lecture iii democratic china theoretically speaking, the empire of chinais ruled by an autocratic monarch, responsible only to god, whose representativehe is on earth. once every year the emperor prays at the templeof heaven, and sacrifices in solemn state upon its altar.he puts himself, as it were, into communication with the supreme being,and reports upon the fidelity with which he has carried out his imperialtrust. if the emperor rules wisely and well, withonly the happiness of his
people at heart, there will be no sign fromabove, beyond peace and plenty in the empire, and now and then a doubleear of corn in the fields—a phenomenon which will be duly recordedin the _peking gazette_. but should there be anything like laxnessor incapacity, or still worse, degradation and vice, then a comet may perhapsappear, a pestilence may rage, or a famine, to warn the erring rulerto give up his evil ways. and just as the emperor is responsible toheaven, so are the viceroys and governors of the eighteen provinces—tospeak only of china proper—nominally responsible to him, inreality to the six departments
of state at peking, which constitute the centralgovernment, and to which a seventh has recently been added—adepartment for foreign affairs. so long as all goes well—and in ordinarytimes that "all" is confined to a regular and sufficient supply of revenuepaid into the imperial treasury—viceroys and governors of provincesare, as nearly as can be, independent rulers, each in his own domain. for purposes of government, in the ordinarysense of the term, the 18 provinces are subdivided into 80 areas knownas "circuits," and over
each of these is set a high official, whois called an intendant of circuit, or in chinese a _tao-t'ai_. his circuitconsists of 2 or more prefectures, of which there are in all 282distributed among the 80 circuits, or about an average of 3 prefecturesto each. every prefecture is in turn subdivided intoseveral magistracies, of which there are 1477 in all, distributed amongthe 282 prefectures, or about an average of 5 magistracies to each. immediately below the magistrates may be saidto come the people; though naturally an official who rules over an areaas big as an average
english county can scarcely be brought intopersonal touch with all those under his jurisdiction. this difficultyis bridged over by the appointment of a number of head men, or headboroughs,who are furnished with wooden seals, and who are held responsiblefor the peace and good order of the wards or boroughs over whichthey are set. the post is considered an honourable one, involving asit does a quasi-official status. it is also more or less lucrative,as it is necessary that all petitions to the magistrate, all conveyancesof land, and other legal instruments, should bear the seal of the headman, as a guarantee of
good faith, a small fee being payable on eachnotarial act. on the other hand, the post is occasionallyburdensome and trying in the extreme. for instance, if a head man failsto produce any criminals or accused persons, either belonging to, or knownto be, in his district, he is liable to be bambooed or otherwise severelypunished. in ordinary life the head man is not distinguishablefrom the masses of his fellow-countrymen. he may often be seenworking like the rest, and even walking about with bare legs and barefeet. thus in a descending scale we have the emperor,the viceroys and
governors of the 18 provinces, the intendants,or _tao-t'ais_, of the 80 circuits, the prefects of the 282 prefectures,the magistrates of the 1477 magistracies, the myriad headboroughs,and the people. the district magistrates, so far as officialsare concerned, are the real rulers of china, and in conjunction withthe prefects are popularly called "father-and-mother" officials, as thoughthey stood _in loco parentium_ to the people, whom, by the way,they in turn often speak of, even in official documents, as "the babies." the ranks of these magistrates are replenishedby drafts of those
_literati_ who have succeeded in taking thethird, or highest, degree. thus, the first step on the ladder is opento all who can win their way by successful competition at certain literaryexaminations, so long as each candidate can show that none of his ancestorsfor three generations have been either actors, barbers and chiropodists,priests, executioners, or official servants. want of means may be said to offer no obstaclein china to ambition and desire for advancement. the slightest aptitudein a boy for learning would be carefully noted, and if found tobe the genuine article, would
be still more carefully fostered. not onlyare there plenty of free schools in china, but there are plenty ofpersons ready to help in so good a cause. many a high official has risenfrom the furrowed fields, his educational expenses as a student, andhis travelling expenses as a candidate, being paid by subscription in hisnative place. once successful, he can easily find a professionalmoney-lender who will provide the comparatively large sums requiredfor his outfit and journey to his post, whither this worthy actuallyaccompanies him, to remain until he is repaid in full, with interest.
a successful candidate, however, is not usuallysent straight from the examination-hall to occupy the importantposition of district magistrate. he is attached to some magistracyas an expectant official, and from time to time his capacity is testedby a case, more or less important, which is entrusted to his managementas deputy. the duties of a district magistrate are sonumerous and so varied that one man could not possibly cope with themall. at the same time he is fully responsible. in addition to presidingover a court of first instance for all criminal trials in his district,he has to act as
coroner (without a jury) at all inquests,collect and remit the land-tax, register all conveyances of landand house-property, act as preliminary examiner of candidates for literarydegrees, and perform a host of miscellaneous offices, even to prayingfor rain or fine weather in cases of drought or inundation. he is up,if anything, before the lark; and at night, often late at night, heis listening to the protestations of prisoners or bambooing recalcitrantwitnesses. but inasmuch as the district may often bea large one, and two inquests may be going on in two different directionson the same day, or there
may be other conflicting claims upon his time,he has constantly to depute his duties to a subordinate, whoseusual duties, if he has any, have to be taken by some one else, and soon. thus it is that the expectant official every now and then getshis chance. this scheme leaves out of consideration anumber of provincial officials, who preside over departments whichbranch, as it were, from the main trunk, and of whom a few words onlyneed now be said. there are several "commissioners," as theyare sometimes called; for instance, the commissioner of finance, otherwiseknown as the provincial
treasurer, who is charged with the fiscaladministration of his particular province, and who controls thenomination of nearly all the minor appointments in the civil service, subjectto the approval of the governor. then there is the commissioner of justice,or provincial judge, responsible for the due administration ofjustice in his province. there is also the salt commissioner, who collectsthe revenue derived from the government monopoly of the salt trade;and the grain commissioner, who looks after the grain-tax,and sees that the tribute
rice is annually forwarded to peking, forthe use of the imperial court. there are also military officials, belongingto two separate and distinct army organisations. the manchus, when they conquered the empire,placed garrisons of their own troops, under the command of manchu generals,at various important strategic points; and the tartar generals,as they are called, still remain, ranking nominally just above the viceroyof the province, over whose actions they are supposed to keep acareful watch. then there is a provincial army, with a provincialcommander-in-chief,
etc. now let us return to the main trunk, workingupward by way of recapitulation. we have reached the people and their headmen, or headboroughs, over whom is set the magistrate, with a nominalsalary which would be quite insufficient for his needs, even if he wereever to draw it. for he has a large staff to keep up; some few of whom,no doubt, keep themselves by fees and _douceurs_ of various kinds obtainedfrom litigants and others who have business to transact.
