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- Letting his feet breathe
Walking-shoes should not be worn in the house, neither should the same pair be worn on consecutive days, thus giving them a chance to air. Abraham Lincoln used to slip off his shoes when he had the chance, “ letting his feet breathe,” as he said. - C. JVLIVS CAESAR
In marmore penes Cl. Ric Mead M.D. sui tabulam dicat Wm. Stukeley. 1722. - CAESAR’S Camp called the Brill at PANCRAS.
London, then called Trinobantum, was a considerable trading emporium in British times, and before Cæsar’s arrival here. But the greatest curiosity of London, and what renders it highly illustrious, has never been observed by any writer: to give some account of it, is the purpose of this paper. - MAPPA BRITTANIÆ FACIE
- How a crossbowman should approach animals
How a crossbowman should approach animals by means of a cart concealed with foliage. - Arbalestina
The narrow cruciform loophole, called by architects ' Arbalestina,' which is usually to be seen in the masonry of a mediaeval fortress, was designed for the special use of crossbowmen in repelling an assault. To enable the crossbow, or longbow, to be aimed to the right or left through a loophole, the aperture was greatly widened out on the inside face of the perforated wall. - Crossbowmen
They represent French soldiers at the defence of Rouen, 1419, shooting from behind the shelter of shields propped up in front of them. - Crossbowmen
The centre figure is winding up his windlass crossbow behind the shelter of a shield. From Manuscript, Froissarts ' Chronicles.' The larger shields, which were carried before the knights (by their pages) when on the march, and which were propped up in front of them as a protection from arrows in a battle or a siege, were known as pavises or mantlets. - Crossbowmen
The soldiers carry windlass crossbows. One man is winding up his weapon ; the other is shooting, with his windlass laid on the ground at his feet. - Norman Crossbowmen
- Peripatus novæ zealandiæ
A, Peripatus novæ zealandiæ.—After Sedgwick, from Lang. B, Peripatus capensis, side view, enlarged about twice the natural size.—After Moseley, from Balfour. C, Anatomy of Peripatus capensis. The enteric canal behind the pharynx has been removed. g, brain; a, antenna; op, oral or slime papillæ; sd, slime gland; sr, slime reservoir, which at the same time acts as a duct to the gland; so4, so5, so6, so9, nephridia of the 4th, 5th, 6th, and 9th pairs of limbs; cd, elongated coxal gland of the last pair of feet; go, genital aperture; an, anus; ph, pharynx; n, longitudinal trunk of the nervous system.—After Balfour, from Lang. D, Portion of the body of Peripatus capensis opened to show the scattered tufts of tracheæ (tr); v, v, ventral nerve cords.—After Moseley. - An Indian Pipe
An Indian Pipe - A lady and her son
The print is the representation of a Chinese Lady, and her Son. - A juggler
Preforming tricks with Jars This engraving exhibits a posture-master balancing two large China vases, and throwing himself into most extraordinary attitudes. - Female peasant
Blue or brown cotton frocks with green or yellow trowsers are the ordinary dresses of the female peasantry, all of whom, except such as labour in the field or the fisheries, have the vanity to cramp their feet, in imitation of their superiors. Those in the print are employed in winding cotton yarn. They are, in general, ill featured, and their countenance void of expression. - A Female Comedian
It is, perhaps, more proper to call the annexed figure, the representation of a person in the character of a female comedian, than “a female comedian,” as women have been prohibited from appearing publicly on the stage since the late Emperor, Kien Lung, took an actress for one of his inferior wives. Female characters are now therefore performed either by boys or eunuchs. The whole dress is supposed to be that of the ancient Chinese, and indeed is not very different from that of the present day. The young ladies of China display considerable taste and fancy in their head-dresses which are much decorated with feathers, flowers, and beads as well as metallic ornaments in great variety of form. Their outer garments are richly embroidered, and are generally the work of their own hands, a great part of their time being employed in this way. If it was not a rigid custom of the country, to confine to their apartments the better class of females, the unnatural cramping of their feet, while infants, is quite sufficient to prevent them from stirring much abroad, as it is with some difficulty they are able to hobble along; yet such is the force of fashion, that a lady with her feet of the natural size would be despised, and at once classed among the vulgar. - A Common sedan chair
This is one of the most common of sedan chairs, used by the peasantry; though there are others still meaner, and without any covering over head. The wages of labour are so low, and the price of provisions so cheap, that any man above a common labourer can afford to be carried in his chair. - A Chinese Mendicant
