PALMS, YAMS, PLANTAINS, ETC.In ancient times the date palm was cultivated in China, but is now unknown. The cocoanut flourishes in Hainan and the adjacent coasts, where its fruit, leaves, and timber are much used. A great variety of utensils are carved from the nut-case, and ropes spun from the coir, while the cultivators drink the toddy made from the juice. The fan palm (Chamærops) is the common palm of the country, two species being cultivated for the wiry fibres in the leaf-sheaths, and for their broad leaves. This fibre is far more useful than that from cocoanut husks, as it is longer and smoother, and is woven into ropes, mats, cloaks, and brushes. The tree is spread over the greater part of the provinces, one of their most ornamental and useful trees. Another sort (Caryota) also furnishes a fibre employed in the same way, but its timber is more valuable; sedan thills are made of its wood. Still another is the talipot palm (Borassus), fromwhose leaves a material for writing books upon was once produced, as is the case now in Siam.[208]Several species of Aroideæ are cultivated, among which theCaladium cuculatum,Arum esculentum, andIndicumare common. The tuberous farinaceous roots of theSagittaria sinensisare esteemed; the roots of these plants, and of the water-chestnut, are manufactured into a powder resembling arrow-root. The sweet flag (Calamus) is used in medicine for its spicy warmth. The stems of a species of Juncus are collected and the pith carefully taken out and dried for the wicks of water-lamps, and the inner layers of the pith hats so generally worn in southern China.The extensive group of lillies contains many splendid ornaments of the conservatory and garden, natives of China; some are articles of food. TheAgapanthus, or blue African lily, four species ofHemerocallis, or day lily, and the fragrant tuberose, are all common about Canton; the latter is widely cultivated for its blossoms to scent fancy teas. Eight or ten species of Lilium (among which the speckled tiger lily and the unsullied white are conspicuous) also add their gay beauties to the gardens; while the modest Commelina, with its delicate blue blossoms, ornaments the hedges and walks. Many alliaceous plants, the onion, cives, garlic, etc., belong to this group; and the Chinese relish them for the table as much as they admire the flowers of their beauteous and fragrant congeners for bouquets. The singular red-leaved iron-wood (Dracæna) forms a common ornament of gardens.The yam, orta-shu(i.e., ‘great tuber’), is not much raised, though its wholesome qualities as an article of food are well understood. The same group (Musales) to which the yam belongs furnishes the custard-apple, one of the few fruits which have been introduced from abroad. The Amaryllidæ are represented by many pretty species of Crinum, Nerine, and Amaryllis. Their unprofitable beauty is compensated by the plain but useful plantain, said to stand before the potato and sago palm as producing the greatest amount of wholesome food, in proportion to its size, of any cultivated plant.[209]There are many varieties of this fruit, some of them so acid as to require cooking before eating.That pleasant stomachic, ginger, is cultivated through all the country, and exposed for sale as a green vegetable, to spice dishes, and largely made into a preserve. The Alpinia and Canna, or Indian shot, are common garden flowers. The large group of Orchideæ has nineteen genera known to be natives of China, among which the air plants (VandaandÆrides) are great favorites. They are suspended in baskets under the trees, and continue to unfold their blossoms in gradual succession for many weeks, all the care necessary being to sprinkle them daily. The true species of Ærides are among the most beautiful productions of the vegetable world, their flowers being arrayed in long racemes of delicate colors and delicious fragrance. The beautiful Bletia, Arundina, Spathoglottis, and Cymbidium are common in damp and elevated places about the islands near Macao and Hongkong.FOREST TREES, HEMP, ETC.Many species of the pine, cypress, and yew, forming the three subdivisions of cone-bearing plants, furnish a large proportion of the timber and fuel. The larch is not rare, and thePinus massonianaandCunninghamiafurnish most of the common pine timber. The finest member of this order in China is the white pine (Pinus bungiana), peculiar to Chihlí; its trunk is a clear white, and as it annually sheds the bark it always looks as if whitewashed. Some specimens near Peking are said to be a thousand years old. Two members of the genusSequoia, of a moderate size, occur near Tibet. The juniper and thuja are often selected by gardeners to try their skill in forcing them to grow into rude representations of birds and animals, the price of these curiosities being proportioned to their grotesqueness and difficulty. The nuts of the maiden-hair tree (Salisburia adiantifolia) are eaten, and the leaves are sometimes put into books as a preservative against insects.The willow is a favorite plant and grows to a great size, Staunton mentioning some which were fifteen feet in girth;they shade the roads near the capital, and one of them is the true Babylonian willow; the trees are grown for timber and for burning into charcoal. Their leaves, shape, and habits afford many metaphors to poets and writers, much more use being made of the tree in this way, it might almost be said, than any other. The oak is less patronized by fine writers, but the value of its wood and bark is well understood; the country affords several species, one of which, the chestnut oak, is cultivated for the cupules, to be used in dyeing. The galls are used for dyeing and in medicine, and the acorns of some kinds are ground in mills, and the flour soaked in water and made into a farinaceous paste. Some of the missionaries speak of oaks a hundred feet high, but such giants in this family are rare. “One of the largest and most interesting of these trees, which,” writes Abel, “I have calledQuercus densifolia, resembled a laurel in its shining green foliage. It bore branches and leaves in a thick head, crowning a naked and straight stem; its fruit grew along upright spikes terminating the branches. Another species, growing to the height of fifty feet, bore them in long, pendulous spikes.”The chestnut, walnut, and hazelnut together furnish a large supply of food. The queer-shaped ovens fashioned in imitation of a raging lion, in which chestnuts are roasted in the streets of Peking, attract the eye of the visitor. The Jack-fruit (Artocarpus) is not unknown in Canton, but it is not much used. There are many species of the banian, but none of them produce fruit worth plucking; the Portuguese have introduced the common fig, but it does not flourish. The bastard banian is a magnificent shade tree, its branches sometimes overspreading an area a hundred or more feet across. The walls of cities and dwellings are soon covered with theFicus repens, and if left unmolested its roots gradually demolish them. The paper mulberry (Broussonetia) is largely cultivated in the northern provinces, and serves the poor with their chief material for windows. The leaf of the common mulberry is the principal object of its culture, but the fruit is eaten and the wood burned for lampblack to make India-ink.Hemp (Cannabis) is cultivated for its fibres, and the seeds furnish an oil used for household purposes and medicinal preparations; the intoxicating substance calledbang, made in India, is unknown in China. The family Proteaceæ contains theEleococca cordata, orwu-tung, a favorite tree of the Chinese for its beauty, the hard wood it furnishes, and the oil extracted from its seeds. TheStillingiabelongs to the same family; this symmetrical tree is a native of all the eastern provinces, where it is raised for its tallow; it resembles the aspen in the form and color of the leaf and in its general contour. The castor-oil is cultivated as a hedge plant, and the seeds are used both in the kitchen and apothecaries’ shop.The order Hippurinæ furnishes the water caltrops (Trapa), the seeds of which are vended in the streets as a fruit after boiling; one native name is ‘buffalo-head fruit,’ which the unopened nuts strikingly resemble. Black pepper is imported, not so much as a spice as for its infusion, to be administered in fevers. The betel pepper is cultivated for its leaves, which are chewed with the betel-nut. The pitcher plant (Nepenthes), called pig-basket plant, is not unfrequent near Canton; the leaves, or ascidia, bear no small resemblance to the open baskets employed for carrying hogs.RHUBARB, LEGUMINOSÆ, ETC.Many species of the tribeRumicinæare cultivated as esculent vegetables, among which may be enumerated spinach, green basil, beet, amaranthus, cockscomb, broom-weed (Kochia), buckwheat, etc. Two species of Polygonum are raised for the blue dye furnished by the leaves, which is extracted, like indigo, by maceration. Buckwheat is prepared for food by boiling it like millet; one native name means ‘triangular wheat.’ The flour is also employed in pastry. The cockscomb is much admired by the Chinese, whose gardens furnish several splendid varieties. The rhubarb is a member of this useful tribe, and large quantities are brought from Kansuh and Koko-nor, where its habits have lately been observed by Prejevalsky. The root is dug by Chinese and Tanguts during September and October, dried in the shade, and transported by the Yellow River to the coast towns, where Europeans pay from six to ten times its rate among the mountain markets.[210]The Chinese consider the restof the world dependent on them for tea and rhubarb, whose inhabitants are therefore forced to resort thither to procure means to relieve themselves of an otherwise irremediable costiveness. This argument was made use of by Commissioner Lin in 1840, when recommending certain restrictive regulations to be imposed upon foreign trade, because he supposed merchants from abroad would be compelled to purchase them at any price.The orderIlicinæ, or holly, furnishes several genera of Rhamneæ, whose fruits are often seen on tables. The Zizyphus furnishes the so-called Chinese dates[211]in immense quantities throughout the northern provinces. The fleshy peduncles of the Hovenia are eaten; they are common in the southeastern provinces. The leaves of theRhamnus theezansare among the many plants collected by the poor as a make-shift for the true tea. The fruit called the Chinese olive, obtained from the Pimela, is totally different from and is a poor substitute for the rich olive of the Mediterranean countries.