Village Life in China (Annotated)

By Arthur H. Smith

• This edition includes the following editor's introduction: China in the 19th century, the historical context in which "Village Life in China" was written

First published in 1889, "Village Life in China" is a comprehensive overview of Chinese village life at the end of the 19th Century , a marvellous presentation of rural China to foreign readers. American writer Arthur H. Smith wrote this work during his stay in China as a missionary, where he spent 54 years.
"Village Life in China" comes with expected prejudices from the writer's own social milieu, but the writing is clear, precise and articulate. At heart the author's real affection and sadness for China's poor and especially women comes through.

• Language: English
• Publisher: ePembaBooks
• Release date: Mar 29, 2023
• ISBN: 9791221331738

Book preview

Arthur H. Smith

Village Life in China

Table of contents

China in the 19th century, the historical context in which Village Life in China was written

VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

Foreword

Glossary

Part I. The Village, Its Institutions, Usages And Public Characters

I. The Chinese Village

II. Construction Of Villages

III. Village Nomenclature

IV. Country Roads

V. The Village Ferry

VI. Village Wells

VII. The Village Shop

VIII. The Village Theatre

IX. Village Schools And Travelling Scholars

X. Chinese Higher Education, The Village High School, Examinations, Recent Educational Edicts

XI. Village Temples And Religious Societies

XII. Cooperation In Religious Observances

XIII. Cooperation In Markets And Fairs

XIV. Cooperative Loan Societies

XV. Societies For Watching The Crops

XVI. Village And City Rain-Making

XVII. The Village Hunt

XVIII. Village Weddings And Funerals

XIX. New Year In Chinese Villages

XX. The Village Bully

XXI. Village Headmen

Part II. Village Family Life

XXII. Village Boys And Men

XXIII. Chinese Country Girls And Women

XXIV. The Monotony And Vacuity Of Village Life

XXV. Unstable Equilibrium Of The Chinese Family

XXVI. Instability From Family Disunity

Part III. Regeneration Of The Chinese Village

XXVII. What Can Christianity Do For China?

Notes

China in the 19th century, the historical context in which Village Life in China was written

Arthur Henderson Smith (1845 – 1932) was a missionary of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions noted for spending the last 54 years of his life as a missionary in China and writing books which presented China to foreign readers.

In his most renowned work Village Life in China written in 1889, Smith analyses from sociology and anthropology the rural environment of an unknown and attractive civilization for the Western powers of the time. Before delving into the delightful reading of this meticulous work, let us put it in context by presenting the historical context of the moment, China at the end of the 19th century.

China had an ancient culture that had survived all kinds of foreign threats. One way or another, no matter how much the person, dynasty and ethnic group in power had changed, Chinese culture had survived foreign influences. In fact, the conquerors had always ended up submitting to Chinese tradition.

At the beginning of the 19th century, there was no reason to suspect that China would undergo a transformation that would destroy this centuries-old culture and that it would end up being dominated by the European powers under the impotent gaze of the Qing dynasty. At the end of the 18th century, contacts with Europe remained mere anecdotes for the Chinese. Even the Jesuits who had begun to arrive in Asia did not seem to be a problem. Well received by the then Emperor Kangxi, the Jesuits seemed to forget their main task, Christian teachings, and began to study Chinese culture itself. Not surprisingly, papal emissaries were sent to put an end to their activity.

Nor did the products brought by the Europeans cause a sensation among the Chinese population, not even among the upper classes. On the contrary, the Europeans were much more interested in Chinese manufactures.

Clearly, this situation was not a symptom of serious difficulties within the country itself. Thus, in the face of a foreign dynasty such as that of the Qing, there was still a great deal of suspicion that led to the emergence of secret societies and cults. To this we must add an uncontrolled population growth that doubled in just one century so that, in 1850, China had 430 million inhabitants, which caused pressure on the land and the impossibility of feeding such a large population mass. An inflation in the price of silver also increased the tax burden on the poorest. Already between 1770 and 1780, the country had experienced great revolutions, although this did not mean, as we have said before, that the culture and tradition of this millenary China were being questioned. The great families of the country were sure that if the dynasty went into crisis, as had happened many times before, another would replace it, and the life of the country would remain the same. They were very wrong.