Begging is by no means a profitable trade in China, and few therefore pursue it except the monks of Fo and Tao-tzé, and a few impostors who go about pretending to foretell events and predict good or ill fortune. The annexed is the representation of a beggar of a different description. The piece of hollow wood in his hand is struck to draw attention, and the label on his back describes his condition, which is not exactly such as in other countries would excite much compassion. It states his unfortunate situation, as having no children to take care of him, to console him in affliction, to give him food when hungry, or medicine when sick. The want of children is considered in China as the greatest of all misfortunes, and is in reality so, as by the moral precepts of that nation, which have all the force of law, filial piety is looked upon as the first of moral virtues; and, however poor a child may be, he is bound to share his earnings with his aged parents. - A Chinese lady of Rank
If we except the unnatural custom of maiming the feet, which swells and distorts the ankles, and wrapping the latter up in bandages, the dress of Chinese ladies in the upper ranks of life is by no means unbecoming. In the head dress, in particular, they sometimes exhibit great taste, and great variety; and the materials of which their garments are made, and especially those parts of them which consist of their own embroidering, are exceedingly beautiful. Confined by education in their mental acquirements, a great part of their time is employed in works of this kind, in looking after and cultivating plants growing in pots which decorate their apartments and inner courtyards, and in attending to birds, which are either kept for singing, or some particular beauty of form or plumage. The buildings in the back ground form part of a view of Pekin, near one of the western gates. - A Chinese Carriage
This machine, like a baker’s cart, is the kind of wheel carriage which is most common in the country, and such as even the high officers of state ride in, when performing land journies in bad weather, and the driver invariably sits on the shaft in the aukward manner here represented. They have no springs, nor any seat in the inside, the persons using them always sitting cross-legged on a cushion at the bottom. In these carts the gentlemen of Lord Macartney’s embassy who had not horses, were accommodated, over a stone pavement full of rutts and holes. When ladies use them, a bamboo screen is let down in front to prevent their being stared at by passengers, and on each side, the light is admitted through a square hole just large enough for a person’s head. - A Chinese Bookseller
In so arbitrary a government as that of China, it would scarcely be supposed that the press should be free; that is to say, that every one who chooses it may follow the profession of a printer or a bookseller without any previous licence, or without submitting the works he may print or expose for sale to any censor appointed by government; but then he must take his chance to suffer in his person all the consequences that may result from the impression that may be made on the minds of the civil officers as to the tendency of the work. A libel against the government, an immoral or indecent book, would subject both printer and publisher to certain punishment both in his person and purse. - A Bonze
The priests of Fo in China are the same as the priests of Boudh are in India, from whence their religion passed into China in the first century of the Christian æra. The temples and the monasteries of China swarm with them; and they practice, ostensibly at least, all the austerities and mortifications of the several orders of monks in Europe, and inflict on themselves the same painful, laborious, and disgusting punishments which the faquirs of India undergo, either for the love of God, as they would have it supposed, or to impose on the multitude, as is most probably the real motive. In China, however, they are generally esteemed as men of correct morals: and there is reason to believe, that the calumnies heaped upon them by the Catholic missionaries are for the most part unfounded, and were occasioned by the mortification they experienced in finding their ceremonies, their altars, their images, their dress, to resemble so very nearly their own - A Boat Girl
On all the rivers and canals of China a vast number of families live entirely in their boats, and the women are generally quite as efficient navigators as the men, particularly in rowing and steering. Their dress differs very little from that of the men, except about the head, on which the hair is suffered to grow freely, and is sometimes plaited behind like that of the men, as in this figure, but more frequently tied up in a knot upon the crown of the head. Among persons of this description the feet are allowed to grow to their full size, and they are almost invariably without shoes or other cover. They smoke tobacco and chew the betel and areca nut with as much avidity as the men. - Woman Selling Chow-chow
