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

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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 together; 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 easily 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 possess 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

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who looked at the matter reasonably would not expect much true politeness among a people whose conceit and ignorance, selfishness and hauteur, were nearly equal; nor be surprised to find the intercourse between the extremes of society present a strange mixture of brutality and commiseration, formality and disdain. The separation of the sexes modifies and debases the amusements, even of the most moral, leads the men to spend their time in gambling, devote it to the pleasures of the table, or dawdle it away when the demands of business, study, or labor, do not arouse them. Political parties, which exert so powerful an influence upon the conduct of men in Christian countries, leading them to unite and communicate with each other for the purpose of watching or resisting the acts of government, do not exist; and where there is a general want of confidence, such institutions as insurance companies, banks, corporate bodies, and associations of any kind, in which persons unite their funds and efforts to accomplish an object, are not to be expected; they do not exist in China, nor did they in Rome or ancient Europe. Nor will any one expect to hear that literary societies, or voluntary philanthropic associations are common. These, as they are found in the west, are the products of Christianity alone, though a few charitable institutions are met with. The legal profession, as distinct from the possession of office, is not an occupation in which learned men can obtain an honorable livelihood; the priesthood is confined to monasteries and temples, and its members do not enter into society; while the practice of medicine is so frequently taken up by persons possessed of little experience and less knowledge, that the few intelligent practitioners are not enough to redeem the class. These three learned professions, which elsewhere do so much to elevate society and guide public opinion, being wanting, educated men have no stimulus to draw them out into independent action; and the competition for literary degrees and official rank, the eager pursuit of trade, or the dull routine of mechanical and agricultural labor, form the leading avocations. Unacquainted with the intellectual enjoyments found in books and the conversation of learned men, and having no taste for them, deprived of general and virtuous female society, and suspicious of all around him, the Chinese resorts to the dicebox, the opium pipe, or the brothel, for his pleasures,-though even there with a loss of character.

other vegetables are prepared in this way, and form articles of export as well as domestic consumption. Pickles of an inferior quality are abundant, of which the natives consume enormous quantities, especially cabbages and onions, but foreigners consider them detestable. The Chinese eat but few spices; pepper is used medicinally, and mustard as greens.

Oils and fats are in universal use for cooking; crude lard or pork fat, castor oil, and that expressed from two species of Camellia and the ground-nut, are all employed for domestic and culinary purposes. The Chinese use little from the dairy, as milk, butter, or cheese; the very small number of cattle raised in the country, and the consequent dearness of these articles, may have caused them to fall into disuse, for they are all common among the Manchus and Mongols. A Chinese table seems ill furnished to a foreigner, when he sees neither bread, butter, nor milk upon it, and if he express his disrelish of the oily dishes or alliaceous stews before him, the Chinese thinks that he distils a sufficient retort to his want of taste, when he answers, "You eat cheese, and sometimes when it can almost walk." Milk is used a little, and no one who has lived in Canton can forget the prolonged mournful cry ngau nai! of the men hawking it about the streets late at night. Women's milk is sold in the streets of Ningpo and elsewhere, for the sustenance of infants and superannuated people, the idea being prevalent that it is peculiarly nourishing to aged persons.

Sugar is granulated and crystallized, and the cane in small sticks is hawked about the streets warm for chewing, and coarse molasses syrup is peddled by the wayside, as an accompaniment to bean-curd. The tobacco is weaker than the American plant; it is smoked and not chewed, and but little is made into cigars; snuff is largely used. The betel-nut is a common masticatory, consisting of a slice of the areca-nut and the fresh leaf of the betel-pepper with a little lime rubbed on it. The common beverages of the Chinese are tea and whiskey, both of which are drunk warm; cold water is not often drunk, as cold liquids of any kind are considered unwholesome. The constant practice of boiling water before drinking it, in preparing tea, doubtless tends to purify it, and make it less noxious, when the people are not particular as to its sources. Coffee, chocolate, and cocoa are unknown; and also beer, cider, porter, wine, and brandy.