It is a sensible remark of De Guignes,[347] that “the habit we fall into of conceiving things according to the words which express them, often leads us into error when reading the relations of travellers. Such writers have seen objects altogether new, but they are compelled, when describing them, to employ equivalent terms in their own language in order to be understood; while these same terms tend to deceive the reader, who imagines that he sees such palaces, colonnades, peristyles, etc., under these designations as he has been used to, when, in fact, they are quite another thing.” The same observation is true of other things than architecture, and of other nations than the Chinese, and this confusion of terms and meanings proves a fruitful source of error in regard to an accurate knowledge of foreign nations, and a just perception of their condition. For instance, the terms a court of justice, a common school, politeness, learning, navy, houses, etc., as well as the names of things, like razor, shoe, cap, bed, pencil, paper, etc., are inapplicable to the same things in England and China; while it is plainly impossible to coin a new word in English to describe the Chinese article, and equally inexpedient to introduce the native term. If, for example, the utensil used by the Chinese to shave with were picked up in Portsmouth by some English navvy who had never seen or heard of it, he would be more likely to call it an oyster-knife, or a wedge, than a razor; while the use to which it is applied must of course give it that name, and would, if it were still more unlike the western article. So with other things. The ideas a Chinese gives to the terms hwangtí, kwanfu, pao, pih, and shu, are very different from those conveyed to an American by the words emperor, magistrate, cannon, pencil, and book. Since a person can only judge of what he hears or reads by what he knows, it is desirable that when he meets with western names applied to their equivalents in eastern countries, the function of a different civilization, habits, and notions should not be overlooked in the opinion he forms. These remarks are peculiarly applicable to the domestic life of the Chinese, to their houses, diet, dress, and social customs; although careful descriptions may go a good way in conveying just ideas, it cannot be hoped that they will do what the most cursory examination of the object or trait would instantly accomplish.

The notions entertained abroad on these particulars are, it need hardly be remarked, rather more accurate than those the Chinese have of distant countries, and it is scarcely possible that they can lose their conceit in their own civilization and position among the nations so long as such ideas are entertained as the following extract exhibits. Tien Kí-shih, a popular essayist of the last century, thus congratulates himself and his readers: “I felicitate myself that I was born in China, and constantly think how very different it would have been with me if I had been born beyond the seas in some remote part of the earth, where the people, far removed from the converting maxims of the ancient kings, and ignorant of the domestic relations, are clothed with the leaves of plants, eat wood, dwell in the wilderness, and live in the holes of the earth; though born in the world, in such a condition I should not have been different from the beasts of the field. But now, happily, I have been born in the Middle Kingdom. I have a house to live in; have food and drink, and elegant furniture; have clothing and caps, and infinite blessings: truly, the highest felicity is mine.” This extract well indicates the isolation of the writer and his race from their fellow-men; among the neighboring nations even the Japanese would have shown him his erroneous view. The seclusion which had been forced upon both these peoples, who closed their doors as the surest possible defence against aggression from foreign traders and sought in this fashion to remove all cause of quarrel, brought with it in time the almost equal dangers of ignorance and inability to understand their true position among the nations of the world.

The architecture of the Chinese suggests, in its general outline and the peculiar concave roof, a canvas tent as its primary motive, though there is no further proof than this likeness of its origin. From the palace to the hovel, in temples and in private dwellings, this type everywhere stands confessed,[348] and almost nothing like a dome or cupola, a spire or a turret, is anywhere found. Few instances occur of an attempt to develop even this simple model into a grand or imposing building. While the Mogul princes in India reared costly mausolea and palaces to perpetuate their memory and the splendor of their reigns, the monarchs of China, with equal or greater resources at command, seldom indulged in this princely pastime, or even attempted the erection of any enduring monument to commemorate their taste or their splendor. Whether it was owing to the absence of the beautiful and majestic models seen in western countries, or to ignorance of the mechanical principles of the art, the fact is not the less observable, and the inference as to the advance made by them in knowledge and taste not less just.

Fergusson has no doubt assigned one good reason for this fact, in that “the Chinese never had either a dominant priesthood or a hereditary nobility. The absence of the former class is important, because it is to sacred art that architecture has owed its highest inspiration, and sacred art is never so strongly developed as under the influence of a powerful and splendid hierarchy. In the same manner the want of a hereditary nobility is equally unfavorable to domestic architecture of a durable description. Private feuds and private wars were till lately unknown, and hence there are no fortalices or fortified mansions, which by their mass and solidity give such a marked character to a certain class of domestic edifices in the west.”[349] These reasons have their weight, but they hardly cover the whole question, whose solution reaches into the well-known inertness of the imaginative faculty in the Chinese mind. It is nevertheless true that there is nothing in the whole Empire worthy to be called an architectural ruin, nothing which can inform us whether previous generations constructed edifices more splendid or more mean than the present.[350]