At the beginning of the 19th century, British traders found a product that the Chinese finally wanted, opium, a drug that began to be consumed by part of the Chinese population and which also created addition. Thus, if previously British diplomacy had only succeeded in extracting promises from the emperor, now it was the military element that would open the ports for the entry of this drug. Attempts by the Chinese government to curb consumption led to the so-called Opium War, which lasted from 1839 to 1842 and ended with the Chinese defeat and the signing of a treaty with the British to open new ports. This also changed the diplomatic commercial relations with the rest of the European countries that now saw the opportunity to penetrate the country in the same way.

The imperial government also admitted the missionary activities, even if they were limited, but they went against the Chinese tradition, which provoked the anger of the Confucian school, which was behind many of the riots in the following two decades. In the face of these, foreign consuls acted by force of arms, and demanded accountability from the Chinese government.

The military and naval means of the powers, particularly Great Britain, increased considerably and, from then on, any concession that was not obtained through diplomacy was taken by force. The wealthy classes, for their part, did not usually put up resistance, especially in the affected areas, and even the Peking Government - which saw the dynasty's hold on the throne increasingly endangered - believed that foreign soldiers could help in the continuous social upheavals and rebellions which, besides being against foreigners, pointed to the Chinese Government as the real culprit of the situation.

Among the most important rebellions that put the permanence of the dynasty in check was that of Taiping, which lasted from 1850 to 1864, and caused a greater number of deaths than those of the First World War. It was a peasant rebellion against the lack of land and high taxes, as well as - although this point is difficult to interpret - against the Manchus, the ethnic group to which the reigning dynasty belonged. The strangest thing about this rebellion is that its leader, Hung Hsiuchuan, had contact with the Christian religion, which gave him an ideology that went at the same time against the traditional culture and state, something that had not occurred until that time, which shows the Western influence. Be that as it may, it started in the south of the country and turned into a real civil war.

The successes of the Taiping army were numerous at first, which enabled its leader, Hung Hsiu-chuan, to proclaim himself king of the Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace - the latter meaning Taiping - whose capital was Nankin. Despite the achievements, the advance through other territories soon stalled and they went on the defensive. Nevertheless, this emperor made important social changes based on communal property and the general needs of the people. Social equality and the education of women were proclaimed, and such traditional elements as the bandaging of women's feet were prohibited. Not surprisingly, a century later, the Communist Party of China praised these measures.

Hung Hsiu-chuan's achievements on the battlefield were due first and foremost to the weakness of the imperial army, especially demoralized by successive defeats by the Europeans. It is not surprising that soon the latter, who saw their commercial permanence in the country in danger, sent competent commanders to train and lead the Chinese imperial troops. Clearly, the support did not come free to the Chinese government. In exchange for the aid, it had to sign treaties with France, the United States and Great Britain. Through these treaties, China had to tolerate the Christian missions, as well as their right to buy land and erect their own buildings, and even the ability to get involved in internal affairs of public order when converts were involved. It also had to cede jurisdiction over foreigners and mixed cases to consular courts, and the control by foreign personnel of customs. It had to allow an English ambassador to be permanently in Peking, open a greater number of ports to foreign trade, legalize the sale of opium, and cede to the Russians the province where Vladivostok was erected. China even found it necessary to create a ministry of foreign affairs. This, which seems normal, was for traditional China a break from a world under the rule of heaven, which was represented by the emperor.

After Hung's death in 1864, the Taiping movement was greatly weakened, and the foreign union against him eventually quelled it, but it did not put an end to the internal unrest, and uprisings continued until the 1970s.

