several trades in the streets, where they sit with their tools around them as if they were in a workshop. Cobblers, tinkers and blacksmiths set up their apparatus wherever they may obtain a job; and medicine-venders, who are generally fortune-tellers also, establish themselves, with their compounds ranged in order before them, in any convenient locality. There are also a great number of peddlers, ballad-singers and mountebanks, who contribute no less to the noise than to the throng. But the most remarkable persons who exercise their calling in the streets are the barbers, who are all licensed, and shave the heads and plait the queues of their customers with the utmost gravity in the open air. All the men of the lower orders, as well as some of a higher class, have this operation performed in the public street. The shops have open fronts, gayly painted, and before the door of each is a wooden pillar, covered with gilt characters describing the nature of the goods sold within; and as these sign-posts are usually decorated with gay streamers floating from the top, they have not been unaptly compared in appearance to a line of ships' masts with colors flying. The windows of all the houses in Peking are made of Corea paper, very frequently of a rose color, and strengthened by a thin framework of bamboo; for there is no glass in the north of China, nor is it yet very common in the south, although more frequently seen now than in the last century. The houses in Peking are seldom more than one story in height, and have flat roofs, which are often covered with flowers and shrubs; for as there are no fireplaces, so there are no chimneys, the rooms being warmed by pans of lighted charcoal, of which fuel great quantities are brought from

Tartary on dromedaries, and these animals are constantly seen thus laden in the streets of the city.

The new town was partly built and greatly embellished by the emperor Yung-lo when he removed the court from Nanking to Peking, which was then entirely inhabited by Chinese; but when it was taken by the Manchus, the native people were all driven out of the new town and the houses given to the Tartar conquerors, since which time it has been called the Tartar city. In this part of the city the streets are wide and handsome, but the old town presents the same general features that distinguish all the great cities of China; the most striking of which are the high walls, narrow streets, openfronted shops, gayly-decorated temples and triumphal arches, with a constant succession of sedans and noisy processions, the bustle being increased by the incessant activity of itinerant artificers and venders of almost every commodity, amongst whom not a few are water-sellers.

The triumphal arches, which are seen in most of the principal streets, are ornamental gateways that have been erected in honor of eminent persons; by which may be understood those who have distinguished themselves by their wisdom and virtues, either in public or private life. The emperor Kang-hi, for instance, ordained that every widow who attained to her hundredth year without forming a second matrimonial engagement should be presented with thirty taels of silver for the erection of a triumphal arch, with an inscription in her praise; for although a woman is allowed to take a second husband if she pleases, and many do so, it is accounted far more honorable to remain faithful to the memory of the first.

CHAPTER V.

THE PATRIARCHAL AGE IN CHINA.

THE ancient records of China mention nine sovereigns

of the first dynasty, founded by Fuhi, whom they suppose to have been gifted with superhuman virtues and knowledge, by which they were enabled to rescue the people from their original barbarism and to instruct them in the arts of civilized life, which were undoubtedly acquired at a very early period and promoted by the rulers of the country.

The earliest and most useful of these arts were husbandry and silk-weaving, both of which must have been taught by necessity as soon as the nation was established, as the people depended for subsistence on the cultivation of the land, and for clothing on the chief natural produce of the country adapted for that purpose, which was found in the vast forests, where silkworms were abundant on many species of the forest trees. The merit of teaching the people to weave silk into garments and dye it of various colors is ascribed to one of the earliest empresses-Si-ling; and that of instructing them in husbandry is given to Shin-nung, which may be translated either "Shin, the husbandman," or "the divine husbandman," the immediate successor of Fuhi, whose name is held in veneration accordingly; and even to this day

the Chinese offer up annual sacrifices and hold a festival in honor of the princess who first wove silken garments, and the no less praiseworthy monarch who taught his people to plough the earth.

Agricultural pursuits have always been, and still are, held in the highest estimation by the Chinese, who commence the year with a grand festival in honor of the spring; on which occasion the emperor, in imitation of his ancient predecessor, performs the operations of ploughing and sowing seed in a field set apart for that purpose a custom which has seldom been neglected by the sovereigns of China, who have thus by their own example stimulated their subjects to the performance of these useful labors and maintained the honorable character of the husbandman, who even now holds a rank in their theory of society next to the literary man, and above that of the soldier or the merchant, however wealthy the latter may be. Among the ancients, particularly the Egyptians, Persians and Greeks, it was a common practice to hold games and festivals, mingled with religious ceremonies, at that season when the earth is ready to receive the seed, thus showing the cheerfulness with which the farmers returned to their rustic toils, and the reliance they placed on a superior Being to reward them with an abundant harvest. The old festival of Plough Monday in England was probably derived from these customs of the ancients, and was formerly celebrated in all the rural districts with great merrymakings on the Monday following Twelfth Day; some of the rites observed being not unlike those among the Chinese; as an instance of which, the plough-light was up before the image of some patron saint in the vil

set

lage church-a custom somewhat similar to that observed among the Chinese, who placed lighted candles opposite certain images in their temples.

To their ancient emperors they impute inventions which must have been made much farther West and previous to their existence.

One is said to have been the inventor of writing, another of musical instruments, a third the discoverer of the art of working in metals, while a fourth has the credit of having taught his subjects to build bridges. Shin-nung was the father of several inventions. His successor, Hwang-ti, divided all the land into groups of nine equal squares, of which the middle one was to be cultivated in common for the benefit of the State. He is said, likewise, to have invented the mode of noting the cycles of sixty years, the foundation of the Chinese. system of chronology. Other emperors of this semifabulous period are celebrated for their skill in astronomy and chronological computations. But some of these inventions had in truth been brought from the plains of Chaldea. And it is curious to observe the Chinese at one extreme of the habitable world retaining the Babylonish sacred number of sixty for the largest division of time, and ourselves, at the other extreme, applying it to the smallest the minutes and seconds. They, like us, preserve twelve as a numerical division for hours, though

1 According to this system, which seems to have been kept up with great care and precision, they are now in the seventy-sixth cycle. The year 1863 completed the seventy-fifth; that is, exactly four thousand five hundred years since the date assumed for a beginning, which would be 2637 B. C. Whatever theory of chronology we adopt, this must carry us back to an early generation after the deluge, or into the life of Noah, of whom, as has been shown, they retain a legendary remembrance.