There is little more to be observed of the present engraving than this: that whatever wares, goods, or merchandize are exposed to sale in the open air, which in the open plains, as well in the broad streets of cities, is very much the case, the vender and the articles themselves are, during the summer months, protected from the rays of the sun by a large umbrella, which is generally square, like that in the print. Some hundreds of similar stands and umbrellas were displayed on a plain near the spot where the embassy disembarked, within the mouth of the Pei-ho; the little booths, if they may be so termed, being generally well stored with sweet-meats and sliced water-melons laid upon ice. The poorest peasant in China carries an umbrella, either to defend him against the rays of the sun, or heavy rains. - Visit to the grave of a Relation
Filial piety in China extends beyond the grave. Every year at certain periods dutiful children assemble at the tomb of their parents or ancestors, to make oblations of flowers, or fruit, or pieces of gilt paper, or whatever else they consider as likely to be acceptable to the manes of the departed. Their mourning dress consists of a garment of Nanquin cotton, or canvas, of the coarsest kind. Some of the monuments erected over the dead are by no means inelegant; like their bridges and triumphal arches, they are very much varied, and made apparently without any fixed design or proportion. The semicircular or the horse-shoe form, like that in the print before which the mourner is kneeling, appeared to be the most common. - View on the Great Canal
The grand canal of China, or rather the water communication between the northern and southern extremities of the empire by a succession of canals and rivers, is certainly the first inland navigation in the world. The multitude of vessels, of every size and shape, is not to be estimated. The large one in the print is one of those which carried the British embassador and his suite up the Pei-ho to the neighbourhood of Pekin, which were in every respect comfortable and commodious. On passing bridges, which are very frequent in the neighbourhood of all towns and villages, the masts are usually lowered down; but many of the bridges are lofty enough to admit the smaller kind of barges to pass underneath with their masts standing. The bridges are almost as various in their shape and construction as the barges, and some of them by no means destitute of taste. - Trackers Regaling
THe figure represents a groupe of the common peasantry of the country eating their rice. The particular employment of these, here designated, is that of tracking barges on the canals; the pieces of wood lying by them being those which they place across the chest to drag forward the vessels. It will be seen from the other prints, that the common mode of carrying burthens is that of swinging baskets from the two extremities of a bamboo, which is laid by the middle across the shoulders. - The Fishing Cormorants
The Leu-tzé, or fishing cormorant of China, is the pelicanus sinensis, and resembles very much the common cormorant of England, which, we are told by naturalists, was once trained up to catch fish, pretty much in the same manner as those of China are. They are exceedingly expert in taking fish, and pursue them under water with great eagerness. They are taken out, on the rivers and lakes, in boats or bamboo rafts; and though sent on the chace after long fasting, they are so well trained that they rarely swallow any of the fish they take until they are permitted to do so by their masters. Many thousand families in China earn their subsistence by means of these birds. - Punishment of the Tcha, or Cangue
The punishment of the cangue may be compared to that of our pillory, with this difference, that in China a person convicted of petty crimes or misdemeanours is sometimes sentenced to carry the wooden clog about his neck for weeks, or even months; sometimes one hand, or even both hands, are inserted through holes, as well as the neck. The annexed representation is not a common one, and far less painful than the plain heavy tablet of wood, the whole weight of which must be supported on the shoulders; whereas in this it is mere confinement, without the person being compelled to carry a heavy load. The nature of the offence is always described in large characters, either on the edge of the cangue, or, as in the present instance, on a piece of board attached to it. - Punishment for Insolence to a superior
Piercing the ear with various sharp instruments is among the punishments of the Chinese. A man who had been insolent to one of the suite of Lord Macartney’s embassy, was sentenced to receive fifty strokes from the pant-zee or bamboo, in addition to having his hand pinned to his ear by an iron wire, which was said to have been inflicted immediately after the bastinade. The middle figure is an inferior officer of the police, who holds a painted board on which the crime is exhibited to spectators; the other personage is a mandarin reproving the culprit. - Kien Lung