[212]The Leguminosæ hold an important place in Chinese botany, affording many esculent vegetables and valuable products. Peas and beans are probably eaten more in China than any other country, and soy is prepared chiefly from the Soja or Dolichos. One of the modes of making this condiment is to skin the beans and grind them to flour, which is mixed with water and powdered gypsum, or turmeric. It is eaten as a jelly or curd, or in cakes, and a meal is seldom spread without it in some form. One genus of this tribe affords indigo, and from the buds and leaves of a species of Colutea a kind of green dye is said to be obtained. Liquorice is esteemed in medicine; and the red seeds of theAbrus precatoriusare gathered for ornaments. The Poinciana and Bauhinia are cultivated for their flowers, and the Erythrina and Cassia are among the most magnificent flowering trees in the south.FRUIT TREES AND FLOWERING PLANTS.The fruits are, on the whole, inferior in flavor and size to those of the same names at the west. Several varieties of pears, plums, peaches, and apricots are known; it is probable that China is the native country of each of these fruits, and some of the varieties equal those found anywhere. Erman[213]mentions an apple or haw which grows in “long bunches and is round, about the size of a cherry, of a red color, and very sweet taste,” found in abundance near Kiakhta. There are numerous species of Amygdalus cultivated for their flowers; and at new year the budding stems of the flowering almond, narcissus, plum, peach, and bell-flower (Enkianthus reticulatus) are forced into blossom for exhibition, as indicating good luck the coming year. The apples and quinces are generally destitute of that flavor looked for in them elsewhere, but thelu-kuh, orloquat, is a pleasant acid spring fruit. The pomegranate is chiefly cultivated for its beauty as a flowering plant; but the guava and Eugenia, or rose-apple, are sold in the market or made into jellies. The rose is a favorite among the Chinese and extensively cultivated; twenty species are mentioned, together with many varieties, as natives of the country; the Banks rose is developed and trained with great skill. The Spiræa or privet, myrtle, Quisqualis, Lawsonia or henna, white, purple, and red varieties of crape-myrtle or Lagerstrœmia, Hydrangea, the passion-flower, and the house-leek are also among the ornamental plants found in gardens. Few trees in any country present a more elegant appearance, when in full flower, than the Lagerstrœmias. The Pride of India and Chinese tamarix are also beautiful flowering trees. Specimens of the Cactus and Cereus, containing fifty or more splendid flowers in full bloom, are not unusual at Macao in August.The watermelon, cucumber, squash, tomato, brinjal or egg-plant, and other garden vegetables are abundant; the tallow-gourd (Benincasa cerifera) is remarkable for having its surface covered with a waxy exudation which smells like rosin. The dried bottle-gourd (Cucurbita lagenaria) is tied to the backs of children on the boats to assist them in floating if they shouldunluckily fall overboard. The fruit and leaves of the papaw, ormuh kwa, ‘tree melon,’ are eaten after being cooked; the Chinese are aware of the intenerating property of the exhalations from the leaves of this tree, and make use of them sometimes to soften the flesh of ancient hens and cocks, by hanging the newly killed birds in the tree or by feeding them upon the fruit beforehand. The carambola (Averrhoa) or tree gooseberry is much eaten by the Chinese, but is not relished by foreigners; the tree itself is also an ornament to any pleasure grounds.Ginseng is found wild in the forests of Manchuria, where it is collected by detachments of soldiers detailed for this purpose; these regions are regarded as imperial preserves, and the medicine is held as a governmental monopoly. The importation of the American root does not interfere to a very serious degree with the imperial sales, as the Chinese are fully convinced that their own plant is far superior. Among numerous plants of the malvaceous and pink tribes (Dianthaceæ) remarkable for their beauty or use, theLychnis coronata, five sorts of pink, theAlthæa Chinensis, eight species of Hibiscus, and other malvaceous flowers may be mentioned; the cotton tree (Salmalia) is common at Canton; the fleshy petals are sometimes prepared as food, and the silky stamens dried to stuff cushions. TheGossypium herbaceumandPachyrrhizusafford the materials for cotton and grasscloth; both of them are cultivated in most parts of China. The latter is a twining, leguminous plant, cultivated from remote antiquity, and still grown for its fibres, which are woven into linen. The petals of theHibiscus rosa-sinensisfurnish a black liquid to dye the eyebrows, and at Batavia they are employed to polish shoes. The fruits of theHibiscus ochra, or okers, are prepared for the table in a variety of ways.TheCamellia Japonicais allied to the same great tribe as the Hibiscus, and its elegant flowers are as much admired by the people of its native country as by florists abroad; thirty or forty varieties are enumerated, many of them unknown out of China, while Chinese gardeners are likewise ignorant of a large proportion of those found in our conservatories. This flower iscultivated solely for its beauty, but other species of Camellia are raised for their seeds, the oil expressed from them being serviceable for many household and mechanical purposes. From the fibres of a species of Waltheria, a plant of the same tribe, a fine cloth is made; and thePentapetes Phœnicia, or ‘noon flower,’ is a common ornament of gardens.The widely diffused tribe Ranunculiaceæ has many representatives, some of them profitable for their timber, others sought after for their fruit or admired for their beauty, and a few prized for their healing properties. There are eight species of Magnolia, all of them splendid flowering plants; the bark of theMagnolia yulanis employed as a febrifuge. The seed vessels of theIlicium anisatum, or star-aniseed, are gathered on account of their spicy warmth and fragrance. TheArtabotrys odoratissimusandUnona odorataare cultivated for their perfume. Another favorite is themowtan, or tree pæony, reared for its large and variegated flowers; its name ofhwa wang, or ‘king of flowers,’ indicates the estimation in which it is held. The skill of native gardeners has made many varieties, and their patience is rewarded by the high prices which fine specimens command. Good imitations of full-grown plants in flower are sometimes made of pith paper. The Clematis, the foxglove, theBerberis Chinensis, and the magnificent lotus, all belong to this tribe; the latter, one of the most celebrated plants in Asia, is more esteemed by the Chinese for its edible roots than reverenced for its religious associations. TheActæa asperais sometimes collected, as is the scouring rush, for cleaning pewter vessels, for which its hispid leaves are well fitted.The groups which include the poppy, mustard, cabbage, cress, and many ornamental species, form an important portion of native agriculture. The poppy has become a common crop in all the provinces, driving out the useful cereals by its greater value and profit. The leaves of many cruciferous plants are eaten, whether cultivated or wild; and one kind (Isates) yields a fine blue dye in the eastern provinces; the variety and amount of such food consumed by the Chinese probably exceeds that of any other people. Another tribe, Rutaceæ, contains the oranges and shaddocks, and some very fragrant shrubs, as theMurraya exoticaandpaniculata, and theAglaia odorata; while the bladder-tree (Koelreuteria) is a great attraction when its whole surface is brilliant with golden flowers. Thewhampe,i.e., yellow skin (Cookia punctata), is a common and superior fruit. The seeds of the Gleditschia, besides their value in cleansing, are worn as beads, “because,” say the Buddhists, “all demons are afraid of the wood;” one name means ‘preventive of evil.’ Two native fruits, thelíchíandlungan, are allied to the Sapindus in their affinities; while thefung shu, or Liquidambar, and many sorts of maple, with thePittosporum tobira, an ornamental shrub, may be mentioned among plants used for food or sought after for timber.ORNAMENTAL PLANTS, ETC.These brief notices of Chinese plants may be concluded by mentioning some of the most ornamental not before spoken of; but all the beautiful sorts are soon introduced into western conservatories by enterprising florists. In the extensive tribe of Rubiacinæ are several species of honeysuckle, and a fragrant Viburnum resembling the snowball. The Serissa is cultivated around beds like the box; theIxora coccinea, and other species of that genus, are among common garden shrubs. The seeds of two or three species of Artemisia are collected, dried, and reduced to a down, to be burned as an actual cautery. The dried twigs are frequently woven into a rope to slowly consume as a means of driving away mosquitoes. From theCarthamus tinctoirusa fine red dye is prepared. The succory, lettuce, dandelion, and other cichoraceous plants, either wild or cultivated, furnish food; while innumerable varieties of Chrysanthemums and Asters are reared for their beauty.The Labiatæ afford many genera, some of them cultivated; and the Solanaceæ, or nightshades, contain the tomato, potato, tobacco, stramony, and several species of Capsicum, or red pepper. It has been disputed whether tobacco is native or foreign, but the philological argument and historical notices prove that both this plant and maize were introduced within half a century after the discovery of America, or about the year 1530. The Chinese dry the leaves and cut them into shreds for smoking; the snuff is coarser and less pungent than the Scotch; it is said that powdered cinnabar is sometimes mixed with it.Among the Convolvulaceæ are many beautiful species of Ipomea, especially the cypress vine, orquamoclit, trained about the houses even of the poorest. TheIpomea maritimaoccurs, trailing over the sandy beaches along the coast from Hainan to Chusan and Lewchew. TheConvolvulus reptansis planted around the edges of pools on the confines of villages and fields, for the sake of its succulent leaves. The narcotic family of Apocyneæ contains the oleander and Plumeria, prized for their fragrance; while the yellow milkweed (Asclepias curassavica) and theVinca rosea, or red periwinkle, are less conspicuous, but not unattractive, members of the same group. The jasmine is a deserved favorite, its clusters of flowers being often wound by women in their hair, and planted in pots in their houses. TheOlea fragrans, orkwei hwa, is cultivated for scenting tea.In the eastern provinces the hills are adorned with yellow and red azaleas of gorgeous hue, especially around Ningpo and in Chusan. “Few,” says Mr. Fortune, “can form any idea of the gorgeous beauty of these azalea-clad hills, where, on every side, the eye rests on masses of flowers of dazzling brightness and surpassing beauty. Nor is it the azalea alone which claims our admiration; clematises, wild roses, honeysuckles, and a hundred others, mingle their flowers with them, and make us confess that China is indeed the ‘central flowery land.’”