and canals like _Kiang-nan_; but the produce, except that of a little rice, is very different, consisting principally of silk. For feeding the worms that afford this article, all the fertile and beautiful vallies between the mountains, as well as the plains, are covered with plantations of the mulberry-tree. The small houses, in which the worms are reared, are placed generally in the centre of each plantation; in order that they may be removed as far as possible from any kind of noise; experience having taught them, that a sudden shout, or the bark of a dog, is destructive of the young worms. A whole brood has sometimes perished by a thunder storm. The greatest attention is, therefore, necessary; and, accordingly, they are watched night and day. In fine weather, the young worms are exposed to the sun, upon a kind of thin open gauze stretched in wooden frames; and at night they are replaced in the plantation houses. The trees are pruned from time to time, in order to cause a greater quantity and a constant succession of young leaves. The inhabitants of this province, especially in the cities, are almost universally clothed in silks; this rule among the Chinese of consuming, as much as possible, the products of their own country, and receiving as little as they can avoid from foreign nations, extends even to the provinces; a practice arising out of the little respect that, in China, as in ancient Rome, is paid to those concerned in trade and merchandize.

Besides silk _Tche-kiang_ produces camphor, tallow from the _Croton_, a considerable quantity of tea, oranges, and almost all the fruits that are peculiar to the country. Every part of the province appeared to be in the highest state of cultivation and the population to be immense. Both the raw and manufactured silks, nankins and other cotton cloths, were sold at such low prices in the capital of this province, that it is difficult to conceive how the growers or the manufacturers contrived to gain a livelihood by their labour. But of all others, I am the most astonished at the small returns that must necessarily be made to the cultivators of the tea plant. The preparations of some of the finer kinds of this article are said to require that every leaf should be rolled singly by the hand; particularly such as are exported to the European markets. Besides this, there are many processes, such as steeping, drying, turning, and packing, after it has been plucked off the shrub leaf by leaf. Yet the first cost in the tea provinces cannot be more than from four-pence to two shillings a pound, when it is considered that the ordinary teas stand the East India Company in no more than eight-pence a pound; and the very best only two shillings and eight-pence[64]. Nothing can more clearly point out the patient and unremitting labour of the Chinese, than the preparation of this plant for the market. It is a curious circumstance that a body of merchants in England should furnish employment, as might easily be made appear, to more than a million subjects of a nation that affects to despise merchants, and throws every obstacle in the way of commercial intercourse.

[64] The East India Company pays from thirteen to sixty tales per pecul
for their teas; some tea of a higher price is purchased by individuals,
but seldom or ever by the Company. A tale is six shillings and
eight-pence, and a pecul is one hundred and thirty-three pounds and one
third.

The mean temperature of _Tche-kiang_, in the middle of November, was from fifty-six degrees at sun-rise, to sixty-two degrees at noon. The extent from North to South is between the parallels of twenty-eight and thirty-four and a half degrees of northern latitude.

The northern part of _Kiang-see_ contains the great _Po-yang_ lake, and those extensive swamps and morasses that surround it, and which, as I have already observed, may be considered as the sink of China. The middle and southern parts are mountainous. The chief produce is sugar and oil from the _Camellia Sesanqua_. In this province are the principal manufactories of porcelain, whose qualities, as I have in a former chapter observed, depend more on the care bestowed in the preparation and in the selection of the materials, than in any secret art possessed by them. There are also, in this province, large manufactories of coarse earthen ware, of tiles, and bricks.

The extent of _Kiang-see_ is from twenty-eight to thirty degrees, and the temperature, in November, was the same as that of the neighbouring province of _Tche-kiang_.

I have now to mention a subject on which much has already been written by various authors, but without the success of having carried conviction into the minds of their readers, that the things which they offered as facts were either true or possible; I allude to the populousness of this extensive empire. That none of the statements hitherto published are strictly true, I am free to admit, but that the highest degree of populousness that has yet been assigned may be possible, and even probable, I am equally ready to contend. At the same time, I acknowledge that, prepared as we were, from all that we had seen and heard and read on the subject, for something very extraordinary; yet when the following statement was delivered, at the request of the Embassador, by _Chou-ta-gin_, as the abstract of a census that had been taken the preceding year, the amount appeared so enormous as to surpass credibility. But as we had always found this officer a plain, unaffected, and honest man, who on no occasion had attempted to deceive or impose on us, we could not consistently consider it in any other light than as a document drawn up from authentic materials; its inaccuracy, however, was obvious at a single glance, from the several sums being given in round millions. I have added to the table the extent of the provinces, the number of people on a square mile, and the value of the surplus taxes remitted to Pekin in the year 1792, as mentioned in the seventh chapter.

