No. 214 - THE PENNY MAGAZINE - Aug. 1, 1835
THERE is perhaps no remote country, unconnected with us by the ties of subjection or alliance, concerning which so much curiosity has been felt as concerning China. This results from a combination of such various circumstances as can be applicable to no other country; and which therefore renders our interest about China quite a peculiar feeling. China stands alone among the nations; and this is not so much a consequence of that restrictive policy by which the government so sedulously checks the intercourse with strangers, as a result of the character, habits, and institutions, by which the Chinese are more palpably distinguished from all other nations claiming to be civilized, than any two of the least approximating of these nations are distinguished from each other.
This is alone sufficient to awaken our interest and curiosity concerning so singular and remote a nation. But there is much more than this to draw our attention towards it. The remote antiquity which it claims, and which seems to render it the oldest of existing nations, makes us anxious to investigate the details of that condition to which it has been brought by a civilization which dates from more ancient times, and has been less interrupted than any other. The knowledge that the energy of comparatively recent impulses has carried us much beyond this old nation in the ways of civilization, mingles something of self-complacency with the interest with which we regard a people who seem almost exempt from the influence of those circumstances which work change in all things, and who do not a present appear to differ much from what they were at the time when our own forefathers were naked savages roaming in the wilderness, and contending for their food with the wolves and the hyaenas. Our curiosity concerning the Chinese has been all the more stimulated by the anxiety with which they have laboured to exclude strangers from their country, and the consequent difficulty of acquiring that knowledge concerning them which it seemed desirable to obtain. Our own country, in the common and daily use of tea, has adopted in the most decided manner one of the most prominent habits of the Chinese, for the gratification of which it still depends upon China, and maintains with it an extensive commercial intercourse. It is our impression that most of our readers will be glad to become acquainted with China as the country to which all the above considerations apply,--to which we are indebted for that refreshing beverage which has wrought a great alteration in our own domestic usages,--which so nearly adjoins the British dominions in the East,--and in which a more than ordinary interest is at present felt in consequence of the opening of the tea-trade and the recent transactions at Canton. It is therefore our intention, at short intervals, to furnish a series of papers, in which it will be endeavoured to combine, under distinct heads, the substance of the best and most interesting information concerning China and the Chinese people which has hitherto been presented to the public. We begin with a description of the cities.
The cities of China are divided into classes, and the distinction is nicely and precisely marked by the last syllable of their names, which is in fact a distinct monosyllable word, indicating their size, rank, and municipal jurisdiction or dependance. These monosyllables, one or the other of which is found at the end of the name of every city, are fu or fou, cheu, and hien. Fu denotes a city of the first class, having under its jurisdiction a certain number of cities of the two inferior classes. Cheu denotes a city of the second class, subject to the jurisdiction of its Fu; and Hien, a city of the third class, subordinate to its Cheu, as well as under the jurisdiction of its Fu. The study of geography might be considerably facilitated if this practice of the Chinese were general, and every nation, by a simple affix to the names of their cities and towns, would thus explain at once glance their relative rank or importance.
According to Father Le Comte, there were in his time more than 160 cities of the first class, 270 cities of the second class, and upwards of 1200 of the third, besides a number of walled towns not included in any of these classes.
As the cities of China generally have a strong resemblance (which in most cases approaches monotony) to each other, we need only describe a few of the prinicipal. But, before doing this, we may mention the main features that are common to them all. The cities of China are formed on a regular plan, which is square whenever the situation and nature of the ground will admit. They are all enclosed by high walls, with large gates of more strength than beauty. Towers, which vary in elevation, but which are sometimes eight or nine storeis high, and in form sometimes round, but more commonly hexagonal or octagonal, are built at regular distances; and, when practicable, a wide ditch filled with water, surrounds the whole. The streets are in straight lines; the principal of them are about thirty feet wide, but the houses are meanly built, having rarely more than one story above the ground-floor; so that the width of the streets, though not too much for the thronging population and bustle of a Chinese town, donduces but little to beauty or effect. The shops are adorned with silks, porcelain, and japanned wares, the most brilliant of which are hung outside the door to attract customers, and (the practice being universal) give the main streets a gay and somewhat of a threatrical appearance. A large board is suspended from the front of each shop; it is either gilt, or painted with some bright colour and varnished, or some fanciful sign, with the names of the principal articles sold in the shop inscribed upon it. These showy sign-boards, placed at equal distances on both sides the streets, give the whole extent the appearance of a long colonnade, rather curious than beautiful.
Among the descriptions of Marco Polo, we may refer to those of Kin-sai, or Hang-cheu-fu, and Ta-Tu, or Pekin.
