and, when, at last, the crazy structure came down, and the "happy family" was scattered in England and Germany, it was not without a touch of compunction that the author of their overthrow witnessed the dismay of their dispersion, aud the hardships which some of them endured. friars rage against Erasmus and his antimo- perched, already rotten and worm-eaten, nastic satires. And, just as in his morning quickly yielded to the incisors of the forpromenade under the hedgerow, a persecu- midable rodent who had somehow got in; ted cat is followed by a cloud of titmice and sparrows, twittering out their terror, and warning all the woodland, so it is ludicrous to notice the swarm of agitated cowls which eventually flattered after Erasmus in his progress through Europe, shrieking forth their execrations, and in every stealthy movement boding new mischief to the mendicants. To pull down the columns which supported the papacy needed the passionate strength and self-devotement of Luther; but the wooden pillar on which monkery was *The name of Erasmus was an irresistible temptaStephen Paschasius. tion to puong: witness the following epigram to Hic jacet Erasmus, qui quondam bonus erat mus; Rodere qui solitus, roditur a vermibus." THE OLD CATHEDRAL ORGANIST. 'Tis forty years since first I climbed these dusty, winding stairs Seemed in the twilight to upbraid; Above the door I used to lean, : Before the prayer the lull and calm, And thirty stops, as blind men do The dusky seat, my loved throne, Shall come here in the dusk alone, To hear the anthem swell once more, My dear Sir, We have been here now about three weeks, and are settled down at last to the measuring; the chief part of time hitherto having been occupied, in concert with a party of laborers furnished by the English Government, in clearing away rubbish from important parts of the interior, and in cleansing and preparing it for nice observation. The magnesium wire light is something astounding in its power of illuminating difficult places. With any number of wax candles which we have yet taken into either the king's chamber or the grand gallery, the impression left on the mind is merely seeing the candles and whatever is very close to them, so that you have small idea whether you are in a palace or a cottage; but burn a triple strand of magnesium wire and in a moment you see the whole apartment and appreciate the grandeur of its size and the beauty of its proportions. This effect, so admirably complete, too, as it is, and perfect in its way, probably results from the extraordinary intensity of the light, apart from its useful photographic property, for, side by side with the magnesium light, the wax candle flame looked not much brighter than the red granite of the walls of the room. There come parties-often many parties-of visitors to see the pyramid every day without fail, and they come amply provided with all sorts of means and appliances to enjoy the sight, that is, with everything but the needful magnesium wire, and one waistcoat pocketful of that would be worth a whole donkey-load of what they do bring up to enable their souls to realize the ancient glories of the internal scene. I remain yours very truly, C. PIAZZI SMYTH. John Spiller, Esq., Chemical Department, | Royal Arsenal, Woolwich. From the Cornhill Magazine. A MIDSUMMER RIDE IN SOUTH CHINA. men remain content with the sluggish trackboat or the plodding feet of some hardy quadruped. To these unsophisticated forms of travel I had long been accustomed; and my hardy mountain pony-the only animal capable of making its way over the rough bridle-paths and narrow granite causeways of Southern China-had carried me many a hundred miles, through storm and shine, in the region surrounding Canton. To our THE Comet of July, 1861, was glittering in a starlit sky when the writer of this paper, proceeding on certain business to the interior of the province of Kwang-tung, took a last look back at the Great North Gate of Canton, whence exit had been granted him by the sullen French guard I was now making my first stage by night, who were constituted a standing garrison in order to lessen, as far as possible, the and nuisance at that portal. Of the eight discomfort arising from the sultry weather. gates of the city which was then occu- For security's sake, I was attended by a pied by a force of some three thousand mounted escort from the garrison; and, at British troops, associated with a couple of the last moment, a welcome companion, in hundred French marines seven were the shape of Captain M- -, of the Royal garrisoned by detachments from the British Engineers, had volunteered to share my regiments, and were kept constantly open otherwise somewhat lonely ride. for the convenience of the native inhabit-mounted party, clattering over the granite ants; but on the part of our gallant allies flagstones which pave the narrow North there existed an evident resolve to compen- Road for some miles from the city gate, sate the smallness of their force by a con- came following, in a light mountain-chair siderable amount of pretension aud display; of bamboo, carried by three coolies, a manand the French corps of occupation" darin, appointed by the Chinese authorities cleverly made its otherwise insignificant at Canton to accompany and co-operate presence known by closing, double-locking, with me. It was not the first time we had and refusing to open, under any persuasion other than that of a military pass, the solitary gate which it was their privilege to garrison. My passage was not, however, to be disputed by even the sulkiest of sentries, and I was soon traversing with my party the peaceful expanse of country which, skirted on the right hand by the low line of hills known as the White Cloud range, extends in an otherwise unbroken flat of unctuous rice-lands for a distance of thirty or forty miles from the walls of Canton. My mission now led me to traverse this plain, and to enter the mountain region which forms its northern boundary, constituting the last declivities of the great eastern spurs of the Himalayan range. 