+-----------------+--------------+----------+---------+------------+ | | | | No. on | Surplus | | | | | each | taxes | | | | Square | square | remitted | | Provinces. | Population. | Miles. | Mile. | to Pekin. | ------------------+--------------+----------+---------|------------+ | | | | | oz. silver.| |Pe-tche-lee | 38,000,000 | 58,949 | 644 | 3,036,000 | |Kiang-nan | 32,000,000 | 92,961 | 344 | 8,210,000 | |Kiang-see | 19,000,000 | 72,176 | 263 | 2,120,000 | |Tche-kiang | 21,000,000 | 39,150 | 536 | 3,810,000 | |Fo-kien | 15,000,000 | 53,480 | 280 | 1,277,000 | | {Hou-pee | 14,000,000} | | | {1,310,000 | |Houquang{Hou-nan | 13,000,000} | 144,770 | 187 | {1,345,000 | |Honan | 25,000,000 | 65,104 | 384 | 3,213,000 | |Shan-tung | 24,000,000 | 65,104 | 368 | 3,600,000 | |Shan-see | 27,000,000 | 55,268 | 488 | 3,722,000 | |Shen-see} one | 18,000,000} | | | {1,700,000 | |Kan-soo }province| 12,000,000} | 154,008 | 195 | { 340,000 | |Se-tchuen | 27,000,000 | 166,800 | 162 | 670,000 | |Quan-tung | 21,000,000 | 79,456 | 264 | 1,340,000 | |Quang-see | 10,000,000 | 78,250 | 128 | 500,000 | |Yu-nan | 8,000,000 | 107,969 | 74 | 210,000 | |Koei-tchoo | 9,000,000 | 64,554 | 140 | 145,000 | +-----------------+--------------+----------+---------+------------+ | Totals | 313,000,000 |1,297,999[65] --- | 36,548,000 | +-----------------+--------------+--------------------+------------+

[65] The measurement annexed to each of the fifteen ancient provinces
was taken from the maps that were constructed by a very laborious and,
as far as we had an opportunity of comparing them with the country, a
very accurate survey, which employed the Jesuits ten years. I do not
pretend to say that the areas, as I have given them in the table, are
mathematically correct, but the dimensions were taken with as much care
as was deemed necessary for the purpose, from maps drawn on a large
scale, of which a very beautiful manuscript copy is now in his Majesty's
library at Buckingham-house, made by a Chinese, having all the names
written in Chinese and Tartar characters.

Considering then the whole surface of the Chinese dominions within the great wall to contain 1,297,999 square miles, or 830,719,360 English acres, and the population to amount to 333,000,000, every square mile will be found to contain two hundred and fifty-six persons, and every individual might possess two acres and a half of land. Great Britain is supposed to average about one hundred and twenty persons on one square mile, and that to each inhabitant there might be assigned a portion of five acres, or to each family five-and-twenty acres. The population of China, therefore, is to that of Great Britain as 256 to 120, or in a proportion somewhat greater than two to one; and the quantity of land that each individual in Great Britain might possess is just twice as much as could be allowed to each individual of China. We have only then to enquire if Britain, under the same circumstances as China, be capable of supporting twice its present population, or which is the same thing, if twelve and an half acres of land be sufficient for the maintenance of a family of five persons? Two acres of choice land sown with wheat, under good tillage, may be reckoned to average, after deducting the seed, 60 bushels or 3600 pounds, which every baker knows would yield 5400 pounds of bread, or three pounds a day to every member of the family for the whole year. Half an acre is a great allowance for a kitchen-garden and potatoe bed. There would still remain ten acres, which must be very bad land if, besides paying the rent and taxes, it did not keep three or four cows; and an industrious and managing family would find no difficulty in rearing as many pigs and as much poultry as would be necessary for home consumption, and for the purchase of clothing and other indispensable necessaries. If then the country was pretty equally partitioned out in this manner; if the land was applied solely to produce food for man; if no horses nor superfluous animals were kept for pleasure, and few only for labour; if the country was not drained of its best hands in foreign trade and in large manufactories; if the carriage of goods for exchanging with other goods was performed by canals and rivers and lakes, all abounding with fish; if the catching of these fish gave employment to a very considerable portion of the inhabitants; if the bulk of the people were satisfied to abstain almost wholly from animal food, except such as is most easily procured, that of pigs and ducks and fish; if only a very small part of the grain raised was employed in the distilleries, but was used as the staff of life for man; and if this grain was of such a nature as to yield twice, and even three times, the produce that wheat will give on the same space of ground; if, moreover, the climate was so favourable as to allow two such crops every year--if, under all these circumstances, twelve and a half acres of land would not support a family of five persons; the fault could only be ascribed to idleness or bad management.

Let us then, for a moment, consider that these or similar advantages operate in China; that every product of the ground is appropriated solely for the food and clothing of man; that a single acre of land, sown with rice, will yield a sufficient quantity for the consumption of five people for a whole year, allowing to each person two pounds a-day, provided the returns of his crop are from twenty to twenty-five for one, which are considered as extremely moderate, being frequently more than twice this quantity; that in the southern provinces two crops of rice are produced in the year, one acre of which I am well assured, with proper culture, will afford a supply of that grain even for ten persons, and that an acre of cotton will clothe two or three hundred persons, we may justly infer that, instead of twelve acres to each family, half that quantity would appear to be more than necessary; and safely conclude, that there is no want of land to support the assumed population of three hundred and thirty-three millions. This being the case, the population is not yet arrived at a level with the means which the country affords of subsistence.

