Dictionaries.—TheErh Ya, or Nearing the Standard, is commonly classed as a dictionary, and is referred by native scholars generally to the 12th centuryB.C.The entries are arranged under nineteen heads, to facilitate reference, and explain a large number of words and phrases, including names of beasts, birds, plants and fishes. The work is well illustrated in the large modern edition; but the actual date of composition is an entirely open question, and the insertion of woodcuts must necessarily belong to a comparatively late age (seeMilitary Writers).With theShuo Wên, or Explanation of Written Words, we begin the long list of lexicographical works which constitute such a notable feature in Chinese literature. A scholar, named Hsü Shên, who died aboutA.D.120, made an effort to bring together andShuo Wên.analyse all the characters it was possible to gather from the written language as it existed in his own day. He then proceeded to arrange these characters—about ten thousand in all—on a system which would enable a student to find a given word without having possibly to search through the whole book. To do this, he simply grouped together all such as had a common part, more or less indicative of the meaning of each, much as though an English dictionary were to consist of such groups asDog-daysDog-kennelDog-collarDog-meatDog-napand so on.Horse-collarHorse-fleshHorse-backHorse-flyHorse-chestnutand so on.Hsü Shên selected five hundred and forty of these common parts, or Radicals (seeLanguage), a number which, as will be seen later on, was found to be cumbrously large; and under each Radical he inserted all the characters belonging to it, but with no particular order or arrangement, so that search was still, in many cases, quite a laborious task. The explanations given were chiefly intended to establish the pictorial origin of the language; but whereas no one now disputes this as a general conclusion, the steps by which Hsü Shên attempted to prove his theory must in a large number of instances be dismissed as often inadequate and sometimes ridiculous. Nevertheless, it was a great achievement; and theShuo Wênis still indispensable to the student of the particular script in vogue a century or two before Christ. It is also of value in another sense. It may be used, with discretion, in testing the genuineness of an alleged ancient document, which, if an important or well-known document before the age of Hsü Shên, would not be likely to contain characters not given in his work. Under this test theTao Tê Ching, for instance, breaks down (seeHuai-nan Tzŭ).Passing over a long series of dictionaries and vocabularies which appeared at various dates, some constructed on Hsü Shên’s plan, with modifications and improvements, and others, known as phonetic dictionaries, arranged under the finals according to the Tones, we come to the great standard lexicon produced under the auspices, and now bearing the name of the emperor K‘ang Hsi,A.D.1662-1723.But before proceeding, a rough attempt may be made to exhibit in English terms the principle of the phonetic as compared with the radical dictionary described above. In the spoken language there would occur the wordlight, the opposite of dark,Phonetic dictionaries.and this would be expressed in writing by a certain symbol. Then, when it became necessary to write downlight, the opposite of heavy, the result would be precisely what we see in English. But as written words increased, always with a limited number of vocables (seeLanguage), this system was found to be impracticable, and Radicals were inserted as a means of distinguishing one kind oflightfrom another, but without altering the original sound. Now, in the phonetic dictionary the words are no longer arranged in such groups asSun-lightSun-beamSun-strokeSun-god, &c.according to the Radicals, but in such groups asSun-lightMoon-lightFoot-lightGas-light, &c.according to the phonetics, all the above four being pronounced simplylight, without reference to the radical portion which guides towards the limited sense of the term. So, in a phonetic dictionary, we should have such a group asBrass-boundMorocco-boundHalf-boundSpell-boundHomeward-boundWind-boundand so on, all the above six being pronounced simplybound. To return to “K‘ang Hsi,” as the lexicon in question is familiarly styled, the total number of characters given therein amounts to over forty-four thousand, grouped no longerK‘ang Hsi.under the five hundred and forty Radicals of Hsü Shên, but under the much more manageable number of two hundred and fourteen,as already used in earlier dictionaries. Further, as the groups of characters would now be more than four times as large as in theShuo Wên, they were subdivided under each Radical according to the number of strokes in the other, or phonetic part of the character. Thus, adopting letters as strokes, for the purpose of illustration, we should have “dog-nap” in the group of Radical “dog” and three strokes, while “dog-days” and “dog-meat” would both be found under Radical “dog” with four strokes, and so on. The two hundred and fourteen Radicals are themselves arranged in groups according to the number of strokes; so that it is not a very arduous task to turn up ordinary characters in a Chinese dictionary. Finally, although Chinese is a monosyllabic and non-alphabetic language, a method has been devised, and has been in use since the 3rd centuryA.D., by which the sound of any word can be indicated in a dictionary otherwise than by simply quoting a word of similar sound, which of course may be equally unknown to the searcher. Thus, the sound of a word pronouncedchingcan be exhibited by selecting two words, one having the initialch, and the other a finaling. E.g. the soundchingis given aschien ling; that isch[ien l]ing = ching.The Concordance.—Considering the long unbroken series of years during which Chinese literature has always, in spite of many losses, been steadily gaining in bulk, it is not astonishing to find that classical, historical, mythological and other allusions to personages or events of past times have also grown out of all proportion to the brain capacity even of the most brilliant student. Designed especially to meet this difficulty, there are several well-known handbooks, elementary and advanced, which trace such allusions to their source and provide full and lucid explanations; but even the most extensive of these is on a scale incommensurate with the requirements of the scholar. Again, it is due to the emperor K‘ang Hsi that we possess one of the most elaborate compilations of the kind ever planned and carried to completion. TheP‘ei Wên Yün Fu, or Concordance to Literature, is a key, not only to allusions in general, but to all phraseology, including allusions, idiomatic expressions and other obscure combinations of words, to be found in the classics, in the dynastic histories, and in all poets, historians, essayists, and writers of recognized eminence in their own lines. No attempt at explanation is given; but enough of the passage, or passages, in which the phrase occurs, is cited to enable the reader to gather the meaning required. The trouble, of course, lies with the arrangement of these phrases in a non-alphabetic language. Recourse has been had to the Rhymes and the five Tones (seeLanguage); and all phrases which end with the same word form one of a number of groups which appear under the same Rhyme, the Rhymes themselves being distributed over five Tones. Thus, to find any phrase, the first point is to discover what is its normal Rhyme; the next is to ascertain the Tone of that Rhyme. Then, under this Tone-group the Rhyme-word will be found, and under the Rhyme-word group will be found the final word of the phrase in question. It will now only remain to run through this last group of phrases, all of which have this same final word, and the search—so vast is the collection—will usually yield a satisfactory result. TheP‘ei Wên Yün Furuns of course to many volumes; a rough estimate shows it to contain over fifteen million words.Encyclopaedias.