In any case, this civil war and the devastation of large parts of the country eventually led to a near-total loss of credibility and authority for the ruling dynasty. China, which officially was not a colony, found itself in a situation of progressive colonization thanks to the control that the European powers exercised over the government, which was basically a puppet. In fact, a large part of the Chinese territory was broken up in one way or another from 1870 onwards. Russia seized the Ili Valley and, after the war with Japan between 1895-1896, lost the islands of Formosa and Pescadores. At the same time, it had to recognize the independence of Korea, which had been held by China since the 17th century. The Russians also occupied Port Arthur, while England, France and Germany obtained long leases of Chinese ports, including Hong Kong, which was ceded for ninety-nine years to England.

To all this we must add that the nearest neighbouring states ended up directly in European hands. France established a protectorate over Annam and absorbed Indochina, while England did the same with Burma.

For Chinese officials and intellectuals, it was evident that the traditional order was practically finished, although they tried to study reforms, as Japan had done, that would allow the adoption of European elements to be adapted to Chinese culture and Confucian tradition. In fact, they managed to be heard by the emperor and, therefore, to work within the administration. Reforms were even implemented in what was called the Hundred Days Reform in 1898, but as its name indicates, it was short-lived due to the internal struggles of the Court, especially the rivalry between the emperor and the empress dowager. Moreover, the latter staged a coup d'état that led to the imprisonment of the former.

Immediately, the empress recovered the old methods to face the external threat. The Boxer uprising, which became a retrograde and xenophobic popular movement, was organized by the official authorities. There was no hesitation in putting converts and missionaries to the sword and laying siege to foreign delegations in Peking. The European powers, as was to be expected, would not abandon the country and, for the first time in history, they all joined forces under a single commander to put an end to the uprising. Compensation was then imposed on the Chinese Government, which was paid by the concession of the customs.

From then on, the officers of the Chinese army, instructed by the European powers, began to consider the revolution, which was also supported by exiled students. Many of the latter gathered in Tokyo, where the revolution began to take shape with Japanese support, who were trying to further energize their rival. Beyond this, Japan was a model to follow, as it had been able to establish reforms to deal with the pretensions of foreign domination. In any case, the East Asia Cultural Union was created with the slogan Asia for the Asians as its main motto.

From 1905, movements for revolution began. The young student Sun Yat-sen, who sought the support of Chinese merchants abroad, stood out in his efforts. The aim was to expel the Manchus from the government, establish a republican constitution, introduce reforms to modernize the country and try to seek agreements with the powers that were controlling China at that time.

Sun Yat-sen, as well as others, initiated revolutions in various places, which did not succeed. However, the empress and her son died in successive days in 1908. The Empire was left in the hands of a young child, which gave hope for the Manchu Government to initiate reforms, which in the end did not come, beyond a series of concessions at first. Thus, by 1911, the situation had completely deteriorated, and even the wealthy classes that had for centuries been cohesive around the imperial power eventually turned their backs on it. In short, the infant emperor and his government controlled only part of the country. The commanders of the imperial army gradually deserted and joined the revolution, among them Yuan Shih-kai. On February 12, 1912, the emperor, now six years old, abdicated. A republic was proclaimed, initially presided over by Sun Yat-sen, who promptly resigned in favor of Yuan Shihkai, thus recognizing that power was now in the hands of warlords, while the constitutional government was rendered ineffective.

The Editor, P.C. 2022

VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA

Arthur H. Smith

Foreword

THESE chapters are written from the standpoint of one who, by an extended experience in China, has come to feel a profound respect for the numerous admirable qualities of the Chinese, and to entertain for many of them a high personal esteem. An unexampled past lies behind this great race, and before it there may lie a wonderful future. Ere that can be realized, however, there are many disabilities which must be removed. The longer one is acquainted with China, the more deeply is this necessity felt. Commerce, diplomacy, extension of political relations, and the growing contact with Occidental civilization have, all combined, proved totally inadequate to accomplish any such reformation as China needs.