There is, perhaps, no country where the condition of the peasantry may more justly be compared with those of China than Ireland. This island, according to the latest survey, contains about 17,000,000 English acres, 730,000 houses and 3,500,000 souls; so that, as in Great Britain, each individual averages very nearly five acres and every family five-and-twenty. An Irish cottager holds seldom more than an Irish acre of land, or one and three-quarters English nearly, in cultivation, with a cow's grass, for which he pays a rent from two to five pounds. Those on Lord Macartney's estate at Lissanore have their acre, which they cultivate in divisions with oats, potatoes, kale, and a little flax; with this they have besides the full pasturage of a cow all the year upon a large waste, not overstocked, and a comfortable cabin to inhabit, for which each pays the rent of three pounds. The cottager works perhaps three days in the week, at nine-pence a-day; if, instead of which, he had a second acre to cultivate, he would derive more benefit from its produce than from the product of his three days' labour _per_ week; that is to say, provided he would expend the same labour in its tillage. Thus then, supposing only half of Ireland in a state of cultivation and the other half pasturage, it would support a population more than three times that which it now contains; and as a century ago it had no more than a million of people, so within the present century, under favourable circumstances, it may increase to ten millions. And it is not unworthy of remark, that this great increase of population in Ireland has taken place since the introduction of the potatoe, which gives a never-failing crop.

I am aware that such is not the common opinion which prevails in this country, neither with regard to Ireland nor China; on the contrary, the latter is generally supposed to be overstocked with people; that the land is insufficient for their maintenance, and that the cities stand so thick one after the other, especially along the grand navigation between Pekin and Canton, that they almost occupy the whole surface. I should not, however, have expected to meet with an observation to this effect from the very learned commentator on the _voyage of Nearchus_, founded on no better authority than the crude notes of one _Æneas Anderson_, a livery servant of Lord Macartney, vamped up by a London bookseller as a speculation that could not fail, so greatly excited was public curiosity at the return of the Embassy. I would not be thought to disparage the authority on account of its being that of a livery servant; on the contrary, the notes of the meanest and dullest person, on a country so little travelled over, would be deserving attention before they came into the hands of a _book-dresser_; but what dependence can be placed on the information of an author who states as a fact, that he saw tea and rice growing on the banks of the _Pei-ho_, between the thirty-ninth and fortieth parallels of latitude, two articles of the culture of which, in the whole province of _Pe-tche-lee_, they know no more than we do in England; and who ignorantly and impertinently talks of the shocking ideas the Chinese entertained of English cruelty, on seeing one of the guard receive a few lashes, when, not only the common soldiers, but the officers of this nation are flogged most severely with the bamboo on every slight occasion. If Doctor Vincent, from reading this book, was really persuaded that the cities of China were so large and so numerous, that they left not ground enough to subsist the inhabitants, I could wish to recall his attention for a few moments to this subject, as opinions sanctioned by such high authority, whether right or wrong, are sure, in some degree, to bias the public mind. We have seen that if China be allowed to contain three hundred and thirty-three millions of people, the proportion of its population is only just double that of Great Britain. Now if London and Liverpool and Birmingham and Glasgow, and all the cities, towns, villages, gentlemen's villas, farm-houses and cottages in this island were doubled, I see no great inconvenience likely to arise from such duplication. The unproductive land, in the shape of gentlemen's parks and pleasure grounds, would, I presume, be much more than sufficient to counterbalance the quantity occupied by the new erections; and the wastes and commons would perhaps be more than enough to allow even a second duplication. But the population of an English city is not to be compared with, or considered as similar to, the populousness of a Chinese city, as will be obvious by considering the two capitals of these two empires. Pekin, according to a measurement supposed to be taken with great accuracy, occupies a space of about fourteen square miles. London, with its suburbs, when reduced to a square, is said to comprehend about nine square miles. The houses of Pekin rarely exceed a single story; those of London are seldom less than four; yet both the Chinese and the missionaries who are settled in this capital agree that Pekin contains three millions of people; while London is barely allowed to have one million. The reason of this difference is, that most of the cross streets of a Chinese city are very narrow, and the alleys branching from them so confined, that a person may place one hand on one side and the other on the other side as he walks along[66]; that the houses in general are very small, and that each house contains six, eight, or ten persons, sometimes twice the number. If, therefore, fourteen square miles of buildings in China contain three millions of inhabitants, and nine square miles of buildings in England one million, the population of a city in China will be to that of a city in England as twenty-seven to fourteen, or very nearly as two to one; and the former, with a proportion of inhabitants double to that of the latter, will only have the same proportion of buildings; so that there is no necessity of their being so closely crowded together, or of their occupying so great a portion of land, as to interfere with the quantity necessary for the subsistence of the people.

[66] One of the streets in the suburbs of Canton is emphatically called
_Squeeze-gut-alley_, which is so narrow that every gentleman in the
Company's service does not find it quite convenient to pass.