Dwelling-houses are generally of one story, having neither cellars nor basements, and lighted by lattices opening into a court; they must not equal adjacent temples in height, nor possess the ornaments appropriated to palaces and religious establishments. The common building materials are bricks, adobie or matting for the walls, stone for the foundation, brick tiling for the roof, and wood only for the inner work; stone and wooden houses are not unknown, but are so rare as to attract attention. The high prices of timber and the very partial use of window-glass have both tended to modify and restrict the construction of dwellings. The ní chuen, or sifted earth, is a compound of decomposed granite or gravel and lime mixed with water, and sometimes a little oil, of which durable walls are made by pounding it into a solid mass between planks secured at the sides and elevated as the wall rises, or by beating it into large blocks; when stuccoed and protected from the rain this material gradually hardens into stone. In houses of the better sort the stone work of the foundation rises three or four feet above the ground, and sometimes the finished surfaces, great size of the stones and the regularity of their arrangement make one regret that the same skill had not been expended on large edifices. In towns their fronts present no opening except the door, and when the outer walls of several houses join those of gardens and enclosures, the street presents an uninteresting sameness, unrelieved by steps, windows, balconies, porticoes, or front yards. The walls are twenty-five or thirty feet high, usually hollow, or too thin to safely support the roof unaided. In the common buildings a framework of wood is erected on the foundation, which has large stones so arranged as to receive the posts, and on these rests the entire weight of the roof. The brick nogging fills up the intervals, but supports nothing; it is sometimes solid, more frequently merely a face-work, and if the roof becomes leaky or broken a heavy rain will destroy the wall, as it soaks through the courses and washes out the mud within. In the central provinces common walls are often made of small bricks four inches square and one thick, which are laid on their edges in a series of hollows; between the courses a plank sometimes adds greater strength to the wall. These cellular constructions are more durable than would be imagined provided the stucco remains uninjured.

The bricks are the same size as our own, and usually burned to a grayish slate color; they are made by hand, and sell at a price varying from three dollars to eight dollars a thousand. In the sea-coast districts lime is cheaply obtained from shells, but in the interior from limestone calcined by anthracite coal; the people use it pure, only occasionally mixing sand with it for either mortar or stucco. The walls are often stuccoed, and when not thus covered the bricks are occasionally rubbed smooth and pointed with fine cement. In place of a broad cornice the top is frequently relieved by a pretty ornament of moulded work of painted clay figures in alto relievo, representing a battle scene, a landscape, clusters of flowers, or some other design, defended from the weather by the projecting eaves. A black painted band, relieved by corners and designs of flowers and scrolls, is a cheap substitute for the carved figures.

The roofs are hipped in some provinces, but rarely in the north. They are steep, and if kept tight will last several years; the grass which is apt to spring up on them is a source of injury, and its growth or removal alike endangers the soundness of the construction. The yellow and green glazed tiles of public buildings add to their beauty, as do the dragon’s heads and globes on their ridge-poles; these features, together with the earthen dogs at the corners of temples or official houses, make the structures exceedingly picturesque. In Peking the framework under the wide eaves of palaces is tastefully painted in green and gold, and protected by a netting of copper wire. Roofs are made of earthen tiles laid on coarse clapboarding that rests on the purlines in alternate ridges and furrows. The under layer consists of square thin pieces, laid side by side in ascending rows with the lower edges overlapping; the sides are covered by the semi-cylindrical tiles, which are further protected by a covering of mortar. In the northern provinces the tiles are laid in a course of mud resting on straw over the clapboarding. The workmen begin the tiling at the ridge-pole and finish as they come down to the eaves, so as not to walk over the tiles and crack them; but such roofs easily leak in driving storms. No chimneys are seen; the slope is steep, for quick discharge of rain and snow. Terraces are erected on shops, but balustrades or flat roofs are seldom seen. Occasionally the gable walls rise above the roof in degrees, imparting a singular, bow-like aspect to the edifice. The purlines and ridge-pole extend from wall to wall, and the rafters are slender strips. In all roofs the principal weight rests on the two rows of pillars at the sides, that uphold the plates, and the antefixæ which support the broad eaves far beyond the wall. A series of beams and posts above the plates and tie-beams make the roof very heavy but also secure; curb and mansard roofs are unknown.