The Chinese village is the empire in small, and when that has been surveyed, we shall be in a better condition to suggest a remedy for whatever needs amendment. It cannot be too often reiterated that the variety in unity in China is such, that affirmations should always be qualified with the implied limitation that they are true somewhere, although few of them may hold good everywhere. On the other hand, the unity in variety is such that a really typical Chinese fact, although of restricted occurrence, may not on that account be the less valuable.

China was never so much in the world’s thought as to-day, nor is there any apparent likelihood that the position of this empire will be less conspicuous at the opening of the twentieth century. Whatever helps to a better understanding of the Chinese people, is an aid to a comprehension of the Chinese problem. To that end this volume is intended as a humble contribution.

Glossary

Boy, a term used by foreigners in China to denote the head-servant, irrespective of his age.

Cash, Chinese copper coin with a square hole for stringing. The value of a single cash may be taken as one-thousandth of a Mexican dollar. The cash vary greatly in size. A string theoretically consists of a thousand cash, but in many regions has but five hundred. The latter variety is at present equal to one-third of a gold dollar.

Catty, a Chinese pound, equal by treaty to one and one-third pounds avoirdupois.

Chin-shih, Entered Scholar. The third literary degree; Doctor in Literature.

Chou, a Sub-prefecture, sometimes with Districts under it, and often without them.

Chü-Jên, Selected man. The second full literary degree; a Master of Arts.

Compound, an enclosure or yard, usually containing a number of buildings belonging to a single family or establishment.

Fêng-shui, literally wind and water. A complicated system of geomantic superstition, by which the good luck of sites and buildings is determined.

Fu, a Prefecture, governed by a Prefect, with several Districts under it.

Han-lin, Forest of Pencils. The last literary degree, entitling to office.

Hsien, a District or Country, governed by the District Magistrate.

Hsiu-ts‘ai, Flourishing Talent. The lowest of the several literary degrees; a Bachelor of Arts.

K‘ang, a raised platform of adobe or of bricks, used as a bed and heated by means of flues.

K‘o-t‘ou or Kotow, the act of prostration and striking the head on the ground in homage or worship.

Li, a Chinese measure of length, somewhat more than three of which equal an English mile.

Squeeze, a forced contribution exacted by those through whose hands the money of others passes.

Tæl, a weight of money equivalent to a sixteenth of a Chinese pound; an ounce.

Tao-T‘ai, an officer of the third rank who is intendant of a circuit.

Ya-mên, the office and residence of a Chinese official.

Part I. The Village, Its Institutions, Usages And Public Characters

I. The Chinese Village

THERE are in India alone over half a million villages. In all Asia, not improbably, there may be four times that number. By far the larger part of the most numerous people on the globe live in villages. The traveller in the Chinese Empire may start from some seaport, as Tientsin, and journey for several months together in the same general direction, before reaching its frontiers on the other side. In the course of such a tour, he will be impressed as only one who has ocular evidence can be impressed with the inconceivably great number of Chinese altogether outside of the great centres of urban population. Contrary to the current notions of Westerners, the number of great cities is not, relatively to the whole population, anything like so large in China as in Western lands. Many of the district cities, capitals of divisions analogous to what we call counties, are merely large villages with a wall and with government bureaus called yamêns. It is known that in India three-fourths of the population are rural. In China there is perhaps no reason for thinking the proportion to be less.

On such a journey as we have supposed, the traveller unacquainted with the Chinese, finds himself perpetually inquiring of himself: What are these incomputable millions of human beings thinking about? What is the quality of the life which they live? What is its content and its scope?

Questions like these cannot be answered intelligently without much explanation. The conditions and environment of Chinese life are so totally unlike those to which we are accustomed, that it is unsafe to take anything for granted. Amid certain fundamental unities the life of the Chinese is full of bewildering and inexplicable variety. No matter how long one may have lived in China, there is always just as much as ever that he never before heard of, but which every one is supposed to have known by intuition. The oldest resident is a student like the rest.