I have been thus particular, in order to set in its true light a subject that has been much agitated and generally disbelieved. The sum total of three hundred and thirty-three millions is so enormous, that in its aggregate form it astonishes the mind and staggers credibility; yet we find no difficulty in conceiving that a single square mile in China may contain two hundred and fifty-six persons, especially when we call to our recollection the United Provinces of Holland, which have been calculated to contain two hundred and seventy inhabitants on a square mile. And the United Provinces have enjoyed few of the advantages favourable to population, of which China, for ages past, has been in the uninterrupted possession.

The materials for the statement given by Father Amiot of the population of China appear to have been collected with care. The number of souls in 1760, according to this statement

was 196,837,977
In 1761 198,214,553
-----------
Annual increase 1,376,576

This statement must however be incorrect, from the circumstance of some millions of people being excluded who have no fixed habitation, but are constantly changing their position on the inland navigations of the empire, as well as all the islanders of the Archipelago of _Chu-san_ and of Formosa. Without, however, taking these into consideration, and by supposing the number of souls in 1761, to amount to 198,214,553, there ought to have been, in the year 1793, by allowing a progressive increase, according to a moderate calculation in political arithmetic, at least 280,000,000 souls.

Whether this great empire, the first in rank both in extent and population, may or may not actually contain 333 millions of souls, is a point that Europeans are not likely ever to ascertain. That it is capable of subsisting this and a much greater population has, I think, been sufficiently proved. I know it is a common argument with those who are not willing to admit the fact, that although cities and towns and shipping may be crowded together in an astonishing manner, on and near the grand route between the capital and Canton, yet that the interior parts of the country are almost deserted. By some of our party going to _Chu-san_, we had occasion to see parts of the country remote from the common road, and such parts happened to be by far the most populous in the whole journey. But independent of the small portion of country seen by us, the western provinces, which are most distant from the grand navigation, are considered as the granaries of the empire; and the cultivation of much grain, where few cattle and less machinery are used, necessarily implies a corresponding population. Thus we see from the above table, that the surplus produce of the land remitted to Pekin from the provinces of

Oz. silver.
Honan } remote from the grand { 3,213,000
Shan-see } navigation, were { 3,722,000
Shen-see } { 2,040,000

Whilst those of

Pe-tche-lee } on the grand navigation, { 3,036,000
Shan-tung } were { 3,600,000
Tche-kiang } { 3,810,000

chiefly in rice, wheat, and millet. There are no grounds therefore for supposing that the interior parts of China are deserts.

There are others again who are persuaded of the population being so enormous, that the country is wholly inadequate to supply the means of subsistence; and that famines are absolutely necessary to keep down the former to the level of the latter. The loose and general way in which the accounts of the missionaries are drawn up certainly leave such an impression; but as I have endeavoured to shew that such is far from being the case, it may be expected I should also attempt to explain the frequency of those disastrous famines which occasionally commit such terrible havock in this country. I am of opinion then, that three principal reasons may be assigned for them. First, the equal division of the land: Secondly, the mode of cultivation: and Thirdly, the nature of the products.

If, in the first place, every man has it in his option to rent as much land as will support his family with food and clothing, he will have no occasion to go to market for the first necessities; and such being generally the case in China, those first necessities find no market, except in the large cities. When the peasant has brought under tillage of grain as much land as may be sufficient for the consumption of his own family, and the necessary surplus for the landlord, he looks no further; and all his neighbours having done the same, the first necessities are, in fact, unsaleable articles, except in so far as regards the demands of large cities, which are by no means so close upon one another as has been imagined. A surplus of grain is likewise less calculated to exchange for superfluities or luxuries than many other articles of produce. This being the case, if, by any accident, a failure of the crops should be general in a province, it has no relief to expect from the neighbouring provinces, nor any supplies from foreign countries. In China there are no great farmers who store their grain to throw into the market in seasons of scarcity. In such seasons the only resource is that of the government opening its magazines, and restoring to the people that portion of their crop which it had demanded from them as the price of its protection. And this being originally only a tenth part, out of which the monthly subsistence of every officer and soldier had already been deduced, the remainder is seldom adequate to the wants of the people. Insurrection and rebellion ensue, and those who may escape the devouring scourge of famine, in all probability, fall by the sword. In such seasons a whole province is sometimes half depopulated; wretched parents are reduced, by imperious want, to sell or destroy their offspring, and children to put an end, by violence, to the sufferings of their aged and infirm parents. Thus, the equal division of land, so favourable to population in seasons of plenty, is just the reverse when the calamity of a famine falls upon the people.

In the second place, a scarcity may be owing to the mode of cultivation. When I mention that two-thirds of the small quantity of land under tillage is cultivated with the spade or the hoe, or otherwise by manual labour, without the aid of draught-cattle or skilful machinery, it will readily be conceived how very small a portion each family will be likely to employ every year; certainly not one-third part of his average allowance.