[214]THE PUN TSAO, OR CHINESE HERBAL.A few notices of the advance made by the Chinese themselves in the study of natural history, taken from their great work on materia medica, thePun tsao, or ‘Herbal,’ will form an appropriate conclusion to this chapter. This work is usually bound in forty octavo volumes, divided into fifty-two chapters, and contains many observations of value mixed up with a deal of incorrect and useless matter; and as those who read the book have not sufficient knowledge to discriminate between what is true and what is partly or wholly wrong, its reputation tends greatly to perpetuate the errors. The compiler of thePun tsao, Lí Shí-chin, spent thirty years in collecting all the information on these subjects extant in his time, arranged it in a methodical manner for popular use, adding his own observations, and published it about 1590. He consulted some eight hundred preceding authors, from whom he selected one thousand five hundred and eighteen prescriptions, and added three hundred and seventy-four new ones, arranging his materials in fifty-two books in a methodical and (for his day) scientific manner. But how far behind the writings of Pliny and Dioscorides! The nucleus of Lí’s production is a small work which tradition ascribes to Shinnung, the God of Agriculture, and is doubtless anterior to the Han dynasty. His composition was well received, and attracted the notice of the Emperor, who ordered several succeeding editions to be published at the expense of the state. It was, in fact, so great an advance on all previous books, that it checked future writers in that branch, and Lí is likely now to be the first and last purely native critical writer on natural science in his mother tongue.The first two volumes contain a collection of prefaces and indices, together with many notices of the theory of anatomy and medicine, and three books of pictorial illustrations of the rudest sort. Chapters I. and II. consist of introductory observations upon the practice of medicine, and an index of the recipes contained in the work, called theSure Guide to a Myriad of Recipes; the whole filling the first seven volumes. Chapters III. and IV. contain lists of medicines for the cure of all diseases, occupying three volumes and a half, and comprising the therapeutical portion of the work, except a treatise on the pulse in the last volume.In the subsequent chapters the author carefully goes over the entire range of nature, first giving the correct name and its explanation; then comes descriptive remarks, solutions of doubts and corrections of errors being interspersed, closing with notes on the savor, taste, and application of the recipes in which it is used. Chapters V. and VI. treat of inorganic substances under water and fire, and minerals under Chapters VII. to XI., as earth, metals, gems, and stones. Water is divided into aerial and terrestrial,i.e., from the clouds, and from springs, the ocean, etc. Fire is considered under eleven species, among which are the flames of coal, bamboo, moxa, etc. The chapter on earth comprises the secretions fromvarious animals, as well as soot, ink, etc.; that on metals includes metallic substances and their common oxides; and gems are spoken of in the next division. The eleventh chapter, in true Chinese style, groups together what could not be placed in the preceding sections, including salts, minerals, etc. In looking at this arrangement one detects the similarity between it and the classification of characters in the language itself, showing the influence this has had upon it; thusho,shui,tu,kin,yuh,shih, andlu, or fire, water, earth, metals, gems, stones, and salts, are the seven radicals under which the names of inorganic substances are classified in the imperial dictionary. A like similarity runs through other parts of theHerbal.BOTANY OF THE HERBAL.Chapters XII. to XXXVII., inclusive, treat of the vegetable kingdom, under fivepu, or ‘divisions,’ viz.: herbs, grains, vegetables, fruits, and trees; which are again subdivided intolui, or ‘families,’ though the members of these families have no more relationship to each other than the heterogeneous family of an Egyptian slave dealer. The lowest term in the Chinese scientific scale ischung, which sometimes includes a genus, but quite as often corresponds to a species or even a variety, as Linneus understood those terms.The first division of herbs contains nine families, viz.: hill plants, odoriferous, marshy, noxious, scandent or climbing, aquatic, stony, and mossy plants, and a ninth of one hundred and sixty-two miscellaneous plants not used in medicine, making six hundred and seventy-eight species in all. In this classification the habitat is the most influential principle of arrangement for the families, while the termtsao, or ‘herb,’ denotes whatever is not eaten or used in the arts, or which does not attain to the magnitude of a tree.The second division of grains contains four families, viz.: 1, that of hemp, sesamum, buckwheat, wheat, rice, etc.; 2, the family of millet, maize, opium, etc.; 3, leguminous plants, pulse, peas, vetches, etc.; and 4, fermentable things, as bean curd, boiled rice, wine, yeast, congee, bread, etc., which, as they are used in medicine, and produced from vegetables, seem most naturally to come in this place. The first three families embrace thirty-nine species, and the last twenty-nine articles.The third division of kitchen herbs contains five families: 1, offensive pungent plants, as leeks, mustard, ginger; 2, soft and mucilaginous plants, as dandelions, lilies, bamboo sprouts; 3, vegetables producing fruit on the ground, as tomatoes, egg-plants, melons; 4, aquatic vegetables; and 5, mushrooms and fungi. The number of species is one hundred and thirty-three, and some part of each of them is eaten.The fourth division of fruits contains seven families: 1, the five fruits, the plum, peach, apricot, chestnut, and date (Rhamnus); 2, hill fruits, as the orange, pear, citron, persimmon; 3, foreign fruits, as the cocoanut, líchí, carambola; 4, aromatic fruits, as pepper, cubebs, tea; 5, trailing fruits, as melons, grape, sugar-cane; 6, aquatic fruits, as water caltrops, water lily, water chestnuts, etc.; and 7, fruits not used in medicine, as whampe. In all, one hundred and forty-seven species.The fifth division of trees has six families: 1, odoriferous trees, as pine, cassia, aloes, camphor; 2, stately trees, as the willow, tamarix, elm, soapberry, palm, poplar, julibrissin or silk tree; 3, luxuriant growing trees, as mulberry, cotton, Cercis, Gardenia, Bombax, Hibiscus; 4, parasites or things attached to trees, as the mistletoe, pachyma, and amber; 5, flexible plants, as bamboo; this family has only four species; 6, includes what the other five exclude, though it might have been thought that the second and third families were sufficiently comprehensive to contain almost all miscellaneous plants. The number of species is one hundred and ninety-eight. All botanical subjects are classified in this manner under five divisions, thirty-one families, and one thousand one hundred and ninety-five species, excluding all fermentable things.The arrangement of the botanical characters in the language does not correspond so well to this as does that of inorganic substances. The largest group in the language system istsao, which comprises in general such herbaceous plants as are not used for food. The second,muh, includes all trees or shrubs; and the bamboo, on account of its great usefulness, stands by itself, though the characters mostly denote names of articles made of bamboo. No less than four radicals, viz., rice, wheat, millet, and grain, serve as the heads under which the esculent grassesare arranged; there are consequently many synonymes and superfluous distinctions. One family includes beans, and another legumes; one comprises cucurbitaceous plants, another the alliaceous, and a fourth the hempen; the importance of these plants as articles of food or manufacture no doubt suggested their adoption. Thus all vegetable substances are distributed in the language under eleven different heads.ITS ZOÖLOGY AND OBSERVATIONS ON THE HORSE.The zoölogical grouping in thePun tsaois as rude and unscientific as that of plants. There are fivepu, or divisions, namely: insect, scaly, shelly, feathered, and hairy animals. The first division contains four families: 1 and 2, insects born from eggs, as bees and silkworms, butterflies and spiders; 3, insects produced by metamorphosis, as glow-worms, mole-crickets, bugs; and 4, water insects, as toads, centipedes, etc. The second division has four families: 1, the dragons, including the manis, “the only fish that has legs;” 2, snakes; 3, fishes having scales; and 4, scaleless fishes, as the eel, cuttle-fish, prawn. The third division is classified under the two heads of tortoises or turtles and mollusks, including the starfish, echinus, hermit-crab, etc. The fourth division contains birds arranged under four families: 1, water-fowl, as herons, king-fishers, etc.; 2, heath-fowl, sparrows, and pheasants; 3, forest birds, as magpies, crows; and 4, wild birds, as eagles and hawks. Beasts form the fifth division, which likewise contains four families: 1, the nine domesticated animals and their products; 2, wild animals, as lions, deers, otters; 3, rodentia, as the squirrel, hedgehog, rat; and 4, monkeys and fairies. The number of species in these five