—In their desire to bring together condensed, yet precise, information on a large variety of subjects, the Chinese may be said to have invented the encyclopaedia. Though not the earliest work of this kind, theT‘ai P‘ing Yü Lanis the first of any great importance. It was produced towards the close of the 10th centuryA.D., under the direct supervision of the emperor, who is said to have examined three sections every day for about a year, the total number of sections being one thousand in all, arranged under fifty-five headings. Another similar work, dealing with topics drawn from the lighter literature of China, is theT‘ai P‘ing Kuang Chi, which was issued at about the same date as the last-mentioned. Both of these, and especially the former, have passed through several editions. They help to inaugurate the great Sung dynasty, which for three centuries to follow effected so much in the cause of literature. Other encyclopaedias, differing in scope and in plan, appeared from time to time, but it will be necessary to concentrate attention upon two only. The third emperor of the Ming dynasty, knownYuan Lo Ta Tien.as Yung Lo,A.D.1403-1425, issued a commission for the production of a work on a scale which was colossal even for China. His idea was to collect together all that had ever been written in the four departments of (1) the Confucian Canon, (2) History, (3) Philosophy and (4) General Literature, including astronomy, geography, cosmogony, medicine, divination, Buddhism, Taoism, arts and handicrafts; and in 1408 such an encyclopaedia was laid before the Throne, received the imperial approval and was namedYung Lo Ta Tien, or The Great Standard of Yung Lo. To achieve this, 3 commissioners, with 5 directors, 20 sub-directors and a staff of 2141 assistants, had laboured for the space of five years. Its contents ran to no fewer than 22,877 separate sections, to which must be added an index filling 60 sections. Each section contained about 20 leaves, making a total of 917,480 pages for the whole work. Each page consisted of sixteen columns of characters averaging twenty-five to each column, or a total of 366,992,000 characters, to which, in order to bring the amount into terms of English words, about another third would have to be added. This extraordinary work was never printed, as the expense would have been too great, although it was actually transcribed for that purpose; and later on, two more copies were made, one of which was finally stored in Peking and the other, with the original, in Nanking. Both the Nanking copies perished at the fall of the Ming dynasty; and a similar fate overtook the Peking copy, with the exception of a few odd volumes, at the siege of the legations in 1900. The latter was bound up in 11,100 volumes, covered with yellow silk, each volume being 1 ft. 8 in. in length by 1 ft. in breadth, and averaging over ½ in. in thickness. This would perhaps be a fitting point to conclude any notice of Chinese encyclopaedias, but for the fact that the work of Yung Lo is gone while another encyclopaedia, also on a huge scale, designed and carried out sonic centuries later, is still an important work of reference.TheT‘u Shu Chi Ch‘êngwas planned, and to a great extent made ready, under instructions from the emperor K‘ang Hsi (see above), and was finally brought out by his successor, Yung Chêng, 1723-1736. Intended to embrace all departments ofT‘u Shu.knowledge, its contents were distributed over six leading categories, which for want of better equivalents may be roughly rendered by (l) Heaven, (2) Earth, (3) Man, (4) Arts and Sciences, (5) Philosophy and (6) Political Science. These were subdivided into thirty-two classes; and in the voluminous index which accompanies the work a further attempt was made to bring the searcher into still closer touch with the individual items treated. Thus, the category Heaven is subdivided into four classes, namely—again, for want of better terms—(a) The Sky and its Manifestations, (b) The Seasons, (c) Astronomy and Mathematics and (d) Natural Phenomena. Under these classes come the individual items; and here it is that the foreign student is often at a loss. For instance, classaincludes Earth, in its cosmogonic sense, as the mother of mankind; Heaven, in its original sense of God; the Dual Principle in nature; the Sun, Moon and Stars; Wind; Clouds; Rainbow; Thunder and Lightning; Rain; Fire, &c. But Earth is itself a geographical category; and all strange phenomena relating to many of the items under classaare recorded under classd. Category No. 6, marked as Political Science, contains such classes as Ceremonial, Music and Administration of Justice, alongside of Handicrafts, making it essential to study the arrangement carefully before it is possible to consult the work with ease. Such preliminary trouble is, however, well repaid, the amount of information given on any particular subject being practically coextensive with what is known about that subject. The method of presenting such information, with variations to suit the nature of the topics handled, is to begin with historical excerpts, chronologically arranged. These are usually followed by sometimes lengthy essays dealing with the subject as a theme, taken from the writings of qualified authors, and like all the other entries, also chronologically arranged. Then come elegant extracts in prose and verse, in all of which the subject may be simply mentioned and not treated as in the essays. After these follow minor notices of incidents, historical and otherwise, and all kinds of anecdotes, derived from a great variety of sources. Occasionally, single poetical lines are brought together, each contributing, some thought or statement germane to the subject, expressed in elegant or forcible terms; and also, wherever practicable, biographies of men and women are inserted.Chronological and other tables are supplied where necessary, as well as a very large number of illustrations, many of these being reproductions of woodcuts from earlier works. It is said that theT‘u Shu Chi Ch‘êngwas printed from movable copper type cast by the Jesuit Fathers employed by the emperor K‘ang Hsi at Peking; also that only a hundred copies were struck off, the type being then destroyed. An 8vo edition of the whole encyclopaedia was issued at Shanghai in 1889; this is bound up in sixteen hundred and twenty-eight handy volumes of about two hundred pages each. A copy of the original edition stands on the shelves of the British Museum, and a translation of the Index has recently been completed.
Dictionaries.—TheErh Ya, or Nearing the Standard, is commonly classed as a dictionary, and is referred by native scholars generally to the 12th centuryB.C.The entries are arranged under nineteen heads, to facilitate reference, and explain a large number of words and phrases, including names of beasts, birds, plants and fishes. The work is well illustrated in the large modern edition; but the actual date of composition is an entirely open question, and the insertion of woodcuts must necessarily belong to a comparatively late age (seeMilitary Writers).
With theShuo Wên, or Explanation of Written Words, we begin the long list of lexicographical works which constitute such a notable feature in Chinese literature. A scholar, named Hsü Shên, who died aboutA.D.120, made an effort to bring together andShuo Wên.analyse all the characters it was possible to gather from the written language as it existed in his own day. He then proceeded to arrange these characters—about ten thousand in all—on a system which would enable a student to find a given word without having possibly to search through the whole book. To do this, he simply grouped together all such as had a common part, more or less indicative of the meaning of each, much as though an English dictionary were to consist of such groups as
Dog-daysDog-kennelDog-collarDog-meatDog-nap
Dog-days
Dog-kennel
Dog-collar
Dog-meat
Dog-nap
and so on.
Horse-collarHorse-fleshHorse-backHorse-flyHorse-chestnut
Horse-collar
Horse-flesh
Horse-back
Horse-fly
Horse-chestnut
and so on.
Hsü Shên selected five hundred and forty of these common parts, or Radicals (seeLanguage), a number which, as will be seen later on, was found to be cumbrously large; and under each Radical he inserted all the characters belonging to it, but with no particular order or arrangement, so that search was still, in many cases, quite a laborious task. The explanations given were chiefly intended to establish the pictorial origin of the language; but whereas no one now disputes this as a general conclusion, the steps by which Hsü Shên attempted to prove his theory must in a large number of instances be dismissed as often inadequate and sometimes ridiculous. Nevertheless, it was a great achievement; and theShuo Wênis still indispensable to the student of the particular script in vogue a century or two before Christ. It is also of value in another sense. It may be used, with discretion, in testing the genuineness of an alleged ancient document, which, if an important or well-known document before the age of Hsü Shên, would not be likely to contain characters not given in his work. Under this test theTao Tê Ching, for instance, breaks down (seeHuai-nan Tzŭ).
Passing over a long series of dictionaries and vocabularies which appeared at various dates, some constructed on Hsü Shên’s plan, with modifications and improvements, and others, known as phonetic dictionaries, arranged under the finals according to the Tones, we come to the great standard lexicon produced under the auspices, and now bearing the name of the emperor K‘ang Hsi,A.D.1662-1723.