Kien Lung was the fourth Emperor of the Tartar dynasty, which now possesses the throne of China. When the sketch was taken he was eighty-three years of age, but had all the appearance of a hale, vigorous man of sixty. Indeed his whole life had been spent in the active discharge of public business, and in the violent exercise of hunting and shooting in the wild regions of Tartary, which he continued with unabated zeal almost to the period of life above mentioned. He always commenced public business at two or three in the morning, and gave audience to foreign ambassadors at that early hour, whether in winter or summer, and he generally retired to rest at sunset; and to this invariable habit of rising and retiring at an early hour, he attributed much of his healthy and vigorous constitution. - Chinese Barbers Champooing
Throughout all the East, in India as well as in China, the luxury of champooing is enjoyed by all ranks of men; it consists of pulling the joints until they crack, and of thumping the muscles until they are sore; it is generally an operation performed by the barbers, who at the same time cleanse the ears, tickle the nose, and play a thousand tricks to please and amuse their customers, to whom and the surrounding audience they tell their gossiping stories. Of their merit in this respect we have abundant information in the Arabian Nights Entertainments. - Children eating their meal
Among the peasantry and labouring people of China, all are cooks. A little earthen-ware stove and an iron pan is all that is required. Rice is their principal food, which is simply boiled, and then a little fat of pork or a salt fish put into the pan to mix with it and give it a relish; they drink little else besides water, which is usually carried about in a gourd slung on the back; and they require no table nor chairs. Each person has his bowl and his chop-sticks, and squatting down on his haunches before the pan, he makes a hearty and contented meal. It is quite gratifying to see a party of youngsters making their dinner in this way in the open air. - Children collecting manure
The collecting and preparing of manure of various descriptions, and making it up into cakes for sale, occupy a very considerable population of the lowest class of society, and for the most part is the employment of the aged and children. No agriculturists, perhaps, understand the value of manure better than the Chinese, and certainly none are so well skilled in the economical distribution of it. It is quite ridiculous to see the avidity with which young children follow a traveller on horseback for the chance of catching what the animal may emit, which is immediately caught up, and thrown into the basket; and if the traveller himself should contribute his portion, it is considered as more valuable than that from the animal. - An officer of the Corps of Bowmen
The original weapon of the Chinese, which by the way seems to be the offensive arms of most savages, is the bow. It is still preferred by them to the matchlock; and the Tartars are so fond of it, that it forms an essential part of the education of the young princes of the blood. Their bows are large, and require a considerable degree of strength, as well as a peculiar knack to string them. Even the Emperor wears a ring of agate on the right thumb for the string to press against in drawing the bow, which is the weapon he uses every summer in hunting tigers and other wild beasts in the forests of Tartary. - An offering in the temple
The figure kneeling before the deities mounted on pedestals is a priest of the sect of Fo. He is burning incense, or rather paper that is covered over with some liquid that resembles gold. Sometimes, in lieu of this, tin foil is burnt before the altars of China, and this is the principal use to which the large quantities of tin sent from this country is applied. On the four-legged stool is the pot containing the sticks of fate, and other paraphernalia belonging to the temple, and behind it is the tripod in which incense is sometimes burned. These superstitious rites are performed several times by the priests every day, but there is no kind of congregational worship in China. The people pay the priests for taking care of their present and future fate. - An itinerant musician
The Chinese have full as great a variety of musical instruments as most other nations, but they are all of them indifferent, and the music, if it may be so called, produced out of them, execrable. - A waterman in his barge
Some millions of Chinese live entirely on the water, in boats and barges of various kinds, some occupied in carrying articles of provisions and merchandize, others in conveying passengers, some in feeding and rearing ducks, and others in fishing. Some of these vessels have masts and sails, others are forced forwards with large sculls or pushed on with poles, some are dragged along by men, and others, but very rarely, by horses. Near the head of each vessel is suspended in some convenient place, one of those noisy instruments well known in this country by the name of gong, which is used to regulate the motions of the trackers, and to give notice to other vessels of the approach and intentions of the one that beats the signal. - A Watchman