divisions is three hundred and ninety-one, but there are only three hundred and twenty different objects described, as the roe, fat, hair, exuviæ, etc., of animals are separately noticed.The sixteen zoölogical characters in the language are not quite so far astray from being types of classes as the eleven botanical ones. Nine of them are mammiferous, viz.: the tiger, dog, and leopard, which stand for the carnivora; the rat for rodentia; the ox, sheep, and deer for ruminants; and the horse and hog for pachydermatous. Birds are chiefly comprised under one radicalniao, but there is a sub-family ofshort-tailed gallinaceous fowls, though much confusion exists in the division. Fishes form one group, and improperly include crabs, lizards, whales, and snakes, though most of the latter are placed along with insects, or else under the dragons. The tortoise, toad, and dragon are the types of three small collections, and insects are comprised in the sixteenth and last. These groups, although they contain many anomalies, as might be expected, are still sufficiently natural to teach those who write the language something of the world around them. Thus, when one sees that a new character contains the radicaldogin composition, he will be sure that it is neither fowl, fish, nor bug, nor any animal of the pachydermatous, cervine, or ruminant tribes, although he may have never seen the animal nor heard its name. This peculiarity runs through the whole language, indeed, but in other groups, as for instance those under the radicals man, woman, and child, or heart, hand, leg, etc., the characters include mental and passionate emotions, as well as actions and names, so that the type is not sufficiently indicative to convey a definite idea of the words included under it; the names of natural objects being most easily arranged in this manner.Between the account of plants and animals theHerbalhas one chapter on garments and domestic utensils, for such things “are used in medicine and are made out of plants.” The remaining chapters, XXXIX.-LII., treat of animals, as noticed above. The properties of the objects spoken of are discussed in a very methodical manner, so that a student can immediately turn to a plant or mineral and ascertain its virtue. For instance, the information relative to the history and uses of the horse is contained in twenty-four sections. The first explains the character,ma, which was originally intended to represent the outline of the animal. The second describes the varieties of horses, the best kinds for medical use, and gives brief descriptions of them, for the guidance of the practitioner. “The pure white are the best for medicine. Those found in the south and east are small and weak. The age is known by the teeth. The eye reflects the full image of a man. If he eats rice his feet will become heavy; if rat’s dung, his belly will grow long; if his teeth be rubbed with dead silkworms, or black plums, hewill not eat, nor if the skin of a rat or wolf be hung in his manger. He should not be allowed to eat from a hog’s trough, lest he contract disease; and if a monkey is kept in the stable he will not fall sick.”The third section goes on to speak of the flesh, which is an article of food; that of a pure white stallion is the most wholesome. One author recommends “eating almonds, and taking a rush broth, if the person feel uncomfortable after a meal of horse-flesh. It should be roasted and eaten with ginger and pork; and to eat the flesh of a black horse, and not drink wine with it, will surely produce death.” The fourth describes the crown of the horse, the “fat of which is sweet, and good to make the hair grow and the face to shine.” The fifth and succeeding sections to the twenty-fourth treat of the sanative properties and mode of exhibiting the milk, heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, placenta, teeth, bones, skin, mane, tail, brains, blood, perspiration, and excrements.Some of the directions are dietetic, and others are prescriptive. “When eating horse-flesh do not eat the liver,” is one of the former, given because of the absence of a gall-bladder in the liver, which imports its poisonous qualities. “The heart of a white horse, or that of a hog, cow, or hen, when dried and rasped into spirit and so taken, cures forgetfulness; if the patient hears one thing he knows ten.” “Above the knees the horse hasnight-eyes(warts), which enable him to go in the night; they are useful in the toothache;” these sections partake both of the descriptive and prescriptive. Another medical one is: “If a man be restless and hysterical when he wishes to sleep, and it is requisite to put him to rest, let the ashes of a skull be mingled with water and given him, and let him have a skull for a pillow, and it will cure him.” The same preservative virtues appear to be ascribed to a horse’s hoof hung in a house as are supposed, by some who should know better, to belong to a horseshoe when nailed upon the door.[215]The whole of this extensive work is liberally sprinkled with such whimsies, but the practice of medicine among the Chinese is vastlybetter than their theories; for as Rémusat justly observes, “To see well and reason falsely are not wholly incompatible, and the naturalists of China, as well as the chemists and physicians of our ancient schools, have sometimes tried to reconcile them.”NATURAL SCIENCES IN CHINA.Another work on botany besides theHerbal, issued in 1848, deserves notice for its research and the excellence of its drawings. It is theChih Wuh Ming-shih Tu-kao, orResearches into the Names and Virtues of Plants, with plates, in sixty volumes. There are one thousand seven hundred and fifteen drawings of plants, with descriptions of each, arranged in eleven books, followed by medical and agricultural observations on the most important in four books. One of its valuable points to the foreigner is the terminology furnished by the two authors for describing the parts and uses of plants. Rémusat read a paper in 1828, ‘On the State of the Natural Sciences among the Orientals,’ in which he indicates the position attained by Chinese in their researches into the nature and uses of objects around them. After speaking of the adaptation the language possesses, from its construction, to impart some general notions of animated and vegetable nature, he goes on to remark upon the theorizing propensities of their writers, instead of contenting themselves with examining and recording facts. “In place of studying the organization of bodies, they undertake to determine by reasoning how it should be, an aim which has not seldom led them far from the end they proposed. One of the strangest errors among them relates to the transformation of beings into each other, which has arisen from popular stories or badly conducted observations on the metamorphoses of insects. Learned absurdities have been added to puerile prejudices; that which the vulgar have believed the philosophers have attempted to explain, and nothing can be easier, according to the oriental systems of cosmogony, in which a simple matter, infinitely diversified, shows itself in all beings. Changes affect only the apparent properties of bodies, or rather the bodies themselves have only appearances; according to these principles, they are not astonished at seeing the electric fluid or even the stars converted into stones, as happens when aerolites fall. That animated beings become inanimate is provenby fossils and petrifactions. Ice enclosed in the earth for a millennium becomes rock crystal; and it is only necessary that lead, thefatherof all metals (as Saturn, its alchemistic type, was of gods), pass through four periods of two centuries each to become successively cinnabar, tin, and silver. In spring the rat changes into a quail, and quails into rats again during the eighth month.“The style in which these marvels is related is now and then a little equivocal; but if they believe part of them proved, they can see nothing really impossible in the others. One naturalist, less credulous than his fellows, rather smiles at another author who reported the metamorphosis of an oriole into a mole, and of rice into a carp; ‘it is a ridiculous story,’ says he; ‘there is proof only of the change of rats into quails, which is reported in the almanac, and which I have often seen myself, for there is an unvaried progression, as well of transformations as of generations.’ Animals, according to the Chinese, are viviparous as quadrupeds, or oviparous as birds; they grow by transformations, as insects, or by the effect of humidity, as snails, slugs, and centipedes.... The success of such systems is almost always sure, not in China alone either, because it is easier to put words in place of things, to stop at nothing, and to have formulas ready for solving all questions. It is thus that they have formed a scientific jargon, which one might almost think had been borrowed from our dark ages, and which has powerfully contributed to retain knowledge in China in the swaddling-clothes we now find it. Experience teaches that when the human mind is once drawn into a false way, the lapse of ages and the help of a man of genius are necessary to draw it out. Ages have not been wanting in China, but the man whose superior enlightenment might dissipate these deceitful glimmerings, would find it very difficult to exercise this happy influence as long as their political institutions attract all their inquiring minds or vigorous intellects far away from scientific researches into the literary examinations, or put before them the honors and employments which the functions and details of magisterial appointments bring with them.”[216]CONSERVATISM OF NATIVE RESEARCH.This last observation indicates the reason, to a great degree, for the fixedness of the Chinese in all departments of learned inquiry; hard labor employs the energy and time of the ignorant mass, and emulation in the strife to reach official dignities consumes and perverts the talents of the learned. Then their language itself disheartens the most enthusiastic students in this branch of study, on account of its vagueness and want of established terms. When the vivifying and strengthening truths of revelation shall be taught to the Chinese, and its principles acted upon among them, we may expect more vigor in their minds and more profit in their investigations into the wonders of nature.
PALMS, YAMS, PLANTAINS, ETC.