The pillars of stone or timber in Chinese temples are often noticeable, owing to their size or length as single pieces. They are, however, unadorned with either capital or carved base, though the shaft may be finely carved and painted, the color decoration being often upon a thick coating of papier-maché, laid on to protect the wood. In two-story houses the sleepers of the floor are supported on tie-beams attached to the main posts if they do not rest on the wall. Posts form an element of all Chinese buildings, either to support the roof or the veranda. The entrance is on the sides, and the wall is set back from the outer line of the eaves so as to afford a shelter or porch. Hipped roofs enable the architect to encompass the entire building with a veranda, this being a common arrangement in the southern provinces. A slight ceiling usually conceals the tiling, but the apartment appears lofty owing to the cavity of the roof.

The pavilion is a prominent feature of Chinese architecture, and its ornamentation calls out the best talent of the builder in making his edifice acceptable. One charming specimen of this style at the Emperor’s summer palace of Yuen-ming Yuen is already famous, its material being of pure copper; it is about fourteen feet square and twenty high.

Another beautiful structure which well exhibits the pavilion is shown in the adjoining cut. It is the Pih-yung Kung, or ‘Classic Hall,’ built by Kienlung adjacent to the Confucian Temple at Peking (page 74), and devoted to expounding the classics. This lofty building, which may be here seen through an ornamental arch across the court, is perfectly square, covered with a four-sided double roof, whose bright yellow tiles and gilded ball at the apex produce a most brilliant effect in the sunlight. The deep veranda, completely encircling the structure and supported by a score of colored wooden pillars, very ably relieves the dead mass and heavy upper roof of the pavilion proper. Around flow the waters of a circular tank, edged with marble balustrades and spanned by four bridges which form the approaches to each of the sides.

The general disposition of a Chinese dwelling of the better sort is that of a series of rooms separated and lighted by intervening courts, and accessible along a covered corridor communicating with each, or by side passages leading through the courts. In cities, where the houses are cramped and the lots irregular in shape, there is more diversity in the arrangement and size of rooms; and in the country establishments of wealthy families, where the gradual increase of the members calls for additional space, the succession of courts and buildings, interspersed with gardens and pools, sometimes renders the whole not a little complicated. The great expense of timber for floors, posts, and sleepers has been the chief reason for retaining the single story, rather than the awkwardness caused by cramping women’s feet. No contrivance for warming the rooms by means of chimneys or flues exists, except that found in the kang, or brick bed, on which the inmates lie and sit.

The entrance into large mansions in the country is by a triple gate leading through a lawn or garden up to the hall; in towns, a single door, usually elevated a step or two above the street, introduces the visitor into a porch or court. A wall or movable screen is placed inside of the doorway, and the intervening space is occupied by the porter; upon the wall on the left is often seen a shrine dedicated to the gods of the threshold. In the houses of officials, upon this wall is inscribed a list of dignities and offices which the master has held during his life. The door is solidly constructed, and moves upon pivots turning in sockets. Under the projecting eaves hang paper lanterns informing the passer-by of the name and title of the householder, and when lighted at night serving to illumine the street and designate his habitation; for door-plates and numbers are unknown. The roughness of the gate is somewhat concealed by the names or grotesque representations of two tutelar gods, Shintu and Yuhlui, to whom the guardianship of the house is entrusted; while the sides and lintel are embellished with felicitous quotations written upon red paper, or with sign-boards of official rank. The doorkeeper and other servants lodge in small rooms within the gateway, and above the porch is an attic containing one or two apartments, to be reached by a rude stairway.

On passing behind the screen a court, occasionally adorned with flowers or a fancy fish-pool, is crossed before reaching the principal hall. The upper end of the hall is furnished with a high table, on which incense vases, idolatrous utensils, and offerings are placed in honor of the divinities and lares worshipped there, whose tablets and names are on the wall. Sometimes the table merely contains flowers in jars, fancy pieces of white quartz, limestone or jade, or ornaments of various kinds. Before the table is a large couch, with a low stand in its centre, and a pillow for reclining upon. In front of it the chairs are arranged down the room in two rows facing each other, each pair having a small table between them. The floors are made of thick, large tiles of brick or marble, or of hard cement. Even in a bright day the room is dim, and the absence of carpets and fireplaces, and of windows to afford a prospect abroad, renders it cheerless to a foreigner accustomed to his own glazed and loftier houses.

A rear door near the side wall opens either into a kitchen or court, across which are the female apartments, or directly into the latter and the rooms for domestics. Instead of being always rectangular the doors are sometimes made round, leaf-shaped, or semi-circular, and it is thought desirable that they should not open opposite each other, lest evil spirits find their way in from the street. The rear rooms are lighted by skylights when other modes are unavailable, and along the southern sea-coasts the thin laminæ of a species of oyster (Placuna) cut into small squares supply the place of window-glass. Commerce is gradually bringing this material into greater use all over the land, though the fear of thieves still limits it. Corean paper is the chief substitute for glass in the north. The kitchen is a small affair, for the universal use of portable furnaces enables the inmates to cook wherever the smoke will be least troublesome. Warming the house, even as far north as Ningpo, is not frequent, as the inmates rely on their quilted and fur garments for protection. The flue of the tiled-brick divan, or kang, is connected with a pit lined with brick dug in the floor in front; when the pot of coal is well lighted and placed near the opening, the draft carries the heat into the passages running under the surface, and soon warms the room without much smoke. The pot of burning coal furnishes all the cooking-fire the poor have, and at night the inmates sleep on the warm bricks.