The police is so well regulated in all the large cities of China, that disturbances rarely, if ever, happen during the night. The watch is set at nine, and continues till five in the morning. A gate is placed at each end of the cross streets, which are all straight, and at right angles with the main streets; from each gate a watchman proceeds till he meets his brother watchman about the middle; at every half hour he beats the hollow bamboo tube, in his left hand, with the mallet in the right, striking the same number of blows as there may be half hours elapsed from nine o’clock: the blow gives a dead, dull sound, sufficiently audible, and to a stranger sufficiently disagreeable. Each watchman is also furnished with a paper lantern. At the great gates of cities, and at certain distances in the main streets are guard-houses, at which a party of soldiers are stationed to aid the police, if necessary; but this is rarely the case, as, in addition to the common watch, every tenth housekeeper in every street is made responsible for the orderly good conduct of his nine neighbours. In the day time there is plenty of noise, and quarrelling and scuffling among the lower orders of the Chinese. - A vendor of lanterns
There is no nation so fond of illuminations and fire-works as the Chinese, and no nation has exerted its skill so effectually in the multitude of contrivances to exhibit light. Their lanterns are as various in shape as in materials. The most common are of painted paper. The most beautiful and ornamental of silk gauze, finely painted and stretched on frames that are not deficient in carving and curious workmanship, and decorated with tassels of silk of various colours. Other lanterns are round and cylindrical, and of one single piece of thin transparent horn, sometimes of an immense size. - A Travelling Smith
It is a peculiar feature in all the Oriental nations, that the most beautiful specimens of workmanship in the various arts are made with the most simple and at the same time most clumsy tools. The artificers moreover are rarely fixed, or settled in a workshop convenient for their purposes, but generally travel about the country carrying their shop and apparatus with them. The annexed figure represents an itinerant smith, who has more tools than almost any other artificer of China, and yet performs his work the worst. Their cast iron is light and good, but their manufactures of wrought iron are very indifferent: they can neither make a hinge, nor a lock, nor even a nail that can be called good. The bellows of the smith is a box with a valvular piston, which, when not in use, serves as a seat, and also to contain his tools. The barber also makes a seat of his basket; the joiner uses his rule as a walking-stick, and the same chest that holds his tools serves him as a bench to work upon: such are the expedients which thousands resort to, both in India and China. - A tradesman with his swan-pan
The Chinese merchants and tradesmen are most expert and ready reckoners; but they perform all arithmetical operations mechanically, by means of a table divided into two compartments, through which pass iron wires; and on these wires are strung in one compartment five, and in the other two, moveable balls. The principle is something of the same kind as that of the abacus of the Romans, and is with some little variation still made use of in Russia. It has been observed, that in weighing several thousand chests of tea, or bales of goods, at Canton, the Chinese accountant can invariably name the sum total long before the European can cast up his account. - A Tartar Dragoon
Of the Tartar horse another specimen has been given in this work. This represents a Tartar dragoon armed with the common instruments, the bow, and a short sabre. This corps is probably of little use beyond that of carrying dispatches, and assisting in the imperial hunts in the forests of Tartary. All the cavalry that were seen by the British Embassy had a mean, irregular, and most unsoldierlike appearance. - A Stage player
By the military emblem on the breast-plate, the annexed figure of a stage player must be intended to represent a great general or some military hero famous in the annals of China. Noisy music and extravagant gestures are the characteristic features of the Chinese stage. - A Soldier with his Matchlock
The military of China differs, as every thing else differs, from that of all other nations, in the nature of its establishment, its occupation, and its dress. They have two distinct armies, if they may be so called; the one composed entirely of Tartars, who are stationed in the several provinces on the Tartar frontier, and occupy all the garrison towns of the empire; the other composed of Chinese, who are parcelled out in the smaller towns and hamlets to keep the peace, by acting as constables, subordinate collectors of the taxes, guards to the granaries, and assisting in various ways the civil magistrate. Along the public roads, canals and rivers, are placed, at certain intervals, small square guard-houses, at which are stationed from six to twelve men, who are employed in settling disputes upon the rivers or roads, and also in conveying the public dispatches. - A Soldier of Infantry