In ancient times the date palm was cultivated in China, but is now unknown. The cocoanut flourishes in Hainan and the adjacent coasts, where its fruit, leaves, and timber are much used. A great variety of utensils are carved from the nut-case, and ropes spun from the coir, while the cultivators drink the toddy made from the juice. The fan palm (Chamærops) is the common palm of the country, two species being cultivated for the wiry fibres in the leaf-sheaths, and for their broad leaves. This fibre is far more useful than that from cocoanut husks, as it is longer and smoother, and is woven into ropes, mats, cloaks, and brushes. The tree is spread over the greater part of the provinces, one of their most ornamental and useful trees. Another sort (Caryota) also furnishes a fibre employed in the same way, but its timber is more valuable; sedan thills are made of its wood. Still another is the talipot palm (Borassus), fromwhose leaves a material for writing books upon was once produced, as is the case now in Siam.[208]
Several species of Aroideæ are cultivated, among which theCaladium cuculatum,Arum esculentum, andIndicumare common. The tuberous farinaceous roots of theSagittaria sinensisare esteemed; the roots of these plants, and of the water-chestnut, are manufactured into a powder resembling arrow-root. The sweet flag (Calamus) is used in medicine for its spicy warmth. The stems of a species of Juncus are collected and the pith carefully taken out and dried for the wicks of water-lamps, and the inner layers of the pith hats so generally worn in southern China.
The extensive group of lillies contains many splendid ornaments of the conservatory and garden, natives of China; some are articles of food. TheAgapanthus, or blue African lily, four species ofHemerocallis, or day lily, and the fragrant tuberose, are all common about Canton; the latter is widely cultivated for its blossoms to scent fancy teas. Eight or ten species of Lilium (among which the speckled tiger lily and the unsullied white are conspicuous) also add their gay beauties to the gardens; while the modest Commelina, with its delicate blue blossoms, ornaments the hedges and walks. Many alliaceous plants, the onion, cives, garlic, etc., belong to this group; and the Chinese relish them for the table as much as they admire the flowers of their beauteous and fragrant congeners for bouquets. The singular red-leaved iron-wood (Dracæna) forms a common ornament of gardens.
The yam, orta-shu(i.e., ‘great tuber’), is not much raised, though its wholesome qualities as an article of food are well understood. The same group (Musales) to which the yam belongs furnishes the custard-apple, one of the few fruits which have been introduced from abroad. The Amaryllidæ are represented by many pretty species of Crinum, Nerine, and Amaryllis. Their unprofitable beauty is compensated by the plain but useful plantain, said to stand before the potato and sago palm as producing the greatest amount of wholesome food, in proportion to its size, of any cultivated plant.[209]There are many varieties of this fruit, some of them so acid as to require cooking before eating.
That pleasant stomachic, ginger, is cultivated through all the country, and exposed for sale as a green vegetable, to spice dishes, and largely made into a preserve. The Alpinia and Canna, or Indian shot, are common garden flowers. The large group of Orchideæ has nineteen genera known to be natives of China, among which the air plants (VandaandÆrides) are great favorites. They are suspended in baskets under the trees, and continue to unfold their blossoms in gradual succession for many weeks, all the care necessary being to sprinkle them daily. The true species of Ærides are among the most beautiful productions of the vegetable world, their flowers being arrayed in long racemes of delicate colors and delicious fragrance. The beautiful Bletia, Arundina, Spathoglottis, and Cymbidium are common in damp and elevated places about the islands near Macao and Hongkong.
FOREST TREES, HEMP, ETC.
Many species of the pine, cypress, and yew, forming the three subdivisions of cone-bearing plants, furnish a large proportion of the timber and fuel. The larch is not rare, and thePinus massonianaandCunninghamiafurnish most of the common pine timber. The finest member of this order in China is the white pine (Pinus bungiana), peculiar to Chihlí; its trunk is a clear white, and as it annually sheds the bark it always looks as if whitewashed. Some specimens near Peking are said to be a thousand years old. Two members of the genusSequoia, of a moderate size, occur near Tibet. The juniper and thuja are often selected by gardeners to try their skill in forcing them to grow into rude representations of birds and animals, the price of these curiosities being proportioned to their grotesqueness and difficulty. The nuts of the maiden-hair tree (Salisburia adiantifolia) are eaten, and the leaves are sometimes put into books as a preservative against insects.
The willow is a favorite plant and grows to a great size, Staunton mentioning some which were fifteen feet in girth;they shade the roads near the capital, and one of them is the true Babylonian willow; the trees are grown for timber and for burning into charcoal. Their leaves, shape, and habits afford many metaphors to poets and writers, much more use being made of the tree in this way, it might almost be said, than any other. The oak is less patronized by fine writers, but the value of its wood and bark is well understood; the country affords several species, one of which, the chestnut oak, is cultivated for the cupules, to be used in dyeing. The galls are used for dyeing and in medicine, and the acorns of some kinds are ground in mills, and the flour soaked in water and made into a farinaceous paste. Some of the missionaries speak of oaks a hundred feet high, but such giants in this family are rare. “One of the largest and most interesting of these trees, which,” writes Abel, “I have calledQuercus densifolia, resembled a laurel in its shining green foliage. It bore branches and leaves in a thick head, crowning a naked and straight stem; its fruit grew along upright spikes terminating the branches. Another species, growing to the height of fifty feet, bore them in long, pendulous spikes.”
The chestnut, walnut, and hazelnut together furnish a large supply of food. The queer-shaped ovens fashioned in imitation of a raging lion, in which chestnuts are roasted in the streets of Peking, attract the eye of the visitor. The Jack-fruit (Artocarpus) is not unknown in Canton, but it is not much used. There are many species of the banian, but none of them produce fruit worth plucking; the Portuguese have introduced the common fig, but it does not flourish. The bastard banian is a magnificent shade tree, its branches sometimes overspreading an area a hundred or more feet across. The walls of cities and dwellings are soon covered with theFicus repens, and if left unmolested its roots gradually demolish them. The paper mulberry (Broussonetia) is largely cultivated in the northern provinces, and serves the poor with their chief material for windows. The leaf of the common mulberry is the principal object of its culture, but the fruit is eaten and the wood burned for lampblack to make India-ink.
Hemp (Cannabis) is cultivated for its fibres, and the seeds furnish an oil used for household purposes and medicinal preparations; the intoxicating substance calledbang, made in India, is unknown in China. The family Proteaceæ contains theEleococca cordata, orwu-tung, a favorite tree of the Chinese for its beauty, the hard wood it furnishes, and the oil extracted from its seeds. TheStillingiabelongs to the same family; this symmetrical tree is a native of all the eastern provinces, where it is raised for its tallow; it resembles the aspen in the form and color of the leaf and in its general contour. The castor-oil is cultivated as a hedge plant, and the seeds are used both in the kitchen and apothecaries’ shop.
The order Hippurinæ furnishes the water caltrops (Trapa), the seeds of which are vended in the streets as a fruit after boiling; one native name is ‘buffalo-head fruit,’ which the unopened nuts strikingly resemble. Black pepper is imported, not so much as a spice as for its infusion, to be administered in fevers. The betel pepper is cultivated for its leaves, which are chewed with the betel-nut. The pitcher plant (Nepenthes), called pig-basket plant, is not unfrequent near Canton; the leaves, or ascidia, bear no small resemblance to the open baskets employed for carrying hogs.
RHUBARB, LEGUMINOSÆ, ETC.
Many species of the tribeRumicinæare cultivated as esculent vegetables, among which may be enumerated spinach, green basil, beet, amaranthus, cockscomb, broom-weed (Kochia), buckwheat, etc. Two species of Polygonum are raised for the blue dye furnished by the leaves, which is extracted, like indigo, by maceration. Buckwheat is prepared for food by boiling it like millet; one native name means ‘triangular wheat.’ The flour is also employed in pastry. The cockscomb is much admired by the Chinese, whose gardens furnish several splendid varieties. The rhubarb is a member of this useful tribe, and large quantities are brought from Kansuh and Koko-nor, where its habits have lately been observed by Prejevalsky. The root is dug by Chinese and Tanguts during September and October, dried in the shade, and transported by the Yellow River to the coast towns, where Europeans pay from six to ten times its rate among the mountain markets.[210]The Chinese consider the restof the world dependent on them for tea and rhubarb, whose inhabitants are therefore forced to resort thither to procure means to relieve themselves of an otherwise irremediable costiveness. This argument was made use of by Commissioner Lin in 1840, when recommending certain restrictive regulations to be imposed upon foreign trade, because he supposed merchants from abroad would be compelled to purchase them at any price.