But before proceeding, a rough attempt may be made to exhibit in English terms the principle of the phonetic as compared with the radical dictionary described above. In the spoken language there would occur the wordlight, the opposite of dark,Phonetic dictionaries.and this would be expressed in writing by a certain symbol. Then, when it became necessary to write downlight, the opposite of heavy, the result would be precisely what we see in English. But as written words increased, always with a limited number of vocables (seeLanguage), this system was found to be impracticable, and Radicals were inserted as a means of distinguishing one kind oflightfrom another, but without altering the original sound. Now, in the phonetic dictionary the words are no longer arranged in such groups as
Sun-lightSun-beamSun-strokeSun-god, &c.
Sun-light
Sun-beam
Sun-stroke
Sun-god, &c.
according to the Radicals, but in such groups as
Sun-lightMoon-lightFoot-lightGas-light, &c.
Sun-light
Moon-light
Foot-light
Gas-light, &c.
according to the phonetics, all the above four being pronounced simplylight, without reference to the radical portion which guides towards the limited sense of the term. So, in a phonetic dictionary, we should have such a group as
Brass-boundMorocco-boundHalf-boundSpell-boundHomeward-boundWind-bound
Brass-bound
Morocco-bound
Half-bound
Spell-bound
Homeward-bound
Wind-bound
and so on, all the above six being pronounced simplybound. To return to “K‘ang Hsi,” as the lexicon in question is familiarly styled, the total number of characters given therein amounts to over forty-four thousand, grouped no longerK‘ang Hsi.under the five hundred and forty Radicals of Hsü Shên, but under the much more manageable number of two hundred and fourteen,as already used in earlier dictionaries. Further, as the groups of characters would now be more than four times as large as in theShuo Wên, they were subdivided under each Radical according to the number of strokes in the other, or phonetic part of the character. Thus, adopting letters as strokes, for the purpose of illustration, we should have “dog-nap” in the group of Radical “dog” and three strokes, while “dog-days” and “dog-meat” would both be found under Radical “dog” with four strokes, and so on. The two hundred and fourteen Radicals are themselves arranged in groups according to the number of strokes; so that it is not a very arduous task to turn up ordinary characters in a Chinese dictionary. Finally, although Chinese is a monosyllabic and non-alphabetic language, a method has been devised, and has been in use since the 3rd centuryA.D., by which the sound of any word can be indicated in a dictionary otherwise than by simply quoting a word of similar sound, which of course may be equally unknown to the searcher. Thus, the sound of a word pronouncedchingcan be exhibited by selecting two words, one having the initialch, and the other a finaling. E.g. the soundchingis given aschien ling; that isch[ien l]ing = ching.
The Concordance.—Considering the long unbroken series of years during which Chinese literature has always, in spite of many losses, been steadily gaining in bulk, it is not astonishing to find that classical, historical, mythological and other allusions to personages or events of past times have also grown out of all proportion to the brain capacity even of the most brilliant student. Designed especially to meet this difficulty, there are several well-known handbooks, elementary and advanced, which trace such allusions to their source and provide full and lucid explanations; but even the most extensive of these is on a scale incommensurate with the requirements of the scholar. Again, it is due to the emperor K‘ang Hsi that we possess one of the most elaborate compilations of the kind ever planned and carried to completion. TheP‘ei Wên Yün Fu, or Concordance to Literature, is a key, not only to allusions in general, but to all phraseology, including allusions, idiomatic expressions and other obscure combinations of words, to be found in the classics, in the dynastic histories, and in all poets, historians, essayists, and writers of recognized eminence in their own lines. No attempt at explanation is given; but enough of the passage, or passages, in which the phrase occurs, is cited to enable the reader to gather the meaning required. The trouble, of course, lies with the arrangement of these phrases in a non-alphabetic language. Recourse has been had to the Rhymes and the five Tones (seeLanguage); and all phrases which end with the same word form one of a number of groups which appear under the same Rhyme, the Rhymes themselves being distributed over five Tones. Thus, to find any phrase, the first point is to discover what is its normal Rhyme; the next is to ascertain the Tone of that Rhyme. Then, under this Tone-group the Rhyme-word will be found, and under the Rhyme-word group will be found the final word of the phrase in question. It will now only remain to run through this last group of phrases, all of which have this same final word, and the search—so vast is the collection—will usually yield a satisfactory result. TheP‘ei Wên Yün Furuns of course to many volumes; a rough estimate shows it to contain over fifteen million words.
Encyclopaedias.—In their desire to bring together condensed, yet precise, information on a large variety of subjects, the Chinese may be said to have invented the encyclopaedia. Though not the earliest work of this kind, theT‘ai P‘ing Yü Lanis the first of any great importance. It was produced towards the close of the 10th centuryA.D., under the direct supervision of the emperor, who is said to have examined three sections every day for about a year, the total number of sections being one thousand in all, arranged under fifty-five headings. Another similar work, dealing with topics drawn from the lighter literature of China, is theT‘ai P‘ing Kuang Chi, which was issued at about the same date as the last-mentioned. Both of these, and especially the former, have passed through several editions. They help to inaugurate the great Sung dynasty, which for three centuries to follow effected so much in the cause of literature. Other encyclopaedias, differing in scope and in plan, appeared from time to time, but it will be necessary to concentrate attention upon two only. The third emperor of the Ming dynasty, knownYuan Lo Ta Tien.as Yung Lo,A.D.1403-1425, issued a commission for the production of a work on a scale which was colossal even for China. His idea was to collect together all that had ever been written in the four departments of (1) the Confucian Canon, (2) History, (3) Philosophy and (4) General Literature, including astronomy, geography, cosmogony, medicine, divination, Buddhism, Taoism, arts and handicrafts; and in 1408 such an encyclopaedia was laid before the Throne, received the imperial approval and was namedYung Lo Ta Tien, or The Great Standard of Yung Lo. To achieve this, 3 commissioners, with 5 directors, 20 sub-directors and a staff of 2141 assistants, had laboured for the space of five years. Its contents ran to no fewer than 22,877 separate sections, to which must be added an index filling 60 sections. Each section contained about 20 leaves, making a total of 917,480 pages for the whole work. Each page consisted of sixteen columns of characters averaging twenty-five to each column, or a total of 366,992,000 characters, to which, in order to bring the amount into terms of English words, about another third would have to be added. This extraordinary work was never printed, as the expense would have been too great, although it was actually transcribed for that purpose; and later on, two more copies were made, one of which was finally stored in Peking and the other, with the original, in Nanking. Both the Nanking copies perished at the fall of the Ming dynasty; and a similar fate overtook the Peking copy, with the exception of a few odd volumes, at the siege of the legations in 1900. The latter was bound up in 11,100 volumes, covered with yellow silk, each volume being 1 ft. 8 in. in length by 1 ft. in breadth, and averaging over ½ in. in thickness. This would perhaps be a fitting point to conclude any notice of Chinese encyclopaedias, but for the fact that the work of Yung Lo is gone while another encyclopaedia, also on a huge scale, designed and carried out sonic centuries later, is still an important work of reference.