the income on which the magistrate lives,and from which, after a life of incessant toil, he saves a moderate competencefor the requirements of his family, is deducted from the grossrevenues of his magistracy, leaving a net amount to be forwarded to theimperial treasury. so long as his superiors are satisfied with what heremits, no questions are asked as to original totals. it is recognisedthat he must live, and the value of every magistracy is known withina few hundred ounces of silver one way or the other. above the magistrate, and in control of severalmagistracies, comes the
prefect, who has to satisfy his superiorsin the same way. he has the general supervision of all civil businessin his prefecture, and to him must be referred every appeal case from themagistracies under his jurisdiction, before it can be filed in ahigher court. above him comes the intendant of circuit,or _tao-t'ai_, in control of several prefectures, to whom the same ruleapplies as to satisfying demands of superiors; and above him come thegovernor and viceroy, who must also satisfy the demands of the statedepartments in peking. it would now appear, from what has been alreadystated, that all a
viceroy or governor has to do is to exactsufficient revenue from immediate subordinates, and leave them toexact the amounts necessary from _their_ subordinates, and so on downthe scale until we reach the people. the whole question therefore resolvesitself into this, what can the people be made to pay? the answer to that question will be somewhatof a staggerer to those who from distance, or from want of close observation,regard the chinese as a down-trodden people, on a level with thefellahin of egypt in past times. for the answer, so far as my own experiencegoes, is that only so
much can be got out of the chinese peopleas the people themselves are ready and willing to pay. in other words,with all their show of an autocratic ruler and a paternal government,the people of china tax themselves. i am now about to do more than state thisopinion; i am going to try to prove it. the philosopher mencius, who flourished aboutone hundred years after confucius, and who is mainly responsible forthe final triumph of the confucian doctrine, was himself not so mucha teacher of ethics as
a teacher of political science. he spent agreat part of his life wandering from feudal state to feudal state,advising the various vassal nobles how to order their dominions with themaximum of peace and prosperity and the minimum of misery and bloodshed. one of these nobles, duke wãªn, asked menciusconcerning the proper way to govern a state. "the affairs of the people," replied the philosopher,"must not be neglected. for the way of the people is thus:if they have a fixed livelihood, their hearts will also be fixed;but if they have not a
fixed livelihood, neither will their heartsbe fixed. and if they have not fixed hearts, there is nothing in theway of crime which they will not commit. then, when they have involvedthemselves in guilt, to follow up and punish them,—this is but to ensnarethem." in another passage mencius says: "the tyrantsof the last two dynasties, chieh and chou, lost the empire because theylost the people, by which i mean that they lost the hearts of the people.there is a way to get the empire;—get the people, and you have theempire. there is a way to get the people;—get their hearts, and you havethem. there is a way to get
their hearts;—do for them what they wish,and avoid doing what they do not wish." those are strong words, especially when weconsider that they come from one of china's most sacred books, regardedby the chinese with as much veneration as the bible by us,—a portionof that confucian canon, the principles of which it is the object of everystudent to master, and should be the object of every chinese officialto carry into practice. but those words are mild compared with anotherutterance by mencius in the same direction.
"the people are the most important elementin a nation; the gods come next; the sovereign is the least importantof all." we have here, in chinese dress, wherein indeedmuch of western wisdom will be found, if students will only lookfor it, very much the same sentiment as in the familiar lines by olivergoldsmith:— "princes and lords may flourish or may fade,—a breath can make them, as a breath has made; but a bold peasantry, their country's pridewhen once destroyed, can never be supplied." the question now arises, are all these solemnsayings of mencius to be regarded as nothing more than mere literaryrodomontade, wherewith to
beguile an enslaved people? do the mandarinskeep the word of promise to the ear and break it to the hope? or do thechinese people enjoy in real life the recognition which should be accordedto them by the terms of the confucian canon? every one who has lived in china, and haskept his eyes open, must have noticed what a large measure of personal freedomis enjoyed by even the meanest subject of the son of heaven. anychinaman may travel all over china without asking any one's leave to start,and without having to report himself, or be reported by his innkeeper,at any place at which
he may choose to stop. he requires no passport.he may set up any legitimate business at any place. he is noteven obliged to be educated, or to follow any particular calling. he isnot obliged to serve as a soldier or sailor. there are no sumptuarylaws, nor even any municipal laws. outside the penal code, which has beenpronounced by competent western lawyers to be a very ably constructedinstrument of government, there is nothing at all in the way of law,civil law being altogether absent as a state institution. even the penalcode is not too rigidly enforced. so long as a man keeps clear ofsecret societies and remains a
decent and respectable member of his familyand of his clan, he has very little to fear from the officials. the oldballad of the husbandman, which has come down to us from a very earlydate indeed, already hints at some such satisfactory state of things.it runs thus:— "work, work,—from the rising suntill sunset comes and the day is done i plough the sod,and harrow the clod, and meat and drink both come to me,—ah, what care i for the powers that be?" many petty offences which are often dealtwith very harshly in england, pass in china almost unnoticed. no shopkeeperor farmer would be fool
enough to charge a hungry man with stealingfood, for the simple reason that no magistrate would convict. it is theshopkeeper's or farmer's business to see that such petty thefts cannotoccur. various other points might be noticed; but we must get backto taxation, which is really the _crux_ of the whole position. all together the chinese people may be saidto be lightly taxed. there is the land-tax, in money and in kind; a taxon salt; and various _octroi_ and customs-duties, all of whichare more or less fixed quantities, so that the approximate amountwhich each province should
contribute to the central government is wellknown at peking, just as it is well known in each province what amounts,approximately speaking, should be handed up by the various gradesof territorial officials. i have already stated that municipal governmentis unknown; consequently there are no municipal rates to be paid, nowater-rate, no poor-rate, and not a cent for either sanitation or education.and so long as the imperial taxes are such as the people havegrown accustomed to, they are paid cheerfully, even if sometimes with difficulty,and nothing is said. a curious instance of this conservative spiritin the chinese people,
even when operating against their own interests,may be found in the tax known as _likin_, against which foreign governmentshave struggled so long in vain. this tax, originally one-tenthper cent on all sales, was voluntarily imposed upon themselves by thepeople, among whom it was at first very popular, with a view of makingup the deficiency in the land-tax of china caused by the t'ai-p'ingrebellion and subsequent troubles. it was to be set apart for militarypurposes only,—hence its common name "war-tax,"—and was alleged bythe tsung-li yamãªn to be adopted merely as a temporary measure. yet,though forty years have
elapsed, it still continues to be collectedas if it were one of the fundamental taxes of the empire, and the objectionsto it are raised, not by the people of china, but by foreignmerchants with whose trade it interferes. here we have already one instance of voluntaryself-taxation on the part of the people; what i have yet to show isthat all taxation, even though not initiated as in this case by the people,must still receive the stamp of popular approval before being putinto force. on this point i took a good many notes during a fairly longresidence in china, leading
