for exportation and domestic use. The tree itself is large, and furnishes excellent planks, beams, and boards, for building vessels and making trunks and other articles. The gum is procured from the branches, leaves, and chips, by first soaking them in water until the liquid becomes saturated with it; when it is turned out into an earthen basin to coagulate. It is then placed in an iron vessel in alternate layers with fine earth, and over which, when filled, another basin is luted, after placing some mint upon the top to hinder the clayey particles from ascending; on applying a slow heat, the camphor sublimes into the upper vessel. It comes to market in a crude state, and is usually refined again after reaching Europe. The preparation of the gum and sawing of the timber, and the construction of trunks, articles of furniture, and vessels in whole or in part, occupies great numbers of carpenters, shipwrights, and boat-builders.

Many of the common manipulations of Chinese workmen afford good examples of their ingenious modes of attaining the same end which is elsewhere reached by other machinery. For instance, the baker places his fire on a large iron plate worked by a crane, and swings it over a shallow pan embedded in masonry, in which the cakes and pastry are laid, and soon baked. The price of fuel compels its economical use wherever it is employed, of which the mode of burning shells to lime af fords a good example. A low wall is built around a space ten or twelve feet across, in the middle of which is a hole communicating underneath the wall by a passage with an opening, where the fire is urged by means of a fan turned by the feet. The wood is loosely laid over the bottom of the area, and the fire kindled at the orifice in the centre, and fanned into a blaze as the shells are rapidly thrown in until the wall is filled up; in twelve hours the shells are calcined. Towards evening, the villagers collect around the burning pile, bringing their kettles of rice or vegetables to cook in the burning pile, thereby saving themselves the expense of fuel. The good humor manifested by these groups of old and young is a pleasing instance of the sociability and equality witnessed among the lower classes of Chinese. The lime is taken out next morning, and after sifting is ready for the mason.

Handicraftsmen of every name are content with coarse-looking tools, compared with those turned out at Sheffield, but the

ECONOMY OF CHINESE CRAFTSMEN.

139

work some of them produce is far from contemptible. The bench of a carpenter is a low, narrow, inclined form, like a drawingknife frame, upon which he sits to plane, groove, and work his boards, using his feet and toes to steady them. His augurs, bits, and gimlets, are worked with a bow, but most of the edge-tools employed by him and the blacksmith, though similar in shape, are less convenient than our own. They are sharpened with hones or grindstones, and also with a cold steel tool resembling a spoke-shave, with which the edge is scraped thin. The economy of Chinese workmen has often been noticed by voyagers, and among them all the travelling blacksmith takes the palm for his

66

Travelling Blacksmith and his Shop.

compendious establishment. "I saw a blacksmith," writes one observer, a few days since mending a pan, the arrangement of whose tools was singularly compact. His fire was held in an iron basin, not unlike a coal-scuttle in shape, in the back corner of which the mouthpiece of the bellows entered. The anvil was a small square mass of iron not very unlike our own, placed on a block, and a partition basket close by held the charcoal and tools, with the old iron and other rubbish he carried. The water to temper his iron was in an earthen pot, which just at this time was most usefully employed in boiling his dinner over the forge fire. After he had done the job, he took off his dinner, threw the water on the fire, picked out the coals and put them

back into the basket, threw away the ashes, set the anvil astride of the bellows, and laying the fire-pan on the basket, slung the bellows on one end of his pole, and the basket on the other, and walked off." The mode of mending holes in cast-iron pans here noticed is a peculiar operation. The smith first files the lips of the hole clean, and after heating the dish firmly places it on a tile covered with wet felt. He then pours the liquid iron, fused in a crucible by the assistance of a flux, upon the hole, and immediately patters it down with a dossil of felt, until it covers the edges of the pan above and below, and is then, while cooling, hammered until firmly fixed in its place. The great number of craftsmen who ply their vocation in the streets has already been mentioned, each of whom has a peculiar call. The barber twangs a sort of long tuning-fork, the peddler twirls a hand-drum with clappers strung on each side, the refuse-buyer strikes a little gong, the fruiterer claps two bamboo sticks, and the fortuneteller tinkles a gong-bell; these, with the vociferous cries of beggars, hucksters, &c., fill the streets with a concert of strange and discordant sounds.