TheT‘u Shu Chi Ch‘êngwas planned, and to a great extent made ready, under instructions from the emperor K‘ang Hsi (see above), and was finally brought out by his successor, Yung Chêng, 1723-1736. Intended to embrace all departments ofT‘u Shu.knowledge, its contents were distributed over six leading categories, which for want of better equivalents may be roughly rendered by (l) Heaven, (2) Earth, (3) Man, (4) Arts and Sciences, (5) Philosophy and (6) Political Science. These were subdivided into thirty-two classes; and in the voluminous index which accompanies the work a further attempt was made to bring the searcher into still closer touch with the individual items treated. Thus, the category Heaven is subdivided into four classes, namely—again, for want of better terms—(a) The Sky and its Manifestations, (b) The Seasons, (c) Astronomy and Mathematics and (d) Natural Phenomena. Under these classes come the individual items; and here it is that the foreign student is often at a loss. For instance, classaincludes Earth, in its cosmogonic sense, as the mother of mankind; Heaven, in its original sense of God; the Dual Principle in nature; the Sun, Moon and Stars; Wind; Clouds; Rainbow; Thunder and Lightning; Rain; Fire, &c. But Earth is itself a geographical category; and all strange phenomena relating to many of the items under classaare recorded under classd. Category No. 6, marked as Political Science, contains such classes as Ceremonial, Music and Administration of Justice, alongside of Handicrafts, making it essential to study the arrangement carefully before it is possible to consult the work with ease. Such preliminary trouble is, however, well repaid, the amount of information given on any particular subject being practically coextensive with what is known about that subject. The method of presenting such information, with variations to suit the nature of the topics handled, is to begin with historical excerpts, chronologically arranged. These are usually followed by sometimes lengthy essays dealing with the subject as a theme, taken from the writings of qualified authors, and like all the other entries, also chronologically arranged. Then come elegant extracts in prose and verse, in all of which the subject may be simply mentioned and not treated as in the essays. After these follow minor notices of incidents, historical and otherwise, and all kinds of anecdotes, derived from a great variety of sources. Occasionally, single poetical lines are brought together, each contributing, some thought or statement germane to the subject, expressed in elegant or forcible terms; and also, wherever practicable, biographies of men and women are inserted.
Chronological and other tables are supplied where necessary, as well as a very large number of illustrations, many of these being reproductions of woodcuts from earlier works. It is said that theT‘u Shu Chi Ch‘êngwas printed from movable copper type cast by the Jesuit Fathers employed by the emperor K‘ang Hsi at Peking; also that only a hundred copies were struck off, the type being then destroyed. An 8vo edition of the whole encyclopaedia was issued at Shanghai in 1889; this is bound up in sixteen hundred and twenty-eight handy volumes of about two hundred pages each. A copy of the original edition stands on the shelves of the British Museum, and a translation of the Index has recently been completed.
Manuscripts and Printing.—At the conclusion of this brief survey of Chinese literature it may well be asked how such an enormous and ever-increasing mass has been handed down from generation to generation. According to the views put forth by early Chinese antiquarians, the first written records were engraved with a special knife upon bamboo slips and wooden tablets. The impracticability of such a process, as applied to books, never seems to have dawned upon those writers; and this snowball of error, started in the 7th century, long after the knife and the tablet had disappeared as implements of writing, continued to gather strength as time went on. Recent researches, however, have placed it beyond doubt that when the Chinese began to write in a literary sense, as opposed to mere scratchings on bones, they traced their characters on slips of bamboo and tablets of wood with a bamboo pencil, frayed at one end to carry the coloured liquid which stood in the place of ink. The knife was used only to erase. So things went on until about 200B.C., when it would appear that a brush of hair was substituted for the bamboo pencil; after which, silk was called into requisition as an appropriate vehicle in connexion with the moredelicate brush. But silk was expensive and difficult to handle, so that the invention of paper inA.D.105 by a eunuch, named Ts‘ai Lun, came as a great boon, although it seems clear that a certain kind of paper, made from silk floss, was in use before his date. However that may be, from the 1st century onwards the Chinese have been in possession of the same writing materials that are in use at the present day.
InA.D.170, Ts‘ai Yung, who rose subsequently to the highest offices of state, wrote out on stone in red ink the authorized text of the Five Classics, to be engraved by workmen, and thus handed down to posterity. The work covered forty-six huge tablets, of which a few fragments are said to be still in existence. A similar undertaking was carried out in 837, and the later tablets are still standing at a temple in the city of Hsi-an Fu, Shensi. With the T‘ang dynasty, rubbings of famous inscriptions, wherein the germ of printing may be detected, whether for the style of the composition or for the calligraphic excellence of the script, came very much into vogue with scholars and collectors. It is also from about the same date that the idea of multiplying on paper impressions taken from wooden blocks seems to have arisen, chiefly in connexion with religious pictures and prayers. The process was not widely applied to the production of books until the 10th century, when inA.D.932 the Confucian Canon was printed for the first time. In 981 orders were issued for theT‘ai P‘ing Kuang Chi, an encyclopaedia extending to many volumes (see above) to be cut on blocks for printing. Movable types of baked clay are said to have been invented by an alchemist, named Pi Shêng, aboutA.D.1043; and under the Ming dynasty, 1368-1644, these were made first of wood, and later of copper or lead, but movable types have never gained the favour accorded to block-printing, by means of which most of China’s great typographical triumphs have been achieved. The process is, and always has been, the same all over China. Two consecutive pages of a book, separated by a column containing the title, number of section, and number of leaf, are written out and pasted face downwards on a block of wood (Lindera tzŭ-mu, Hemsl.). This paper, where not written upon, is cut away with sharp tools, leaving the characters in relief, and of course backwards, as in the case of European type. The block is then inked, and an impression is taken off, on one side of the paper only. This sheet is then folded down the middle of the separating column above mentioned, so that the blank halves come together, leaving two pages of printed matter outside; and when enough sheets have been brought together, they are stabbed at the open ends and form a volume, to be further wrapped in paper or pasteboard, and labelled with title, &c. It is almost superfluous to say that the pages of a Chinese book must not be cut. There is nothing inside, and, moreover, the column bearing the title and leaf-number would be cut through. The Chinese newspapers of modern times are all printed from movable types, an ordinary fount consisting of about six to seven thousand characters.
See J. Legge,The Chinese Classics(1861-1872); A. Wylie,Notes on Chinese Literature(1867); E. Chavannes,Mémoires historiques(1895-1905); H.A. Giles,Chuang Tzŭ(1889),A Chinese Biographical Dictionary(1898), andA History of Chinese Literature(1901); A. Forke,Lun-Hêng(1907); F. Hirth,The Ancient History of China(1908); L. Giles,Sun Tzŭ(1910).
See J. Legge,The Chinese Classics(1861-1872); A. Wylie,Notes on Chinese Literature(1867); E. Chavannes,Mémoires historiques(1895-1905); H.A. Giles,Chuang Tzŭ(1889),A Chinese Biographical Dictionary(1898), andA History of Chinese Literature(1901); A. Forke,Lun-Hêng(1907); F. Hirth,The Ancient History of China(1908); L. Giles,Sun Tzŭ(1910).
(H. A. GI.)