66 journeyed together, and our acquaintanceship had already subsisted for years. Unlike the majority of his countrymen, Tse Tung-hao, as he was named, was a man of liberal as well as intelligent mind; and an amount of frankness and honesty was noticeable in him which won the regard of all the Europeans with whom he was brought in contact to a degree that perhaps no other Chinese official has enjoyed. Our party was completed by two servants, one a follower of the mandarin, the other my own- the faithful A-sing-my major-domo, valet, and, on occasions such as these, my cook: equally excellent in all the varied capacities in which he shone, but especially to be prized whilst roughing A week's ride during the hottest month it on the march; when, throwing off the in China, when the thermometer even at dandyism and finicalities which are inseparmidnight is seldom seen as low as eighty able, at ordinary times, from the demeandegrees, and when its noonday range is our of a Chinese "boy," he displayed an frequently above rather than below the energy, activity, and willingness, which dreadful degree of ninety-five, is not an could only be paralleled by some of those expedition to be undertaken from choice; rough Irish "soldier-servants" who are now but no matter what may be the discomforts and then found-and prized-in the from weather, a feeling of exhilaration is army. Of all servants, however, few can sure to accompany the first outset for a be brought in comparison with a really journey on horseback Canton a feeling which the good and well-trained prosaic modern conveniences for locomo- These neat and orderly lads of eighteen or tion have now utterly extinguished in all twenty, trim in dress, respectful in mancivilized lands. The romance of travel ner, without a tinge of servility, and frehas decidedly fled to those ever-fewer re- quently possessing an education of their gions where pathless solitudes still exist for own by no means to be despised, constiSpekes and Burkes to break upon, or where tute the first indispensable adjunct to be -- "boy." acquired by a stranger on his arrival in kinsman from its place of infamy, and to China; and the "boy," often engaged at give it decent burial. random, remains frequently for a score of Trotting gaily enough over the bridge, we years in the service of the same employer. continued our course through the nightly Infinitely superior, in activity as in appear-shadows of the hills, which, projected by ance, is the sprightly Canton lad, in his the moon rising behind them to the eastwhite surplice-like jacket, blue knicker- ward, fell in great fantastic promontories bockers, and dandily-gartered stockings of and gloomy stretches of thick darkness on stone gray calico, to the slouching, greasy, ill- the silent country. For miles at a time we savoured Hindoo, who, as khitmutgar, con- yielded to the influence of the hour, and descends at Calcutta to discharge about one- pursued our course without a sound from tenth part of the duties which are cheer- either party. Then, again, the charm brofully assumed by his Chinese congener! ken by some sudden observation, a further But this, though a favourite topic of distance was whiled away in lively chat. mine, must not be allowed to divert us from Occasionally, as my pony ambled along beour proper line of march. The servants, side the chair in which my mandarin friend and a long train of baggage-coolies- those was stoutly borne by his untiring coolies, veritable impediments to every journey our conversation fell into his favourite such as this have been sent on to reach grooves - the wonders of Europe, the danour halting-place before us, and we pursue gers of the seas, and his own misfortunes in our march under the shadow of the White failing to obtain more rapid advancement. Cloud Mountain, along a road rendered The comet, then so brightly visible, was a lonely through the depredations of the source of apprehension to Tse, and upon it rebels who devastated this province in also he loved to discourse. Intelligent as he 1854. Here and there, to right or left, a was, he fully shared the superstitions of his large village may be recognized by its countrymen regarding the influence of such glimmering lights and the long-continued an apparition on human affairs; and, though yelping of its watch-dogs; but Chinese he no longer considered the earth as a flat villages are not fond of highroads passing surface, or believed that the sun revolved through their midst, and prefer to draw around the globe, he still looked with dread themselves apart some little distance from upon this portent, which presaged to his the public thoroughfare, so that at night- mind disasters to the empire, if not death to fall they may bolt and bar their streets, and the emperor. On becoming aware, however, take what poor precautions they can against that the comet was equally visible in Engthe banded robbers who permanently infest land and other countries as in China, and remost parts of the country. Although, ceiving such a sketch of the history and therefore, our course lies through a suc- theory of comets as my knowledge enacession of highly-cultivated lands-the bled me to impart, -(and, be it said en alluvial level dense with the flourishing passant, there are easier performances than rice-plant, and the rising grounds carefully the rendering of an astronomical lecture turned to account with ground-nut, sweet- into colloquial Chinese) — he acknowledged potato, and vegetable crops scarcely a that there seemed small grounds for proghuman habitation shows itself, beyond