Young Chinese Boy
Painting a rock
Painting a rock
Rooster divider
Reading a scroll
Prince Chin Pa tried in vain to hold his followers
Rough Sea Divider
When Ah Tcha had eaten his Evening Rice, he took lantern and entered the largest of his mills
Of course, they wore hideous false faces
Old Chinese Man Divider
Man working at the table
Then he seized the plaques and flung them from him
Meng Hu could imagine a knife at his throat
We are the Shen, demons of the sea
Tiao Fu snatched up her little-used embroidery scissors. Snip, Snip, Snip
So the seventh demon sped away taking the sea with him
Three Old Men
So Chai Mi sat beside the river and sewed and wept
Therefore—upon his donkey—the contrary husband started for Tsun Pu
More and more sad came the music
This nice large one is for your dinner a
The first portrait he painted was that of Ying Ning, a monstrous ugly maiden
The house of Weng Fu was luxurious in the extreme
The king and his generals gazed across the river
This nice large one is for your dinner
Three children and the old man
The king crawled under his throne
The royal generals . . . knelt before Hai Low and bumped their heads in the dust
The Invasion of the Mongol Tartars
The Mongol invasion took place in the fourth year of Kōan [a. d. 1281]
Portrait of St. Francis Xavier, One of the Earliest Missionaries to Japan
In this city Pinto met, apparently for the first time, with Master Francis Xavier, general superior or provincial of the order of the Jesuits in India, in all parts of which occupied by the Portuguese he had already attained a high reputation for self-devotion, sanctity, and miraculous power; and who was then at Malacca, on his return to Goa, from a mission on which he had lately been to the Moluccas
Dial of old clock
The Japanese division of time is peculiar. The day, from the beginning of morning twilight to the end of evening twilight, is divided into six hours, and the night, from the beginning to the end of darkness, into six other hours. Of course the length of these hours is constantly varying. Their names (according to Titsingh) are as follows: Kokonotsu [nine], noon, and midnight; Yatsu [eight], about our two o’clock; Nanatsu [seven], from four to five; Mutsu [six], end of the evening and commencement of morning twilight; Itsutsu [five], eight to nine; Yotsu [four], about ten; and then Kokonotsu again. Each of these hours is also subdivided into four parts, thus: Kokonotsu, noon or midnight; Kokonotsu-han [nine and a half], quarter past; Kokonotsu-han-sugi [past nine and a half], half past; Kokonotsu-han-sugi-maye [before past nine and a half], three quarters past; commencement of second hour: Yatsu-han, etc., and so through all the hours.
A Merchant Ship
Japanese Ironclad of about 1600 A.D
With hull covered with plates of copper and iron, two rudders, one at the bow and one at the stern; and a paddle-wheel as her propelling machinery, fitted inside.
Image of Oda Nobunaga
Mailed Warrior - 11th Century
The Expedition against Corea
Image of Yoritomo
According to the Japanese historical legends, the office of Kubō-Sama, originally limited to the infliction of punishments and the suppression of crimes, was shared, for many ages, between the two families of Genji and Heiji, till about 1180, when a civil war broke out between these families, and the latter, having triumphed, assumed such power that the Dairi commissioned Yoritomo, a member of the defeated family of Genji, to inflict punishment upon him. Yoritomo renewed the war, killed Heiji, and was himself appointed Kubō-Sama, but ended with usurping a greater power than any of his predecessors
Image of Iyeyasu
To secure the succession of his infant son, the expiring emperor established, on his death-bed, a council of regency, composed of nine persons, at the head of which he placed Tokugawa Iyeyasu, king of the Bandō, which, besides the five provinces of the Kwantō, in which were the great cities of Suruga and Yedo, embraced, also, three other kingdoms. Iyeyasu had been king of Mikawa, a more westerly province, which he had lost by adhering to the fortunes of the third son of Nobunaga, he being allied to that family by marriage. But afterwards, by some means, he had recovered the favor of Taikō-Sama, who had even bestowed upon him the newly conquered Bandō, and who, the better to secure his fidelity, had caused his infant son and destined successor to be married to a young granddaughter of Iyeyasu.
It was the howl of a wolf
Divider
Kneeling before a tree
The Koto
The only Japanese musical instrument taught in girls’ schools is the koto, a kind of zither. As the koto is the most adaptable of all Japanese instruments to western music, it is more readily learnt than others at schools where the piano and the violin are also taught. There are several kinds of koto, the number of strings on them ranging from one to twenty-five; but the one exclusively used at schools has thirteen strings It has a hollow convex body,six feet five inches long and ten inches wide at one end and half an inch narrower at the other, and stands on legs three and a half inches high. The strings are tied at equal distances at the head or broader end and gathered at the other; they are supported each by its own bridge, the position of which varies with the pitch required. Small ivory nails are put on the tips of the fingers for striking the strings.
The samisen
The samisen is early taught. Girls of seven or thereabouts are made to learn it while their fingers are still very pliant. But the lessons are hard to learn as the tunes have to be committed to memory, for there are no scores to refer to. There is no popular method of notation; the marks which are sometimes to be seen in song-books are too few to be of use to any but skilled musicians. The lighter samisen does not require much exertion to play; women can thrum it for hours on end; and they make slight indentations on the nails of the middle and ring fingers of the left hand for catching the strings when those fingers are moved up and down the neck to stop them. But with the heavier kind the indentations are deeper, and the constant friction of the strings hardens the finger-tips and often breaks the nails, while still worse is the condition of the right hand which holds the plectrum. The plectrum, the striking end of which is flat as in the one for the slender-necked samisen, is heavily leaded and weighs from twelve ounces to a pound when used by professionals; and the handle, which is square, is held between the ring and little fingers for leverage and worked with the thumb and the forefinger.
It was a well-plucked traveler who returned
Chinese street scene
Flowers in the rain
Drinking Tea
Dragon
Floral Divider
He made a V of the bowstring
How could she make beds when her hair needed burnishing
Twisting a man's Ears
He is held securely by two men, in the service of a tribunal, who are instructed to give pain, by a particular method of twisting the cartilages of the ears .
Dragon Divider
'I—I—I—am hungry,' stammered Han Hsin
Torturing the Fingers
This is effected by placing small pieces of wood betwixt them, and then drawing them very forcibly together with cords. It is frequently inflicted as a punishment upon disorderly women . There are no people existing, who pay so sacred an attention to the laws of decency as the Chinese ; habituated in preserving the constant appearance of modesty and self -controul, nothing is more uncommon amongst them, than deleterious examples of unblushing vice ; and if there be truth in the old maxim , that want of decency, either in action , or in word, betrays a deficiency of understanding, they certainly indicate more sense than some other nations , who affect to excel them in education and refinement. The general manners of people of every condition in China wear as modest a habit, as their persons. They discover no gratification in wresting their proper language into impure meanings; and grossly offensive phrases are only to be heard amongst the very dregs of the community, and at the risk of immediate and severe judicial correction .
'Broooomp'
House under a tree
Han Hsin raised a bridge from island to mainland
By look and action he was a maiden
He was a weighty elephant—amid the cabbages
Doctor Chu Ping beamed upon him