The country establishments of wealthy men furnish the best expression of Chinese ideas of elegance and comfort. In these enclosures the hall of ancestors, library, school-room, and summer-houses are detached and erected upon low plinths, surrounded by a veranda, and frequently decorated with tracery and ornamental carving. Near the rear court are the female apartments and offices, many of the former and the sleeping apartments being in attics. Considerable space is occupied by the quadrangles, which are paved and embellished by fish-pools, flowering shrubs, and other plants. Mr. Fortune describes[351] the house and garden of a gentleman at Ningpo as being connected by rude-looking caverns of rock-work, “and what at first sight appears to be a subterranean passage leading from room to room, through which the visitor passes to the garden. The small courts, of which a glimpse is caught in passing along, are fitted up with rock-work; dwarf trees are planted here and there in various places, and graceful creepers hang down into the pools in front. These being passed, another cavernous passage leads into the garden, with its dwarf trees, vases, ornamented lattices, and beautiful shrubs suddenly opening to the view. By windings and glimpses along the rocky passages into other courts, and hiding the real boundary by masses of shrubs and trees, the grounds are made to appear much larger than they really are.”

The houses of the poor are dark, dirty, low, and narrow tenements, where the floor is of earth covered with mats or tiled, and the doorway the only opening, on which a swinging mat conceals the interior. The whole family often sleep, eat, and live in a single room. Pigs, dogs, and hens dispute the space with children and furniture—if a table and a few trestles and stools, pots and plates, deserve that name. The filthy street without is a counterpart to the gloomy, smoky abode within, and a single walk through the streets and lanes of such a neighborhood is sufficient to reconcile a person to any ordinary condition of life. On the outskirts of the town a still poorer class take up with huts made of mats and thatch upon the ground, through which the rain and wind find free course. It is surprising that people can live and enjoy health, and even be cheerful, as the Chinese are, in such circumstances. Between these hovels and the abodes of the rich is a class of middle houses, consisting of three or four small rooms surrounding a court, each one lodging a family, which uses its portion of the quadrangle.

The best furniture is made of a heavy wood stained to resemble ebony; camphor, elm, pine, aspen, and melia woods furnish cheaper material. Ornamental articles, porcelain vases, copper tripods or pots, stone screens, book-shelves, flowers in pots, etc., show the national taste. Ink sketches of landscapes, gay scrolls inscribed with sentences suspended from the walls, and pretty lanterns relieve the baldness of the room; their combined effect is not destitute of variety and elegance, though there is a lack of comfort. Partitions are sometimes fancifully made of lattice-work, with openings neatly arranged for the reception of boxes containing books. The bedrooms are small, poorly ventilated, and seldom visited except at night. A massive bedstead of costly woods, elaborately carved, and supporting a tester for the silk curtains and mosquito-bars, is often shown as the family pride and heirloom; a scroll of fine writing adorns its fringe or valance. Mattresses or feather beds are not used, and the pillow is a hollow square frame of rattan or bamboo. The bed, wardrobe, and toilet usually complete the furniture of the sleeping apartments of the Chinese; but if this is also the sitting room, the bed is rolled up so as often to furnish seats on its boards.

The grounds of the rich are laid out in good style, and were not the tasteful arrangements and diversified shrubbery which would render them charming resorts almost always spoiled by general bad keeping—neglect and ruin, if not nastiness and offals, being often visible—they would please the most fastidious. The necessity of having a place for the women and children to recreate themselves is one reason for having an open enclosure, even if it be only a plat of flowers or a bed of vegetables. In the imperial gardens the attempt to make an epitome of nature has been highly successful. De Guignes describes their art of gardening as “imitating the beauties and producing the inequalities of nature. Instead of alleys planted symmetrically or uniform grounds, there are winding footpaths, trees here and there as if by chance, woody or sterile hillocks, and deep gulleys with narrow passages, whose sides are steep or rough with rocks, and presenting only a few miserable shrubs. They like to bring together in gardening, in the same view, cultivated grounds and arid plains; to make the field uneven and cover it with artificial rock-work; to dig caverns in mountains, on whose tops are arbors half overthrown, and around which tortuous footpaths run and return into themselves, prolonging, as it were, the extent of the grounds and increasing the pleasure of the walk.”

