doorways of which are screened by pendant curtains of silk or cotton. Near Peking, the embassies found most of the apartments furnished with a couch or bed-place of brickwork, having a furnace below to warm it during the winter. This was usually covered with a felt rug or mat, which, with the assistance of the warmth, gave perpetual lodging to swarms of vermin, and rendered the bed-places quite unavailable to the English travellers. These flues, however, are very necessary during the severe winters, when the fires in the better houses are lit on the outside; but in poorer ones the furnace is within, and serves the double purpose of cooking and warmth, the whole family huddling round it.

All houses of consequence are entered by a triple gateway, consisting of one large foldingdoor in the centre, and of a smaller one on either side. These last serve for ordinary occasions, while the first is thrown open for the reception of distinguished guests. Large lanterns of a cylindrical shape are hung at the sides, on which are inscribed the name and titles of the inhabitant of the mansion, so as to be read either by day, or at night when the lanterns are lit. Just within the gates is the covered court, where the sedan-chair stands, surrounded by red varnished label

boards, having inscribed in gilt characters the full titles of any person of rank and consequence. We cannot better describe one of their larger mansions than in the words of Sir George Staunton1 :-" This palace was built on the general model of the dwellings of great mandarins. The whole enclosure was in the form of a parallelogram, and surrounded by a high brick wall, the outside of which exhibited a plain blank surface, except near one of its angles, where the gateway opened into a narrow street, little promising the handsome structures withinside. The wall in its whole length supported the upper ridge of roof, whose lower edges, resting upon an interior wall parallel to the other, formed a long range of buildings divided into apartments for servants, and offices. The rest of the enclosure was subdivided into several quadrangular courts of different sizes. In each quadrangle were buildings upon platforms of granite, and surrounded by a colonnade. The columns were of wood, nearly sixteen feet in height, and as many inches in diameter at the lower end, decreasing to the upper extremity about one-sixth. They had neither capital nor base, according to the strict meaning of those terms in the orders of Grecian architec

ture, nor any divisions of the space called the entablature, being plain to the very top, which supports the cornice; and were without any swell at the lower end, where they were let into hollows cut into stones for their reception, and which formed a circular ring round each, somewhat in the Tuscan manner. Between the columns, for about one-fourth of the length of the shaft from the cornice downwards, work, which might be termed the entablature, and was of a different colour from the columns, universally red. This colonnade served to support that part of the roof which projected beyond the wall-plate in a curve, turning up at the angles. By means of such roofed colonnades every part of those extensive buildings might be visited under cover. The number of pillars throughout the whole was not fewer than six hundred.

was carved and ornamented wood

which were

"Annexed to the principal apartment, now destined for the ambassador, was an elevated building, intended for the purposes of a private theatre and concert-room, with retiring apartments behind, and a gallery for spectators round it. None of the buildings were above one story, except that which comprised the ladies' apartments during the residence of the owner: it was situated in the inmost quadrangle. The front consisted of one long and lofty hall, with windows of Corea paper, through which no object could be distinguished on the other side. On the back of this hall was carried a gallery, at the height of about ten feet, which led to several small rooms, lighted only from the hall. Those inner windows were of silk gauze, stretched on frames of wood, and worked with the needle in flowers, fruit, birds, and insects, and others painted in water-colours. This apartment

was fitted in a neater style, though upon a smaller scale, than most of the others. To this part of the building was attached a small back court with offices: the whole calculated for privacy.

"In one of the outer quadrangles was a piece of water, in the midst of which a stone room was built, exactly in the shape of one of the covered barges of the country. In others of the quadrangles were planted trees, and, in the largest, a huge heap of rocks rudely piled, but firmly fixed upon each

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other, and at one end was a spot laid out for a garden in miniature; but it did not appear to have been finished."

In the best Chinese mansions there are seldom any stairs beyond the few stone steps by which they are raised above the general level of the ground. The stonework of the foundation is extremely solid and handsome, and in the neighbourhood of Canton it is always of granite. The walls are of blue brick, frequently with an artificial facing or pointing, by which strangers are apt to be deceived as to the fineness of their brickwork. They work in stucco with great skill, representing animals, flowers, and fruits, which are sometimes coloured to imitate nature, and the cheapness of this ornament makes it very common. The partition-walls of the inner courts are frequently broken into compartments, which are filled with an open work of green varnished tile, or coarse porcelain. The mode in which they tile their roofs is evidently derived from the use of split bamboos for the same purpose, as it is practised to this day by the Malays, and described by Marsden. The transverse section of these tiles being something of a semicircle, they are laid down the roof with their concave sides uppermost to serve as gutters, the upturned edges of every range being contiguous. But, as these would admit the rain at the lines of contact, other tiles are laid in a contrary position over them, and the whole secured in their places by mortar.