to conclusions which seem to me irresistible. let us suppose that the high authorities ofa province have determined, for pressing reasons, to make certain changesin the incidence of taxation, or have called upon their subordinatesto devise means for causing larger sums to find their way intothe provincial treasury. the invariable usage, previous to the impositionof a new tax, or change in the old, is for the magistrate concernedto send for the leading merchants whose interests may be involved,or for the headboroughs and village elders, according to the circumstancesin each case, and to
discuss the proposition in private. over aninformal entertainment, over tea and pipes, the magistrate pleads the necessitiesof the case, and the peremptory orders of his superiors; themerchants or village elders, feeling that, as in the case of _likin_ abovementioned, when taxes come they come to stay, resist on principlethe new departure by every argument at their control. the negotiationends, in ninety-nine instances out of a hundred, in a compromise.in the hundredth instance the people may think it right to give way,or the mandarin may give way, in which case things remain _in statu quo_,and nothing further is heard
of the matter. there occur cases, however, happily rare,in which neither will give way—at first. then comes the tug of war.a proclamation is issued, describing the tax, or the change, or whateverit may be, and the people, if their interests are sufficientlyinvolved, prepare to resist. combination has been raised in china to thelevel of a fine art. nowhere on earth can be found such perfect cohesionof units against forces which would crush each unit, taken individually,beyond recognition. every trade, every calling, even the meanest,has its guild, or
association, the members of which are everready to protect one another with perfect unanimity, and often great self-sacrifice.and combination is the weapon with which the people resist,and successfully resist, any attempt on the part of the governing classesto lay upon them loads greater than they can or will bear. the chineseare withal an exceptionally law-abiding people, and entertaina deep-seated respect for authority. but their obedience and theirdeference have pecuniary limits. i will now pass from the abstract to the concrete,and draw upon my
note-book for illustrations of this theorythat the chinese are a self-taxing and self-governing people. under date october 10, 1880, from chung-kingin the province of ssåch'uan, the following story will be foundin the _north china herald_, told by a correspondent:— "yesterday the pah-shien magistrate issueda proclamation, saying that he was going to raise a tax of 200 _cash_on each pig killed by the pork-butchers of this city, and the butcherswere to reimburse themselves by adding 2 _cash_ per _pound_to the price of pork. the
butchers, who had already refused to pay 100_cash_ per hog, under the late magistrate, were not likely to submitto the payment of 200 under this one, and so resolved not to kill pigsuntil the grievance was removed; and this morning a party of themwent about the town and seized all the pork they saw exposed for sale. thenthe whole of the butchers, over five hundred at least, shut themselvesup in their guild, where the magistrate tried to force an entry with twohundred or three hundred of his runners. the butchers, however, refusedto open the door, and the magistrate had to retire very much excited,threatening to bring them to
terms. people are inclined to think the magistrateacted wrongly in taking a large force with him, saying he oughtto have gone alone." three days later, october 13:— "there is great excitement throughout thecity, and i am told that the troops are under arms. i have heard severalvolleys of small arms being fired off, as if in platoon exercise. allthe shops are shut, people being afraid that the authorities may dealseverely with the butchers, and that bad characters will profit by theexcitement to rob and plunder the shops."
two days later, october 15:— "the pork-butchers are still holding out intheir guild-house, and refuse to recommence business until the officialshave promised that the tax on pigs will not be enforced now or hereafter.the prefect has been going the rounds of the city calling on thegood people of his prefecture to open their shops and transactbusiness as usual, saying that the tax on pigs did not concern otherpeople, but only the butchers." one day later, october 16:—
"the pah-shien magistrate has issued a proclamationapologising to the people generally, and to the butchers particularly,for his share of the work in trying to increase the obnoxious taxon pigs. so the officials have all miserably failed in squeezing a _cash_out of the 'sovereign people' of ssåch'uan." i have a similar story from hangchow, in chehkiang,under date april 10, 1889, which begins as follows:— "the great city of hangchow is extremely dry.there are probably seven hundred thousand people here, but not a dropof tea can be bought in any
of the public tea-houses. there is a strikein tea. the tea-houses are all closed by common agreement, to resista tax, imposed in the beginning of the year, to raise money forthe sufferers by famine." in the next communication from this correspondent,we read, "the strike of the keepers of tea-shops ended very quietlya few days after it began, by the officials agreeing to acceptthe sum of fifteen hundred dollars once for all, and release tea fromtaxation." this is what happened recently in pakhoi,in the province of kuangtung:—
"without the consent of the dealers, a newlocal tax was imposed on the raw opium in preparation for use in the opiumshops. the imposition of this tax brought to light the fact, hithertokept secret, that of the opium consumed in pakhoi and its district,only sixty-two per cent was imported drug, the remaining third being nativeopium, which was smuggled into pakhoi, and avoided all taxation.the new tax brought this smuggled opium under contribution, and thiswas more than the local opium interest would stand. the opium dealersadopted the usual tactics of shutting their shops, thus transferringthe _onus_ of opposition to
their customers. these last paid a threateningvisit to the chief authority of pakhoi, and then wrecked thenewly established tax-office. this indication of popular feeling was enoughfor the local authorities at lien-chou, the district city, and the taxwas changed so as to fall on the foreign opium, the illicit native supplybeing discreetly ignored, and all rioters forgiven." so much for taxation. let us take an instanceof interference with prescriptive rights, in connection with thegreat incorruptible viceroy, chang chih-tung, to whom we are all so muchindebted for his attitude
during the siege of the legations in 1900. ten years ago, when starting his iron-worksat wuchang, in the province of hupeh, he ordered the substitution of adrawbridge over a creek for the old bridge which had stood there fromtime immemorial, the object being to let steamers pass freely up and down.unfortunately, the old bridge was destroyed before the new one wasready. what was the result? "the people rushed to the yamãªn, and insistedby deputation and mass-brawling on the restoration of the bridge. "finally, the viceroy thought it worth hiswhile to issue a rhyming
proclamation, assuring the people that whathe was doing was for their good, and justifying his several schemes." yet chang chih-tung always has been, and isstill, one of the strongest officials who ever sat upon a viceroy's throne. in november, 1882, there was a very seriousmilitary riot in hankow, on the opposite side of the yang-tsze to wuchang.it arose out of a report that four soldiers had been arrested and wereto be secretly beheaded the same night. this rising might have assumedvery serious dimensions, but for the prompt submission of the viceroyto the soldiers' demands.
as it was, the whole city was thrown intoa state of the utmost alarm. few of the inhabitants slept through the night.the streets were filled with a terror-stricken population, expectingat any moment to hear that the prison doors had been forced, and thecriminals let loose to join the soldiers in their determination to killthe officials, plunder the treasury, and sack the city. many citizensare said to have fled from the place; and the sudden rush upon the _cash_shops, to convert paper notes into silver, brought some of them tothe verge of bankruptcy. i have recorded, under march, 1891, a casein which several manchus were
sentenced by the magistrate of chinkiang,at the instance of the local general, to a bambooing for rowdy behaviour.this is what followed:— "the friends of the prisoners, to the numberof about three hundred, assembled at the city temple, vowing vengeanceon the magistrate and general. they proceeded to the yamãªn of thegeneral, wrecked the wall and part of the premises, and put the cityin an uproar. the magistrate fled with his family to the tao-t'ai's yamãªn,where two hundred regular troops were sent to protect him against thefury of the manchus, who threatened his life."