A fish-pond, supplied by a rivulet running wildly through the grounds, forms a pretty feature of such gardens, in which, if there be room, a summer-house is erected on a rocky islet, or on piles over the water, accessible by a rugged causey of rock-work. The nelumbium lily, with its plate-like leaves and magnificent flowers, is a general favorite in such places; carp and other fish are reared in their waters, and gold-fish in small tanks. Whenever it is possible a gallery runs along the sides of the pond for the pleasure and use of the females in the household. A tasteful device in some gardens, which beguiles the visitor’s ramble, is a rude kind of shell or pebble mosaic inlaid in the gravelly paths, representing birds, animals, or other figures; the time required to decipher them prolongs the walk, and apparently increases the size of the grounds. The pieces of rock-work are cemented and bound with wire; and in fish-pools, grottos, or causeways this unique ornament has a charming effect, the moss and plants which grow upon it adding rather to its appropriateness.

The wood and mason work is unsubstantial, requiring constant repairs; when new they present a pretty appearance, but both gardens and houses, when neglected, soon fall into a ruinous condition. Some of the principal merchants at Canton, in the former days of the hong monopoly, had cultivated grounds of greater or less extent attached to their establishments. One of them, by way of variety, constructed a summer-house entirely of glass, this wonderful structure being made so that it could be closed and protected with shutters.

The arrangement of shops and warehouses is modified by the uses to which they are applied, but they still resemble dwelling-houses more than is the case with stores in western cities. The rear room of the shop is a small apartment, used for a dormitory, store-room, or workshop, and sometimes for all these purposes together; it is in most cases on an upper floor. Small ones are lighted from the street, but the largest by a skylight, in which cases there is a latticed screen reaching across the room, to secure the inside from the street. The whole shop-front is thrown open by day and closed at night by shutters running in grooves, and secured by heavy cross-bars to a row of posts which fit in sockets in the threshold and lintel. The doorway recedes a foot or two, and the projecting roof serves to protect customers, and such goods as are exposed, from the rain and sun. In small shops there are two counters, a long one running back from the door, and another at right angles to it, reaching partly across the front. The shopman sits within the angle formed by these, and as they are low he can easily serve a customer in the street as well as in the shop. At night the smaller one often forms a lodging place for homeless beggars. The facing of the outer counter is of granite, and in Canton a niche containing a tablet inscribed to the god of wealth is cut in the end, where incense is burned. Another shrine is placed on high within the apartment, dedicated to the deity of the place, whoever he may be.

The loft is much contracted; and that it may not intercept the skylight, it is usually a small chamber reached by a gallery, and lighted in front. Chinese tradesmen do not make much display in exhibiting their goods, and the partial use of glass renders it somewhat unsafe for them to do so. The want of a yard compels them to cook and wash either behind or on top of the building; clerks and workmen usually eat and sleep under the shop roof. In the densest parts of Canton the roofs are covered with a loose framework, on which firewood is piled, clothes washed and dried, and meals cooked; it also affords a sleeping place in summer. In case of fire, however, these lumbered roofs become like so many tinder-boxes, and aid not a little to spread the flames.

The narrowness of the streets in Chinese cities is a source of many inconveniences; few exceed ten or twelve feet in width, and most of those in Canton are less than eight. No large squares having fountains and shrubbery, nor any open spaces except the areas in front of temples relieve the closeness of these lanes. The absence of horses and carriages in southern cities, and a custom of huddling together, a desire to screen the thoroughfare from the sun, and ignorance of the advantages of another mode, are among the leading reasons for making them so contracted; while the difficulty of collecting a mob in them should be mentioned as one point in their favor. In case of fire it is difficult to get access to the burning buildings, and dangerous for the inmates to move or save their property. At all times porters carrying burdens are impeded by the crowd of passengers, who likewise must pass Indian file lest they tilt against the porters. Ventilation is imperfect where the buildings are packed so closely, and the public necessaries and their offal carried through the streets by the scavengers pollute the air. Drainage is very superficial and incomplete; the sewers easily choke up or get broken and exude their contents over the pathway. The ammoniacal and other gases which are generated aggravate the ophthalmic diseases so prevalent; and it is a matter of surprise that the cholera, plague, or yellow fever does not visit the inhabitants of such confined abodes, who breathe so tainted an atmosphere. The peculiar government of cities by means of wards and neighborhoods, each responsible to the officials, combined with the ignorance among all ranks of the principles of hygiene, will account for the evils so patent to one accustomed to the energetic sway of a mayor and board of health in most European cities, who can bring knowledge and power to coöperate for the well-being of all.

