owners of these junks are to receive six mace, or about eighty cents, per pecul; consequently the imperial grain, carried from the eastern departments of Kiángsú, in former years could hardly have heen stored in Peking at much less than eight dollers per pecul. The junks taken up for this service this year, amount to about eleven hundred, carrying from 500 to 2000 peculs each, which at an average of 1400 peculs in each of the 1100 junks, gives a total of 1,540,000 peculs. The carrying of this at 80 cents a pecul will be $1,232,000; nine times this sum, or $11,088,000, estimating it in dollars, shows what the grain from these three departments cost the emperor in former years,-and on which, if these data be correct, he saves $9,756,000 this year. But one fact is notorious; some fifteen huudred or more of the canal boats, formerly employed, are now laid up, and their navigators, say 5000 men, thrown out of employment. Why these canal boats were allowed to come down from the north, when they were not to be employed, does not appear; the most natural explanation that suggets itself is, that having been many years engaged in carrying the imperial grain, they have monopolized the business, and come down to the province where the grain is stored, without any specific contract, leaving the rate of freight to be settled when they received the grain. This year, therefore, no contract being made, the boats are left unemployed, and the boatmen compelled to seek their livelihood as they can It does not appear that government gave them any notice that they would not be needed, or that it usually entered into any engagement with them, besides what might be tacitly implied or founded on former services. These Shantung men are said to have brought a large amount of merchandise on private account from Tien-tsin, on the proceeds of which they are now subsisting, having refused to deliver it to the rightful owners. In consequence of this, some of the owners of the merchandize, merchants of Suchau and other cities, have become bankrupt and driven to commit suicide. The accounts regarding these matters, however, do not tally with each other. It is said that the local authorities have offered to give 6000 cash to each one of the men, provided they will close their engagement, or in other words, keep quiet. But their demands are $16 for each man! It might therefore be inferred that there was some acknowledged contract between the parties. On the other hand, it is said, that the government at Peking has sent orders forbidding these navigators to return to the north of the Yangtsz' kiáng, the reason of which is that the emperor is afraid to have so many bad men near his capital. These men are reputed to be so desperate, that in their own province, at certain passes, they are the lords of the domain; even the Emperor's own officers, in order to secure a safe-conduct through their territories, must answer demands, and pay black mail as often and as much as the magnanimity of these freebooters pleases to dictate. Like the pirates at the south in the time of Mr. Glasspoole, these men seem to form an organized community, and the emperor has been graciously pleased to appoint officers to rule over them! According to letters recently received from Súchau, they are committing fearful ravages there, robbing ou the highways in open day, and even entering shops and the establishments of the rich pawnbrokers. Friday, April 15th. Winter has gone, and the whole face of nature is changed. The genus homo is most strangely metamorphosed. The winter and the summer costumes differ amazingly. In summer, it is as light as possible, and many of the poorer and middling classes are accustomed to go half naked. In winter, all who have them, put on garment after garment, cotton, silks, woolen, and furs, or skins as they call them, until the identity of the person is almost lost. To-day the sun has come out in his strength, and what a putting off of clothes there has been! Great numbers of them are deposited with the pawnbrokers. The winter and the first half of spring in Shanghii is a dreary season. In a northern latitude, where the whole face of nature is mantled for weeks or months in drifting snows, there is something beautiful; and in more southern climes, perennial flowers yield perpetual charms. It is otherwise here. The most gloomy sights-and they are not few in and around Shanghái-are the grave-yards: no, not grave-yards nor burying-places. Were they so, they would be more tolerable. About the remains of the dead, there is something sacred, solemn, and not always unpleasant. The church-yard, where the remains of departed worth have been decently deposited, may be often visited with pleasure, and made the occasion of benefiting the living. It is not so in heathen China. Multitudes of the dead are not interred. Instead of the burial-ground, you see the garden or the field covered with naked coffins, some new, and some half decayed. To my own feelings, this is horribly revolting. Such scenes I do not love to visit; they can be tolerated only by a pagan people. Tuesday, April 25th. The ten Shantung sailors are gone, report says to Suchou, but for what purpose I have not been able to ascertain. While they were exposed in front of the cnstom-house, I saw them four or five times; and never before in China have I seen prisoners so tenderly treated and so well provided for. Spring comes on apace, and though the weather, during a northerly wind is so cold as to render a fire very comfortable in the evenings, yet vegetation is coming forward with amazing rapidity. The wheat, of which there are many fields about the city, is already fully headed out, or perhaps I should say, "is in the full ear." Many of the fields are very luxuriant. Since this month came in, the rains have been abundant, the wind changing from north to south almost daily. A strong north wind sets in, say at 2 o'clock A. M.; at sunrise it will slacken, and veer to the north-east; and then round the points of compass, so that often before sunset it will blow fresh from the south. This soon brings rain; after a few hours it shifts, and comes again from the north. Friday, April 23th. Deformed and diseased Chinese are not a few in Shanghái. Several cases of tuinors on the head or neck have been met with; one instance I have seen repeatedly. The tumor, commencing on the right side of the head close to the ear, has grown to an enormous size, twice as large as the man's head. He always appears pensive, and must erelong, I should suppose, be rendered wholly incapacitated for business. Fallen