The annexed figure, either from the striped dress, or the furious looking head painted on the shield, has been called a tiger of war; but he is not so fierce as he appears to be, or as the name would imply; indeed the Chinese admit that the monstrous face, on the basket-work shield, is intended to frighten the enemy, and make him run away; like another Gorgon’s head to petrify those who look upon it. This corps of infantry, in its exercise, assumes all kinds of whimsical attitudes, jumping about and tumbling over each other, like so many mountebanks. - A Seller of Rice
Almost every necessary of life, and many articles that are not of that description, are carried about the streets for sale, and the invariable mode of bearing burthens of this kind is in baskets or boxes suspended from the two extremities of a bamboo lath, swung across the back part of the shoulder. If a Chinese should only have one basket to carry, he is sure to get a log of wood, or a large stone to counterpoise it at the opposite end, thus preferring to carry a double weight rather than place it on the head, or the shoulder, or across the arm. The Chinese are in appearance far from exhibiting any signs of great muscular powers, but in lifting, or carrying a load, they are probably not excelled by the porters even of Ireland. - A Sedan Chair
The vehicles of this description are nearly as various in the different provinces of China, and among the different ranks of inhabitants, as their boats and barges are. The one here engraved belongs to a person in a certain `rank` of life, probably an inferior mandarin. It will be observed that, instead of carrying the poles in the hands, as we do, the Chinese carry the chairs on the shoulders by means of a cross-bar fixed to the poles by straps: but different kinds of chairs are carried in different ways. - A Sedan Bearer
Whenever the Emperor of China goes in state to transact public business, to receive ambassadors, or to hold a court, he is carried in the same kind of a sedan chair as are commonly used in Europe, and which, as well as umbrellas, have obviously been first introduced from China. The soft luxury of an Indian palanquin is unknown to the Chinese. By means of poles attached to each other the Emperor’s chair, on grand occasions, is carried by eight pair of bearers, sometimes by four pair, but on ordinary occasions he has no more than two pair. They are generally the stoutest and tallest men that can be found, and are dressed in a long yellow vest, which is the colour assumed by the imperial family. - A Raree Show
There is every reason to believe, that Punch and his wife were originally natives of China; and that all our puppet-shows were brought from that country. The little theatre, above the head of a man concealed behind a curtain, is precisely Chinese. Les ombres Chinoises still bear the name of their inventors; but the annexed representation of a puppet-showman is somewhat different from both, and is the simple origin of the Fantoccini, which consists in giving motion to the puppets, by means of springs attached to particular parts of the figures. These little dancing puppets are not merely exhibited for the amusement of children; they furnish entertainment for the Emperor and his court, and more especially for the ladies who, from their recluse mode of life, are easily diverted with any kind of amusement, however childish. We find from Mr. Barrow, that a puppet-show was one species of entertainment given to Lord Macartney and his suite at the Emperor’s palace of Gehol in Tartary. - A Porter carrying goods
A Porter carrying goods - A nursery maid and two children
The annexed are portraits of a female servant, and of a male and female child, which will give a tolerably correct idea of the dresses worn by them respectively. That of the maid servant differs in nothing from her mistress, but in the materials; the latter generally wearing silk, and the one in question cotton. A Chinese woman of the meanest condition would feel herself degraded if not allowed to mutilate her feet. - A Military Post
At certain distances, more or less remote according to the nature of the country, along the roads, and the banks of the interior navigations, are placed small parties of soldiers from five or six to a dozen, and sometimes more. They are employed in conveying the public dispatches, and in assisting the magistrates to quell disturbances. The immense army of China is for the most part parcelled out in this way. Near each of these posts is a tall wooden building from whence they can see and communicate by signals with the next stations. The men till the ground, and perform other kinds of labour; but are always expected to turn out in their holiday dress when an embassador or any of their ta-zin or great men happen to pass the station, on which occasion they generally fire three little petards stuck into the ground with the muzzle upwards as a salute. - A mandarin's servant on horseback