This state of things is the inevitable result of the antiquity of Chinese civilization, as well as of the enormous scale upon which it has operated to produce its effects. It is a sagacious remark of Mr. A. R. Colquhoun ¹ that the product resulting from duration multiplied by numbers must be immense, and if to this we add a third factor, isolation, we have no right to be surprised either at the complex character of Chinese civilization, or at its peculiarly conservative form. For this reason a connected and orderly account of the phenomena of Chinese life we believe to be a hopeless impossibility. It would require the combined information of all the residents of China to make it complete, to coördinate it would be the work of several life-times, and the resultant volumes would fill the Bodleian library. The only practicable way to extend our knowledge of so oceanic a subject, is to examine in more or less detail such phenomena as happen to have come within our restricted horizon. No two persons will have the same horizon, and no horizon will belt a sphere.

A good way to see what is happening in a building would be to take its roof off, could that be done without disturbing its inmates. If we wish to comprehend the Chinese, we must take the roof from their homes, in order to learn what is going on within. This no foreigner can do. But he can imitate the Chinese who apply a wet finger to a paper window, so that when the digit is withdrawn there remains a tiny hole, through which an observant eye may see at least something. The heterogeneous, somewhat disconnected, very unequally elaborated chapters which comprise this book, have this in common, that they are all studies of the phenomena seen at a peep-hole into the actual life of the Chinese people. Any one who knows enough about the subject to be entitled to have an opinion, cannot help perceiving how imperfect and inadequate they are. Yet they represent, nevertheless, realities which have a human interest of their own.

The traveller in China, constantly surrounded by countless towns and hamlets, naturally thirsts to know in a general way the population of the region which he is traversing. Should he venture, however, to ask any one the number of people in a city, or the district which it governs, he would get no other information than that there are not a few, or who knows? Almost any intelligent person could tell approximately how many villages there are in his own county, but as some of them are large and some small, and as Chinese like other Orientals care absolutely nothing for statistics and have the crudest notion of what we mean by an average, one is none the wiser for their information.

It appears to be well settled that no real dependence can be placed upon the Chinese official returns, yet that they are the only basis upon which rational estimates can be based, and therefore have a certain value. So far as we are aware, efforts to come at the real population per square mile, have generally proceeded from such extensive units as provinces, or at least prefectures, the foundation and superstructure being alike a mere pagoda of guesses.

Some years ago an effort was made in a certain district to make a more exact computation of the population of a very limited area, as a sort of unit of measure. For this purpose a circle was taken, the radius of which was twenty li, the foreign residence being at the centre. A list was drawn up of every village having received famine relief in the year 1878, so that it was not difficult to make a proximate guess at the average number of families. The villages were 150 in number, and the average size was taken as eighty families, which, reckoning five persons to the family, gave a total of 60,000 persons. Allowing six miles to be the equivalent of twenty li, the population of the square mile would be 531, about the same as the average of the kingdom of Belgium (the most densely populated country in Europe), which had in 1890 an average of only 534 to the square mile.

At a distance of a few miles beyond this circle, there is a tract called the Thirteen Villages, because that is the number within a distance of five li! This shows that the particular region in which this estimate was made, happens to be an unfavourable one for the purpose, as a considerable part of it is waste, owing to an old bed of the Yellow River which has devastated a broad band of land, on which are no villages. There is also a water-course leading from the Grand Canal to the sea, and a long depression much below the general average, thinly occupied by villages, because it is liable to serious inundation.

For these reasons it seemed desirable to make a new count in a better spot, and for this purpose a district was chosen, situated about ninety li east of the sub-prefecture of Lin Ch‘ing, to which it belongs. The area taken was only half the size of the former, and instead of merely estimating the average population of the villages, the actual number of families in each was taken, so far as this number is known to the natives. The man who prepared the village map of the area is a native of the central village, and a person of excellent sense. He put the population in every case somewhat below the popular estimate so as to be certainly within bounds. The number of persons to a family was still taken at five, though, as he pointed out, this is a totally inadequate allowance. Many families live and have all things in common, and are therefore counted as one, although as in the case of this particular individual, the family may consist of some twenty persons. To the traveller in this region, the villages appear to be both large and thickly clustered, and the enumeration shows this to be the case. Within a radius of ten li (three miles) there are sixty-four villages, the smallest having thirty families and the largest more than 1,000, while the average is 188 families. The total number of families is 12,040, and the total number of persons at five to the family, is 60,200, or more than double the estimate for the region with twice the diameter. This gives a population of 2,129 to the square mile.