The orderIlicinæ, or holly, furnishes several genera of Rhamneæ, whose fruits are often seen on tables. The Zizyphus furnishes the so-called Chinese dates[211]in immense quantities throughout the northern provinces. The fleshy peduncles of the Hovenia are eaten; they are common in the southeastern provinces. The leaves of theRhamnus theezansare among the many plants collected by the poor as a make-shift for the true tea. The fruit called the Chinese olive, obtained from the Pimela, is totally different from and is a poor substitute for the rich olive of the Mediterranean countries.[212]
The Leguminosæ hold an important place in Chinese botany, affording many esculent vegetables and valuable products. Peas and beans are probably eaten more in China than any other country, and soy is prepared chiefly from the Soja or Dolichos. One of the modes of making this condiment is to skin the beans and grind them to flour, which is mixed with water and powdered gypsum, or turmeric. It is eaten as a jelly or curd, or in cakes, and a meal is seldom spread without it in some form. One genus of this tribe affords indigo, and from the buds and leaves of a species of Colutea a kind of green dye is said to be obtained. Liquorice is esteemed in medicine; and the red seeds of theAbrus precatoriusare gathered for ornaments. The Poinciana and Bauhinia are cultivated for their flowers, and the Erythrina and Cassia are among the most magnificent flowering trees in the south.
FRUIT TREES AND FLOWERING PLANTS.
The fruits are, on the whole, inferior in flavor and size to those of the same names at the west. Several varieties of pears, plums, peaches, and apricots are known; it is probable that China is the native country of each of these fruits, and some of the varieties equal those found anywhere. Erman[213]mentions an apple or haw which grows in “long bunches and is round, about the size of a cherry, of a red color, and very sweet taste,” found in abundance near Kiakhta. There are numerous species of Amygdalus cultivated for their flowers; and at new year the budding stems of the flowering almond, narcissus, plum, peach, and bell-flower (Enkianthus reticulatus) are forced into blossom for exhibition, as indicating good luck the coming year. The apples and quinces are generally destitute of that flavor looked for in them elsewhere, but thelu-kuh, orloquat, is a pleasant acid spring fruit. The pomegranate is chiefly cultivated for its beauty as a flowering plant; but the guava and Eugenia, or rose-apple, are sold in the market or made into jellies. The rose is a favorite among the Chinese and extensively cultivated; twenty species are mentioned, together with many varieties, as natives of the country; the Banks rose is developed and trained with great skill. The Spiræa or privet, myrtle, Quisqualis, Lawsonia or henna, white, purple, and red varieties of crape-myrtle or Lagerstrœmia, Hydrangea, the passion-flower, and the house-leek are also among the ornamental plants found in gardens. Few trees in any country present a more elegant appearance, when in full flower, than the Lagerstrœmias. The Pride of India and Chinese tamarix are also beautiful flowering trees. Specimens of the Cactus and Cereus, containing fifty or more splendid flowers in full bloom, are not unusual at Macao in August.
The watermelon, cucumber, squash, tomato, brinjal or egg-plant, and other garden vegetables are abundant; the tallow-gourd (Benincasa cerifera) is remarkable for having its surface covered with a waxy exudation which smells like rosin. The dried bottle-gourd (Cucurbita lagenaria) is tied to the backs of children on the boats to assist them in floating if they shouldunluckily fall overboard. The fruit and leaves of the papaw, ormuh kwa, ‘tree melon,’ are eaten after being cooked; the Chinese are aware of the intenerating property of the exhalations from the leaves of this tree, and make use of them sometimes to soften the flesh of ancient hens and cocks, by hanging the newly killed birds in the tree or by feeding them upon the fruit beforehand. The carambola (Averrhoa) or tree gooseberry is much eaten by the Chinese, but is not relished by foreigners; the tree itself is also an ornament to any pleasure grounds.
Ginseng is found wild in the forests of Manchuria, where it is collected by detachments of soldiers detailed for this purpose; these regions are regarded as imperial preserves, and the medicine is held as a governmental monopoly. The importation of the American root does not interfere to a very serious degree with the imperial sales, as the Chinese are fully convinced that their own plant is far superior. Among numerous plants of the malvaceous and pink tribes (Dianthaceæ) remarkable for their beauty or use, theLychnis coronata, five sorts of pink, theAlthæa Chinensis, eight species of Hibiscus, and other malvaceous flowers may be mentioned; the cotton tree (Salmalia) is common at Canton; the fleshy petals are sometimes prepared as food, and the silky stamens dried to stuff cushions. TheGossypium herbaceumandPachyrrhizusafford the materials for cotton and grasscloth; both of them are cultivated in most parts of China. The latter is a twining, leguminous plant, cultivated from remote antiquity, and still grown for its fibres, which are woven into linen. The petals of theHibiscus rosa-sinensisfurnish a black liquid to dye the eyebrows, and at Batavia they are employed to polish shoes. The fruits of theHibiscus ochra, or okers, are prepared for the table in a variety of ways.
TheCamellia Japonicais allied to the same great tribe as the Hibiscus, and its elegant flowers are as much admired by the people of its native country as by florists abroad; thirty or forty varieties are enumerated, many of them unknown out of China, while Chinese gardeners are likewise ignorant of a large proportion of those found in our conservatories. This flower iscultivated solely for its beauty, but other species of Camellia are raised for their seeds, the oil expressed from them being serviceable for many household and mechanical purposes. From the fibres of a species of Waltheria, a plant of the same tribe, a fine cloth is made; and thePentapetes Phœnicia, or ‘noon flower,’ is a common ornament of gardens.
The widely diffused tribe Ranunculiaceæ has many representatives, some of them profitable for their timber, others sought after for their fruit or admired for their beauty, and a few prized for their healing properties. There are eight species of Magnolia, all of them splendid flowering plants; the bark of theMagnolia yulanis employed as a febrifuge. The seed vessels of theIlicium anisatum, or star-aniseed, are gathered on account of their spicy warmth and fragrance. TheArtabotrys odoratissimusandUnona odorataare cultivated for their perfume. Another favorite is themowtan, or tree pæony, reared for its large and variegated flowers; its name ofhwa wang, or ‘king of flowers,’ indicates the estimation in which it is held. The skill of native gardeners has made many varieties, and their patience is rewarded by the high prices which fine specimens command. Good imitations of full-grown plants in flower are sometimes made of pith paper. The Clematis, the foxglove, theBerberis Chinensis, and the magnificent lotus, all belong to this tribe; the latter, one of the most celebrated plants in Asia, is more esteemed by the Chinese for its edible roots than reverenced for its religious associations. TheActæa asperais sometimes collected, as is the scouring rush, for cleaning pewter vessels, for which its hispid leaves are well fitted.
The groups which include the poppy, mustard, cabbage, cress, and many ornamental species, form an important portion of native agriculture. The poppy has become a common crop in all the provinces, driving out the useful cereals by its greater value and profit. The leaves of many cruciferous plants are eaten, whether cultivated or wild; and one kind (Isates) yields a fine blue dye in the eastern provinces; the variety and amount of such food consumed by the Chinese probably exceeds that of any other people. Another tribe, Rutaceæ, contains the oranges and shaddocks, and some very fragrant shrubs, as theMurraya exoticaandpaniculata, and theAglaia odorata; while the bladder-tree (Koelreuteria) is a great attraction when its whole surface is brilliant with golden flowers. Thewhampe,i.e., yellow skin (Cookia punctata), is a common and superior fruit. The seeds of the Gleditschia, besides their value in cleansing, are worn as beads, “because,” say the Buddhists, “all demons are afraid of the wood;” one name means ‘preventive of evil.’ Two native fruits, thelíchíandlungan, are allied to the Sapindus in their affinities; while thefung shu, or Liquidambar, and many sorts of maple, with thePittosporum tobira, an ornamental shrub, may be mentioned among plants used for food or sought after for timber.
ORNAMENTAL PLANTS, ETC.
These brief notices of Chinese plants may be concluded by mentioning some of the most ornamental not before spoken of; but all the beautiful sorts are soon introduced into western conservatories by enterprising florists. In the extensive tribe of Rubiacinæ are several species of honeysuckle, and a fragrant Viburnum resembling the snowball. The Serissa is cultivated around beds like the box; theIxora coccinea, and other species of that genus, are among common garden shrubs. The seeds of two or three species of Artemisia are collected, dried, and reduced to a down, to be burned as an actual cautery. The dried twigs are frequently woven into a rope to slowly consume as a means of driving away mosquitoes. From theCarthamus tinctoirusa fine red dye is prepared. The succory, lettuce, dandelion, and other cichoraceous plants, either wild or cultivated, furnish food; while innumerable varieties of Chrysanthemums and Asters are reared for their beauty.
The Labiatæ afford many genera, some of them cultivated; and the Solanaceæ, or nightshades, contain the tomato, potato, tobacco, stramony, and several species of Capsicum, or red pepper. It has been disputed whether tobacco is native or foreign, but the philological argument and historical notices prove that both this plant and maize were introduced within half a century after the discovery of America, or about the year 1530. The Chinese dry the leaves and cut them into shreds for smoking; the snuff is coarser and less pungent than the Scotch; it is said that powdered cinnabar is sometimes mixed with it.