The third cause of famines may be owing to the nature of the products, particularly to that of rice. This grain, the staff of life in China, though it yields abundant returns in favourable seasons, is more liable to fail than most others. A drought in its early stages withers it on the ground; and an inundation, when nearly ripe, is equally destructive. The birds and the locusts, more numerous in this country than an European can well conceive, infest it more than any other kind of grain. In the northern provinces, where wheat, millet and pulse are cultivated, famines more rarely happen; and I am persuaded that if potatoes and Guinea corn (_Zea-Mays_) were once adopted as the common vegetable food of the people, those direful famines that produce such general misery would entirely cease, and the encrease of population be as rapid as that of Ireland. This root in the northern provinces, and this grain in the middle and southern ones, would never fail them. An acre of potatoes would yield more food than an acre of rice, and twice the nourishment. Rice is the poorest of all grain, if we may judge from the slender and delicate forms of all the people who use it as the chief article of their sustenance; and potatoes are just the contrary[67].

[67] The great advantage of a potatoe crop, as I before observed, is the
certainty of its success. Were a general failure of this root to take
place, as sometimes happens to crops of rice, Ireland, in its present
state, would experience all the horrors that attend a famine in some of
the provinces of China.

As Dr. Adam Smith observes, "The chairmen, porters, and coal-heavers in London, and those unfortunate women who live by prostitution, the strongest men and the most beautiful women perhaps in the British dominions, are said to be, the greater part of them, from the lowest rank of the people in Ireland, who are generally fed with this root; no food can afford a more decisive proof of its nourishing quality, or of its being peculiarly suitable to the health of the human constitution." The Guinea corn requires little or no attention after the seed is dropped into the ground; and its leaves and juicy stems are not more nourishing for cattle than its prolific heads are for the sustenance of man.

Various causes have contributed to the populousness of China. Since the Tartar conquest it may be said to have enjoyed a profound peace; for in the different wars and skirmishes that have taken place with the neighbouring nations on the side of India, and with the Russians on the confines of Siberia, a few Tartar soldiers only have been employed. The Chinese army is parcelled out as guards for the towns, cities, and villages; and stationed at the numberless posts on the roads and canals. Being seldom relieved from the several guards, they all marry and have families. A certain portion of land is allotted for their use, which they have sufficient time to cultivate. As the nation has little foreign commerce there are few seamen; such as belong to the inland navigations are mostly married. Although there be no direct penalty levied against such as remain batchelors, as was the case among the Romans when they wished to repair the desolation that their civil wars had occasioned, yet public opinion considers celibacy as disgraceful, and a sort of infamy is attached to a man who continues unmarried beyond a certain time of life. And although in China the public law be not established of the _Jus trium liberorum_, by which every Roman citizen having three children was entitled to certain privileges and immunities, yet every male child may be provided for, and receive a stipend from the moment of his birth, by his name being enrolled on the military list. By the equal division of the country into small farms, every peasant has the means of bringing up his family, if drought and inundation do not frustrate his labour; and the pursuits of agriculture are more favourable to health, and consequently to population, than mechanical employments in crowded cities, and large manufactories, where those who are doomed to toil are more liable to become the victims of disease and debauchery, than such as are exposed to the free and open air, and to active and wholesome labour. In China there are few of such manufacturing cities. No great capitals are here employed in any one branch of the arts. In general each labours for himself in his own profession. From the general poverty that prevails among the lower orders of people, the vice of drunkenness is little practised among them. The multitude, from necessity, are temperate in their diet to the last degree. The climate is moderate and, except in the northern provinces where the cold is severe, remarkably uniform, not liable to those sudden and great changes in temperature, which the human constitution is less able to resist, than the extremes of heat or cold when steady and invariable, and from which the inconveniences are perhaps nowhere so severely felt as on our own island. Except the small-pox and contagious diseases that occasionally break out in their confined and crowded cities, they are liable to few epidemical disorders. The still and inanimate kind of life which is led by the women, at the same time that it is supposed to render them prolific, preserves them from accidents that might cause untimely births. Every woman suckles and nurses her own child.

The operation of these and other favourable causes that might be assigned, in a country that has existed under the same form of government, and preserved the same laws and customs for so many ages, must necessarily have created an excess of population unknown in most other parts of the world, where the ravages of war, several times repeated in the course of a century, or internal commotions, or pestilential disease, or the effects of overgrown wealth, sometimes sweep away one half of a nation within the usual period allotted to the life of man.

"What a grand and curious spectacle," as Sir George Staunton observes, "is here exhibited to the mind of so large a proportion of the whole human race, connected together in one great system of polity, submitting quietly and through so considerable an extent of country to one great sovereign; and uniform in their laws, their manners, and their language; but differing essentially in each of these respects from every other portion of mankind; and neither desirous of communicating with, nor forming any designs against, the rest of the world." How strong an instance does China afford of the truth of the observation, that men are more easily governed by opinion than by power.

CHAP. X.

Journey through the Province of Canton.--Situation of Foreigners trading to this Port.--Conclusion.