this is what happened to another magistratein kiangsu. he had imprisoned a tax-collector for being in arrearswith his money; and the tax-collector's wife, frantic with rage, rushedto the magistracy and demanded his release. unfortunately, she wassuffering from severe asthma; and this, coupled with her anger,caused her death actually in the magistrate's court. the people then smashedand wrecked the magistracy, and pummelled and bruised themagistrate himself, who ultimately effected his escape in disguiseand hid himself in a private dwelling.
every one who has lived in china knows howdangerous are the periods when vast numbers of students congregate forthe public examinations. here is an example. at canton, in june, 1880, a student took backa coat he had purchased for half a dollar at a second-hand clothesshop, and wished to have it changed. the shopkeeper gave him ratheran impatient answer, and thereupon the student called in a band ofhis brother b.a.'s to claim justice for literature. they seized a reckoning-board,or abacus, that lay on the counter, struck one of the assistantsin the shop, and drew
blood. the shopkeeper then beat an alarm onhis gong, and summoned friends and neighbours to the rescue. wordwas at once passed to bands of students in the neighbourhood, who promptlyobeyed the call of a distressed comrade, and blows were deliveredright and left. the shopkeepers summoned the district magistrateto the scene. upon his arrival he ordered several of the literaryringleaders, who had been seized and bound by the shopkeepers, to becarried off and impounded. in the course of the evening he sentencedthem to be beaten. a body of more than a hundred students then wentto his yamãªn and demanded the
immediate release of the prisoners. the magistrategrew nervous, yielded to their threats, and sent several of theoffending students home in sedan-chairs. the magistrate then seized theassistants in the shop where the row began and sentenced them tobe beaten on the mouth. next morning ten thousand shops were closedin the city and suburbs. the shopkeepers said they could not do businessunder such an administration of law. in the course of the morning a largemeeting of the students was held in a college adjoining the examinationhall. the district magistrate went out to confer with them. thestudents cracked his gong,
and shattered his sedan-chair with showersof stones, and then prodded him with their fans and umbrellas, and bespatteredhim with dirt as his followers tried to carry him away on theirshoulders. he was quite seriously hurt. the prefect then met a large deputation ofthe shopkeepers in their guild-house in the course of the day, andexpressed his dissatisfaction at the way in which the district magistratehad acted. a settlement was thus reached, which included fireworks forthe students, and business was resumed.
* * * * * any individual who is aggrieved by the action,or inaction, of a chinese official may have immediate recourse to thefollowing method for obtaining justice, witnessed by me twice duringmy residence in china, and known as "crying one's wrongs." dressed in the grey sackcloth garb of a mourner,the injured party, accompanied by as many friends as he or shecan collect together, will proceed to the public residence of the offendingmandarin, and there howl and be otherwise objectionable, day andnight, until some relief is
given. the populace is invariably on the sideof the wronged person; and if the wrong is deep, or the delay in rightingit too long, there is always great risk of an outbreak, with theusual scene of house-wrecking and general violence. it may now well be asked, how justice canever be administered under such circumstances, which seem enough to paralyseauthority in the presence of any evil-doer who can bring uphis friends to the rescue. to begin with, there is in china, certainlyat all great centres, a large criminal population without friends,—menwho have fallen from
their high estate through inveterate gambling,indulgence in opium-smoking, or more rarely alcohol. noone raises a finger to protect these from the utmost vengeance of the law. then again, the chinese, just as they taxthemselves, so do they administer justice to themselves. trade disputes,petty and great alike, are never carried into court, there beingno recognised civil law in china beyond custom; they are settled by theguilds or trades-unions, as a rule to the satisfaction of all parties.many criminal cases are equally settled out of court, and the offenderis punished by agreement
of the clan-elders or heads of families, andnothing is said; for compounding a felony is not a crime, but avirtue, in the eyes of the chinese, who look on all litigation with aversionand contempt. in the case of murder, however, and some formsof manslaughter, the ingrained conviction that a life should alwaysbe given for a life often outweighs any money value that could be offered,and the majesty of the law is upheld at any sacrifice. it is not uncommon for an accused person tochallenge his accuser to a kind of trial by ordeal, at the local temple.
kneeling before the altar, at midnight, inthe presence of a crowd of witnesses, the accused man will solemnly burna sheet of paper, on which he has written, or caused to be written, anoath, totally denying his guilt, and calling upon the gods to strikehim dead upon the spot, or his accuser, if either one is deviating inthe slightest degree from the actual truth. this is indeed a severe ordeal to a superstitiouspeople, whatever it may seem to us. even the mandarins avail themselvesof similar devices in cases where they are unable to clear upa mystery in the ordinary
way. in a well-known case of a murder by a gangof ruffians, the magistrate, being unable to fix the guilt of the fatalblow upon any one of the gang, told them that he was going to applyto the gods. he then caused them all to be dressed in black coats, asis usual with condemned criminals, and arranged them in a dark shed,with their faces to the wall, saying that, in response to his prayers,a demon would be sent to mark the back of the guilty man. when at lengththe accused were brought out of the shed, one of them actually hada white mark on his back, and
he at once confessed. in order to outwit thedemon he had slily placed his back against the wall, which by the magistrate'ssecret orders had previously received a coat of whitewash. i will conclude with a case which came undermy own personal observation, and which first set me definitelyon the track of democratic government in china. in 1882 i was vice-consul at pagoda anchorage,a port near the famous foochow arsenal which was bombarded by admiralcourbet in 1884. my house and garden were on an eminence overlookingthe arsenal, which was about
half a mile distant. one morning, after breakfast,the head official servant came to tell me there was troubleat the arsenal. a military mandarin, employed there as superintendentof some department, had that morning early kicked his cook, a boy of seventeen,in the stomach, and the boy, a weakly lad, had died within anhour. the boy's widowed mother was sitting by the body in the mandarin'shouse, and a large crowd of workmen had formed a complete ring outside,quietly awaiting the arrival and decision of the authorities. by five o'clock in the afternoon, a deputyhad arrived from the
magistracy at foochow, twelve miles distant,empowered to hold the usual inquest on behalf of the magistrate. the inquestwas duly held, and the verdict was "accidental homicide." in shorter time than it takes me to tell thestory, the deputy's sedan-chair and paraphernalia of office weresmashed to atoms. he himself was seized, his official hat and robewere torn to shreds, and he was bundled unceremoniously, not altogetherunbruised, through the back door and through the ring of onlookers,into the paddy-fields beyond. then the ring closed up again, anda low, threatening murmur
broke out which i could plainly hear frommy garden. there was no violence, no attempt to lynch the man; thecrowd merely waited for justice. that crowd remained there all night,encircling the murderer, the victim, and the mother. bulletins werebrought to me every hour, and no one went to bed. meanwhile the news had reached the viceroy,and by half-past nine next morning the smoke of a steam-launch was seenaway up the bends of the river. this time it bore the district magistratehimself, with instructions from the viceroy to hold a newinquest.
