fact, they are not so easily caught as to be either common or cheap. He once asked a native if he or his countrymen ever served up lau-shu tang, or rat-soup, on their tables; who replied that he had never seen or eaten it, and added, "Those who do use it should mix cheese with it, that the mess might serve for us both." Rats and mice are no doubt eaten now and then, and so are many other undesirable things by those whom want compels to take what they can get, but to put these and other strange eatables in the front of the list, gives a distorted idea of the every day food of the people.

Frogs are eaten by all classes. They are caught in a curious manner by tying a young and tender jumper, just emerged from tadpole life, by the waist to a fish-line, and bobbing him up and down in the grass and grain of a rice field, where the old croakers are wont to harbor. As soon as one sees the young frog, sprawling and squirming in the grass, he makes a plunge at him and swallows him whole, whereupon he is immediately conveyed to the frog-fisher's basket, losing his life, liberty, and lunch together, for the bait is rescued from his maw, and used again as long as life lasts.

Next to pork, poultry is the most common meat, including chickens, geese, and ducks; of these three, the geese are the best flavored, the flesh of the fowls and ducks being stringy and tasteless. All are reared cheaply, and supply a large portion of the poor with the principal meat they eat. The eggs of chickens and ducks are hatched artificially, and every visitor to Canton remembers the duck-boats, in which those birds are hatched and reared, and carried up and down the river seeking for pasture along its muddy banks. Hatching ducks and poultry is practised in all parts of the country. Sheds are erected for the purpose, in which are a number of baskets well plastered with mud, each one so placed over a fireplace that the heat shall be equally conveyed to the eggs through the tile in its bottom, and retained in it by a close cover. When the eggs are brought, a layer is put into the bottom of each basket, and the fire kindled underneath, a uniform heat of about 100° F. being maintained for four or five days. They are then carefully taken out, and looked through in a strong light to separate the addled ones; the others are replaced in the baskets, and the heat kept up for ten days longer, when they are all placed upon shelves in the centre of the shed, and

MODE OF HATCHING DUCKS' EGGS.

49

covered with cotton and felt for fourteen days. At the end of the 28th day, the ducklings break their shells, and are sold to persons whose business is to rear them. Pigeons are raised to some extent; their eggs form an ingredient in soups. Wild and water fowl are caught in nets or killed by iron shot; the wild duck, teal, grebe, wild goose, plover, snipe, heron, egret, partridge, pheasant, and ortolan or rice bird, are all procurable at Canton; and the list could doubtless be increased elsewhere.

If the Chinese eat many sorts of birds and beasts rejected by others, they are still more omnivorous with respect to aquatic productions; here nothing comes amiss; all waters are vexed with their fisheries. Their nets and various contrivances for capturing fish display great ingenuity, and most of them are admirably adapted to the purpose. Rivers, creeks, and stagnant pools, the great ocean and the little tank, mountain lakes and garden ponds, all furnish their quota to the sustenance of man, and tend to explain, in a great degree, the dense population. The right to fish in running streams and natural waters is open to all, while artificial reservoirs, as ponds, pools, tanks, tubs, &c., are brought into available use; even rice grounds are turned into fishponds in winter, if they will thereby afford a more profitable return. The inhabitants of the water are killed with the spear, caught with the hook, scraped up by the dredge, ensnared by traps, and captured by nets; they are decoyed into boats by painted boards, and frightened into nets by noisy ones, taken out of the water by lifting nets, and dived for into it by birds; in short, every possible way of catching or rearing fish is practised among the Chinese. Tanks, with water running through them, are placed in the streets, where carp or salmon are reared until they become so large they can hardly turn round in their pens; and eels and water snakes o every color and size are fed in tubs and jars until customers carry them off.

King crabs, cuttle fish, sharks, rays, gobies, tortoises, turtles, crabs, prawns, crawfish, and shrimps, are all consumed. The best fish in the Canton market are the garoupa or rock cod, pomfret, sole, mackerel, bynni carp or mango fish, and the polynemus (commonly called salmon). Carp and tench of many kinds, herring, shad, perch, mullet, and bream, with others less usual at the west, are found in great abundance. They are usually eaten fresh, or merely opened and dried in the sun, as stockfish;

VOL. II.

4

for salt fish require too much salt, and are too expensive for the poorest. Both salt and freshwater shell-fish are abundant. The oysters are not so large and well flavored as those reared in this country; the crabs and prawns are excellent, but the clams, mussels, and other freshwater species are less palatable. Insect food is confined to locusts and grasshoppers, ground grubs and silkworms; the latter are fried to a crisp when cooked. These and the water snakes are decidedly the most repulsive things the Chinese eat.

Many articles of food are sought after by this sensual people for their supposed aphrodisiac qualities, and most of the singular productions brought from abroad for food are of this nature. The famous birdsnest soup is prepared from the nest of a swallow (Hirundo esculenta) found in caves and damp places in some islands of the Indian Archipelago; the bird macerates the material of her nest from seaweed and other marine substances with her bill, and constructs it by drawing the food out in fibres and attaching them to the rock, from whence the natives of those islands collect them. The nests are carefully cleaned and stewed with pigeons' eggs, spicery, and other ingredients into a soup; when cooked, they resemble isinglass, and the dish depends upon sauces and seasoning for most of its taste. The biche-de-mer, tripang, or sea-slug, is a marine substance procured from the Polynesian islands; it is sought after under the same idea of its invigorating qualities, and being cheaper than the birdsnest is a more common dish; when cooked, it resembles pork-rind in appearance and taste. Sharks' fins and fishmaws are imported and boiled into gelatinous soups that are nourishing and palatable; and the sinews, tongues, palates, udders, and other parts of different animals are sought after as delicacies. A large proportion of the numerous made dishes seen at great feasts among the Chinese consists of such odd articles, most of which are supposed to possess some peculiar strengthening quality.

The art of cooking has not reached any high degree of perfection among the Chinese, consisting chiefly of stews of various kinds, in which garlic and grease are more abundant than pepper and salt. Meats and vegetables are cooked by boiling and frying; but roast or baked dishes are not common, owing partly to the greater amount of fuel required, and the idea that they

UTENSILS AND MODES OF COOKING.

51

are more heating than moist dishes. The articles of kitchen furniture in a dwelling are few and simple; an iron boiler, shaped like the segment of a sphere, for stewing or frying, a portable earthen furnace, and two or three different shaped earthenware pots for boiling water or vegetables, constitute the whole establishment of thousands of families. A few other utensils, as tongs, ladles, forks, sieves, mills, &c., are used to a greater or less extent; though the variety is quite commensurate with the simple cookery. Both meats and vegetables, previously hashed into mouthfuls, are stewed or fried in oil or fat; they are not cooked in large joints or steaks for the table of a household, but hogs are baked whole for sacrifices and for sale in the cookshops, and when eaten are hashed and fried again. Cutting the food into small pieces secures its thorough cooking with less fuel than it would otherwise require, and is moreover indispensable for eating it with chopsticks. Two or three vegetables are often boiled tether; meat soups are seldom seen, and the immense variety of puddings, pastry, cakes, pies, custards, ragouts, creams, &c., made in western lands is almost unknown in China.

CHAPTER XIV.

Social Life among the Chinese.

THE preceding chapter, in a measure, exhibits the attainments the Chinese have reached in the comforts and elegances of liv ing. The terms comfort and elegance are, however, as tests of civilization so comparative, that it is rather difficult to define them; for the notions an Englishman, an Egyptian, and a Chinese, severally have of them in the furniture and arrangement of their houses, are almost as unlike as their languages. If Fisher's Views of China be taken as a guide, one can ea ly believe that the Chinese need little from abroad to better their condition in these particulars; while, if he listen to the descriptions of some persons who have resided among them, he will think they pos sess neither comfort in their houses, civility in their manners, nor cleanliness in their persons. In passing to an account of their social life, this variety of tastes should not be overlooked; and if some points appear objectionable when taken alone, a little further examination will perhaps show that they form part of a system which requires complete reconstruction before they could be happily and safely altered.

The observations of a foreigner upon Chinese society are likely to be modified not a little by his own feelings, and the way in which he has been treated by them; and their behavior to him might be very unlike what would be deemed good breeding among themselves. If a Chinese feared or expected something from a foreigner, he might act towards him more politely than if the contrary was the case; on one hand better, on the other, worse, than he would towards one of his own countrymen in like circumstances. In doing so, it may be remarked, by the way, that he would only imitate the conduct of some of the foreigners who visit China, and whose coarse remarks, rude actions, and general supercilious conduct towards the natives, ill comport with their superior civilization and advantages. One