here nosticating special harm to any particular and there a bamboo tea-shed, whence re- land or person. This did not, however, prefreshment of a very humble kind is dis- vent him from recalling to my mind, little pensed at all hours to the travellers who more than a month later, when the death of pass along this road. At one point, where the reigning emperor actually took place, a granite bridge spans a stream that issues, that the ominous "thief-star" had shone brawling, from the gloomy side of the ad- so recently in the heavens. The appearjoining range, a ghastly memorial of the ance of the comet and the ensuing death of recent troubles hangs alone in the moon- Hien-fung were great feathers for the Zad-. light. A pole erected at the foot of the kiel-cap of superstition all over China. bridge supports a cage, fastened in which At length, towards 11 P.M., our weary is a human head, once, as declared by an ride of eighteen miles brought us to our inscription beneath it, that of a native of halting-place for the night, at the village of the adjoining village, recently captured Tien-sum, a large and straggling place, conamong the rebel ranks. Here for months taining a population which would entitle it the warning trophy had hung exposed, and to rank as a town anywhere else than in no pitying relative had come forward, bold China, almost entirely surrounded by a enough to snatch this relic of his village dense grove of huge banyan-trees, and THIRD SERIES. LIVING AGE. VOL. XXIX. 1327. 1 further defended, as usual, by a wide belt of fish-ponds, forming a moat across which a few narrow causeways alone gave access to the place. Clattering through the tortuous and murky village street, we were by no means sorry to reach the spot where the great gates of the Temple of the Chang family were thrown open to receive us. Under the directions of the indefatigable A-sing, the court-yard was already littered with rice-straw for our ponies, and two huge red temple candles, flaring in the dim depths of the great hall, shed light on an extemporized table where teacups and cold fowl showed that preparations had been made for supper. The baggage-coolies, some dozen in number, were lying pillowed on the bamboos and ropes with which their loads were in the daytime suspended from their shoulders, in the shelter of the colonnades on either side the doorway, and the remainder of our party, men and horses, were soon refreshing themselves with food and rest in their several ways. It is lucky for the traveller that every village in China, however poor or scanty its population, possesses at least one, and often many, of these ancestral temples, in which each of the local "clans" or families preserves from generation to generation the memory of its revered progenitors. All, though not equally spacious, are constructed on an identical plan. An immense gateway, with three folding doors, sometimes twenty or even thirty feet in height, gives admission to a court-yard, and perhaps to a series of three or four such enclosures, which are generally open to the sky, surrounded on three sides with a covered colonnade, and terminating at the rear in a hall, the dimensions of which, in the case of wealthy clans, often extend to a width of from fifty to one hundred feet. Shrines are here built up against the wall, to contain in horizontal rows a series of tablets commemorating the departed members of the family, from the earliest progenitor of whom a record exists. Ornamental inscriptions further perpetuate the memory of all who have distinguished themselves in the profession of letters or the service of the State, and a richly decorated altar supports the vases of bronze or porcelain in which the ashes of the incense kept constantly burning before the tablets are carefully preserved in heaps from generation to generation. Twice in the year, the heads of the clan and other privileged members assemble with solemn ceremony and deep reverential feeling to do homage before the shrines where soon their own memorial tablets are to be erected, and fulfil the du ties of filial piety in silent genuflection before the altar of the dead. At all seasons, moreover, the temple is kept in order, and the sticks of incense trimmed, by a custodian for whose residence a side-building is usually set apart; and an annual contribution from every member maintains the building in constant repair. The most humble labourer who can claim kindred with the family can thus at any moment gaze with pride upon the hallowed name of every ancestor who has helped to illustrate his clan, and has always the means at hand of pointing to an indisputable pedigree which may connect him with the noblest in the land. Thus, in the temple which now gave us lodging for the night, tablets were to be seen commemorating a minister of State whose name was celebrated in China before William the Conqueror sat on the English throne, whilst the gilding was scarcely dry on the tablet of his latest follower to the tomb- some humble villager whose only title to remembrance was his name and clanship. There is surely no more touching form that filial reverence could take, than this perennial homage, altogether unassociated with idol-worship or hagiolatry, to the deceased; and it has conduced in no small degree to the success of the Roman Catholic propaganda, as compared with the relative failure of Protestant missionary efforts, that its priesthood has adopted, under certain restrictions, this form of ancestral commemoration, whilst the orthodox zeal of Protestant missionaries has insisted on its abandonment as one of the first steps toward conversion. It may, perhaps, be thought that some violence could not fail being done to the feelings of those concerned in temples of this class, by using them as lodging for man and beast; but the callousness