at about ten o'clock he landed, and was receivedwith respectful silence. by eleven o'clock the murderer'shead was off and the crowd had dispersed. end of lecture iii lecture iv china and ancient greece the study of chinese presents at least oneadvantage over the study of the greek and roman classics; i might add,of hebrew, of syriac, and even of sanskrit. it may be pursued for twodistinct objects. the first,
and most important object to many, is to acquirea practical acquaintance with a _living_ language, spokenand written by about one-third of the existing population of theearth, with a view to the extension of commercial enterprise, and tothe profits and benefits which may legitimately accrue therefrom. thesecond is precisely that object in pursuit of which we apply ourselvesso steadily to the literatures and civilisations of greece androme. sir richard jebb, in his essay on "humanismin education," points out that even less than a hundred years ago theclassics still held a
virtual monopoly, so far as literary studieswere concerned, in the public schools and universities of england."the culture which they supplied," he argues, "while limited in thesphere of its operation, had long been an efficient and vital influence,not only in forming men of letters and learning, but in trainingmen who afterwards gained distinction in public life and in variousactive careers." long centuries had fixed so firmly in theminds of our forefathers a belief, and no doubt to some extent a justifiablebelief, in the perfect character of the languages, the literatures,the arts, and some of the
social and political institutions of ancientgreece and rome, that a century or so ago there seemed to be nothingelse worth the attention of an intellectual man. the comparatively recentintroduction of sanskrit was received in the classical world, not merelywith coldness, but with strenuous opposition; and all the genius ofits pioneer scholars was needed to secure the meed of recognition whichit now enjoys as an important field of research. the regius professorshipof greek in the university of cambridge, england, was foundedin 1540; but it was not until 1867, more than three centuries later,that sanskrit was admitted
into the university curriculum. it is stillimpossible to gain a degree through the medium of chinese, but signs arenot wanting that the necessity for such a step will be more widelyrecognised in the near future. all the material lies ready to hand. thereis a written language, which for difficulty is unrivalled, polished andperfected by centuries of the minutest scholarship, until it is impossibleto conceive anything more subtly artistic as a vehicle of human thought.those mental gymnastics, of such importance in the training of youth,which were once claimed
exclusively for the languages of greece androme, may be performed equally well in the chinese language. theeducated classes in china would be recognised anywhere as men of trainedminds, able to carry on sustained and complex arguments without violatingany of the aristotelian canons, although as a matterof fact they never heard of aristotle and possess no such work in alltheir extensive literature as a treatise on logic. the affairs of theirhuge empire are carried on, and in my opinion very successfully carriedon—with some reservations, of course—by men who have had to get theirmental gymnastics wholly and
solely out of chinese. i am not aware that their diplomatists sufferby comparison with ours. the marquis tsãªng and li hung-chang, forinstance, representing opposite schools, were admitted masters of their craft,and made not a few of our own diplomatists look rather small besidethem. speaking further of the study of the greekand roman classics, sir richard jebb says: "there can be no betterproof that such a discipline has penetrated the mind, and has been assimilated,than if, in the crises of life, a man recurs to the greatthoughts and images of the
literature in which he has been trained, andfinds there what braces and fortifies him, a comfort, an inspiration,an utterance for his deeper feelings." sir richard jebb then quotes a touching storyof lord granville, who was president of the council in 1762, and whoselast hours were rapidly approaching. in reply to a suggestion that,considering his state of health, some important work should be postponed,he uttered the following impassioned words from the iliad,spoken by sarpedon to glaucus: "ah, friend, if, once escaped fromthis battle, we were for
ever to be ageless and immortal, i would notmyself fight in the foremost ranks, nor would i send thee intothe war that giveth men renown; but now,—since ten thousand fatesof death beset us every day, and these no mortal may escape or avoid,—nowlet us go forward." such was the discipline of the greek and romanclassics upon the mind of lord granville at a great crisis in his life. let us now turn to the story of a chinesestatesman, nourished only upon what has been too hastily stigmatised as "thedry bones of chinese literature."
wãªn t'ien-hsiang was born in a.d. 1236. atthe age of twenty-one he came out first on the list of successful candidatesfor the highest literary degree. upon the draft-list submitted to theemperor he had been placed seventh; but his majesty, after looking overthe essays, drew the grand examiner's attention to the originality andexcellence of that of wãªn t'ien-hsiang, and the examiner—himself agreat scholar and no sycophant—saw that the emperor was right,and altered the places accordingly. four or five years later wãªn t'ien-hsiangattracted attention by
demanding the execution of a statesman whohad advised that the court should quit the capital and flee before theadvance of the victorious mongols. then followed many years of hardfighting, in the course of which his raw levies were several times severelydefeated, and he himself was once taken prisoner by the mongolgeneral, bayan, mentioned by marco polo. he managed to escape on thatoccasion; but in 1278 the plague broke out in his camp, and he was againdefeated and taken prisoner. he was sent to peking, and everyeffort was made to induce him to own allegiance to the mongol conqueror,but without success. he was
kept several years in prison. here is a well-knownpoem which he wrote while in captivity:— "there is in the universe an _aura_, an influencewhich permeates all things, and makes them what they are. below,it shapes forth land and water; above, the sun and the stars. in manit is called spirit; and there is nowhere where it is not. "in times of national tranquillity, this spiritlies hidden in the harmony which prevails. only at some greatepoch is it manifested widely abroad."
here wãªn t'ien-hsiang recalls, and dwellslovingly upon, a number of historical examples of loyalty and devotion.he then proceeds:— "such is this grand and glorious spirit whichendureth for all generations; and which, linked with the sunand moon, knows neither beginning nor end. the foundation of all thatis great and good in heaven and earth, it is itself born from theeverlasting obligations which are due by man to man. "alas! the fates were against me; i was withoutresource. bound with fetters, hurried away toward the north, deathwould have been sweet
indeed; but that boon was refused. "my dungeon is lighted by the will-o'-the-wispalone: no breath of spring cheers the murky solitude in whichi dwell. the ox and the barb herd together in one stall: the rooster andthe phoenix feed together from one dish. exposed to mist and dew, ihad many times thought to die; and yet, through the seasons of two revolvingyears, disease hovered around me in vain. the dark, unhealthy soilto me became paradise itself. for there was that within me whichmisfortune could not steal away. and so i remained firm, gazing at thewhite clouds floating
over my head, and bearing in my heart a sorrowboundless as the sky. "the sun of those dead heroes has long sinceset, but their record is before me still. and, while the wind whistlesunder the eaves, i open my books and read; and lo! in their presencemy heart glows with a borrowed fire." at length, wãªn t'ien-hsiang was summonedinto the presence of kublai khan, who said to him, "what is it you want?""by the grace of his late majesty of the sung dynasty," he replied,"i became his majesty's minister. i cannot serve two masters. i onlyask to die." accordingly he
was executed, meeting his death with composure,and making a final obeisance toward the south, as though hisown sovereign was still reigning in his capital. may we not then plead that this chinese statesman,equally with lord granville, at a crisis of his life, recurredto the great thoughts and images of the literature in which he had beentrained, and found there what braced and fortified him, a comfort,an inspiration, an utterance for his deeper feelings? chinese history teems with the names of menwho, with no higher source
of inspiration than the confucian canon, haveyet shown that they can nobly live and bravely die. han yã¼ of the eighth and ninth centurieswas one of china's most brilliant statesmen and writers, and roserapidly to the highest offices of state. when once in power, he began toattack abuses, and was degraded and banished. later on, when thecourt, led by a weak emperor, was going crazy over buddhism, he presenteda scathing memorial to the throne, from the effect of which it may wellbe said that buddhism has not yet recovered. the emperor was furious,and han yã¼ narrowly escaped
with his life. he was banished to the extremewilds of kuangtung, not far from the now flourishing treaty port ofswatow, where he did so much useful work in civilising the aborigines,that he was finally recalled. those wilds have long since disappeared assuch, but the memory of han yã¼ remains, a treasure for ever. in atemple which contains his portrait, and which is dedicated to him, agrateful posterity has put up a tablet bearing the following legend,"wherever he passed, he purified." the last emperor of the ming dynasty, whichwas overthrown by rebels
and then supplanted by the manchus in 1644,was also a man who in the elysian fields might well hold up his headamong monarchs. he seems to have inherited with the throne a legacy ofnational disorder similar to that which eventually brought about the ruinof louis xvi of france. with all the best intentions possible, hewas unable to stem the tide. over-taxation brought in its train, as italways does in china, first resistance and then rebellion. the emperorwas besieged in peking by a rebel army; the treasury was empty; therewere too few soldiers to man the walls; and the capital fell.