In towns, where space is of consequence, the houses and shops of the greater number of the inhabitants have a story above the ground-floor, and on the roof is often erected a wooden stage or platform for drying goods, or for taking the air in hot evenings. This custom contributes to make their houses very liable to catch and to spread fires during a conflagration. Nothing surprises the Chinese more than the representations or descriptions of the five and six-storied houses of European cities; and the Emperor is said to have inquired if it was the smallness of the territory that compelled the inhabitants to build their dwellings so near the clouds. have the most absurd superstition in regard to the ill-luck that attends the elevation of dwellings above a certain height; and the erection of a gable end (which they denomi

They

The magnificence of Chinese mansions is estimated in some measure by the ground which they cover, and by the number and size of the courts and buildings. The real space is often eked out by winding and complicated passages or galleries, decorated with carving and trellis-work in very good taste. The walks are often paved with figured tiles. Large tanks or ponds, with the nelumbium, or sacred lotus, are essential to every country house, and these pools are generally filled with quantities of the golden carp, and other

fish.

Masses of artificial rock either rise out of the water, or are strewn about the grounds, in an affected imitation of nature, and on these are often planted their stunted trees. Sir William Chambers's description of Chinese gardening is a mere prose work of imagination, without a shadow of foundation in reality. Their taste is indeed extremely defective and vicious on this particular point, and, as an improvement of nature, ranks much on a par with the cramping of their women's feet. The only exception exists in the gardens, or rather parks, of the Emperor at Yuen-ming-yuen, which Mr. Barrow describes as grand both in plan and extent; but for a subject to imitate these would be almost criminal, even if it were possible.

The apartments of the Chinese are by no means so full of furniture as ours in England, and in this respect they have reached a point of luxury far short of our own. Perhaps, however, they are the only people of Asia who use chairs: these resemble the solid and lumbering pieces of furniture which were in fashion more than a century ago, as described by Cowper :

"But restless was the chair; the back erect

Distress'd the weary loins, that felt no ease; The slippery seat betray'd the sliding part That prest it, and the feet hung dangling down." Cushions, with hangings for the back, are sometimes used of silk, or English woollens, generally of a scarlet colour, embroidered in silk patterns by the Chinese women. Near the chairs are commonly placed those articles of furniture which the Portuguese call cuspadores, or spitting-pots, rendered necessary by the universal habit of smoking. The disagreeable noise that attends the clearing the throat and fauces of the poison inhaled by

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this bestial practice, is perpetual among the Chinese, and makes one enter feelingly into the complaints which have proceeded from several visitors of the United States, in regard to similar habits among our Trans-atlantic brethren.

Among the principal ornaments are the varied lanterns of silk, horn, and other materials which are suspended from the roofs, adorned with crimson tassels, but which for purposes of illumination are so greatly behind our lamps, and produce more smoke than light. At a Chinese feast, one is always reminded of the lighting of a Roman entertainment :

"Sordidum flammæ trepidant rotantes
Vertice fumum."

The great variety, and, in the eyes of a Chinese, the beauty of the written character, occasions its being adopted as an ornament on almost all occasions. Calligraphy (or fine hand-writing) is much studied among them, and the autographs of a friend or patron, consisting of moral sentences, poetical couplets, or quotations from the sacred books, are kept as memorials, or displayed as ornaments in their apartments. They are generally inscribed largely upon labels of white satin, or finecoloured paper, and almost always in pairs, constituting those parallelisms which we shall have to notice under the head of Literature and Poetry.

In the forms of their furniture they often affect a departure from straight and uniform lines, and adopt what might be called a regular confusion, as in the divisions and shelves of a book-case, or the compartments of a screen. Even in their doorways, instead of a regular right-angled aperture, one often sees a complete circle, or the shape of a leaf, or of a jar. This, however, is only when there are no doors required to be shut, their absence being often supplied by hanging-screens of silk and cloth, or bamboo blinds like those used in India. Their beds are generally very simple, with curtains of silk or cotton in the winter, and a fine mosquito-net during the hot months, when they lie on a mat spread upon the hard bottom of the bed. Two or three boards, with a couple of narrow benches or forms on which to lay them, together with a mat, and three