The first of these, Kin-sai, a name which signifies "the Celestial City," he extols as being "pre-eminent to all other cities in the world in point of grandeur and beauty, as well as from its abundant delights, which might lead an inhabitant to imagine himself in paradise." It was then said to be a hundred li* in circuit, with streets broad and extensive, and squares or market-places of prodigious size, proportionate to the immense population. It was situated between a lake of sweet transparent water and a river of great magnitude, and traversed in every possible direction by canals, large and small, which carried with them all the filth of the city into the lake, and finally into the sea. These canals were traversed by almost innumerable bridges, without which there could have been no land-communcation from one place to another. Those thrown over the principal canals, and connecting the main streets of the city, had arches so lofty and so well built that vessels could pass under them without striking their masts, while carts and horses were passing over them.
* A li is equal to 632 English yards.
The second of these, or Peking, he described as perfectly square. Each side was six miles in length, making altogether an extent of twenty-four miles. The walls were such as have just been described as common to the Chinese cities, but Marco Polo adds, that all the battlements were kept white. The whole plan of the city was laid out by line, and the streets were so straight, that when a person ascended the wall over one of the gates, and looked before him, he could see the gate opposite to him, on the other side of the city. The allotments of ground were square, and exactly in a line with each other, each allotment allowing room for houses, with corresponding courts and gardens. One allotment was assigned to each head of a family. "In this manner," continues the Venetian traveller, "the whole interior of the city was disposed in squares, so as to resemble a chess-board, and planned out with a degree of precision and beauty impossible to describe." Twelve gates, three on each side of the square, gave ingress to and egress from the city, and each gate had a guard of 1000 men. In the centre of the whole rose a lofty tower, or belfry, and when its bell, which was sounded regualrly every night, had struct its third stroke, no one could be found in the streets with impunity, unless upon some urgent occasion,--such as to call assitance to a female in labour, or to a person suddently attacked with sickness, and even then it was necessary to carry a light. To escape detection was difficult, for strong parties of the guards continually patrolled the streets during the night. Those seized without having lights and imperative motives for being abroad after the third bell, were carried the next morning before the magistrates, and punished with a greater or less number of strokes of the bamboo, according to circumstances. The suburbe beyond the gates, in extent and population, if they did not exceed, equalled the city. Here were situated the hotels or caravanserays for the abode of merchants arriving from different parts; and, as has been practised in Turkey up to our days, the people from one province or kingdom were not mixed up with those from another, but each class had their separate caravanseray, where they lived among themselves.
The first of these cities, which was once the capital of southern China, and, at the time of Marco Polo, the residence of the imperial court, has much declined since then, and has had its name changed. As Hang-cheu-fu, it is, however, described by modern travellers as a place of immense extent, intersected by numerous canals, and still containing an overflowing population. The streets, though narrower, are paved as they were in the days of the Venetian traveller; now, as then, there are guards placed by night at the top of the lofty bridges, and on mounds, or towers, to watch the breaking out of any fire, and to give and procure all the assistance necessary in a place where every house is built of wood. And on the outside of every house, its occupant is obliged to hang a scroll, or writing, containing the name of each individual of his family, whether male or female. "When any person dies, or leaves the house," says Marco Polo, "the name is struck out, and upon the occasion of a birth it is added to the list. By these means, the great officers of the provinces and governors of the cities are at all times acquainted with the exact number of the inhabitants." It is to be observed that this last ancient regulation, as well as that of the fire-police, is common to all the great Chinese cities. As to the beauty and transparency of the lake on which Kin-sai, or Hang-cheu-fu is situated, and the pleasantness of its neighbourhood, all modern travellers are agreed. The lake and the gay scenes that occur upon it have been more particularly praised. Stuanton describes it as a beautiful sheet of water, perfectly pellucid, and surrounded by an amphitheatre of picturesque mountains. Du Halde says, its banks are ornamented with country-houses, temples, and Bonze-monasteries, and Mr. Barrow was agreeably struck by the vast number of yachts and barges sailing to and fro on the bosom of the lake, "all gaily decorated with paint and gilding, and streaming colours, the parties within them apparently all in pursuit of pleasure." Lord Macartney, after mentioning that he was upwards of two hours in passing through the city, which he found more extensive and more populous than he had imagined--that it was very closely built, having narrow streets, paved with broad flat stones, which reminded him of the courts in London--that almost every house was a shop, and that he observed in some of these shops great quantities of furs, broad cloth, and long ells, mostly imported in English bottoms to Canton, adds, "the environs of the town are very beautiful, embellished by an extensive lake, a noble canal, with many inferior ones, and gentle hills, cultivated to the summit, interspersed with plantations of mulberries, and dwarf fruit-trees, sheltered by oaks, planes, sycamores and camphors. On one side of the lake is a pagoda in ruins, which forms a remarkably fine object. It is octagonal, built of fine hewn stone, red and yellow, of four entire stories, besides the top, which was mouldering away from age: very large trees were growing out of the cornices: it was about 200 feet high. It is called the tower of the Thundering Winds, to whom it would seem to have been dedicated, and is supposed to be 2,500 years old."
The present state of the metropolis of China will be described in a future Number.
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