Among the Convolvulaceæ are many beautiful species of Ipomea, especially the cypress vine, orquamoclit, trained about the houses even of the poorest. TheIpomea maritimaoccurs, trailing over the sandy beaches along the coast from Hainan to Chusan and Lewchew. TheConvolvulus reptansis planted around the edges of pools on the confines of villages and fields, for the sake of its succulent leaves. The narcotic family of Apocyneæ contains the oleander and Plumeria, prized for their fragrance; while the yellow milkweed (Asclepias curassavica) and theVinca rosea, or red periwinkle, are less conspicuous, but not unattractive, members of the same group. The jasmine is a deserved favorite, its clusters of flowers being often wound by women in their hair, and planted in pots in their houses. TheOlea fragrans, orkwei hwa, is cultivated for scenting tea.
In the eastern provinces the hills are adorned with yellow and red azaleas of gorgeous hue, especially around Ningpo and in Chusan. “Few,” says Mr. Fortune, “can form any idea of the gorgeous beauty of these azalea-clad hills, where, on every side, the eye rests on masses of flowers of dazzling brightness and surpassing beauty. Nor is it the azalea alone which claims our admiration; clematises, wild roses, honeysuckles, and a hundred others, mingle their flowers with them, and make us confess that China is indeed the ‘central flowery land.’”[214]
THE PUN TSAO, OR CHINESE HERBAL.
A few notices of the advance made by the Chinese themselves in the study of natural history, taken from their great work on materia medica, thePun tsao, or ‘Herbal,’ will form an appropriate conclusion to this chapter. This work is usually bound in forty octavo volumes, divided into fifty-two chapters, and contains many observations of value mixed up with a deal of incorrect and useless matter; and as those who read the book have not sufficient knowledge to discriminate between what is true and what is partly or wholly wrong, its reputation tends greatly to perpetuate the errors. The compiler of thePun tsao, Lí Shí-chin, spent thirty years in collecting all the information on these subjects extant in his time, arranged it in a methodical manner for popular use, adding his own observations, and published it about 1590. He consulted some eight hundred preceding authors, from whom he selected one thousand five hundred and eighteen prescriptions, and added three hundred and seventy-four new ones, arranging his materials in fifty-two books in a methodical and (for his day) scientific manner. But how far behind the writings of Pliny and Dioscorides! The nucleus of Lí’s production is a small work which tradition ascribes to Shinnung, the God of Agriculture, and is doubtless anterior to the Han dynasty. His composition was well received, and attracted the notice of the Emperor, who ordered several succeeding editions to be published at the expense of the state. It was, in fact, so great an advance on all previous books, that it checked future writers in that branch, and Lí is likely now to be the first and last purely native critical writer on natural science in his mother tongue.
The first two volumes contain a collection of prefaces and indices, together with many notices of the theory of anatomy and medicine, and three books of pictorial illustrations of the rudest sort. Chapters I. and II. consist of introductory observations upon the practice of medicine, and an index of the recipes contained in the work, called theSure Guide to a Myriad of Recipes; the whole filling the first seven volumes. Chapters III. and IV. contain lists of medicines for the cure of all diseases, occupying three volumes and a half, and comprising the therapeutical portion of the work, except a treatise on the pulse in the last volume.
In the subsequent chapters the author carefully goes over the entire range of nature, first giving the correct name and its explanation; then comes descriptive remarks, solutions of doubts and corrections of errors being interspersed, closing with notes on the savor, taste, and application of the recipes in which it is used. Chapters V. and VI. treat of inorganic substances under water and fire, and minerals under Chapters VII. to XI., as earth, metals, gems, and stones. Water is divided into aerial and terrestrial,i.e., from the clouds, and from springs, the ocean, etc. Fire is considered under eleven species, among which are the flames of coal, bamboo, moxa, etc. The chapter on earth comprises the secretions fromvarious animals, as well as soot, ink, etc.; that on metals includes metallic substances and their common oxides; and gems are spoken of in the next division. The eleventh chapter, in true Chinese style, groups together what could not be placed in the preceding sections, including salts, minerals, etc. In looking at this arrangement one detects the similarity between it and the classification of characters in the language itself, showing the influence this has had upon it; thusho,shui,tu,kin,yuh,shih, andlu, or fire, water, earth, metals, gems, stones, and salts, are the seven radicals under which the names of inorganic substances are classified in the imperial dictionary. A like similarity runs through other parts of theHerbal.
BOTANY OF THE HERBAL.
Chapters XII. to XXXVII., inclusive, treat of the vegetable kingdom, under fivepu, or ‘divisions,’ viz.: herbs, grains, vegetables, fruits, and trees; which are again subdivided intolui, or ‘families,’ though the members of these families have no more relationship to each other than the heterogeneous family of an Egyptian slave dealer. The lowest term in the Chinese scientific scale ischung, which sometimes includes a genus, but quite as often corresponds to a species or even a variety, as Linneus understood those terms.
The first division of herbs contains nine families, viz.: hill plants, odoriferous, marshy, noxious, scandent or climbing, aquatic, stony, and mossy plants, and a ninth of one hundred and sixty-two miscellaneous plants not used in medicine, making six hundred and seventy-eight species in all. In this classification the habitat is the most influential principle of arrangement for the families, while the termtsao, or ‘herb,’ denotes whatever is not eaten or used in the arts, or which does not attain to the magnitude of a tree.
The second division of grains contains four families, viz.: 1, that of hemp, sesamum, buckwheat, wheat, rice, etc.; 2, the family of millet, maize, opium, etc.; 3, leguminous plants, pulse, peas, vetches, etc.; and 4, fermentable things, as bean curd, boiled rice, wine, yeast, congee, bread, etc., which, as they are used in medicine, and produced from vegetables, seem most naturally to come in this place. The first three families embrace thirty-nine species, and the last twenty-nine articles.
The third division of kitchen herbs contains five families: 1, offensive pungent plants, as leeks, mustard, ginger; 2, soft and mucilaginous plants, as dandelions, lilies, bamboo sprouts; 3, vegetables producing fruit on the ground, as tomatoes, egg-plants, melons; 4, aquatic vegetables; and 5, mushrooms and fungi. The number of species is one hundred and thirty-three, and some part of each of them is eaten.
The fourth division of fruits contains seven families: 1, the five fruits, the plum, peach, apricot, chestnut, and date (Rhamnus); 2, hill fruits, as the orange, pear, citron, persimmon; 3, foreign fruits, as the cocoanut, líchí, carambola; 4, aromatic fruits, as pepper, cubebs, tea; 5, trailing fruits, as melons, grape, sugar-cane; 6, aquatic fruits, as water caltrops, water lily, water chestnuts, etc.; and 7, fruits not used in medicine, as whampe. In all, one hundred and forty-seven species.
The fifth division of trees has six families: 1, odoriferous trees, as pine, cassia, aloes, camphor; 2, stately trees, as the willow, tamarix, elm, soapberry, palm, poplar, julibrissin or silk tree; 3, luxuriant growing trees, as mulberry, cotton, Cercis, Gardenia, Bombax, Hibiscus; 4, parasites or things attached to trees, as the mistletoe, pachyma, and amber; 5, flexible plants, as bamboo; this family has only four species; 6, includes what the other five exclude, though it might have been thought that the second and third families were sufficiently comprehensive to contain almost all miscellaneous plants. The number of species is one hundred and ninety-eight. All botanical subjects are classified in this manner under five divisions, thirty-one families, and one thousand one hundred and ninety-five species, excluding all fermentable things.
The arrangement of the botanical characters in the language does not correspond so well to this as does that of inorganic substances. The largest group in the language system istsao, which comprises in general such herbaceous plants as are not used for food. The second,muh, includes all trees or shrubs; and the bamboo, on account of its great usefulness, stands by itself, though the characters mostly denote names of articles made of bamboo. No less than four radicals, viz., rice, wheat, millet, and grain, serve as the heads under which the esculent grassesare arranged; there are consequently many synonymes and superfluous distinctions. One family includes beans, and another legumes; one comprises cucurbitaceous plants, another the alliaceous, and a fourth the hempen; the importance of these plants as articles of food or manufacture no doubt suggested their adoption. Thus all vegetable substances are distributed in the language under eleven different heads.
ITS ZOÖLOGY AND OBSERVATIONS ON THE HORSE.
