Qingdao

“ There were beds, chairs, tables, washing-stands, cabinets and presses, all peculiarly Chinese in their form, and beautifully inlaid with different kinds of wood and ivory, representing the people and customs of the country, and presenting, in fact, a series of pictures of China and the Chinese. Every one who saw these things admired them, and, what was rather strange, they seem peculiar to Ning-po, and are not met with at any of the other [Pg 90] five ports, not even in Shanghae. As all this beautiful work is expensive, it is, of course, only used in the houses of the wealthy. ”

“ At the age of fifteen, Ching Chong was as handsome and intelligent a boy as could be found in the city of Hong Kong.
One day his benefactor called him to him, and told him of the distant gold land. "There, my son," he said, "you shall go to seek your fortune. I will provide you with every thing necessary for the journey, but you must keep a strict account, and at the end of five years return, and share the gains with me."
"If you do well in all things, I will reward you doubly, for I love you as my own son." ”

“ Scythian power seems at present not less decadent in the extreme East than in the West. This is not the first time that Tungusian races have built up their power upon a Chinese foundation. The powerful dynasties of Khitan and Kin, from the beginning of the tenth century to near the middle of the thirteenth, held a great part of northern China in subjection, though not to the entire subversion of the empire: like the modern Manchus, they adopted and perpetuated the Chinese institutions and culture. ”

“ Although Japanese and Europeans are employed, yet these are all truly native undertakings, and that, to my mind, is the best part of Chengtu's progress; it shows what the Chinese can do for themselves, not simply following Western leadership. And on the whole they seemed last year to be doing a number of things very well. It argued real efficiency, I think, that the officials at Chengtu knew at every moment the whereabouts of the travelling foreigners in a province larger than France. ”

“ Ching-tang said, 'I only wish for rain on account of the people. If prayer will avail, I will present it myself!' He then fasted, and cut off his hair and nails, riding in a mourning chariot; and binding white reeds around him, that he might represent a sacrificial animal, he went forth to the wilderness of mulberry-bushes, and invoked, saying, 'Let not the lives of the people be forfeited, on account of the neglect of one individual!' He then acknowledged his six faults, saying, 'Is it that my government is extravagant? or that the people are not properly attended to? ”

“ Europeans who have experienced the biting winds of Peking, the damp heat of Canton, or the gray skies of Chengtu find in the bright days and cool breezes of Yunnan some mitigation of their exile to this remote corner of the empire. The city itself is not very attractive in spite of its many trees, for it seems a network of narrow lanes, only broken here and there by a temple enclosure or a stretch of waste land, the whole shut in by sound thirty-foot high walls ”

“ One of these temples crowns a solitary little hill named Quin-san, which at certain seasons of the year is visited by crowds of people from Soo-chow and the neighbouring towns; the whole country, as far as the eye can reach, is one vast rice-field, and everywhere the [Pg 256] pleasing clatter of the water-wheels falls upon the ear, and hundreds of happy and contented Chinese peasants are seen engaged in the cultivation of the soil. After continuing its westerly course for some distance, the canal divided, and the branch we took soon led us to another town named Ta-tsong-tseu. ”

“ For more than 200 years, the Court had always acted in deep kindness to those foreigners of great distances. Our ancestors had always treated them with respect. During the reign of Daoguang Emperor and Xianfeng Emperor, said foreigners began to be allowed to trade with China, and yet they begged for the permission to preach the teaching of Christ, since the teaching was for the good of the people ”

“ At the end of May he attacked Quinsan, the Taiping arsenal, and, by a bold strategic movement, cut the line of its communication with the great city of Soo-chow, and captured it, taking eight hundred prisoners. A large number of rebels were killed, and many fugitives were slain by the exasperated country people. Gordon then established his headquarters at Quinsan, as being further away from the demoralising influences of Shanghai. The maintenance of discipline was a perpetual struggle, and the change of headquarters caused a mutiny which was only quelled by shooting the ringleader on the spot. ”

“ There was much uncultivated land, and the population seemed scanty, but officials and soldiers were numerous, while guardhouses dominated the trail at short intervals. The village type was not always pure Chinese, and occasionally we met people unmistakably of another race. At Teng-hsiang-ying, or "Strong-walled Camp," where we stopped for the night, both soldiers and Lolos were much in evidence. We were here about two thousand one hundred feet below the summit of the great pass through which the raiders in times not far past made their way into fertile Chien-ch'ang. ”

“ Han Yüan Kai is on the mandarin road that connects Chengtu and Ya-chou with the frontier. Here we entered a new magistracy, and it was necessary to send to Ch'ing Ch'i, the district headquarters, for a fresh relay of soldiers. One of those who had come with me from Ta-shu-p'u started at once on our arrival at Han Yüan Kai about the middle of the afternoon, and made the journey, twenty-five li each way, to Ch'ing Ch'i-hsien and back before night, bringing with him the two men who were to go on with me. Truly the West China man is no weakling. ”

“ Why he left China I don't know, but I do chance to know that if another Chinky meets Li Choo carrying a basket on his shoulders, or a package in his hand, he kow-tows, and takes it away from him, and carries it himself. . . . No, I don't know why Li Choo is here in Askatoon, or why he's such a slave to Mrs. Mazarine; but I do know that he's a different-looking man when a Chinky runs up against him than when he's choring at Tralee. A sick Chinaman told me only a week ago that Li Choo was 'once big high boss Chinaman in Pekin.' . . . And so the mandarin advised you to fly to Orlando, did he? ”

“ Of which citie the Chinos do declare many things which seemeth to be true, for that if you do talke with many of them, and at sundrie times and places, yet doo they not varie the one from the other: and according to their report, it should be the greatest in all the worlde, in these dayes. They who do make it to be least, do affirme, that to goe from gate to gate, leauing the suburbs, had need of a summers day and a good horse to do it: it is also called Quinsay, as Marcus Paulus doth call it. ”