on the previous night, the emperor, who hadrefused to flee, slew the eldest princess, commanded the empress tocommit suicide, and sent his three sons into hiding. at dawn the bell wasstruck for the court to assemble; but no one came. his majesty thenascended the well-known hill in the palace grounds, and wrote a last decreeon the lapel of his robe:— "poor in virtue, and of contemptible personality,i have incurred the wrath of high heaven. my ministers have deceivedme. i am ashamed to meet my ancestors; and therefore i myselftake off my cap of state, and
with my hair covering my face, await dismembermentat the hands of you rebels." instead of the usual formula, "respect this!"the emperor added, "spare my people!" he then hanged himself, and the great mingdynasty was no more. chinese studies have always laboured underthis disadvantage,—that the ludicrous side of china and her civilisationwas the one which first attracted the attention of foreigners; andto a great extent it does so still. there was a time when china was regardedas a land of opposites,
_i.e._ diametrically opposed to us in everyimaginable direction. for instance, in china the left hand is the placeof honour; men keep their hats on in company; use fans; mount theirhorses on the off side; begin dinner with fruit and end it with soup; shaketheir own instead of their friends' hands when meeting; begin at whatwe call the wrong end of a book and read from right to left down verticalcolumns; wear white for mourning; have huge visiting-cards insteadof small ones; prevent criminals from having their hair cut; regardthe south as the standard point of the compass; begin to build a houseby putting on the roof
first; besides many other nicer distinctions,the mere enumeration of which would occupy much of the time at mydisposal. the other side of the medal, showing the similarities,and even the identities, has been unduly neglected; andyet it is precisely from a study of these similarities and identitiesthat the best results can be expected. a glance at any good dictionary of classicalantiquities will at once reveal the minute and painstaking care withwhich even the small details of life in ancient greece have been examinedinto and discussed. the
chinese have done like work for themselves;and many of their beautifully illustrated dictionaries of archã¦ologywould compare not unfavourably with anything we have to show. there are also many details of modern everydayexistence in china which may fairly be quoted to show that chinesecivilisation is not, after all, that comic condition of topsy-turvey-domwhich the term usually seems to connote. the chinese house may not be a facsimile ofa greek house,—far from it. still, we may note its position, facing south,in order to have as much
sun in winter and as little in summer as possible;its division into men's and women's apartments; the fact thatthe doors are in two leaves and open inward; the rings or handles on thedoors; the portable braziers used in the rooms in cold weather;and the shrines of the household gods;—all of which characteristicsare to be found equally in the greek house. there are also points of resemblance betweenthe lives led by chinese and athenian ladies, beyond the fact thatthe former occupy a secluded portion of the house. the chinese do not admittheir women to social
entertainments, and prefer, as we are toldwas the case with athenian husbands, to dine by themselves rather thanexpose their wives to the gaze of their friends. if the athenian dame"went out at all, it was to see some religious procession, or to a funeral;and if sufficiently advanced in years she might occasionally visita female friend, and take breakfast with her." and so in china, it is religion which breaksthe monotony of female life, and collects within the temples, onthe various festivals, an array of painted faces and embroidered skirtsthat present, even to the
european eye, a not unpleasing spectacle. that painting the face was universal amongthe women of greece, much after the fashion which we now see in china,has been placed beyond all doubt, the pigments used in both cases beingwhite lead and some kind of vegetable red, with lampblack for the eyebrows. in marriage, we find the chinese aiming, likethe greeks, at equality of rank and fortune between the contracting parties,or, as the chinese put it, in the guise of a household word, at adue correspondence between the doorways of the betrothed couple. as ingreece, so in china, we find
the marriage arranged by the parents; theveiled bride; the ceremony of fetching her from her father's house; theequality of man and wife; the toleration of subordinate wives, and manyother points of contact. the same sights and scenes which are dailyenacted at any of the great chinese centres of population seem also tohave been enacted in the athenian market-place, with its simmeringkettles of boiled peas and other vegetables, and its chapmen and retailersof all kinds of miscellaneous goods. in both we have the publicstory-teller, surrounded by a well-packed group of fascinated and eagerlisteners.
the puppet-shows, á¼€î³á½±î»î¼î±ï„î± î½îµï…ïá½¹ïƒï€î±ïƒï„î±,which herodotus tells us were introduced into greece from egypt, are constantlyto be seen in chinese cities, and date from the second century b.c.,—asuggestive period, as i shall hope to show later on. the chinese say that these puppets originatedin china as follows:— the first emperor of the han dynasty was besieged,about 200 b.c., in a northern city, by a vast army of hsiung-nu,the ancestors of the huns, under the command of the famous chieftain,mao-tun. one of the chinese generals with the besieged emperor discoveredthat mao-tun's wife, who
was in command on one side of the city, wasan extremely jealous woman; and he forthwith caused a number of woodenpuppets, representing beautiful girls and worked by strings, tobe exhibited on the wall overlooking the chieftain's camp. at this,we are told, the lady's fears for her husband's fidelity were aroused, andshe drew off her forces. the above account may be dismissed as a tale,in which case we are left with punch and judy on our hands. to return to city sights. the tricks of street-jugglersas witnessed in china seem to be very much those of ancientgreece. in both countries we
have such feats as jumping about amongst nakedswords, spitting fire from the mouth, and passing a sword down thethroat. then there are the advertisements on the walls;the mule-carts and mule-litters; the sunshades, or umbrellas,carried by women in greece, by both sexes in china. the japanese language is said to contain noterms of abuse, so refined are the inhabitants of that earthly paradise.the chinese language more than makes up for this deficiency; and itis certainly curious that, as in ancient greece, the names of animals arenot frequently used in this
connection, with the sole exception of thedog. no chinaman will stand being called a dog, although he really hasa great regard for the animal, as a friend whose fidelity is proofeven against poverty. in the ivory shops in china will be foundmany specimens of the carver's craft which will bear comparison, for thepatience and skill required, with the greatest triumphs of greek workmen.both nations have reproduced the human hand in ivory; the greeksused it as an ornament for a hairpin; the chinese attach it to aslender rod about a foot and a half in length, and use it as a back-scratcher.