The streets are usually paved with slabs of stone laid cross-wise, and except near markets and wells are comparatively clean. They are not laid out straight, and some present a singularly irregular appearance from the slight angle which each house makes with its neighbors; it being considered rather unlucky to have them exactly even. The names of the streets are written on the gateways crossing them, whenever they are marked at all; occasionally, as at Canton, each division makes a separate neighborhood and has its own name; a single long street will thus have five, six, or more names. The general arrangement of a Chinese city presents a labyrinth of streets, alleys, and byways very perplexing to a stranger who has neither plan nor directory to guide him, nor numbers upon the houses and shops to direct him. The sign-boards are hung each side of the door, or securely inserted in stone sockets; some of them are ten or fifteen feet high, and being gaily painted and gilded on both sides with picturesque characters, a succession of them as seen down a street produces a gay effect. The inscriptions simply mention the kind of goods sold, and without half the puffing seen in western cities; accounts sometimes given of the inscriptions on sign-boards in Chinese cities, as “No cheating here,” and others, describe the exception and not the rule. The edicts of government, handbills of medicines and the famous doctors who make them, notices offering rewards for children who are lost or slaves escaped, new shops opened, houses to let, or other events, cover blank walls in great variety, printed on red, black, white, or yellow paper; the absence of newspapers leads shopmen to depend more for patronage upon a circle of customers and the distribution of cards than to spend much money in handbills. The shrines of the street gods occur in southern cities, located in niches in the wall, with altars before them.

The temples and assembly-halls are the only public buildings in Chinese cities belonging to the people. Their courts and cloisters, with such gardens, tea-houses, and pools as may be accessible, attract constant crowds, and furnish the only places of common resort. The priests derive no small portion of their income from travellers, and their establishments are consequently made more commodious and extensive than the number of priests or the throng of worshippers require.

The assembly-halls or club-houses form a peculiar feature of Chinese society. There are more than a hundred in Canton and many hundreds in Peking. They are built sometimes by a particular craft as its guildhall, or more commonly erected by persons resorting to the place for trade, study, or amusement, who subscribe to fit up a commodious establishment to accommodate persons coming from the same town. In this way their convenience, assistance, oversight, and general safety are all increased.[352] All buildings pay a ground rent to the government, but no data are available for comparing this tax with that levied in western cities. The government furnishes the owner of the ground with a hung kí, or ‘red deed,’ in testimony of his right to occupancy, which puts him in possession as long as he pays the taxes. There is a record office in the local magistracy of such documents.

Houses are rented on short leases, and the rent collected quarterly in advance; the annual income from real estate is between nine and twelve per cent. The yearly rent of the best shops in Canton is from $150 to $400; there is no system of insuring against fire, which, with the municipal taxes and the difficulty of collecting bad rents, enhances their price. Such kind of property in China is liable to many risks.

The taverns are numerous and adapted for every calling. Though they will not bear comparison with western hotels, they are far in advance of the cheerless khans and caravansaries found in Western Asia. The traveller brings his own bedding, sometimes also his own provision, and when night comes spreads his mat upon the floor or divan and lies down in his clothes. The better sort of travellers order a room for themselves, but officials or rich men go to temples, or hire a boat in which to travel and sleep; this usage takes off the best class of customers. One considerable source of income to innkeepers is the preparation of dinners for parties of men, who either come to the house or send to it for so many covers; for when a gentleman invites his friends to an entertainment it is common to serve it up at his warehouse, or at an inn. In towns and cities thousands of men eat in the streets; the number of eating and cooking-stalls produces a most lively impression upon a stranger. This custom has had a good effect in promoting the general courtesy so conspicuous among the people, and is increased by great numbers of street story-tellers. The noisy hilarity of the customers, as they ply their “nimble lads,” or chopsticks, and the vociferous cries of the cooks recommending their cakes and dishes, with the steaming savor from the frying-pan and kettles, form only one of the many objects to attract the notice of the foreign observer. Their appearance and the variety of bustling scenes and picturesque novelties presented to him afford constant instruction and entertainment. Those at Canton have been thus described by an eye-witness.