1As to the origin of the names China and Cathay (the medieval name) see below §History. According to one theory the name China is of Malay origin, designating originally the region now called Indo-China, but transferred in early times to China proper. By the Chinese the country is often calledShih-pa-shêng,“the Eighteen Provinces,” from the number of its great territorial divisions. It is also calledChung-kwo,“the Middle Kingdom,” properly used of the central part of China, andHwa-kwo,“the Flowery Kingdom.”2A Chinese mile,li, orle= 0.36 English mile.3For the Grand Canal the chief authority is Dominique Gandar, S.J., “Le Canal Impérial. Étude historique et descriptive,”Variétés sinologiquesNo. 4 (Shanghai, 1903); see also Stenz, “Der Kaiserkanal,” inBeiträgen zur Kolonialpolitik, Band v. (Berlin, 1903-1904), and the works of Ney Elias, Sir J.F. Davis, A. Williamson, E.H. Parker and W.R. Carles.4Nevertheless there is considerable local traffic. The transit trade with Shan-tung, passing the Chin-kiang customs and using some 250 m. of the worst part of the canal, was valued in 1905 at 3,331,000 taels.5The portion of the wall which abutted on to the sea has been destroyed.6See theGeog. Jnl.(Feb. and March 1907). For a popular account of the wall, with numerous photographs, seeThe Great Wall of China(London, 1909), by W.E. Giel, who in 1908 followed its course from east to west. Consult also A. Williamson,Journey in North China(London, 1870); Martin, “La Grande Muraille de la Chine,”Revue scientifique(1891).7For Shanghai the figures are compiled from twenty-six years’ observations. SeeChina Sea Directory, vol. iii. (4th ed., 1904) p. 660.8The thermometer registered 23° F. in January 1893, on the river 28 m. below Canton. This is the lowest reading known. Ibid, pp. 104-105.9See W.W. Rockhill,Inquiry into the Population of China(Washington, 1904).10For a bibliography of works relating to the aboriginal races of China see Richard’sComprehensive Geography of the Chinese Empire(1908 ed.), pp. 371-373.11Evidences of the social changes taking place in China are to be found in the strong movement for the education of girls, and in the formation of societies, under official patronage, to prevent the binding of women’s feet.12It must be remembered that there is great variety in the costumes worn in the various provinces. The particulars here given are of the most general styles of dress.13Richard’sComprehensive Geography, &c. (1908 edition), pp. 340-341.14Otherwise Abū Ja‘far Ibn Mahommed al-Mansūr (seeCaliphate, C. § 2).15For a summary of Chang Chih-tung’s treatise, seeChanging China(1910 edition), chap. xxii.16It was announced in June 1910 that the throne had approved a recommendation of the Board of Education that English should be the official language for scientific and technical education, and that the study of English should be compulsory in all provincial scientific and technical schools.17SeeThe Timesof the 19th of February and the 3rd of May 1910.18Another peculiarity of loess in China is that it lends itself readily to the excavation of dwellings for the people. In many places whole villages live in cave dwellings dug out in the vertical wall of loess. They construct spiral staircases, selecting places where the ground is firm, and excavate endless chambers and recesses which are said to be very comfortable and salubrious.19See J. Edkins,The Poppy in China, and H.B. Morse,The Trade and Administration of the Chinese Empire, chap. xi.20Richard’sComprehensive Geography, &c.(1908 edition), p. 144.21In the 18th century foreign trade was restricted to Canton. In the 17th century, however, the Dutch traded to Formosa and Amoy, and the English to Amoy also. The Portuguese traded with Canton as early as 1517. For the early intercourse between Portugal and China see the introductory chapter in Donald Ferguson’sLetters from Portuguese Captives in Canton(Bombay, 1902).22FromThe Statesman’s Year Book, 1910 edition.23SeeThe Timesof the 28th of March 1910.24See Morse,op. cit.chap. x.25The maritime customs had established a postal service for its own convenience in 1861, and it first gave facilities to the general public in 1876. An organized service for the conveyance of government despatches has existed in China for many centuries, and the commercial classes maintain at their own expense a system (“letter hongs”) for the transmission of correspondence.26For the causes leading to this movement and the progress of reform see §History.27For recent authoritative accounts of the government of China see H.B. Morse,The Trade and Administration of the Chinese Empire, chap. iii.; Richard’sComprehensive Geography, &c., Bk. I. § v., andThe Statesman’s Year Book.28The empress-consort is chosen by the emperor from a number of girls selected by his ministers from the families of Manchu nobles. From the same candidates the emperor also selects secondary-empresses (usually not more than four). Concubines, not limited in number, are chosen from the daughters of Manchu nobles and free-men. All the children are equally legitimate.29Recent emperors have been children at accession and have been kept in seclusion.30See “Democratic China” in H.A. Giles,China and the Chinese.31W.F. Mayers,The Chinese Government(1878).32This body is superseded by the Imperial Senate summoned to meet for the first time on the 3rd of October 1910.33Yamên is the name given to the residences of all high officials. Tsung-li Yamên = the bureau for managing each (foreign) kingdom’s affairs.34An edict of the 15th of July 1909 created a naval and military advisory board. Up to that time the navy was controlled by the viceroys at Canton, Nanking, Fu-chow and Tientsin; the viceroys at Canton and Tientsin being ministers superintendent of the southern and northern ports respectively.35Thus in 1910 Prince Ching, president of the grand council, was, for the third time, impeached by censors, being denounced as an “old treacherous minister,” who filled the public service with a crowd of men as unworthy as himself. The censor who made the charge was stripped of his office (seeThe Timesof the 30th of March 1910).36For details of local government see Richard’sComprehensive Geography, 1908 edition, pp. 301 et seq.37Morse, op. cit., 1908 edition, p. 7638SeeThe Timesof the 28th of February 1910.39SeeThe Statesman’s Year-Book(1910 edition).40A few of the old native customs stations, which are deemed perquisites of the imperial court, may also be excepted, as, for instance, the native custom-house at Canton, Hwei Kwan on the Grand Canal, and various stations in the neighbourhood of Peking.41The production of a budget in 1915 was promised in one of the reform edicts of 1908.42In this article the tael used as a standard is the Haikwan (i.e.customs) tael, worth about 3s. It fluctuates with the value of silver.43Roughly £43,000,000.44Trade and Administration of the Chinese Empire(1910), p. 118.45Temporary reductions are granted in provinces affected by rebellion, drought or flood.46Information as to what extent the expenses of the new army and navy are met by the central government is lacking.47To meet the expenditure on interest and redemption of the indemnities for the Boxer outrages the Peking government required the provincial authorities to increase their annual remittances by taels 18,700,000 during the years 1902-1910.48It must be remembered that the Haikwan tael is here indicated.49See Morse’sTrade and Administration of the Chinese Empire, chap. ix.50A supplementary exchange of notes of the same date excepted from the scope of this agreement the Shan-hai-kwan-Niu-chwang extension which had already been conceded to the Hongkong & Shanghai Bank.51The religious aspect of the Boxer movement gave it strength. Its disciples believed that the spirits which defended China were incensed by the introduction of Western methods and ideals. Many of them believed themselves to be invulnerable to any Western weapon. (See Lord W. Cecil,Changing China, 1910, ch. i.)52The diary of a Manchu noble printed inChina under the Empress Dowager(1910) by J.O. Bland and E. Backhouse throws light on the subject. It was to Jung-Lu, father-in-law of Prince Chin, that the legations owed their escape from extermination.53It was at this time (July 17th) that the intense anxiety of the civilized world with regard to the fate of the besieged reached its culminating point. Circumstantial accounts of the fall of the legations and the massacre of their inmates were circulated in Shanghai and found general credence. It was not till near the end of the month that an authentic message from the American minister proved these fears to be premature.54In negotiating this agreement Lord Salisbury appears to have