left-hand-road and side-door sects. Their punishment is determined in the same way as that of the masters and mistresses of your dancing gods or your male and female conjurors." He founded all religion on the duties of children to their parents. According to the emperor's system, every family had two living divinitiesfather and mother-and therefore it was unnecessary to go in quest of other gods or to worship on the hills, or to travel far to burn incense, or to pray to idols or to gods for happiness. In his wisdom he decreed that robbery and theft should be for ever extirpated; yet theft, robbery, piracy and murder appear to have multiplied in each successive reign.

The Sacred Instructions were amplified by Kanghi's son and successor, Yung-ching, who by statute enjoined that they should be proclaimed with great form and ceremony throughout the empire on the first and fifteenth of every month. Before the commencement of the reading all present performed the ko-tau.

Kang-hi endeavored, with the assistance of the Jesuits, to make some improvements in the arts and sciences of China, especially in that of medicine, which has always been in a most deficient state. But the prejudices of the Chinese with regard to the dissection of human bodies is so strong that although several books on the subject of anatomy were published under the patronage of that enlightened emperor, the study was never prosecuted to any advantage; and so little is yet understood of the medical art that the greater portion of the Chinese people put more faith in spells and charms than in any remedies derived from professional science, and place very little reliance on the efficacy of a medicine unless it

be taken on a lucky day. Kang-hi died in the year 1722, having ruled over the Chinese empire sixty-one years the longest reign recorded in the history of China since the patriarchal times.

The sovereign power had never been greater or more absolute than during this period, nor had it ever been equaled except while the sceptre was swayed by the powerful hand of Kublai Khan. Besides extending his dominions by his conquests over the Eleuths, Kang-hi obliged the Mongols to remove three hundred miles beyond the Great Wall, where he gave them lands and pastures, while he settled his own subjects of the Manchu race in the provinces they had vacated, thus uniting to China a large extent of territory without the intervention of a foreign nation. The Mongols, however, are still a constant source of uneasiness to the Chinese government, and are watched with the utmost jealousy by the Manchus, whom it is well known they heartily detest as the usurpers of that empire once so gloriously ruled by their own princes. These tribes until the present time range over the vast territories to the north-west of China Proper. They have no cities, but dwell in tents, some of which are as richly furnished as the halls of a palace, the floors being covered with Turkey or Persian carpets, the sides adorned with silken hangings, and every other article for domestic use being of a costly and luxurious description, and obtained in exchange for valuable furs from the Chinese. The Mongols are great hunters, and thus procure the skins of various animals that are highly prized. They are all trained to arms, and are also addicted to horse-racing, wrestling and other athletic sports. Their ordinary costume is a long dark

blue robe, fastened round the waist with a leather belt; under-garments of cotton, leather boots and a cap of cloth or fur, according to the season. Their princes attend as vassals at the imperial court, and very often marry the daughters of the emperor, who is not unwilling to promote such alliances as a means of securing their fidelity. With the same view he sends rich presents to them every year, except when any signs of rebellion appear, in which case the gifts are withheld until submission has been made and the disaffected have returned to their allegiance. Their lands are held in fief and descend to the eldest son, who cannot take possession until he has received his investiture from the emperor-another means of keeping them in subjection.

It was during the long reign of Kang-hi that the English really obtained a footing in the empire. In the year 1664, in the time of Charles II., a single English ship had been sent to Macao, but such were the exactions imposed by the Chinese, and such was the effect of the malicious misrepresentations of the Portuguese, that the vessel was obliged to return without effecting sale or purchasing cargo. It is at this period that we first find mention made of tea as a commodity abounding in China, and very proper to be imported into England. English ships were again sent out in 1668, which opened a little trade at Formosa (then independent of the Manchus) and at Amoy. The fact of this brief traffic at Amoy is stamped upon our language in the permanent use of the word tea to designate the shrub, which is its name in the dialect of that vicinity; the proper name, in the court, the Canton and other more important dialects, is chá (or chah). In 1681 the East India Company ordered their