Streets at the north present a somewhat different, and on the whole a less inviting because less entertaining and picturesque aspect. Their greater width allows carts to pass, and it also offers more room for the garbage, the rubbish, and the noisome sights that are most disgusting, all of which are made worse in rainy weather by the mud through which one flounders. Barrow thus delineates those in Peking: “The multitude of movable workshops of tinkers and barbers, cobblers and blacksmiths, the tents and booths where tea and fruit, rice and other eatables were exposed for sale, with the wares and merchandise arrayed before the doors, had contracted this spacious street to a narrow road in the middle, just wide enough for two little vehicles to pass each other. The processions of men in office attended by their numerous retinues, bearing umbrellas and flags, painted lanterns and a variety of strange insignia of their rank and station, different trains that were accompanying, with lamentable cries, corpses to their graves, and with squalling music, brides to their husbands; the troops of dromedaries laden with coals from Tartary; the wheel-barrows and hand-carts stuffed with vegetables, occupied nearly the whole of this middle space in one continued line. All was in motion. The sides of the streets were filled with an immense concourse of people, buying and selling and bartering their different commodities. The buzz and confused noises of this mixed multitude, proceeding from the loud bawling of those who were crying their wares, the wrangling of others, with every now and then a strange twanging sound like the jarring of a cracked jewsharp (the barber’s signal), the mirth and laughter that prevailed in every group, could scarcely be exceeded. Peddlers with their packs, jugglers and conjurers, fortune-tellers, mountebanks and quack doctors, comedians and musicians, left no space unoccupied.”[354]

Shops are closed at nightfall, and persons going abroad carry a lantern or torch. Over the thoroughfares slender towers are erected, where notice of a fire is given and the watches of the night announced by striking a gong. Few persons are met in the streets at night, and the private watch kept by all who are able greatly assists the regular police in preserving order and apprehending thieves. These watchers go up and down their wards beating large bamboos, to let “thieves know they are on the lookout.” Considering all things, large Chinese cities are remarkably quiet at night. Beggars find their lodgings in the porches and squares of temples, or sides of the streets, and nestle together for mutual warmth. This class is under the care of a headman, who, in order to collect the poor-tax allowed by law, apportions them in the neighborhoods with the advice of the elders and constables. During the day they go from one door to another and receive their allotted stipend, which cannot be less than one cash to each person. They sit in the doorway and sing a ditty or beat their clap-dishes and sticks to attract attention, and if the shopkeeper has no customers he lets them keep up their cries, for he knows that the longer they are detained so much the more time will elapse before they come again to his shop. Many are blind and all present a sickly appearance, their countenances begrimed with dirt and furrowed by sorrow and suffering. The very difficult question how to assist, restrain, and employ the poor has been usually left to the mercy and wisdom of the municipal officers in the cities; and the results are not on the whole discreditable to their humanity and benevolence. Many persons give the headman a dollar or more per month to purchase exemption from the daily importunity of the beggars, and families about to have a house-warming, marriage, or funeral, as also newly arrived junks, are obliged to fee him to get rid of the clamorous and loathsome crowd.

When fires occur the officers of government are held responsible; the law being that if ten houses are burned within the walls, the highest officer in it shall be fined nine months’ pay; if more than thirty, a year’s salary; and if three hundred are consumed, he shall be degraded one degree. The governor and other high officers, attended by a few troops, are frequently seen at fires in Canton, as much to prevent thievery as to direct in extinguishing the flames. The engines are hurried through the narrow streets at a fearful rate; those who carry away property are armed with swords to defend it, and usually add to the crash of the burning houses by loud cries. The police do not hesitate to pull down houses if the fire can thereby be sooner extinguished, but there is no organized body of firemen, nor any well-arranged system of operations in such cases, though conflagrations are ordinarily soon under control. Cruel men often take the opportunity at such times to steal and carry off defenceless persons, especially young girls.

At Canton the usage is general of levying a bonus on the owners of the houses adjacent to the burnt district, whose dwellings were saved by the exertions of the firemen, the appraisement decreasing as the distance increases; the sum is divided among the firemen. The householders thus saved also employ priests to erect an altar near by, whereon to perform a service, and “return thanks for Heaven’s mercy.” On the whole, the fire control in China is superior to that in Turkey, where the firemen pay themselves for their efforts by extortions practised upon house-owners.

The pagoda is a building considered as so peculiar to the Chinese that a landscape or painting relating to China without a pagoda perched on a hill—like one of Egyptian scenery destitute of a pyramid—would be considered deficient. The term pagoda is used in its proper sense by most of the French and Portuguese writers to denote a temple for idols, but in English books it has always been appropriated to the polygonal towers seen throughout the country. Some confusion has arisen in consequence of applying the account of an immense temple full of idols to these towers. The English use is the most definite in China, although its misapplication is indefensible if we regard its derivation.