“ I liked even better to go to the shops, and Chengtu is so progressive that that is quite possible. One section is given over to brass and copper dishes, another to furs, another to porcelains, and so on. Indeed, the town seems to be a very good place for "picking up" things, for hither come men from the far distant Tibetan lamasseries, and patient effort is often rewarded with interesting spoil, while Chinese productions of real value sometimes drift into the bazaar from the collections of the ever-changing officials. ”

“ They are exceedingly addicted to the vilest lusts, and have no sense of shame in gratifying their passions. Polygamy is common among them. Yet with all their vices, they like to brag of their having the true faith. The Chinese, though more industrious, are not more virtuous; and as to the so-called Christians, I will not judge them.
About four or five leagues up the river, the King of Queda has his residence, in a mean-looking [17] town called Allessaar. Many of the inhabitants are Chinese, who have here a large temple; the rest are Malays. ”

“ After a winding course over rocks and shoals, through unexplored Shan States and savage hills where head-hunting is still fitfully pursued, the Chindwin joins the Irrawaddy above Pakôkku. Passing between banks clad with dense forest, we desecrated with steam and smoke silent reaches glamorous with romance. The march of progress is gradually dissipating the mist which yet still clings to this river of ancient story. Here and there a court-house or a military police post marks the advance of civilization. ”

“ One thing was quite certain—without outside assistance escape was impossible; so he decided to put his fortune to the test and risk his freedom, if not his life, upon the turn of the die.
With this idea, he drew his handkerchief from his pocket and was about to step forward and wave it, when he saw a movement among the clump of bamboo, and the next instant the Chinaman rose to his feet and ran like a deer toward the very part of the fort in which Frobisher’s cell was situated. He ran noiselessly, on his toes, and bent almost double in the effort to make himself as small as possible. ”

“ In the eastern suburbs of Virginia City is situated the Chinese quarter of the town, commonly called “Chinatown.” In this Chinese quarter live several hundred Mongolians of both sexes and all ages and conditions. In their part of the town they have stores of various kinds, shops, and markets, gambling-dens, a joss-house, where they worship their gods, and all other establishments required by them either for business or pleasure. In their part of the town these people live much as they would at home in China. ”

“ CHINA AND HER RULERS.
Longevity of the State—Government by prestige—Necessity of adaptation to European ideas—The Empress-dowager—Prince Kung—Wênsiang—Hu Lin-yi—Tsêng Kwo-fan—Tso Tsung-tang—Chang Chih-tung—Li Hung-chang—His long and consistent career—Efforts at reorganising national forces.
The long continuance of a State more populous than any other on record is a phenomenon which to thoughtful minds can hardly fail to evoke a feeling akin to reverence. De Quincey declared if he met a Chinaman he would make obeisance to him, saying, "There goes a man 2000 years old." ”

“ China shares with us the bad fame of being unpleasantly inquisitive. Would the rural American, happening upon a Chinese woman,—an alien apparition from her smoothly plastered hair to her tiny bound feet,—by the brookside in one of his home fields, have shown the same restraint?
At five o'clock that same day we reached the ferry across the Yangtse, too late to cross that night. I was hot and weary after a long march, and the only place available in the village of Lung-kai was a cramped, windowless hole opening into a small, filthy court, the best room of the inn being occupied by a sick man. ”

“ Urga the Sacred City, the home of the Gigin, [276] the Living God, third in the Buddhist hierarchy, is not so much one city as three, all located on a high ridge above the Tola. Each is distinct, separate, entrenched. Arriving from the south, the one you reach first is Mai-ma-chin, the Chinese trading settlement, a tangle of small houses and narrow lanes hemmed in by stockades of wooden slabs and unbarked fir trees. Here are the eight or ten thousand Chinese who control the trade of North Mongolia. ”

“ So, personally, I think the game that your Imperial Highness is playing is a distinctly dangerous one."
"Bah! It is only amusement. She amuses me. And she is so fond of the pipe. She has been a visitor of Lung Ching's for over a year. She has a faithful maid who goes with her, and I suppose she pays the old Chinaman well."
"I suppose so," I remarked, for I knew that if the villainous old Ching were paid well he would guarantee her safety in that den of his.
I could see by the Crown-Prince's face that he was unimpressed by my warning. ”

“ The war which is now approaching wears in some respects the strangest features that have yet been heard of in old romance, or in prosaic history, for we are at war with the southernmost province of China—namely, Quantung, and pre-eminently with its chief city of Canton, but not with the other four commercial ports of China, nor; in fact, at present with China in general; and, again, we are at war with Yeh, the poisoning Governor of Canton, but (which is strangest [Pg 12] of all) not with Yeh's master—the Tartar Emperor—locked up in a far-distant Peking. ”

“ Confucius, replied: “Sire, that which I have to communicate, alike concerns all kings. The perfidious Chin Chen has imbued his hands in the blood of his legitimate sovereign, Kien. You are a prince; your state borders upon Tsí; Kien was your ally, and originally of the same race as yourself. Any one of these reasons is sufficient to authorize you to declare war against Chin Chen, and all of them combined make it your duty to take up arms. Assemble your forces and march to exterminate a monster whom the earth upholds with regret. ”

“ Fankwae!" are heard outside, and a shower of stones comes rattling against the boards. Ching-We goes to the partition door and indulges in an angry and reproachful attack upon the unoffending head of the establishment. The unoffending head of the establishment goes immediately to the other door and indulges in an angry and reproachful attack upon the shouters and stone-throwers outside. The Chinese are peculiar in many things, and in nothing, perhaps, more than their respect for words of reproach. ”