The zoölogical grouping in thePun tsaois as rude and unscientific as that of plants. There are fivepu, or divisions, namely: insect, scaly, shelly, feathered, and hairy animals. The first division contains four families: 1 and 2, insects born from eggs, as bees and silkworms, butterflies and spiders; 3, insects produced by metamorphosis, as glow-worms, mole-crickets, bugs; and 4, water insects, as toads, centipedes, etc. The second division has four families: 1, the dragons, including the manis, “the only fish that has legs;” 2, snakes; 3, fishes having scales; and 4, scaleless fishes, as the eel, cuttle-fish, prawn. The third division is classified under the two heads of tortoises or turtles and mollusks, including the starfish, echinus, hermit-crab, etc. The fourth division contains birds arranged under four families: 1, water-fowl, as herons, king-fishers, etc.; 2, heath-fowl, sparrows, and pheasants; 3, forest birds, as magpies, crows; and 4, wild birds, as eagles and hawks. Beasts form the fifth division, which likewise contains four families: 1, the nine domesticated animals and their products; 2, wild animals, as lions, deers, otters; 3, rodentia, as the squirrel, hedgehog, rat; and 4, monkeys and fairies. The number of species in these five divisions is three hundred and ninety-one, but there are only three hundred and twenty different objects described, as the roe, fat, hair, exuviæ, etc., of animals are separately noticed.
The sixteen zoölogical characters in the language are not quite so far astray from being types of classes as the eleven botanical ones. Nine of them are mammiferous, viz.: the tiger, dog, and leopard, which stand for the carnivora; the rat for rodentia; the ox, sheep, and deer for ruminants; and the horse and hog for pachydermatous. Birds are chiefly comprised under one radicalniao, but there is a sub-family ofshort-tailed gallinaceous fowls, though much confusion exists in the division. Fishes form one group, and improperly include crabs, lizards, whales, and snakes, though most of the latter are placed along with insects, or else under the dragons. The tortoise, toad, and dragon are the types of three small collections, and insects are comprised in the sixteenth and last. These groups, although they contain many anomalies, as might be expected, are still sufficiently natural to teach those who write the language something of the world around them. Thus, when one sees that a new character contains the radicaldogin composition, he will be sure that it is neither fowl, fish, nor bug, nor any animal of the pachydermatous, cervine, or ruminant tribes, although he may have never seen the animal nor heard its name. This peculiarity runs through the whole language, indeed, but in other groups, as for instance those under the radicals man, woman, and child, or heart, hand, leg, etc., the characters include mental and passionate emotions, as well as actions and names, so that the type is not sufficiently indicative to convey a definite idea of the words included under it; the names of natural objects being most easily arranged in this manner.
Between the account of plants and animals theHerbalhas one chapter on garments and domestic utensils, for such things “are used in medicine and are made out of plants.” The remaining chapters, XXXIX.-LII., treat of animals, as noticed above. The properties of the objects spoken of are discussed in a very methodical manner, so that a student can immediately turn to a plant or mineral and ascertain its virtue. For instance, the information relative to the history and uses of the horse is contained in twenty-four sections. The first explains the character,ma, which was originally intended to represent the outline of the animal. The second describes the varieties of horses, the best kinds for medical use, and gives brief descriptions of them, for the guidance of the practitioner. “The pure white are the best for medicine. Those found in the south and east are small and weak. The age is known by the teeth. The eye reflects the full image of a man. If he eats rice his feet will become heavy; if rat’s dung, his belly will grow long; if his teeth be rubbed with dead silkworms, or black plums, hewill not eat, nor if the skin of a rat or wolf be hung in his manger. He should not be allowed to eat from a hog’s trough, lest he contract disease; and if a monkey is kept in the stable he will not fall sick.”
The third section goes on to speak of the flesh, which is an article of food; that of a pure white stallion is the most wholesome. One author recommends “eating almonds, and taking a rush broth, if the person feel uncomfortable after a meal of horse-flesh. It should be roasted and eaten with ginger and pork; and to eat the flesh of a black horse, and not drink wine with it, will surely produce death.” The fourth describes the crown of the horse, the “fat of which is sweet, and good to make the hair grow and the face to shine.” The fifth and succeeding sections to the twenty-fourth treat of the sanative properties and mode of exhibiting the milk, heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, placenta, teeth, bones, skin, mane, tail, brains, blood, perspiration, and excrements.
Some of the directions are dietetic, and others are prescriptive. “When eating horse-flesh do not eat the liver,” is one of the former, given because of the absence of a gall-bladder in the liver, which imports its poisonous qualities. “The heart of a white horse, or that of a hog, cow, or hen, when dried and rasped into spirit and so taken, cures forgetfulness; if the patient hears one thing he knows ten.” “Above the knees the horse hasnight-eyes(warts), which enable him to go in the night; they are useful in the toothache;” these sections partake both of the descriptive and prescriptive. Another medical one is: “If a man be restless and hysterical when he wishes to sleep, and it is requisite to put him to rest, let the ashes of a skull be mingled with water and given him, and let him have a skull for a pillow, and it will cure him.” The same preservative virtues appear to be ascribed to a horse’s hoof hung in a house as are supposed, by some who should know better, to belong to a horseshoe when nailed upon the door.[215]The whole of this extensive work is liberally sprinkled with such whimsies, but the practice of medicine among the Chinese is vastlybetter than their theories; for as Rémusat justly observes, “To see well and reason falsely are not wholly incompatible, and the naturalists of China, as well as the chemists and physicians of our ancient schools, have sometimes tried to reconcile them.”
NATURAL SCIENCES IN CHINA.
Another work on botany besides theHerbal, issued in 1848, deserves notice for its research and the excellence of its drawings. It is theChih Wuh Ming-shih Tu-kao, orResearches into the Names and Virtues of Plants, with plates, in sixty volumes. There are one thousand seven hundred and fifteen drawings of plants, with descriptions of each, arranged in eleven books, followed by medical and agricultural observations on the most important in four books. One of its valuable points to the foreigner is the terminology furnished by the two authors for describing the parts and uses of plants. Rémusat read a paper in 1828, ‘On the State of the Natural Sciences among the Orientals,’ in which he indicates the position attained by Chinese in their researches into the nature and uses of objects around them. After speaking of the adaptation the language possesses, from its construction, to impart some general notions of animated and vegetable nature, he goes on to remark upon the theorizing propensities of their writers, instead of contenting themselves with examining and recording facts. “In place of studying the organization of bodies, they undertake to determine by reasoning how it should be, an aim which has not seldom led them far from the end they proposed. One of the strangest errors among them relates to the transformation of beings into each other, which has arisen from popular stories or badly conducted observations on the metamorphoses of insects. Learned absurdities have been added to puerile prejudices; that which the vulgar have believed the philosophers have attempted to explain, and nothing can be easier, according to the oriental systems of cosmogony, in which a simple matter, infinitely diversified, shows itself in all beings. Changes affect only the apparent properties of bodies, or rather the bodies themselves have only appearances; according to these principles, they are not astonished at seeing the electric fluid or even the stars converted into stones, as happens when aerolites fall. That animated beings become inanimate is provenby fossils and petrifactions. Ice enclosed in the earth for a millennium becomes rock crystal; and it is only necessary that lead, thefatherof all metals (as Saturn, its alchemistic type, was of gods), pass through four periods of two centuries each to become successively cinnabar, tin, and silver. In spring the rat changes into a quail, and quails into rats again during the eighth month.
“The style in which these marvels is related is now and then a little equivocal; but if they believe part of them proved, they can see nothing really impossible in the others. One naturalist, less credulous than his fellows, rather smiles at another author who reported the metamorphosis of an oriole into a mole, and of rice into a carp; ‘it is a ridiculous story,’ says he; ‘there is proof only of the change of rats into quails, which is reported in the almanac, and which I have often seen myself, for there is an unvaried progression, as well of transformations as of generations.’ Animals, according to the Chinese, are viviparous as quadrupeds, or oviparous as birds; they grow by transformations, as insects, or by the effect of humidity, as snails, slugs, and centipedes.... The success of such systems is almost always sure, not in China alone either, because it is easier to put words in place of things, to stop at nothing, and to have formulas ready for solving all questions. It is thus that they have formed a scientific jargon, which one might almost think had been borrowed from our dark ages, and which has powerfully contributed to retain knowledge in China in the swaddling-clothes we now find it. Experience teaches that when the human mind is once drawn into a false way, the lapse of ages and the help of a man of genius are necessary to draw it out. Ages have not been wanting in China, but the man whose superior enlightenment might dissipate these deceitful glimmerings, would find it very difficult to exercise this happy influence as long as their political institutions attract all their inquiring minds or vigorous intellects far away from scientific researches into the literary examinations, or put before them the honors and employments which the functions and details of magisterial appointments bring with them.”[216]
CONSERVATISM OF NATIVE RESEARCH.
This last observation indicates the reason, to a great degree, for the fixedness of the Chinese in all departments of learned inquiry; hard labor employs the energy and time of the ignorant mass, and emulation in the strife to reach official dignities consumes and perverts the talents of the learned. Then their language itself disheartens the most enthusiastic students in this branch of study, on account of its vagueness and want of established terms. When the vivifying and strengthening truths of revelation shall be taught to the Chinese, and its principles acted upon among them, we may expect more vigor in their minds and more profit in their investigations into the wonders of nature.