So far as appearances go, there are thousands of square miles in southern and central Chih-li, western and southwestern Shan-tung, and northern Ho-nan, where the villages are as thick as in this one tract, the contents of which we are thus able proximately to compute. But for the plain of North China as a whole, it is probable that it would be found more reasonable to estimate 300 persons to the square mile for the more sparsely settled districts, and from 1,000 to 1,500 for the more thickly settled regions. In any case a vivid impression is thus gained of the enormous number of human beings crowded into these fertile and historic plains, and also of the almost insuperable difficulties in the way of an exact knowledge of the facts of the true census.

II. Construction Of Villages

IT is nearly 500 years since the great raid of the nephew of Hung Wu, founder of the Ming Dynasty, from the southern capital of China, to what is now known as Peking, then called the state of Yen. The celebrated raider is popularly believed to have destroyed the lives of all those whom he met, and to have reduced to an uninhabited desert the whole region from the Yang-tzŭ River to Peking. This is described as Yen Wang’s sweeping the North. After this ambitious youth had dispossessed his nephew, who was the rightful heir to the throne, he took the title of Yung Lo, which became a famous name in Chinese history. To repair the ravages which he had made, compulsory emigration was established from southern Shan-hsi and from eastern Shan-tung. Tradition reports that vast masses of people were collected in the city of Hung-tung Hsien in southern Shan-hsi, and thence distributed over the uncultivated wastes made by war. Certain it is that throughout great regions of the plain of northern China, the inhabitants have no other knowledge of their origin than that they came from that city.

It is a curious phenomenon that so practical a people as the Chinese, and one having so instinctive a sense of the points of the compass that they speak of a pain in the east side of the stomach, are indifferent to regularity of form in their towns. Every Chinese city seems to lie four square, but perhaps it is not too much to say that no Chinese city really does so lie. On the contrary a city wall is always found to have certain deliberate curves and irregularities which are designed for geomantic purposes. In other words they bring good luck, or they keep off bad luck, and are representations of the mysterious science of fêng-shui or geomancy. It is for this reason that city gates must either not be opposite one another, or if they are so, some obstruction must intervene to prevent evil spirits from making a clean sweep of everything.

It is customary in Western lands to speak of laying out a city or a town. As applied to a Chinese village, such an expression would be most inappropriate, for it would imply that there has been some trace of design in the arrangement of the parts, whereas the reverse is the truth. A Chinese village, like Topsy, just growed, how, or why, no one knows or cares. At some remote and generally unascertainable time in the dim past some families arrived from somewhere else, camped down, made themselves a local habitation, (their name they probably brought with them), and that was the village. It has a street, and perhaps a network of them, but no two are parallel, except by accident, and no one of them is straight. The street is the path which has been found by long experience to be a necessary factor in promoting communication between the parts of the village and the outside world. It is not only liable to take sudden and inexplicable turns, but it varies in width at different points. Sometimes in a village a quarter of a mile long, there may not be a single crossroad enabling a vehicle to get from the front street to the back one, simply because the town grew up in that way, and no one either could or would remedy it, even if any one desired it otherwise. At right angles to the main street or streets, run narrow alleys, upon which open the yards or courts in which the houses are situated. Even the buildings which happen to stand contiguous to the main street offer nothing to the gaze but an expanse of dead wall. If any doorway opens on the highway, it is protected from the evil influences which might else result, by a screen wall, preventing any observation of what goes on within. A village is thus a city in miniature, having all the evils of over-crowding, though it may be situated in the midst of a wide and comparatively uninhabited plain. Whether land is dear or cheap, a village always has the same crowded appearance, and there is in either case the same indifference to the requirements of future growth.