the chinese drama, which we can only tracevaguely to central asian sources, and no farther back than the twelfthcentury of our era, has some points of contact with the greek drama.in greece the plays began at sunrise and continued all day, as theydo still on the open-air stages of rural districts in china, in bothcases performed entirely by men, without interval between the pieces,without curtain, without prompter, and without any attempt at realism. as formerly in greece, so now in china, thewords of the play are partly spoken and partly sung, the voice of the actorbeing, in both countries,
of the highest importance. like the greekactor before masks were invented, the chinese actor paints his face,and the thick-soled boot which raises the chinese tragedian from theground is very much the counterpart of the cothurnus. the arrangement by which the greek gods appearedin a kind of balcony, looking out as it were from the heights ofolympus, is well known to the chinese stage; while the methodical characterof greek tragic dancing, with the chorus moving right and left, isstrangely paralleled in the dances performed at the worship of confuciusin the confucian temples,
details of which may be seen in any illustratedchinese encyclopã¦dia. games with dice are of a high antiquity ingreece; they date in china only from the second century a.d., havingbeen introduced from the west under the name of _shu p'u_, a term whichhas so far defied identification. the custom of fighting quails was once a politicalinstitution in athens, and under early dynasties it was afavourite amusement at the imperial court of china. the game of "guess-fingers" is another formof amusement common to both
countries. so also is the custom of drinkingby rule, under the guidance of a toast-master, with fines of deep draughtsof wine to be swallowed by those who fail in capping verses, answeringconundrums, recognising quotations; to which may be added the customof introducing singing-girls toward the close of the entertainment. at athens, too, it was customary to begina drinking-bout with small cups, and resort to larger ones later on,a process which must be familiar to all readers of chinese novels,wherein, toward the close of the revel, the half-drunken hero invariablycalls for more capacious
goblets. neither does the ordinary chinamanapprove of a short allowance of wine at his banquets, as witness the followingstory, translated from a chinese book of anecdotes. a stingy man, who had invited some gueststo dinner, told his servant not to fill up their wine-cups to the brim,as is usual. during the meal, one of the guests said to his host,"these cups of yours are too deep; you should have them cut down." "whyso?" inquired the host. "well," replied the guest, "you don't seemto use the top part for anything."
there is another story of a man who went todine at a house where the wine-cups were very small, and who, on takinghis seat at table, suddenly burst out into groans and lamentations."what is the matter with you?" cried the host, in alarm. "ah,"replied his guest, "my feelings overcame me. my poor father, whendining with a friend who had cups like yours, lost his life, by accidentallyswallowing one." the water-clock, or _clepsydra_, has beenknown to the chinese for centuries. where did it come from? is it amere coincidence that the ancient greeks used water-clocks?
is it a coincidence that the greeks used anabacus, or counting-board, on which the beads slid up and down in verticalgrooves, while on the chinese counting-board the only differenceis that the beads slide up and down on vertical rods? is it a mere coincidence that the olive shouldbe associated in china, as in greece, with propitiation? to this day,a chinaman who wishes to make up a quarrel will send a piece of redpaper containing an olive, in token of friendly feeling; and the acceptanceof this means that the quarrel is at an end.
the olive was supposed by the greeks to havebeen brought by hercules from the land of the hyperboreans; the chinesesay it was introduced into china in the second century b.c. the extraordinary similarities between thechinese and pythagorean systems of music place it beyond a doubt thatone must have been derived from the other. the early jesuit fathers declaredthat the ancient greeks borrowed their music from the chinese;but we know now that the music in question did not exist in china untiltwo centuries after its appearance in greece.
the music of the confucian age perished, booksand instruments together, at the burning of the books, in b.c. 212;and we read that in the first part of the second century b.c. the hereditarymusic-master was altogether ignorant of his art. where didthe new art come from? and how are its greek characteristics to be accountedfor? there are also equally extraordinary similaritiesbetween the chinese and greek calendars. for instance, in b.c. 104 the chinese adopteda cycle of nineteen years, a period which was found to bring togetherthe solar and the lunar
years. but this is precisely the cycle, á¼î½î½îµî±îºî±î¹î´îµîºî±îµï„î·ïá½·ï‚,said to have been introduced by meton in the fifth century b.c.,and adopted at athens about b.c. 330. have we here another coincidence of no particularimportance? the above list might be very much extended.meanwhile, the question arises: are there any records of any kindin china which might lead us to suppose that the chinese ever came intocontact in any way with the civilisation of ancient greece?
we know from chinese history that, so farback as the second century b.c., victorious chinese generals carriedtheir arms far into central asia, and succeeded in annexing such distantregions as khoten, kokand, and the pamirs. about b.c. 138 a statesmannamed chang ch'ien was sent on a mission to bactria, but was taken prisonerby the hsiung-nu, the forebears of the huns, and detained in captivityfor over ten years. he finally managed to escape, and proceeded tofergana, and thence on to bactria, returning home in b.c. 126, afterhaving been once more captured by the hsiung-nu and again detainedfor about a year.
