METALLIC AND ANIMAL ARTICLES EXPORTED.

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cured from the Maranta galanga. This is of a reddish color, about two inches long, of a firm texture though light, and possesses an acrid, peppery taste, and a slight aromatic smell. The larger is from a different plant (Kampferia galanga), and inferior in every respect. Both are used as spicery, and to some degree in Europe as well as India. China root is exported solely for medicine; the roots are jointed and knobbed; when cut, the surface is smooth and close-grained, and of a reddish color.

Chinaware, or porcelain, once so extensively exported, is now almost confined to the commonest descriptions of stone-ware, by far the greatest portion of which goes to India. The patterns made by the Chinese seldom change, while the foreign manufacturers can both consult and lead the taste and fancy of their customers, and it is owing to this, in some degree, that the demand for the Chinese fine ware has ceased, though the Mongols, Siamese, Hindus, and islanders in the Archipelago are still chiefly supplied from China. Copper-ware and tutenague utensils, with coral and glass beads, all form a small portion of the trade to India; the Chinese seldom use glass beads as ornaments. False pearls are sent to the same regions for ornaments, as well as employed by the Chinese. Glue of a tolerably good quality, made from ox-hides by themselves, supplies the Chinese, and furnishes an article for export to India. Isinglass, or fish-glue, is made from the sounds and noses of some sorts of fish, as the bynni carp, or Polynemus; it is much used in cookery, and the manufacture of false pearls.

A kind of umbrella, or parasol, made of oiled paper, or cheap oiled silk, called kittysol, is largely exported to India; the article is durable, considering its material, and its cheapness induces a large consumption. Tobacco is sent to the Indian islands in considerable quantity, but entirely for use among the natives. Ware made from ivory, tortoise-shell, mother-o'-pearl, and gold and silver, constitutes altogether a considerable item in the trade, for the beautiful carving of the Chinese always commands a market. The workmen easily execute orders, and imitate new patterns for boxes, combs, and buttons of mother-o'-pearl or tortoise-shell, while the cheapness and beauty with which silver table furniture is made, cause a large demand. Lacquered-ware is not so much sent abroad now as formerly, the foreign imitations of the trays and tables having nearly superseded the demand for the

Chinese ware. Marble slabs and tiles for floors, are sent to India, Sydney, and elsewhere; they are about a foot square, and form a durable pavement for courts and basements, in a warm climate.

Mats made of rattan for table-furniture, and of grass for floors, are largely exported. The latter is manufactured of different widths and patterns, and though the amount annually sent to the United States and elsewhere is calculated to exceed half a million yards, it forms a very small proportion to the home consumption. Floor matting is put up in rolls containing fifty mats, or forty yards. Rattans are manufactured into chairs, baskets, and other articles, but their bulk interferes with their exportation. Musk, though still an article constantly in demand for its odor, is often and much adulterated, or its quality impaired by disease. It comes to Canton in the bags found on the animals, which are about as large as a walnut; when good, it is of a dark purplish color, dry and light, and generally in concrete, smooth, and unctuous grains; its taste is bitter and smell strong; when rubbed on paper, the trace is of a bright yellow color, and the feel free from grittiness. A brown unctuous earth is sometimes mixed with it, and the bags are frequently artificial; the price is about forty-five dollars a pound for the best quality.

Nankeens were formerly sent abroad in considerable quantities, but instead of exporting their own fabrics, the Chinese now purchase cottons from their former customers to a large amount. There are few fabrics more durable than the nankeen, and it forms the principal material for cheap garments among the people, and is more or less exported every year to England, Sydney, and South America. Silk goods go mostly to the United States, and raw silk to England. The supply is not equal to the demand, and only about ten thousand bales are now exported, while upwards of twenty thousand were sent off, mostly to England, in 1836, some of which rated as high as $500 a pecul. The refuse raw silk goes to India. The exportation to the United States for making silk thread is trifling. Silk goods are shipped to the United States, Mexico and South America, and elsewhere, to the annual value of about a million of dollars; they consist chiefly of pongees, handkerchiefs, crape-shawls, scarfs, sarsnet, senshaws, levantines and satins; ribbons, sewing-thread, and organzine, or thrown silk, are not much shipped. The silk trade is more likely to increase than any other branch of the commerce, after tea, and

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EXPORTS OF MUSK, COTTON, AND SILKEN GOODS. the Chinese can furnish almost any amount of raw and manufac tured silks according to the demand for them. The best Soy is made by boiling beans soft, adding an equal quantity of wheat or barley, and leaving the mass to ferment; a portion of salt, and three times as much water as beans, are afterwards put in, and the whole compound left for two or three months, when the liquid is pressed and strained. The flavor and ingredients of soy vary considerably, even among the people who make it, and much of that exported is supposed to be more or less adulterated. Sugar was formerly largely exported to India, especially the common brown sugar; that article is now in a measure undersold by the sugars of Manila and Siam, and only the ping fa sugar, and sugar candy are sent abroad. The customs of the Chinese and Hindus in their domestic and social habits are so unlike, and they produce so few things that each other require, that the trade between the two countries was probably never very great, considering the extent of their territories and amount of population.