been largely influenced by the aggressive features of Russia’s action in North China, while Germany appears to have been actuated by a desire to forestall isolated action by Great Britain in the Yangtsze basin. In Germany the agreement was known as the Yangtsze Agreement. Great Britain held, however, that it applied equally to Manchuria.55Liu Kun-yi died in 1902. In the same year died Tao-mu, the viceroy of Canton. In these men China lost two of her most capable and enlightened officials.56Prince Chun was born in 1882. He was the first member of the imperial family to be sent on a foreign mission.57Tung Fu-hsiang died in 1908. A sum of some £80,000 belonging to him, and left in the provincial treasury, was appropriated for works of public utility (seeThe Times, April 9th, 1910).58Lord W. Cecil, op. cit. p. 9.59This institution was nominally a private concern which financed the Manchurian railway, but it acted as part of the Russian government machinery. The existence of the contract of the 27th of August 1896 was frequently denied until expressly admitted by the Russo-Chinese agreement of the 8th of April 1902.60On the 8th of October the Russian troops had been withdrawn from Mukden, but they reoccupied the town on the 28th of the same month, Admiral Alexeiev, the viceroy of the Far East, alleging that the inertia of the Chinese officials seriously hindered the work of extending civilization in Manchuria.61The form of outrage, probably the first of its kind in China, was itself a symptom of the changed times. The bomb injured Prince Tsai Tse and another commissioner, and the departure of the commission was consequently delayed some months.62In 1907 further commissions were appointed, on the initiative of Yuan Shih-kai, to study specifically the constitutions of Great Britain, Germany and Japan.63This department was organized at Shanghai in 1854. The Taiping rebels being in possession of the native city, the collection of customs dues, especially on foreign ships, was placed in the hands of foreigners. This developed into a permanent institution, the European staff being mainly British.64The British official view, as stated in parliament on the 27th of April 1910, was that the changes resulting from the creation of the Board of Control had, so far, been purely departmental changes of form, and that the position of the inspector-general remained unaltered.65SeeThe Timesof the 21st of April and 11th of May 1910.66A chest contained from 135 ℔ to 160 lb.67A picul = 133½ lb.68Changing China, p. 118.69SeeThe Timesof 7th and 8th of March and 8th of April 1910.70The first recorded importation of morphia into China was in 1892, and it is suggested that it was first used as an anti-opium medicine. Morphia-taking, however, speedily became a vice, and in 1902 over 195,000 oz. of morphia were imported (enough for some 300,000,000 injections). To check the evil the Chinese government during 1903 imposed a tax of about 200%ad valorem, with the result that the imports declared to the customs fell in 1905 to 54 oz. only. The falling off was explained “not by a diminished demand, but by smuggling” (Morse’sTrade and Administration of the Chinese Empire, p. 351).71A regulation by the ministry of education, dated the 14th of January 1910, ordered that no girl should be admitted to school dressed in foreign clothes or with unnatural (i.e.bound) feet.72For the growth of the education movement seeThe Times, 4th of September 1909.73The Dalai Lama left Peking in December 1908 on his return to Lhassa, which he reached in November 1909. Differences had arisen between him and the Chinese government, which sought to make the spiritual as well as the temporal power of the Dalai Lama dependent on his recognition by the emperor of China. Early in 1910 the Dalai Lama, in consequence of the action of the Chinese amban in Lhassa, fled from that city and sought refuge in India.74Chang Chih-tung died in October 1909. He was a man of considerable ability, and one whose honesty and loyalty had never been doubted. He was noted as an opponent of opium smoking, and for over thirty years had addressed memorials to the throne against the use of the drug.75SeeThe Timesof the 7th of September 1909.76Proposals made early in 1910 by the American secretary of state for the neutralization of the Manchurian railway received no support.77By a convention signed on July 4th, 1910, Russia and Japan agreed to “maintain and respect” thestatus quoin Manchuria.78See theQuinzaine colonialeof the 10th of December 1909.79SeeThe Timesof the 20th of January 1910.80See for the prospects of reformThe Timesof 30th May 1910.81La Sculpture sur pierre en Chine ait temps des deux dynasties Han(Paris, 1893).
1As to the origin of the names China and Cathay (the medieval name) see below §History. According to one theory the name China is of Malay origin, designating originally the region now called Indo-China, but transferred in early times to China proper. By the Chinese the country is often calledShih-pa-shêng,“the Eighteen Provinces,” from the number of its great territorial divisions. It is also calledChung-kwo,“the Middle Kingdom,” properly used of the central part of China, andHwa-kwo,“the Flowery Kingdom.”
2A Chinese mile,li, orle= 0.36 English mile.
3For the Grand Canal the chief authority is Dominique Gandar, S.J., “Le Canal Impérial. Étude historique et descriptive,”Variétés sinologiquesNo. 4 (Shanghai, 1903); see also Stenz, “Der Kaiserkanal,” inBeiträgen zur Kolonialpolitik, Band v. (Berlin, 1903-1904), and the works of Ney Elias, Sir J.F. Davis, A. Williamson, E.H. Parker and W.R. Carles.
4Nevertheless there is considerable local traffic. The transit trade with Shan-tung, passing the Chin-kiang customs and using some 250 m. of the worst part of the canal, was valued in 1905 at 3,331,000 taels.
5The portion of the wall which abutted on to the sea has been destroyed.
6See theGeog. Jnl.(Feb. and March 1907). For a popular account of the wall, with numerous photographs, seeThe Great Wall of China(London, 1909), by W.E. Giel, who in 1908 followed its course from east to west. Consult also A. Williamson,Journey in North China(London, 1870); Martin, “La Grande Muraille de la Chine,”Revue scientifique(1891).
7For Shanghai the figures are compiled from twenty-six years’ observations. SeeChina Sea Directory, vol. iii. (4th ed., 1904) p. 660.
8The thermometer registered 23° F. in January 1893, on the river 28 m. below Canton. This is the lowest reading known. Ibid, pp. 104-105.
9See W.W. Rockhill,Inquiry into the Population of China(Washington, 1904).
10For a bibliography of works relating to the aboriginal races of China see Richard’sComprehensive Geography of the Chinese Empire(1908 ed.), pp. 371-373.
11Evidences of the social changes taking place in China are to be found in the strong movement for the education of girls, and in the formation of societies, under official patronage, to prevent the binding of women’s feet.
12It must be remembered that there is great variety in the costumes worn in the various provinces. The particulars here given are of the most general styles of dress.
13Richard’sComprehensive Geography, &c. (1908 edition), pp. 340-341.
14Otherwise Abū Ja‘far Ibn Mahommed al-Mansūr (seeCaliphate, C. § 2).
15For a summary of Chang Chih-tung’s treatise, seeChanging China(1910 edition), chap. xxii.
16It was announced in June 1910 that the throne had approved a recommendation of the Board of Education that English should be the official language for scientific and technical education, and that the study of English should be compulsory in all provincial scientific and technical schools.
17SeeThe Timesof the 19th of February and the 3rd of May 1910.
18Another peculiarity of loess in China is that it lends itself readily to the excavation of dwellings for the people. In many places whole villages live in cave dwellings dug out in the vertical wall of loess. They construct spiral staircases, selecting places where the ground is firm, and excavate endless chambers and recesses which are said to be very comfortable and salubrious.
19See J. Edkins,The Poppy in China, and H.B. Morse,The Trade and Administration of the Chinese Empire, chap. xi.
20Richard’sComprehensive Geography, &c.(1908 edition), p. 144.
21In the 18th century foreign trade was restricted to Canton. In the 17th century, however, the Dutch traded to Formosa and Amoy, and the English to Amoy also. The Portuguese traded with Canton as early as 1517. For the early intercourse between Portugal and China see the introductory chapter in Donald Ferguson’sLetters from Portuguese Captives in Canton(Bombay, 1902).
22FromThe Statesman’s Year Book, 1910 edition.
23SeeThe Timesof the 28th of March 1910.