of the Chinese character shows itself nowhere more forcibly than in this point, that nothing short of wanton disrespect, even in the temples of their divinities, seems to jar with their reverential feelings. Their temples are habitually open for the accommodation of travellers, and it has more than once happened to myself that, when a party has been too numerous for the sleeping-room disposable in the temple occupied for the night, some jolly priest has voluntarily removed the incense-burners from the altar, and helped to dispose a camp-mattress at the very feet of the gilded gods themselves. If no prejudices were likely to be offended, however, as regards the occupation of quarters in a temple, it was only within a very short period that national animosity was so fierce that no European's life would have been safe in the village where our party was now so civilly received. Inflamed by the arts of their rulers, the population of this province had, up to the year 1859, evinced the deadliest hatred towards foreigners, and the very building where we were now confidently betaking ourselves to rest, had, in 1858, been the seat of one of the committees of the native "gentry," formed for the express object of waging a war of assassination against the invaders who had taken possession of Canton. The vigorous measures directed by Mr. (now Sir Harry) Parkes, by which this organization became speedily broken up, combined with the conciliatory effect produced by the treatment extended to the authorities and inhabitants of Canton, had so far affected the popular temper as to disarm all active feeling of hostility even previously to the conclusion of peace in the North of China in 1860; and a mere solitary traveller would now have been safe, if prudent, unless at too great a distance from the walls of Canton, or in districts frequented by the robber-bands who infest so many parts of China. oblique sun-glare, which proves trying enough, despite our precautions in the way of dress. Convinced that the morning and evening sun is the most dangerous in the open field, inasmuch as its slanting rays can be warded off neither by head-covering nor umbrella, I had resolved on the experiment of travelling chiefly during the middle of the day and by night; but it was necessary to accomplish one stage thus early in order to bring us to our second halting-place by evening. Some ten miles farther on lay a pleasant little hamlet, whither the baggage had been dispatched in charge of the accomplished A-sing, who was to prepare breakfast for the party; but our ride thither proved sultry enough—by the narrow pathway or dyke between the rice-fields, a mere mudbank scarcely two feet in breadth, along which we ambled perspiringly; our troubles increased by the radiation from the water which at that season still lay flooding the green rice-fields on either hand. We could not, however, deny the striking beauty of the scene. Traversing a plain, one sheet of emerald verdure, our course ran parallel to the low chain of hills constiOur slumbers passed undisturbed until tuting the White Cloud range, whose flanks, the mental alarum which I had fixed the half-shrouded in the mist distilled from the night previously for 5 A.M. awoke me just abundant irrigation, lay glowing in the softas the earliest rays of the sun were glitter- est violet tints, whilst, at frequent intervals, ing on the enamelled porcelain figures the green expanse was broken by cloudy which quaintly decorated the roof-tree on masses of foliage, denoting the sites of popthe opposite side of the court-yard. In a ulous though obscure villages. Occasionalfew moments all was astir. Our coolies had ly, when the road skirted some of these more already found time to prepare a cup of tea, closely, young and old might be seen crowdand to snatch a few whiffs from their con- ing forth to crane at a glimpse of the passsoling pipes; and soon, cording up our bag-ing strangers, the like of whom many, pergage, and slinging the parcels from the cen- haps, had never looked on before. Whethtre of their stout bamboos, they trotted off er it were that feminine curiosity mastered nimbly in pairs, exchanging jokes with the few labourers, bound thus early to the fields, who hung about the door to witness our departure. A cup of cocoa all round, prepared by the invaluable A-sing, a cigar apiece, and we, too, resume our march. The wrinkled old custodian of the temple grins feebly as he pockets a dollar for his services, and hobbles back to his morning pipe of opium, probably with a tempora mutant in Chinese upon his lips. The village children, rewarded for early rising, scramble on the flagstones for a handful of "cash" (total value about three-halfpence) which we throw amongst them; and we emerge from the straggling village into the * Literati of a certain class and retired functionaries in general form-especially in the south of China - a privileged body to whom this term is applied, and who enjoy great local power. the usual feeling of alarm and doubt, or that a natural instinct told them they were safe, it almost universally happened that the village damsels and matrons ventured on a nearer approach than their husbands and brothers cared to indulge in. Seldom, however, does an attractive force display itself among these audacious fair ones. The squalid life of the Chinese peasantry who, though sometimes amassing money, are content with the filthiest of habitations and of dress, and seldom seem to rise to an appreciation of that comparative comfort, cleanliness, and varied diet which even the lower classes of the town population indulge in-has its natural result in a grossness of feature and a deepening of the natural swarthy colour, until the Mongolian counte-nance, sometimes so delicate and fair, degenerates into the abject brutality of the Malay.. |