Besides the articles abovementioned, there are many others which singly form very trifling items in the trade, but their total exportation annually amounts to many lacs of dollars. Among them, fire-crackers is one of the largest in amount, chiefly to the United States; in 1845, more than 65,000 boxes were shipped to that country, while some went to India and South America. Among other sundries which are sent abroad, vermilion, gold leaf, sea-shells, preserved insects, fans of paper and silk, ginger, sweetmeats and jellies, rhubarb, gamboge, camphor, grass-cloth, split rattans, fishing-lines, joss-sticks for lighting segars, spangles, window-blinds, vegetable tallow, and pictures, are the most deserving of mention. Some of them may perhaps become impor tant articles of commerce, and all of them, except vermilion, gamboge, and rattans, are the produce of the country, and can be furnished to any extent.

The imports into China make a much longer list than the exports, for almost everything that had, should, or might sell there, is from time to time offered in the market; and if the Chinese at Canton had had any inclination or curiosity to obtain the productions or manufactures of other lands, they have had no want of specimens. It will, of course, in describing the articles of import, only be necessary to mention those whose names are not of themselves a sufficient description. Opium, rice, raw cotton,

longcloths, domestics and sheetings among manufactured cottons, ginseng, tin, lead, iron in the form of bars, rods, and hoop, and woolen goods, constitute the great bulk of the import trade. The rice is brought from Java, Bali, Lombok, and Manila, and the government has shown the greatest desire to increase the importation, by allowing all ships laden with no other cargo, to enter the port free of all tonnage dues. So early as 1832, the governor of Canton reduced the duties upon all rice-laden ships about three thousand dollars, a privilege which was largely availed of to bring vessels into port, whose cargoes had been transhipped at Lintin for the purpose of taking in rice. The importation of rice during the year 1834 was upwards of fifty millions of pounds.

The importations from the Indian Archipelago comprise a large variety of articles, though their total amount and value are not very great. Agar-agar is one of the list of eatables from this region; it is a tenacious vegetable glue made from seaweed, and when boiled with sugar forms a sweetish jelly, somewhat resembling calf's-foot. Betel-nut forms a more important import; it is the fruit of the areca palm, and is called betel-nut because it is chewed with the leaf of the betel pepper as a masticatory. The nut is the only part brought to China, the leaf being raised along the whole southern coast; it resembles a nutmeg in shape, color, and internal structure, but is a little larger; the whole of the nut is chewed. The nuts are boiled or eaten raw, the former being cut into slices and boiled with a small quantity of cutch and then dried. Those brought to China are simply deprived of the husk and dried. When chewed, a slice of the nut is wrapped in the fresh leaf smeared with a mixture of gambier colored red with cinnabar, and the whole masticated to a pulp before spitting it out. The teeth become dark red from using it, but the Chinese are careful to remove this stain, which the Malays regard as beautiful. The taste of the fresh pepper leaf is herbaceous and aromatic with a little pungency, and those who chew it become so fond of it that it is seldom out of their mouths.

Biche-de-mer, i. e. slug of the sea, or tripang, is an important article of trade. It is a marine animal, resembling the common garden slug, but much larger, being sometimes over a foot long, and two or three inches through; the common size is a span in length and two inches in girth. It inhabits the reefs and shallow waters around the islands of the Pacific and Indian Archipelago,

IMPORTS OF ARTICLES OF FOOD.

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and is obtained by the natives by diving or spearing, and prepared by cleansing and smoking it. In the market, it appears hard and rigid externally, of a dirty brown color, and when soaked in water resembles pork-rind, and is like that in taste when stewed. It is cooked by itself, or mixed with other ingredients and dishes, and is extensively consumed from a belief that it possesses peculiar strengthening, aphrodisiac qualities. The Chinese distinguish nearly thirty sorts of hai sang, i. e. sea ginseng, or tripang, and it is not unlikely that several species of Holothurion are captured and sold for food under the name; in commerce, however, all sorts are known as white or black, the prices ranging from $1,50 up to $80 a pecul. Birdsnests, sharks' fins, and fishmaws are three articles of food brought to China from the Archipelago, but not in such quantities as tripang. The art or skill of man has no power to increase the supply of the first of these three, although its high price leads him to run desperate risks to get it, but the supply of the two latter nearly equals the demand. The taste of the Chinese for the gelatinous fins of the shark has one good effect in clearing the seas of that ferocious fish, and to a European palate the soup or stew made from them is not at all unpalatable. It is not known what fish supplies the maws brought to Canton, but the gelatinous nature of the dish suggests a species of Polynemus. The total annual importation of the four substances here mentioned into Canton, in foreign bottoms, is not far from 25,000 peculs of betel-nut, 500 peculs of biche-demer, 1,500 peculs of fishmaws, and between five and six of birds' nests; their combined value is estimated at about $200,000. Crawfurd, in his work on the Indian Archipelago, written about twenty-five years ago, estimated the amount of birdsnests alone produced in the islands, at 243,000 pounds, worth about $1,250,000, but the supply is not now so abundant. It is nearly impossible, however, to ascertain the total amount of these articles introduced into China, for so large a portion of the trade is in the hands of the natives, that any notion of their consumption derived from the insufficient data of foreign importations would be exceedingly inaccurate.

Ambergris is a substance secreted in the intestines of the spermaceti whale, and brought from the Archipelago in small quantities for medicinal purposes, the Chinese having the not uncommon idea that the value of a thing depends somewhat on its rarity