24See Morse,op. cit.chap. x.
25The maritime customs had established a postal service for its own convenience in 1861, and it first gave facilities to the general public in 1876. An organized service for the conveyance of government despatches has existed in China for many centuries, and the commercial classes maintain at their own expense a system (“letter hongs”) for the transmission of correspondence.
26For the causes leading to this movement and the progress of reform see §History.
27For recent authoritative accounts of the government of China see H.B. Morse,The Trade and Administration of the Chinese Empire, chap. iii.; Richard’sComprehensive Geography, &c., Bk. I. § v., andThe Statesman’s Year Book.
28The empress-consort is chosen by the emperor from a number of girls selected by his ministers from the families of Manchu nobles. From the same candidates the emperor also selects secondary-empresses (usually not more than four). Concubines, not limited in number, are chosen from the daughters of Manchu nobles and free-men. All the children are equally legitimate.
29Recent emperors have been children at accession and have been kept in seclusion.
30See “Democratic China” in H.A. Giles,China and the Chinese.
31W.F. Mayers,The Chinese Government(1878).
32This body is superseded by the Imperial Senate summoned to meet for the first time on the 3rd of October 1910.
33Yamên is the name given to the residences of all high officials. Tsung-li Yamên = the bureau for managing each (foreign) kingdom’s affairs.
34An edict of the 15th of July 1909 created a naval and military advisory board. Up to that time the navy was controlled by the viceroys at Canton, Nanking, Fu-chow and Tientsin; the viceroys at Canton and Tientsin being ministers superintendent of the southern and northern ports respectively.
35Thus in 1910 Prince Ching, president of the grand council, was, for the third time, impeached by censors, being denounced as an “old treacherous minister,” who filled the public service with a crowd of men as unworthy as himself. The censor who made the charge was stripped of his office (seeThe Timesof the 30th of March 1910).
36For details of local government see Richard’sComprehensive Geography, 1908 edition, pp. 301 et seq.
37Morse, op. cit., 1908 edition, p. 76
38SeeThe Timesof the 28th of February 1910.
39SeeThe Statesman’s Year-Book(1910 edition).
40A few of the old native customs stations, which are deemed perquisites of the imperial court, may also be excepted, as, for instance, the native custom-house at Canton, Hwei Kwan on the Grand Canal, and various stations in the neighbourhood of Peking.
41The production of a budget in 1915 was promised in one of the reform edicts of 1908.
42In this article the tael used as a standard is the Haikwan (i.e.customs) tael, worth about 3s. It fluctuates with the value of silver.
43Roughly £43,000,000.
44Trade and Administration of the Chinese Empire(1910), p. 118.
45Temporary reductions are granted in provinces affected by rebellion, drought or flood.
46Information as to what extent the expenses of the new army and navy are met by the central government is lacking.
47To meet the expenditure on interest and redemption of the indemnities for the Boxer outrages the Peking government required the provincial authorities to increase their annual remittances by taels 18,700,000 during the years 1902-1910.
48It must be remembered that the Haikwan tael is here indicated.
49See Morse’sTrade and Administration of the Chinese Empire, chap. ix.
50A supplementary exchange of notes of the same date excepted from the scope of this agreement the Shan-hai-kwan-Niu-chwang extension which had already been conceded to the Hongkong & Shanghai Bank.
51The religious aspect of the Boxer movement gave it strength. Its disciples believed that the spirits which defended China were incensed by the introduction of Western methods and ideals. Many of them believed themselves to be invulnerable to any Western weapon. (See Lord W. Cecil,Changing China, 1910, ch. i.)
52The diary of a Manchu noble printed inChina under the Empress Dowager(1910) by J.O. Bland and E. Backhouse throws light on the subject. It was to Jung-Lu, father-in-law of Prince Chin, that the legations owed their escape from extermination.
53It was at this time (July 17th) that the intense anxiety of the civilized world with regard to the fate of the besieged reached its culminating point. Circumstantial accounts of the fall of the legations and the massacre of their inmates were circulated in Shanghai and found general credence. It was not till near the end of the month that an authentic message from the American minister proved these fears to be premature.
54In negotiating this agreement Lord Salisbury appears to have been largely influenced by the aggressive features of Russia’s action in North China, while Germany appears to have been actuated by a desire to forestall isolated action by Great Britain in the Yangtsze basin. In Germany the agreement was known as the Yangtsze Agreement. Great Britain held, however, that it applied equally to Manchuria.
55Liu Kun-yi died in 1902. In the same year died Tao-mu, the viceroy of Canton. In these men China lost two of her most capable and enlightened officials.
56Prince Chun was born in 1882. He was the first member of the imperial family to be sent on a foreign mission.
57Tung Fu-hsiang died in 1908. A sum of some £80,000 belonging to him, and left in the provincial treasury, was appropriated for works of public utility (seeThe Times, April 9th, 1910).
58Lord W. Cecil, op. cit. p. 9.
59This institution was nominally a private concern which financed the Manchurian railway, but it acted as part of the Russian government machinery. The existence of the contract of the 27th of August 1896 was frequently denied until expressly admitted by the Russo-Chinese agreement of the 8th of April 1902.
60On the 8th of October the Russian troops had been withdrawn from Mukden, but they reoccupied the town on the 28th of the same month, Admiral Alexeiev, the viceroy of the Far East, alleging that the inertia of the Chinese officials seriously hindered the work of extending civilization in Manchuria.
61The form of outrage, probably the first of its kind in China, was itself a symptom of the changed times. The bomb injured Prince Tsai Tse and another commissioner, and the departure of the commission was consequently delayed some months.
62In 1907 further commissions were appointed, on the initiative of Yuan Shih-kai, to study specifically the constitutions of Great Britain, Germany and Japan.
63This department was organized at Shanghai in 1854. The Taiping rebels being in possession of the native city, the collection of customs dues, especially on foreign ships, was placed in the hands of foreigners. This developed into a permanent institution, the European staff being mainly British.
64The British official view, as stated in parliament on the 27th of April 1910, was that the changes resulting from the creation of the Board of Control had, so far, been purely departmental changes of form, and that the position of the inspector-general remained unaltered.
65SeeThe Timesof the 21st of April and 11th of May 1910.
66A chest contained from 135 ℔ to 160 lb.
67A picul = 133½ lb.
68Changing China, p. 118.
69SeeThe Timesof 7th and 8th of March and 8th of April 1910.
70The first recorded importation of morphia into China was in 1892, and it is suggested that it was first used as an anti-opium medicine. Morphia-taking, however, speedily became a vice, and in 1902 over 195,000 oz. of morphia were imported (enough for some 300,000,000 injections). To check the evil the Chinese government during 1903 imposed a tax of about 200%ad valorem, with the result that the imports declared to the customs fell in 1905 to 54 oz. only. The falling off was explained “not by a diminished demand, but by smuggling” (Morse’sTrade and Administration of the Chinese Empire, p. 351).
71A regulation by the ministry of education, dated the 14th of January 1910, ordered that no girl should be admitted to school dressed in foreign clothes or with unnatural (i.e.bound) feet.
72For the growth of the education movement seeThe Times, 4th of September 1909.
73The Dalai Lama left Peking in December 1908 on his return to Lhassa, which he reached in November 1909. Differences had arisen between him and the Chinese government, which sought to make the spiritual as well as the temporal power of the Dalai Lama dependent on his recognition by the emperor of China. Early in 1910 the Dalai Lama, in consequence of the action of the Chinese amban in Lhassa, fled from that city and sought refuge in India.