now bactria was then a greek kingdom, whichhad been founded by diodotus in b.c. 256; and it would appear to have had,already for some time, commercial relations with china, for changch'ien reported that he had seen chinese merchandise exposed there inthe markets for sale. we farther learn that chang ch'ien brought backwith him the walnut and the grape, previously unknown in china, and taughthis countrymen the art of making wine. the wine of the confucian period was likethe wine of to-day in china, an ardent spirit distilled from rice. thereis no grape-wine in china
now, although grapes are plentiful and good.but we know from the poetry which has been preserved to us, as well asfrom the researches of chinese archã¦ologists, that grape-wine waslargely used in china for many centuries subsequent to the date of changch'ien; in fact, down to the beginning of the fifteenth century, ifnot later. one writer says it was brought, together withthe "heavenly horse," from persia, when the extreme west was opened up,a century or so before the christian era, as already mentioned. i must now make what may well appear to bean uncalled-for digression;
but it will only be a temporary digression,and will bring us back in a few minutes to the grape, the heavenly horse,and to persia. mirrors seem to have been known to the chinesefrom the earliest ages. one authority places them so far back as 2500b.c. they are at any rate mentioned in the _odes_, say 800 b.c., andwere made of polished copper, being in shape, according to the earliestdictionary, like a large basin. about one hundred years b.c., a new kind ofmirror comes into vogue, called by an entirely new name, not beforeused. in common with the word
previously employed, its indicator is "metal,"showing under which kingdom it falls,—_i.e._ a mirror of metal.these new mirrors were small disks of melted metal, highly polishedon one side and profusely decorated with carvings on the other,—adescription which exactly tallies with that of the ancient greek mirror.specimens survived to comparatively recent times, and it is evenalleged that many of these old mirrors are in existence still. a largenumber of illustrations of them are given in the great encyclopã¦diaof the eighteenth century, and the fifth of these, in chronological order,second century b.c., is
remarkable as being ornamented with the well-known"key," or greek pattern, so common in chinese decoration. another is covered with birds flying aboutamong branches of pomegranate laden with fruit cut in halves to show theseeds. shortly afterward we come to a mirror so lavishlydecorated with bunches of grapes and vine-leaves that the eye isarrested at once. interspersed with these are several animals, among othersthe lion, which is unknown in china. the chinese word for "lion," asi stated in my first lecture, is _shih_, an imitation of the persian _shãr_.there is also a lion's
head with a bar in its mouth, recalling thedoor-handles to temples in ancient greece. besides the snake, the tortoise,and the sea-otter, there is what is far more remarkable thanany of these, namely, a horse with wings. on comparing the latter with pegasus as heappears in sculpture, it is quite impossible to doubt that the chineseis a copy of the greek animal. the former is said to have come downfrom heaven, and was caught, according to tradition, on the banksof a river in b.c. 120. the name for pomegranate in china is "theparthian fruit," showing that
it was introduced from parthia, the chineseequivalent for parthia being å®‰æ¯ _ansik_, which is an easy corruptionof the greek Ἀïïƒá½±îºî·ï‚, the first king of parthia. the term for grape is admittedly of foreignorigin, like the fruit itself. it is è‘¡è„ _pu t'ou_. here it iseasy to recognise the greek word î’á½¹ï„ïï…ï‚, a cluster, or bunch, of grapes. similarly, the chinese word for "radish,"蘿蔔 _lo po_, also of foreign origin, is no doubt a corruption of ῥάï†î·,it being of course well known that the chinese cannot pronounce an initial_r_.
there is one term, especially, in chinesewhich at once carries conviction as to its greek origin. this isthe term for watermelon. the two chinese characters chosen to representthe sound mean "western gourd," _i.e._ the gourd which came from thewest. some chinese say, on no authority in particular, that it was introducedby the kitan tartars; others say that it was introduced by the firstemperor of the so-called golden tartars. but the chinese term is stillpronounced _si kua_, which is absolutely identical with the greek wordïƒî¹îºá½»î±, of which liddell and scott say, "perhaps the melon." for thesethree words it would now
scarcely be rash to substitute "the watermelon." we are not on quite such firm ground whenwe compare the chinese kalends and ides with similar divisions of the romanmonth. still it is interesting to note that in ancientchina, the first day of every month was publicly proclaimed, a sheepbeing sacrificed on each occasion; also, that the latin word _kalendae_meant the day when the order of days was proclaimed. further, that the term in chinese for idesmeans to look at, to see, because on that day we can see the moon; andalso that the latin word
_idus_, the etymology of which has not beenabsolutely established, may possibly come from the greek á¼°î´îµá¿–î½"to see," just as _kalendae_ comes from îºî±î»îµá¿–î½ "to proclaim." as to many of the analogies, more or lessinteresting, to be found in the literatures of china and of western nations,it is not difficult to say how they got into their chinese setting. for instance, we read in the history of theming dynasty, a.d. 1368-1644, a full account of the method bywhich the spaniards, in the sixteenth century, managed to obtain firsta footing in, and then the
sovereignty over, some islands which havenow passed under the american flag. the following words, not quite withoutinterest at the present day, are translated from the above-mentionedaccount of the philippines:— "the fulanghis (_i.e._ the franks), who atthat time had succeeded by violence in establishing trade relations withluzon (the old name of the philippines), saw that the nation wasweak, and might easily be conquered. accordingly, they sent rich presentsto the king of the country, begging him to grant them a pieceof land as big as a bull's
hide, for building houses to live in. theking, not suspecting guile, conceded their request, whereupon the fulanghiscut the hide into strips and joined them together, making many hundredsof ten-foot measures in length; and then, having surrounded with thesea piece of ground, called upon the king to stand by his promise. theking was much alarmed; but his word had been pledged, and there was noalternative but to submit. so he allowed them to have the ground, charginga small ground-rent as was the custom. but no sooner had the fulanghisgot the ground than they put up houses and ramparts and arranged theirfire-weapons (cannon) and
engines of attack. then, seizing their opportunity,they killed the king, drove out the people, and took possessionof the country." it is scarcely credible that chinese historianswould have recorded such an incident unless some trick of the kindhad actually been carried out by the spaniards, in imitation of the famousclassical story of the foundation of carthage. a professional writer of marvellous taleswho flourished in the seventeenth century tells a similar storyof the early dutch settlers:— "formerly, when the dutch were permitted totrade with china, the
officer in command of the coast defences wouldnot allow them, on account of their great numbers, to come ashore.the dutch begged very hard for the grant of a piece of land suchas a carpet would cover; and the officer above mentioned, thinking thatthis could not be very large, acceded to their request. a carpet was accordinglylaid down, big enough for about two people to stand on; but by dintof stretching, it was soon able to accommodate four or five; andso the foreigners went on, stretching and stretching, until at last itcovered about an acre, and by and by, with the help of their knives,they had filched a piece of
ground several miles in extent." these two stories must have sprung from oneand the same source. it is not, however, always so simple a matter tosee how other western incidents found their way into chinese literature.for instance, there is a popular anecdote to be found in a chinesejest-book, which is almost word for word with another anecdotein greek literature:— a soldier, who was escorting a buddhist priest,charged with some crime, to a prison at a distance, being very anxiousnot to forget anything, kept saying over and over the four thingshe had to think about, viz.:
himself, his bundle, his umbrella, and thepriest. at night he got drunk, and the buddhist priest, after firstshaving the soldier's head, ran away. when the soldier awaked, he beganhis formula, "myself, bundle, umbrella—o dear!" cried he, puttinghis hands to his head, "the priest has gone. stop a moment," he added,finding his hands in contact with a bald head, "here's the priest; it isi who have run away." as found in greek literature, the story, attributedto hierocles, but probably much later, says that the prisonerwas a bald-headed man, a condition which is suggested to the chinesereader by the introduction
of a buddhist priest. whether the chinese got this story from thegreeks, or the greeks got it from the chinese, i do not pretend to know.the fact is that we students of chinese at the present day know very littlebeyond the vague outlines of what there is to be known. students ofgreek have long since divided up their subject under such heads as purescholarship, history, philosophy, archã¦ology, and then again havemade subdivisions of these. in the chinese field nothing of the kind hasyet been done. the consequence is that the labourers in thatfield, compelled to work over
a large superficies, are only able to turnout more or less superficial work. the cry is for more students, practicalstudents of the written and colloquial languages, for the purposesof diplomatic intercourse and the development of commerce; and alsostudents of the history, philosophy, archã¦ology, and religions ofchina, men whose contributions to our present stock of knowledge may throwlight upon many important points, which, for lack of workmen, have hithertoremained neglected and unexplored. end of lecture iv�
