crous, that the spectator is at a loss to know whether to laugh or to weep. The courtier, who had taken off the heir and broken the father's heart, finds the new king an easy tool for prosecuting his traitorous purposes, and the state is plunged into the depths of civil discord at home and dangerous wars abroad.

"In the sequel a scene occurred, in which the reconciliation of this court and some foreign prince depends upon the surrender of a certain obnoxious person. The son-in-law of the victim is charged with the letter containing this proposal, and returns to his house and disguises himself for the sake of concealment. When he reaches the court of the foreign prince, he discovers that he has dropped the letter in changing his clothes, and narrowly escapes being taken for a spy without his credentials. He hurries back, calls for his garments, and shakes them one by one in an agony of self-reproach, but no letter appears. He sits down, throwing himself with great violence upon the chair, with a countenance inexpressibly full of torture and despair: reality could have added nothing to the imitation. But while every eye was riveted upon him, he called the servant-maid, and inquired if she knew anything about the letter; she replied she overheard her mistress reading a letter whose contents were so and so. The mistress had taken her seat at a distance from him, and was nursing her baby; and the instant he ascertained the letter was in her possession, he looked towards her with such a smile upon his cheek, and with a flood of light in his eye, that the whole assembly heaved a loud sigh of admiration, for the Chinese do not applaud by clapping and stamping, but express their feelings by an ejaculation that is between a sigh and a groan. The aim of the husband was to wheedle his wife out of the letter, and this smile and look of affection were merely the prelude; for he takes his chair, places it beside her, lays one hand softly on her shoulder, and fondles the child with the other in a style so exquisitely natural, and so completely English, that in this dramatic picture it was seen that nature fashioneth men's hearts alike. His addresses were, however, ineffectual, and her father's life was not sacrificed."

The morals of the Chinese stage, so far as the sentiments of the pieces are concerned, are better than the acting, which sometimes panders to depraved tastes, but no indecent exposure, as of

* Chinese as They Are, page 114.

PREVALENCE AND MODES OF GAMBLING.

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the persons of dancers, is ever seen in China. The audience stand in the area fronting the stage, or sit in the sheds around it, and the women present are usually seated in the galleries. The police are at hand to maintain order, but the crowd, although in an irksome position, and sometimes exposed to a fierce sun, is remarkably peaceable. Accidents seldom occur on these occasions, but whenever the people are alarmed, or the stage takes fire, loss of life or limb generally ensues. A dreadful destruction of life took place at Canton in May, 1845, by the conflagration of a stage during the performances, by which more than 2000 persons lost their lives; and the survivors remembered that fifty persons were killed many years before in the same place and occasion by the falling of a wall.*

Active, manly plays are not popular in the south, and instead of engaging in a cricket-match or regatta, going to a bowling alley or fives' court, to exhibit their strength and skill, they lift beams headed with heavy stones to prove their brawn, or kick up their heels in a game of shuttlecock. The outdoor amusements of gentlemen consist in flying kites, carrying birds on perches, sauntering hand in hand through the fields, or lazily boating on the water, while pitching coppers, fighting crickets or quails, kicking a shuttlecock, snapping sticks, chucking stones, or guessing the number of seeds in an orange, are plays for lads.

Gambling is universal. Hucksters at the roadside are provided with a cup and saucer, and the clicking of their dice is heard at every corner. A boy with two cash prefers to risk their loss on the throw of a die, to simply buying a cake without trying the chance of getting it for nothing. Gaming-houses are opened by scores, their keepers paying a bribe to the local officers, who can hardly be expected to be very severe against what they were brought up in and daily practise; and women in the privacy of their apartments while away their time at cards and dominoes. Porters play by the wayside while waiting for employment, and hardly have the retinue of an officer seen their superiors enter the house, than they pull out their cards or dice, and squat down to a game. The most common game played at Canton is called fan tan or quadrating cash, and so simple as to be almost childish. The keeper of the table is provided with a pile of bright coin, of which he takes a double handful, and lays them on the * Chinese Repository, Vol. XIV., page 335.

table, covering them with a bowl. The persons standing outside the rail guess the remainder there will be left after the pile has been divided by four, whether 1, 2, 3, or nothing, the guess and stake of each person being first recorded by a clerk; the keeper then carefully picks out the coins four by four, all narrowly watching his movements. Cheating is almost impossible in this game, and twenty people can play at it as easily as two. Their cards are smaller and more numerous than our own; but the dominoes are the same.

Combats between crickets are contested with great spirit, and tubfuls of them are caught in the autumn, and sold in the streets to supply gamesters. Two well chosen combatants are put into a basin, and irritated with a straw, until they rush upon each other with the utmost fury, chirruping as they make the onset, and the battle seldom ends without a tragical result in loss of life or limb. Quails are also trained to mortal combat; two are placed on a railed table, on which a handful of millet has been strown, and as soon as one picks up a kernel, the other flies at him with beak, claws, and wings, and the struggle is kept up till one retreats by hopping into the hand of his disapHundreds of dollars are occasionally betted

pointed owner.

CRICKET AND QUAIL FIGHTS, CHESS, ETC.

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upon these cricket or quail fights, which, if not as sublime, are perhaps less inhuman than the pugilistic fights and bull-baits of Christian countries, while both show the same brutal love of sport at the expense of life. The flying of paper kites is a favorite amusement of men as well as children; they are made in imitation of birds, butterflies, lizards, and other living creatures, and flown in a manner that is unequalled; contrivances are sometimes attached to make a whistling sound in the air.

Chess and draughts are unlike the same games in Europe. In chess each player has sixteen pieces arranged on the intersections of the lines; the board contains 72 squares, divided from each other by a line representing a river, on the banks of which the battle is supposed to be fought. There are five pawns stationed in the van, two artillery-men in their rear, and the king, with his suite of two aids, two elephants, two horsemen, and two charioteers, stands in the top row. The king and his two aids cannot go out of the foursquare inclosure in which they stand, but the other men can cross the river; the horsemen, and cha rioteers correspond to our knights and castles, but the aids, artillery-men, and elephants, have different powers from any pieces in European chess. Draughts are not often played; the number of men is 360, half of them white and half black, intended to represent the number of days in a year; it partly resembles our game of fox and geese.

If this sketch of the customs and amusements of the Chinese in their social intercourse and public entertainments is necessarily brief, it is perhaps enough to exhibit their character. Dr. Johnson has well remarked, that no man is a hypocrite in his amusements. The absence of some of the violent and gladiatorial sports of other countries, and of the adjudication of doubtful questions by ordeals or duels; the general dislike of a resort to force, their inability to cope with enemies of vastly less resources and number, and the comparative disesteem of warlike achievements, all indicate the peaceful traits of Chinese character. Duels are unknown, assassinations are infrequent, betting on horseraces is still to begin, and running a muck à la Malay is unheard of; and when two persons fall out upon a matter, after a vast variety of gesture and huge vociferation of opprobrium, they will blow off their wrath, and separate almost without touching each other. Some contrarieties in their ideas

and customs from those practised among ourselves, have fre quently been noticed by travellers, a few of which are grouped in the following sketch :—

"On inquiring of the boatman in which direction Macao lay, I was answered west-north; and the wind, he said, was east-south. We do not say so in Europe,' thought I, but imagine my surprise when in explaining the utility of the compass, he added that the needle pointed south. On landing, the first object that attracted my attention was a military officer, who wore an embroidered petticoat, with a string of beads around his neck, and a fan in his hand. His insignia of rank was a peacock feather pointing downwards instead of a plume turning upwards, and a button on the apex of his sugar-loaf cap instead of a star on his breast, or epaulettes on his shoulders; and it was with some dismay I observed him mount on the right side of his horse. Several scabbards hung from his belt, which, of course, I thought must contain dress-swords or dirks, but on venturing near through the crowd, I was surprised to see a pair of chopsticks and a knife-handle sticking out of one, and soon his fan was folded up and put into the other, whereupon I concluded he was going to a dinner instead of a review. The natives around me had all shaved their hair on the front of their heads, and let it grow long behind; many of them did not shave their faces, but their mustaches grew over their mouths, and lest some straggling hairs should diverge cheek-ways, the owners were busily employed pulling them down. We arrange our toilets differently,' thought I, but I acknowledged the happy device of chopsticks, which enabled these gentlemen to put their food into the mouth endwise underneath this natural fringe.

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On my way to the hotel, I saw a group of old people, some of whom were greybeards; a few were chirruping and chuckling to singingbirds, which they carried perched on a stick or in cages, others were catching flies to feed them, and the remainder of the party seemed to be delightfully employed in flying fantastic paper kites; while a group of boys were gravely looking on and regarding these innocent occupations of their seniors with the most serious and gratified attention.

"As I had come to the country to reside for some time, I made inquiries respecting a teacher, and happily found one who understood English. On entering, he stood at the door, and instead of coming forward and shaking my hands, he politely bowed and shook his own, clasping them before him : I looked upon this mode as a decided improvement, especially in doubtful cases, and requested him to be seated. I knew I was to study a language without an alphabet, but was somewhat astonished to see him begin at what I considered to be the end of the book. He read the date of publication, the fifth year, tenth month,