74Chang Chih-tung died in October 1909. He was a man of considerable ability, and one whose honesty and loyalty had never been doubted. He was noted as an opponent of opium smoking, and for over thirty years had addressed memorials to the throne against the use of the drug.
75SeeThe Timesof the 7th of September 1909.
76Proposals made early in 1910 by the American secretary of state for the neutralization of the Manchurian railway received no support.
77By a convention signed on July 4th, 1910, Russia and Japan agreed to “maintain and respect” thestatus quoin Manchuria.
78See theQuinzaine colonialeof the 10th of December 1909.
79SeeThe Timesof the 20th of January 1910.
80See for the prospects of reformThe Timesof 30th May 1910.
81La Sculpture sur pierre en Chine ait temps des deux dynasties Han(Paris, 1893).
CHINA, the common name for ware made of porcelain, given because it came from China, where the first vitrified, translucent, white ware was produced. The Portuguese or Italians gave it the name of “porcelain” (q.v.). English usage was influenced by India and the East, where the Persianchīnīwas widely prevalent as the name of the ware. This is seen also in some of the earlier forms and pronunciations,e.g.chiney,cheney, and laterchaney(seeCeramics; and for “china-clay”Kaolin).
CHINANDEGA, orChinendega, the capital of the department of Chinandega in western Nicaragua, 10 m. N.N.E. of the seaport of Corinto by the Corinto-Managua railway. Pop. (1900) about 12,000. Chinandega is the centre of a fertile corn-producing district, and has a large transit trade owing to its excellent situation on the chief Nicaraguan railway. Its manufactures include coarse cloth, pottery and Indian feather ornaments. Cotton, sugar-cane and bananas are cultivated in the neighbourhood.
CHI-NAN FU, the capital of Shan-tung, China, in 36° 40′ N., 117° 1′ E. Pop. about 100,000. It is situated in one of the earliest settled districts of the Chinese empire. The city, which lies in the valley of the present channel of the Yellow river (Hwang-Ho), and about 4 m. south of the river, is surrounded by a triple line of defence. First is the city wall, strongly built and carefully guarded, outside this a granite wall, and beyond this again a mud rampart. Three springs outside the west gate throw up streams of tepid water to a height of about 2 ft. This water, which is highly prized for its healing qualities, fills the moat and forms a fine lake in the northern quarter of the city.
Chi-nan Fu was formerly famous for its manufacture of silks and of imitation precious stones. It is now the chief commercial entrepôt of Western Shan-tung but no longer a manufacturing centre. A highway connects it with the Yellow river, and it is joined by a railway 280 m. long to Kiaochow. The city has a university for instruction on Western lines, and an efficient military school. American Presbyterians began mission work in the city in 1873; it is also the see of a Roman Catholic bishop.
CHINCHA ISLANDS, three small islands in the Pacific Ocean, about 12 m. from the coast of Peru (to which country they belong), opposite the town of Pisco, and 106 m. distant from Callao, in 13° 38′ S., 76° 28′ W. The largest of the group, known as the North Island or Isla del Norte, is only four-fifths of a mile in length, and about a third in breadth. They are of granitic formation, and rise from the sea in precipitous cliffs, worn into countless caves and hollows, which furnish convenient resting-places for the sea-fowl. Their highest points attain an elevation of 113 ft. The islands have yielded a few remains of the Chincha Indian race. They were formerly noted for vast deposits of guano, and its export was begun by the Peruvian government in 1840. The supply, however, was exhausted in 1874. In 1853-1854 the Chincha Islands were the chief object in a contest known as the Guano War between President Echenique and General Castilla; and in April 1864 they were seized by the Spanish rear-admiral Pinzon in order to bring the Peruvian government to apologize for its treatment of Spanish immigrants.
CHINCHEW, or CHINCHU, the name usually given in English charts to an ancient and famous port of China in the province of Fu-kien, of which the Chinese name isCh‘üanchow-fuorTs‘üanchow-fu. It stands in 24° 57′ N., 118° 35′ E. The walls have a circuit of 7 or 8 m., but embrace much vacant ground. The chief exports are tea and sugar, tobacco, china-ware, nankeens, &c. There are remains of a fine mosque, founded by the Arab traders who resorted thither. The English Presbyterian Mission has had a chapel in the city since about 1862. Beyond the northern branch of the Min (several miles from the city) there is a suburb called Loyang, approached by the most celebrated bridge in China.
Ch‘üanchow, owing to the obstruction of its harbour by sand banks, has been supplanted as a port by Amoy, and its trade is carried on through the port of Nganhai. It is still, however, a large and populous city. It was in the middle ages the great port of Western trade with China, and was known to the Arabs and to Europeans asZaitūnorZayton, the name under which it appears in Abulfeda’s geography and in the Mongol history of Rashīddudīn, as well as in Ibn Batuta, Marco Polo and other medieval travellers. Some argument has been alleged against the identity of Zayton with Ch‘üanchow, and in favour of its being rather Changchow (a great city 60 m. W.S.W. of Ch‘üanchow), or a port on the river of Changchow near Amoy. “Port of Zayton” may have embraced the great basin called Amoy Harbour, the chief part of which lies within theFuor department of Ch‘üanchow; but there is hardly room for doubt that the Zayton of Marco Polo and Abulfeda was the Ch‘üanchow of the Chinese. Ibn Batuta informs us that a rich silk texture made here was calledZaitūniya; and there can be little doubt that this is the real origin of the word “Satin,”Zettaniin medieval Italian,Aceytuniin Spanish.
CHINCHILLA, a small grey hopping rodent mammal (Chinchilla lanigera), of the approximate size of a squirrel, inhabiting the eastern slopes of the Andes in Chile and Bolivia, at altitudes between 8000 and 12,000 ft. It typifies not only the genusChinchilla, but the familyChinchillidae, for the distinctive features of which seeRodentia. The ordinary chinchilla is about 10 in. in length, exclusive of the long tail, and in the form of its head somewhat resembles a rabbit. It is covered with a dense soft fur ¾ in. long on the back and upwards of an inch in length on the sides, of a delicate French grey colour, darkly mottled on the upper surf ace and dusky white beneath; the ears being long, broad and thinly covered with hair. Chinchillas live in burrows, and these subterranean dwellings undermine the ground in some parts of the Chilean Andes to such an extent as to cause danger to travellers on horseback. They associate in communities, forming their burrows among loose rocks, and coming out to feed in the early morning and towards sunset. They feed chiefly on roots and grasses, in search of which they often travel considerable distances; and when eating they sit on their haunches, holding their food in their fore-paws. The Indians in hunting them employ the grison (Galictis vittata), a member of the weasel family, which is trained to enter the crevices of the rocks where the chinchillas lie concealed during the day. The fur (q.v.) of this rodent was prized by the ancient Peruvians, who made coverlets and other articles with the skin, and at the present day the skins are exported in large numbers to Europe, where they are made into muffs, tippets and trimmings. That chinchillas have not under such circumstances become rare, if not extinct, is owing to their extraordinary fecundity, the female usually producing five or six young twice a year. They are docile in disposition, and thus well fitted for domestication. The Peruvian chinchilla (C. brevicaudata) is larger, with relatively shorter ears and tail; while still larger species constitute the genusLagidium, ranging from the Andes to Patagonia, and distinguished by having four in place of five front-toes, more pointed ears, and a somewhat differently formed skull. (See alsoViscacha).