The delicate carving of Chinese workmen is well known, and has often been described; many specimens of it are annually sent abroad. Few products of their skill are more remarkable than the balls, containing ten or twelve spheres cut out one within another. The manner of cutting them is simple. A piece of ivory or wood is first made perfectly globular, and then several conical holes are bored into it in such a manner that their apices all meet at the centre, which is usually hollowed out an inch or less after the holes are bored. A long crooked tool is then inserted in one of the conical holes, so bent at the end and stoppered on the shaft that it cuts into the ivory at the same distance from the surface when its edge is applied to the insides of the cone. By successively cutting a little on the insides of each conical hole, their incisures meet, and a sphericle is at last detached, which is now turned over and its faces one after another brought opposite the largest hole, and firmly secured by wedges in the other holes, while its surfaces are smoothed and carved. When the central sphere is done, a similar knife somewhat larger is again introduced into the holes, and another sphere detached

* Chinese Repository, Vol. X., page 473.

CARVING OF SPHERICAL BALLS AND FANCY ARTICLES. 141

and smoothed in the same way, and then another, until the whole are completed, each being polished and carved before the next outer one is commenced. It has been supposed by some that these curious toys were made of semispheres nicely luted together, and they have been boiled in oil for hours in order to separate them and solve the mystery of their construction.

Fans and card-cases are carved of wood, ivory, and motherof-pearl in alto-relievo, with an elaborateness which shows the great skill and patience of the workman, and at the same time his bad taste in drawing, the figures, houses, trees, and other objects being grouped in violation of all propriety and perspective.

Beautiful ornaments are made by carving roots of plants, branches, gnarled knots, &c., into fantastic groups of birds or animals, the artist taking advantage of the natural form of his material in the arrangement of his figures. Models of pagodas, boats, and houses are also entirely constructed of ivory, even to representing the ornamental roofs, the men working at the oar, and women looking from the balconies. Baskets of elegant shape are woven from ivory splinths; and the shopmen at Canton exhibit a variety of seals, paper-knives, chessmen, counters, combs, &c., exceeding in finish and delicacy the same kind of work found anywhere else in the world. The most elaborate coat of arms, or complicated cypher, will also be imitated by these skilful carvers. The national taste prefers this style of carving on plane surfaces; it is seen on the walls of houses and granite slabs of fences, the woodwork of boats and shops, and on articles of furniture. Some of it is pretty, but the disproportion and cramped position of the figures detracts from its beauty.

The manufacture of mats for sails of junks and boats, floors, bedding, &c., employs thousands. A sail containing nearly 400 square feet can be obtained for ten dollars. The rolls are largely exported, and still more extensively used in the country for covering packages for shipment. A stouter kind made of bamboo splinths serves as a material for huts, and many other purposes that are elsewhere attained by boards or canvas. Rattans are also worked into mats, chairs, baskets, and other articles of domestic service. Several branches of manufacture have entirely grown up, or been much encouraged by the trade at Canton, among which the preparation of vermilion, beating gold leaf, cutting pearl buttons, weaving and painting fancy window blinds, and the preparation of sweetmeats, are the principal.

It has often been said that the Chinese are so averse to change and improvement, that they obstinately adhere to their own modes at all events, but such is not the case, though they are slow to change. Three new manufactures have been introduced during the present century, viz. that of glass, bronze-work, and Prussian blue. A Chinese sailor introduced the manufacture of the latter, which he had learned thoroughly in London, from which the people now supply themselves. Bronze-work has lately been introduced, and watches and clocks are both extensively manufactured, with the exception of the springs. Fireengines are made at Canton, and sent into the interior. Ships have been built on the European model in a few instances, but there is little encouragement for naval architecture, since native merchants can buy or freight foreign ships at a much cheaper rate than they can build them. Brass cannon were made during the war with England in imitation of pieces taken from a wreck, and the frames of one or two vessels to be worked with wheels by men at a crank, in imitation of steamers, were found on the stocks at Ningpo when the English took the place. The Chinese are not unwilling to adopt foreign improvements when they can see their way clear for a remuneration, but they have not the means, the science, or the inclination to risk many doubtful speculations or experiments. Moreover, it should be observed, that few have taken the trouble to explain or show them the improvements they are supposed to be so disinclined to adopt. Ploughs have been given the farmers near Shanghai, but they would not use them, which, however, may have been as much