houses have frequently attracted my attention, and I have today seen some in ruins. In some instances, the death of the inmates has been caused by the falling of a house. So poorly are the dwellings of the middling and lower classes constructed, partly of wood and partly of brick, that scores of them are in a leaning position. Houses of this description must frequently be rebuilt. Saturday, April 29th. Spring has brought along with it, besides abundance of flowers, some beautiful birds. The cuckoo and other sweet warblers may be heard. The twittering swallows, numerous as they are, find ample room for nestling under the broad eaves of the houses and temples, and for the mud to build withal they have not far to go. There is another bird, not uncommon in the city of Shanghái. What it can possibly get to feed upon, where everything fit for carrion eaters is devoured by hungry dogs and starving beggars, it is hard to say. Though horrible, it may yet be true, for there are horribly revolting things in this world, that this foul bird feeds on the remains of poor outcasts! On a single tree within the city, close by the wall between the two eastern gates, I counted to-day more than a dozen nests of this creature-the black crow! : Contrast is the spice of life and what should I see next? Half a dozen young rabbits, white as snow, in a neat cage, feeding on green clover. Charming little creatures," said my friend; and so indeed they were. ART. VII. Illustrations of Scripture drawn from the customs of the Chinese.-See also Vol. VIII, page 639. JOB XXI. 33. The clods of the valley shall be sweet unto him, and every man shall draw after him, as there are innumerable before him.— Harmer understands Job in this verse as referring to the manuer of ornamenting sepulchres, rather than to the wonted places of interment; the custom of planting flowers and odoriferous herbs or shrubs on or about the graves being common, and the idea of the text being, "Clods, like those of a valley or torrent, verdant and flowery, shall surround him, and be pleasing to him." The margin renders the preceding verse more exactly, "He shall watch in the heap of earth or stones, that cover him," the liveliness of the poet here representing the, dead as having the same perceptions as if alive. If these two verses exhibit the customs of the ancient Syrians in choosing the locality of their sepulchres, they depict those of the Chi nese in a very happy manner. The careful anxiety taken by this people to secure a fortunate spot for their family tombs is well known, leading them to expend large sums in hiring necromancers to fix upon the most propitious spots, and in adorning them with masonry, sculpture, and flowers. Mr. Fortune observes, "that a situation on a hill-side is also considered of great importance, especially if it commands a view of a beautiful bay or lake. The place most coveted is where a winding stream, in its course passes and then returns again to the foot of the hill where the grave is to be made. The necromancer settles the important point as to the direction in which the body is to be, sometimes becoming very eloquent in his descriptions of the future happiness of those who obey his directions; he informs them that they or their children shall enjoy riches and honors in after life as a reward for the attention and respect they have paid the remains of their fathers; that as the stream which they then behold when standing around their father's grave flows and returns again in its windings, so shall their path through life be smooth and pleasant until they sink into the tomb hoary with years, respected, beloved, and mourned by their children." He further observes, after describing different forms and positions of graves, "That the flowers planted on them are simple and beautiful; no expensive camellias, mowtans, or other fine ornaments of the garden are chosen for this purpose. Sometimes the conical mound of earth, when the grave is of this kind, is crowned with a large, tall waving grass; at Ningpo, wild roses are planted, which soon VOL. XVII. NO. X. 69 spread themselves over the grave, and in spring cover it with a sheet of pure white blossoms. At Shanghái, a bulbous plant, a pretty species of Lycoris, covers the graves in autumn with masses of brillant purple. The Anemone Japonica was in full flower about the graves near the walls of Shanghái when I first saw it, blooming in November, after other flowers had gone, and forming a most appropriate ornament to the resting-places of the dead." PSALM XC, 2. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting thou art God-The sublime descriptions and inetaphors used in the Scriptures to represent the "high and lofty One who inhabiteth the praises of eternity," never can be equaled, or indeed apprehended, by man; but the Budhists have endeavored to convey some idea of infinite periods of time. They suppose a grand kalpa in which is accomplished a complete revolution of the universe, and as soon as it ends, a second begins, and then a third, and so on. In order to illustrate the duration of a grand kalpa, they say, “that if all the plants and trees of a grand chiliocosm were cut up in pieces an inch long, of which one was taken away every century, the kalpa would end when these fragments were expended. If all the sand of the Ganges for a hundred i was fine as flour, and only one grain of it was abstracted in an age, it would require a grand kalpa to carry away the whole. Or suppose a wall inclosing a square of a hundred li, within which was a heap of mustard seed, the duration of a kalpa would be accomplished by taking away a single seed each century. Let all that is contained in a grand chiliocosin be reduced to dust, and one grain be taken away each age, the period necessary to collect the whole is equal to the duration of a kalpa. Finally, let us suppose a rock two yodjanas long and half a yodjana thick, and let the gods of Toushitâ, clothed in light garments, equal to the weight of eighty grains of millet, come once a century and wipe their robes against this rock, the kalpa will be completed when by this light friction the whole of it has been entirely destroyed." Such comparisons carry our thoughts to their utmost stretch, but still do not convey the impression that the idea of eternity was in the minds of the pag in philosophers of Budhism. * ISAIAH XXVI, 15. We have made a covenant with death, The overflowing calamity when it passeth through shall not reach us, And under deceit we have hid ourselves.—Barnes' Truns. Mélanges Posthumes de M. Abel Remusat, p. 113. |