The mountains furnish an abundance of stone, from which dwellings situated in such districts are built—dark, damp, and unwholesome at all seasons of the year, but especially so in the time of heavy rains. Even more unpleasant are the cave dwellings found in the loamy soil of loess regions, lighted only from the front, and quite free from any form of ventilation, a luxury for which no provision is made in the construction of a Chinese dwelling.

By far the most common material of which the Chinese build their houses is that which happens to be nearest at hand. Bricks are everywhere made in great quantities, almost always of the same colour as the clothes of the people, a bluish gray. This tint is secured by sealing up the brick-kiln perfectly tight, when the burning of the bricks is finished, and pouring upon the concave top several hundred buckets of water, which, filtering through the soil of which the top is composed, is instantly converted into steam when it reaches the bricks, and alters their hue. The scarcity of fuel, and an unwillingness to employ it where it seems like a waste leads to the almost universal practice of burning the bricks too little to make them valuable as a building material. Instead of becoming hard like stones as do foreign bricks, and coated with a thick glazing, a large percentage of Chinese bricks break merely by being handled, and when examined, they are found to be like well-made bread, full of air-holes. Each of these openings becomes a tube by which the bibulous bricks suck up moisture from below, to the great detriment of the building of which they generally form merely the foundations, or perhaps, the facings.

The vast majority of country dwellings are made simply of the soil, moulded into adobe bricks, dried till they cease to shrink. The largest of these bricks are two or three inches thick, and a foot wide, and perhaps twenty inches in length, weighing even when thoroughly dried more than forty pounds. The cost of making those which are only dried in a mould is not more than a cash a piece; those which are stamped while in the mould with a heavy stone rammer, are worth three or four times as much. If experts are employed to do this work, the outlay is greater as the owner of the earth not only provides a man to carry the necessary water, but he must furnish tea and tobacco for the workmen.

The foundations of adobe houses, like those of all others, must be of brick, and at the height of a foot or two above the ground will have a layer of reeds or some other substance, designed to prevent the dampness from rising into the walls, which crumble in such a case like candy houses in a rain. There is so much soda in the soil of all parts of the Great Plain of northern China, that unless extreme care is taken the best built structures will, in a very few years, show signs of decay.

The roof is meant to be supported by posts, no matter of what material the house is built, and this material is regarded as only the filling between them, but in the cheaper houses, the posts are often omitted to save expense. As a result, in a rainy year thousands of houses are literally soaked down whenever the moisture has sufficiently weakened the foundations. In this way many persons are killed and many more injured. In some districts one sees roofs made with the frame resembling that of a foreign house, but the ordinary form is with king and queen posts. In either case the timbers running lengthwise of the building support small purlines upon which rest thin bricks, or more frequently reeds, mats, or sorghum stalks, over which is spread the earth which forms the greater part of all roofs. Their enormous weight when well soaked make them highly dangerous after the timbers have become old and rotten. Where the roofs are flat, they serve as depositories for the crops, and for fuel.

If the village is situated in a low spot, the precaution is taken to throw up a mound of earth on which to build. But whatever the nature of the country, the removal of so much earth leaves a series of gigantic pits around every village, which catch the drainage of the surrounding region and the possession of which is disputed by ducks, geese, pigs and in summer by small children clad only in the skin garments furnished by nature.

The abundant moisture is an inducement to the growth of luxuriant groves of trees, which, seen at a distance, produce a charming effect. But on a nearer approach it is seen that the fine old trees are employed exclusively in shading the mud-holes, while the houses of the village are exposed to the fiercest rays of the summer sun. Trees are indeed to be met with in the village street, but they are not designed to shade a courtyard, which is almost invariably utterly destitute of trees of any sort. Even grapevines which would seem a natural and beautiful relief from the hideous bareness of the prevalent earth colour, are, in some regions at least, wholly tabooed. And why? Because, forsooth, the branches