much dirt as the Canton mandarins might please to appoint. Beyond this we know little or nothing—not a tithe as much as any one might know of the two classical nations of antiquity from the now obsolete pages of Potter and Adams. There was a list of Chinese emperors, with a chronology more absurd than ever flashed across a Welshman’s brain when getting up his family pedigree. There was a little information, possibly accurate, about the reigning Tartar dynasty—a cut and dry account of Confucius and Confucianism—a chapter upon Bouddhism, as unintelligible as might be, and somewhat about “manners and customs” gleaned by some person or persons unknown, from where you will; for certainly European residents in China, upon their own showing, had few facilities of observation beyond the river suburb of a provincial town at the southern extremity of the empire. To be sure, we had the accounts of old ambassadorial progresses to Pekin, when the representatives of British majesty were carried about like monkeys in cages, or old ladies in sedan-chairs at Bath, in the olden time. Beyond these there was the amusing Gil Blas-like account of the two French missionaries, MM. Huc and Gabet, which gave us the story of their journey from Pekin to Lla-Sah in Thibet, which possessed every literary quality except that of inspiring confidence in the “general reader.” If the “Friend of China,” one or two French works, and the contributions of Mr. Meadows to our knowledge of the subject be added to the list, we have cited well nigh all the sources from which trustworthy information upon China can be drawn. This, however, is different in kind to what the three writers first named, and especially Mr. W. Cooke and Captain Osborn, have accomplished; we feel in reading their accounts of China and the Chinese, that we have at last got hold of men who are determined to consider John Chinaman as a responsible and intelligible being—inferior in many respects to the European, but still a human creature,—not the mere nodding and grotesque mandarin of our porcelain cabinets.
We are told that the Chinese diplomatists are sadly given to deception and treachery. The definition of an ambassador, as a man sent abroad by his government to lie for the good of his country, was not conceived for the diplomatists of China. We are told again, that the Chinese, as a nation, have no regard for truth. How much will you find amongst the southern Europeans? The Chinaman, when he goes into mourning, arrays himself in white—the European in sable: it is a matter of custom. What we should call the sentimental element is wanting in the Chinese character. At the same time it is difficult to believe that amongst 400,000,000 of human beings, the play of human feeling is not much the same as it is amongst ourselves. All writers upon Chinese matters agree in saying that the relations between children and their parents are drawn unusually close in China. There is such an uniformity of testimony upon this point that error is scarcely possible. If then the reverence of children for their parents is one of the great pivots of Chinese society, it would seem to follow that in the long run the parents must deserve the reverence they obtain. Upon what sounder basis than that of “the family” could any society of human beings repose? If a son regards his mother with affection and respect, and the father his daughter, it seems scarcely probable that the relations between brother and sister, husband and wife, can be much amiss. In the wretched story which was sent to us from Peh-Tang the other day, we are told that the women of a family voluntarily poisoned themselves, rather than fall into the hands of the barbarians. What more could an Englishwoman have done during the Indian mutiny? On the whole, it is difficult to believe that such an enormous population could have been held together—or rather that a population should have grown up to so enormous a number—in steady violation of all the instincts we find implanted in our own breasts.
Vague reports have reached us of the splendour and magnificence in which the rich men of the great cities of the interior are accustomed to live. If their notions of the fine arts are not as delicate or refined as those of the Florentine Medici, at least they rival them in their pomp and state. Nor, from what we hear, are the lower classes in so abject a condition as the enervated ryot of our own Indian possessions. John Chinaman is ready and eager to work steadily for his living, and to do stern battle with the world in which he finds himself cast. An Asiatic out of China, if he is worth anything at all, is a fighting man. The Chinaman is no coward, but to all appearance he had rather till the ground, or grow tea, or look after his silkworms, than engage in the great throat-cutting business. Englishmen are not likely to blame them for this, the more so when we have it upon the testimony of our own officers who saw them in action, more especially up in the North, that the Chinese would fight readily enough if they knew how. Men with spears and bows and arrows can scarcely be expected to stand up against our field-batteries, and rockets, and serried lines of bayonets, and screw steamers, and gun-boats. If a hundred thousand Chinamen of the proper age, and of sound bodily condition, were handed over to the officers of our ci-devant Bengal army—trained by them in military exercises, and armed with the latest invented muskets, &c., &c.—one may be pardoned for believing that they would soon give excellent account of any Asiatic force which could be brought against them—and perhaps hold their own well enough in presence even of European troops. If the Chinaman is not fired and inspirited to action by lofty sentiments, at least he possesses a fund of obstinacy in his character and a contempt for death.
As a rule they are a temperate people. Mr. W. Cooke tells us, “It is very wrong of John Chinaman to smoke opium to the extent of sixpence per head per annum. But what is he to do? He detests beer and wine. You may leave an open brandy-bottle in his custody for weeks, and it will not evaporate. His strong samshoo is, so far as I can discover, almost a myth, except as an article to sell to foreign sailors.” Of course there must be something wrong or imperfect in the Chinese mind, or, having done so much well, they would have done better. One would rather ex-