The annexed is a portrait of a true Tartar horse, which seems to be pretty much of the same breed as those of the Cossacks. The Chinese horses are precisely of the same kind. In fact, no pains whatever appear to be taken either for improving the breed, or by attention to their food, cleanliness, or regular exercise, to increase the size, strength, or spirit of the animal. A currycomb, or any substitute for it, is unknown in China. Indeed horses are not much in use. Wherever the nature of the country admits of canals or navigable rivers, travelling and conveyance of every kind are principally performed on the water. - A Mandarin's Page
The Picture shows the page or body servant of a mandarin, to carry his papers, his writing apparatus, the cushion on which he sits, or lays his head; he takes care of his areca-box and his tobacco pipe, attends him on all occasions, fans him while asleep; and, if report speaks truth, serves him for other unworthy purposes. Every mandarin has one or more of these kind of boys whom, even in public, they treat with a familiarity which is not quite decorous. The upper vest, worn by the person in the annexed figure, is of fur, which in all the northern provinces is found to be absolutely necessary in the severe cold of the winter months. - A Mandarin's Officer
This gentleman is a sort of appendage to a man in power. Some half-dozen of them generally precede a mandarin of `rank` when he goes in procession, but more especially when he attends a tribunal of justice. Their peculiar province seems to be that of keeping off the crowd. The feathers they wear in their tall conical hats are from three to six feet in length, and are apparently the tail feathers of a peculiar species of pheasant, which is represented as very scarce. Some of them wear the tail feathers of the argus pheasant. - A Mandarin
All officers of state, whether civil or military, from the highest to the lowest, have been named by the early Portuguese writers mandarins, from a word in their own language, mandar, to command; and this name, improper as it is, has preserved its ground ever since. The figure of a bird on the embroidered breast-plate of the annexed figure points him out as a civilian. A military officer wears the figure of an animal resembling the tiger. The degree of `rank`, whether civil or military, is marked by a small globe on the top of the cap, opake red coral distinguishing the highest, and brass the lowest `rank`: the intermediate colours are transparent red, opake and transparent blue, opake and transparent white. As a mark of imperial favour, one, two, or three feathers from the tail of the peacock are appended to the back part of the bonnet. All officers, whether civil or military, invariably wear thick-quilted boots, and, when in their court-dresses, embroidered petticoats. Most of them wear chains of coral, or agate, or coloured glass round the neck, as in the annexed figure. - A Mandarin in his common dress
The official habits in which all the mandarins are compelled to appear in public being made of the thickest silk, are exceedingly cumbersome, and not well adapted for the summer months, which are excessively hot even in the most northerly provinces; they therefore in private take every opportunity of throwing off their ceremonial garb, and assume a thin loose gown, tied with a belt round the waist. Their summer-hat is also made of light rice straw. The head is not encumbered with hair, which all ranks and ages shave close off, leaving only a small lock hanging down behind. The use of fans is universal. Even the military, when drawn out on parade-duty, make use of fans. It will be observed in this figure, that the spectacles worn by the Chinese are considerably larger than ours: they are made of cristal, glass being a species of manufacture unknown in China. - A Man with Pipes for sale
The very general use of tobacco throughout the whole extensive empire of China, and the still more extensive regions of Tartary, would seem to contradict the commonly received opinion, that this herb is indigenous only in America. One can hardly suppose that the Chinese, who are so remarkably averse from the introduction of any thing novel, would, in the course of three centuries, have brought the custom of smoking into universal use; yet so it is; men of all ranks and all ages; women, whatever their condition in life may be, and children even of both sexes of eight or ten years of age, are furnished with the necessary apparatus for smoking tobacco. In walking the streets, in almost all the occupations of life, the tobacco pipe is seldom out of the mouth. - A man servant
His dress is pretty nearly that of the class of people to which he belongs. The Chinese are excellent domestic servants and they are invaluable.