The form of the Chinese tah is probably derived from the spire on the top of the Hindu dagoba, as its name is doubtless taken from the first syllable; but their purpose has so long been identified with the geomantic influences which determine the luck of a place that the people do not associate them with Buddhism. Mr. Milne explains this in his remark that “the presence of such an edifice not only secures to the site the protection of heaven, if it already bears evidence of enjoying it, but represses any evil influences that may be native to the spot, and imparts to it the most salutary and felicitous omens.”[355] Those in the southern and central provinces seldom contain idols of any pretensions. They are ascended by stairways built in the thick walls on alternate sides of the stories. In the north there is another kind, designed to contain a shé-lí, or relic of Buddha, having a large room near the base for worshipping the idol placed in it, but otherwise entirely solid and nearly uniform in size to the top; the stories are merely numerous narrow projections, like eaves or string courses, on which hundreds of small images are sometimes placed. These structures more nearly resemble the Indian dagoba than the other kind, and are always connected with a monastery, while those are not uniformly so placed, though under a priestly oversight.

No town is considered complete without a pagoda, and many large cities have several; there must be nearly two thousand in the Empire, some of which are quite celebrated. It is rare to see a new one, and the ruinous condition of most of them indicates the weakness of the faith which erected them. They vary in height from five to thirteen stories, and are mostly built in so solid a manner that they are likely to remain for centuries. One at Hangchau is octagonal, each face twenty-eight feet wide and the wall at the base eighteen feet thick; the top is reached by a spiral stairway between the walls; a covered gallery on the outside of each story affords resting-places and ever-changing views to the visitor; it is one hundred and seventy feet high, and was built during the Sung dynasty, in the twelfth century. The prospect from its summit is superb; the picturesque combination of sea and shore, land and water, city and country, wilderness, gardens, and hills, with many historical and religious associations interesting to a native, make it one of the most charming landscapes in China.

Sir John Davis visited one near Lintsing chau in Shantung, in very good repair, inhabited by Buddhist priests, and containing two idols; each of its nine stories was inscribed with Ometo Fuh, in large characters. It was erected since the completion of the Grand Canal. A winding stairway of near two hundred steps conducted to the top, about one hundred and fifty feet from the ground, from whence an extensive view was obtained of the surrounding country. The basement was excellently built of granite, and all the rest of glazed brick, beautifully joined and cemented.

The objects in building these structures being of a mixed nature, sometimes geomantic and sometimes religious, their materials, size, and structure vary considerably. There are two inside of Canton, and three near the Pearl River, below the city; fifteen others occur in the prefecture. Suchau has two, Ningpo one, Fuhchau two, and Peking six in and out of the walls. One of those at Canton was built by the Moslems about a thousand years ago, a plain brick tower nearly two hundred feet high, from which the faithful were probably called to prayers in the adjacent mosque. Fergusson’s remarks upon Chinese architecture would probably have been modified had the writer enjoyed a wider range of observation and a fuller knowledge of the designs of native builders. They are, however, the conclusions of a competent observer, and the position he gives to the pagoda among the tower-like buildings of the world, arising from its peculiar form, its divisions, and its apparent uselessness, will be generally accepted as just.

Mr. Milne, in his interesting work, has a good account of pagodas; he shows that while their model is of Hindu origin, and has been carefully followed since the first one was erected (about A.D. 250) at Nanking, the popular geomantic ideas connected with their octagonal form and great height have gradually increased and influenced their location. The Buddhists seem themselves to have lost their ancient confidence in the protection of the shé-lí (or saina) supposed to be built in them. The number of Indian words transliterated in Chinese accounts of these edifices further proves their foreign origin. For convenience and accuracy in describing them, it would be best to restrict the term pagoda to the hollow octagonal towers, the word dagoba to the solid ones covering the relics, and tope to the erections over priests when buried.

Pagodas are sometimes made of cast iron; those hitherto observed are in the central provinces. One exists in Chehkiang province, nearly fifty feet high and of nine stories. The octagonal pieces forming the walls are each single castings, as are also the plates forming the roof. The whole structure, including the base and spire, was made of twenty pieces of iron. Its interior is filled with brick, probably with the design to strengthen it against storms. The ignorance of the Chinese of later days of the Hindu origin of pagodas has led to their regarding those now in existence as of native design, and appropriated by the Buddhists for their own ends. Most of them are falling to ruins; and the assurances held out by the geomancers that the pagoda will act like an electric tractor to draw down every felicitous omen from above, so that fire, water, wood, earth, and metal will be at the service of the people, the soil productive, trade prosperous, and the natives submissive and happy, all fail to call out funds for repairing them.[356]

The dull appearance of a Chinese city when seen from a distance is unlike that of European cities, in which spires, domes, and towers of churches and cathedrals, halls, palaces, and other public buildings relieve the uniformity of rows of dwellings. In China, temples, houses, and palaces are nearly of one height; their sameness being only partially relieved by trees mingled with pairs of tall flag-staffs with frames near their tops, which at a distance rather suggest the idea of dismantled gallows. Nature, however, charms and delights, and few countries present more beautiful landscapes; even the tameness of the works of man serves as a foil for the diversified beauties of the cultivated landscape.