_Visible change in the Character of the People.--Rugged
Mountains.--Collieries.--Temple in a Cavern.--Stone Quarries--Various
Plants for Use and Ornament.--Arrive at Canton--Expence of the Embassy
to the Chinese Government.--To the British Nation--Nature and
Inconveniences of the Trade to Canton--The Armenian and his
Pearl.--Impression of the Officers of Government instanced.--Principal
Cause of them is the Ignorance of the Language.--Case of Chinese trading
to London.--A Chinese killed by a Seaman of His Majesty's Ship
Madras.--Delinquent saved from an ignominious Death, by a proper Mode of
Communication with the Government_--Conclusion.

We had no sooner passed the summit of the high mountain _Me-lin_, and entered the province of _Quan-tung_, or Canton, than a very sensible difference was perceived in the conduct of the inhabitants. Hitherto the Embassy had met with the greatest respect and civility from all classes of the natives, but now even the peasantry ran out of their houses, as we passed, and bawled after us _Queitze-fan-quei_, which, in their language, are opprobrious and contemptuous expressions, signifying _foreign devils_, _imps_; epithets that are bestowed by the enlightened Chinese on all foreigners. It was obvious, that the haughty and insolent manner in which all Europeans residing at, or trading to, the port of Canton are treated, had extended itself to the northern frontier of the province, but it had not crossed the mountain _Me-lin_; the natives of _Kiang-see_ being a quiet, civil, and inoffensive people. In _Quan-tung_ the farther we advanced, the more rude and insolent they became. A timely rebuke, however, given to the governor of _Nau-sheun-foo_ by _Van-ta-gin_, for applying the above mentioned opprobrious epithets to the British Embassy, had a good effect on the Canton officers, who were now to be our conductors through their province.

This contempt of foreigners is not confined to the upper ranks, or men in office, but pervades the very lowest class who, whilst they make no scruple of entering into the service of foreign merchants residing in the country, and accepting the most menial employments under them, performing the duties of their several offices with diligence, punctuality, and fidelity, affect, at the same time, to despise their employers, and to consider them as placed, in the scale of human beings, many degrees below them. Having one day observed my Chinese servant busily employed in drying a quantity of tea-leaves, that had already been used for breakfast, and of which he had collected several pounds, I inquired what he meant to do with them: he replied, to mix them with other tea and sell them. "And is that the way," said I, "in which you cheat your own countrymen?" "No," replied he, "my own countrymen are too wise to be so easily cheated, but your's are stupid enough to let serve you such like tricks; and indeed," continued he, with the greatest _sang froid_ imaginable, "anything you get from us is quite good enough for you." Affecting to be angry with him, he said, "he meant for the _second sort_ of Englishmen," which is a distinction they give to the Americans[68].

[68] In the Canton jargon, _second chop Englishmen_; and even this
distinction the Americans, I understand, have nearly forfeited in the
minds of the Chinese.

The city of _Nan-sheun-foo_ was pleasantly situated on the high bank of the river _Pei-kiang-ho_. The houses appeared to be very old, the streets narrow, large tracts of ground within the walls unbuilt, others covered with ruins. While the barges were preparing to receive on board the baggage, we took up our lodgings in the public temple, that was dedicated to the memory of Confucius, being, at the same time, the college where the students are examined for their different degrees. It consisted of a long dark room, divided by two rows of red pillars into a middle and two side aisles, without furniture, paintings, statues, or ornaments of any kind, except a few paper lanterns suspended between the pillars; the floor was of earth, and entirely broken up: to us it had more the appearance of a large passage or gang-way to some manufactory, as a brewhouse or iron foundery, than of the hall of Confucius. On each side, and at the farther extremity, were several small apartments, in which we contrived to pass the night.

The barges in which we now embarked were very small, owning to the shallowness of the river. The officers, assembled here from different parts of the country, detained us a whole day in order to have an opportunity of laying their several complaints before our physician, at the recommendation of _Van-ta-gin_, who had felt the good effects of his practice. Here, for once, we had an instance of Chinese pride giving way to self-interest, and usurped superiority condescending to ask advice of barbarians. We sailed for two days in our little barges, through one of the most wild, mountainous, and barren tracts of country that I ever beheld, abounding more in the sublime and horrible, than in the picturesque or the beautiful. The lofty summits of the mountains seemed to touch each other across the river and, at a distance, it appeared as if we had to sail through an arched cavern. The massy fragments that had fallen down from time to time, and impeded the navigation, were indications that the passage was not altogether free from danger. Five remarkable points of sand-stone rock, rising in succession above each other with perpendicular faces, seemed as if they had been hewn out of one solid mountain: they were called _ou-ma-too_, or the five horses' heads. The mountains at a distance on each side of the river were covered with pines, the nearer hills with coppice wood, in which the Camellia prevailed; and in the little glens were clusters of fishermen's huts, surrounded by small plantations of tobacco.

Within the defile of these wild mountains, we observed several extensive collieries, which were advantageously worked by driving levels from the river into their sides. The coals brought out of the horizontal _adits_ were immediately lowered from a pier into vessels that were ready to receive and transport them to the potteries of this province, and of _Kiang-see_. Coal is little used in its raw state, but is first charred in large pits that are dug in the ground. Coal dust, mixed with earth, and formed into square blocks, is frequently used to heat their little stoves, on which they boil their rice.

At the city of _Tchao-tchoo-foo_, where we arrived on the 13th, we exchanged our flat-bottomed boats for large and commodious yachts, the river being here much increased by the confluence of another stream. The boats before this city were mostly managed by young girls, whose dress consisted of a neat white jacket and petticoat and a gipsey straw hat. Having for so great a length of time scarcely ever set our eyes upon a female, except the heads of some at a distance, peeping from behind the mud walls that surround the houses, or labouring in the grounds of _Kiang-see_, the ferry girls, though in reality very plain and coarse-featured, were considered as the most beautiful objects that had occurred in the whole journey. To the occupation of ferrying passengers over the river it seemed they added another, not quite so honourable, for which, however, they had not only the consent and approbation of their parents, but also the sanction of the government, or perhaps, to speak more correctly, of the governing magistrates, given in consideration of their receiving a portion of the wages of prostitution.

In this mountainous district a few fishermen's huts and those of the colliers were the only habitations that occurred; but the defect of population was abundantly supplied by the number of wooden dwellings that were floating on the river. Small huts, to the number of thirty or forty, were sometimes erected upon a single floating raft of fir baulks, lashed together by the ends and the sides. On these rafts the people carry on their trade or occupation, particularly such as work in wood.

Our conductors directed the yachts to halt before a detached rock, rising with a perpendicular front from the margin of the river to the height of seven hundred feet. In this front we observed a cavern, before which was a terrace that had been cut out of the rock, accessible by a flight of steps from the river. Proceeding from the terrace into the cavity of the rock, we ascended another flight of stairs, also cut out of solid stone, which led into a very spacious apartment. In the centre of this apartment sat the goddess _Poo-sa_ upon a kind of altar, constituting a part of the rock, and hewn into the shape of the _Lien-wha_ or Nelumbium. A small opening, next the river, admitted a "dim religious light," suitable to the solemnity of the place, which we were told was a temple consecrated to _Poo-sa_, and a monastery for the residence of a few superannuated priests. On the smooth sides of the apartment was inscribed a multitude of Chinese verses, some cut into the rock, and others painted upon it. The lodgings of the priests were small caves branching out of the large temple. A third flight of steps led from this to a second story, which was also lighted by a small aperture in front, that was nearly choaked up by an immense mass of stalectite that had been formed, and was still increasing, by the constant oozing of water holding in solution calcareous matter, and suspended from a projection of the upper part of the rock. But the light was sufficient to discover a gigantic image with a Saracen face, who "grinn'd horrible a ghastly smile." On his head was a sort of crown; in one hand he held a naked scymeter, and a firebrand in the other; but the history of this colossal divinity seemed to be imperfectly known, even to the votaries of _Poo-sa_ themselves. He had in all probability been a warrior in his day, the Theseus or the Hercules of China. The cave of the Cumæan Sibyl could not be better suited for dealing out the mysterious decrees of fate to the superstitious multitude, than that of the _Quan-gin-shan_, from whence the oracle of future destiny, in like manner,

"Horrendas canit ambages, antroque remugit,
Obscuris vera involvens."

"The wond'rous truths, involv'd in riddles, gave,
And furious bellow'd round the gloomy cave."

Lord Macartney observed that this singular temple brought to his recollection a Franciscan monastery he had seen in Portugal, near Cape Roxent, usually called the _Cork Convent_, "which is an excavation of considerable extent under a hill, divided into a great number of cells, and fitted up with a church, sacristy, refectory, and every requisite apartment for the accommodation of the miserable Cordeliers who burrow in it. The inside is entirely lined with cork: the walls, the roofs, the floors, are covered with cork; the tables, seats, chairs, beds, couches, the furniture of the chapel, the crucifixes, and every other implement, are all made of cork. The place was certainly dismal and comfortless to a great degree, but it wanted the gigantic form, the grim features, the terrific aspect which distinguish the temple of _Poo-sa_, in the rock of _Quan-gin-shan_." Dismal as this gloomy den appeared to be, where a few miserable beings had voluntarily chained themselves to a rock, to be gnawed by the vultures of superstition and fanaticism, it is still less so than an apartment of the Franciscan convent in Madeira, the walls of which are entirely covered with human skulls, and the bones of legs and arms, placed alternately in horizontal rows. A dirty lamp suspended from the ceiling, and constantly attended by an old bald-headed friar of the order, to keep the feeble light just glimmering in the socket, serves to shew indistinctly to strangers this disgusting _memento mori_. It would be difficult to determine which of the three were the most useless members of society, the monks of _Poo-sa_, the monks of the Cork convent, or the monks of Golgotha.

In several places among the wild and romantic mountains through which we were carried on this river, we noticed quarries of great extent, out of which huge stones had been cut for sepulchral monuments, for the arches of bridges, for architraves, for paving the streets, and for various other uses. To obtain these large masses, the saw is applied at the upper surface, and they work down vertically to the length required. Each stone is shaped and fashioned to the size that may be wanted, before it is removed from the parent rock, by which much difficulty is avoided and less power required in conveying it to its destination. Rude misshapen blocks, requiring additional labour for their removal, are never detached from the rock in such a state. In this respect they are more provident than the late Empress of Russia who, at an immense expense and with the aid of complicated machinery, caused a block of stone to be brought to her capital, to serve as a pedestal for the statue of the Czar Peter, where it was found expedient to reduce it to two-thirds of its original dimensions.

Between the city of Canton and the first pagoda on the bank of the river, there is a continued series of similar quarries, which appear not to have been worked for many years. The regular and formal manner in which the stones have been cut away, exhibiting lengthened streets of houses with quadrangular chambers, in the sides of which are square holes at equal distances, as if intended for the reception of beams; the smoothness and perfect perpendicularity of the sides, and the number of detached pillars that are scattered over the plain, would justify a similar mistake to that of Mr. Addison's Doctor of one of the German universities, whom he found at Chateau d'Un in France, carefully measuring the free-stone quarries at that place, which he had conceived to be the venerable remains of vast subterranean palaces of great antiquity.

Almost all the mountains that occurred in our passage through China were of primæval granite, some few of sand-stone, and the inferior hills were generally of lime-stone, or coarse grey marble. Except the Ladrone islands on the south, and some of the _Chu-san_ islands on the east, we observed no appearances in the whole country of volcanic productions. The high mountains, indeed, that form great continental chains are seldom, if ever, of volcanic formation. The presence of a vast volume of water seems to be indispensably necessary to carry on this operation of nature and, accordingly, we find that volcanic mountains are generally close to the sea coast, or entirely insulated. Thus, although a great part of the islands on the coast of China are volcanic, we met with no trace of subterranean heat, either in volcanic products or thermal springs, on the whole continent. Yet earthquakes are said to have been frequently felt in all the provinces, but slight and of short duration.

About seven miles to the southward of the temple in the rock, the mountains abruptly ceased, and we entered on a wide extended plain which, to the southward and on each side, was terminated only by the horizon. This sudden transition from barrenness to fertility, from the sublime to the beautiful, from irregularity to uniformity, could not fail to please, as all strong contrasts usually do. The country was now in a high state of tillage; the chief products were rice, sugar-canes, and tobacco; and the river was so much augmented by the tributary streams of the mountains, which we had just left behind, that it was nearly half a mile in width. Canals branched from its two banks in every direction. At the city of _San-shwee shien_, we observed the current of the river receding, being driven back by the flux of the tide.

On the 10th, we halted before a village which was just within sight of the suburbs of Canton. Here the Embassador was met by the Commissioners of the East India Company, whom the Chinese had allowed to proceed thus far from the factory, and to which place the servants of the Company are occasionally permitted to make their parties of pleasure. In the neighbourhood of this village are extensive gardens for the supply of the city with vegetables. In some we observed nurseries for propagating the rare, the beautiful, the curious, or the useful plants of the country; which are sent to Canton for sale. On this account we were not sorry to be obliged to spend the remainder of the day at this place. Among the choice plants we noticed the large _Peonia_ before mentioned, white, red, and variegated; the elegant _Limodorum Tankervilliæ_, and that singular plant the _Epidendrum flos aeris_ so called from its vegetating without the assistance of earth or water; the _Hybiscus mutabilis_, the _Abelmoschus_, and other species of this genus; the double variegated _Camellia Japonica_; the great holly-hock; the scarlet _amaranthus_ and another species of the same genus, and a very elegant _Celosia_ or cock's comb; the _Nerium Oleander_, sometimes called the Ceylon rose, and the _Yu-lan_, a species of magnolia, the flowers of which appear before the leaves burst from the buds. Of the scented plants the _plumeria_ and a double flowering jasmine were the most esteemed. We observed also in pots the _Ocymum_ or sweet Basil, _Cloranthus inconspicuous_, called _Chu-lan_, whose leaves are sometimes mixed with those of tea to give them a peculiar flavour; the _Olea fragrans_, or sweet scented olive, said also to be used for the same purpose; a species of myrtle; the much esteemed _Rosa Sinica_; the _Tuberose_; the strong scented _Gardenia florida_, improperly called the Cape Jasmine; the China pink and several others, to enumerate which would exceed the limits of this work.

Of fruits we noticed a variety of figs, and three species of mulberries; peaches and almonds; the _Annona_ or custard-apple; the _Eugenia Jambos_, or rose-apple; the much-esteemed _Lee-tchee_ or _Sapindus-edulis_; and the _Kœlreuteria_, another species of the same genus; the _Averhoa Carambola_, an excellent fruit for tarts; and the _Ou-long-shoo_, the _Sterculia platanifolia_. Besides these were abundance of oranges and bananas.