Travels in China by Sir John Barrow (top e book reader .txt) 📕

higher ranks, has no great idea of a man's learning, if he be ignorant of the Swan-ming. I was very frequently applied to at Yuen-min-yuen, by persons in office, to know if I could tell them their fortune; and it was difficult to persuade them I had any knowledge of the astronomical instruments intended for the Emperor, after professing my ignorance in casting a nativity.

The priests of both sects are supposed to be no less attentive in keeping up a perpetual fire burning upon the altars than the Roman Vestals were in this respect; but no expiation nor punishment being considered necessary, as in the latter case, they cannot boast that "flames unextinguish'd on their altars shine." They are, in fact, frequently extinguished by carelessness or accident. No virgins attend this holy flame, but the charge of it is committed generally to young boys under training for the priesthood. Like the Greeks and the Romans, the Chinese have also their penates or household gods, which are not represented under any particular personification, but generally by a tablet bearing a short inscription and a taper burning before it. Every ship, however small, has its tablet and its taper; and within the compass-box or binnacle a taper is continually kept burning.

In every city, town and village, sometimes in the midst of woods, in the mountains and most lonely places, are small temples, the doors of which are continually left open for the admittance of such as may be desirous of consulting their destiny. The practical part of Chinese religion may, in fact, be said to consist in predestination. A priest is not at all necessary for unravelling the book of fate. If any one be about to undertake a journey, or to purchase a wife, or to build a house, or, above all, to bury a deceased relation, and any doubt should arise in his mind as to the fortunate result of such undertaking, he repairs to the nearest temple; and, if he should not be able to read himself, he takes a friend by the hand who can. On the altar of every temple is placed a wooden cup, filled with a number of small sticks, marked at the extremities with certain characters. Taking the cup in his hands he shakes it till one of the sticks falls upon the ground and, having examined the character upon it, he looks for the corresponding mark in a book which is generally appended to the wall of the temple. The lot, in this manner, is cast several times, and if one lucky flick in three should happen to turn up, he is willing to consider the omen as favourable; and, if the event should answer the expectation he has been led to form from the book of fate, he considers it as a duty to return to the temple and to burn a sheet or two of painted paper, or of paper covered with tin foil, and to deposit a few pieces of copper money on the altar, in token of gratitude for the favour he has received[52]. In this manner is consumed the greatest part of the tin that is carried to China by the trading companies of Europe. I have already observed that they have no communion of worship to offer up, in a public manner, their prayers or thanksgivings.

Formerly it was the custom to bury slaves with emperors and princes and sometimes also their concubines alive; but this cruel practice has given way, in modern times, to the more harmless one of burning representations of their domestics in tin foil, cut into the shape of human beings, and of placing their statues in wood or stone upon their graves; this seems to be the remains of a Scythian or Tartar custom, which, according to Herodotus, was commonly observed at the funerals of their sovereigns, when their horses, their slaves, and their concubines were impaled alive and placed in order round the tyrant's tomb. The last remains of a relation are interred with all the honours that the family can afford. I never passed between the capital and Yuen-min-yuen without observing numbers of funeral processions. Those of great officers of state would sometimes extend for nearly half a mile. The train was usually arranged in the following order. In front marched a priest uncovered, next a group of musicians with flutes, trumpets, and cymbals; after these the male relations of the deceased in long white frocks and behind them the chief mourner, supported by two friends, whose exertions to prevent him from tearing his cheeks and hair appeared to be truly ridiculous. Then followed the coffin, covered by a magnificent canopy and borne generally by four men, sometimes by eight. After the canopy the female relations proceeded in chairs, or more generally in the little covered carts, wearing white frocks like the men, their hair dishevelled, and broad white fillets bound across their foreheads. On approaching a bridge or a temple the procession always halted while the priest burned little images of tin foil, or let off a few crackers, upon which the noisy gong and the rest of the band made a flourish.

The famous feast of lanterns, when the whole empire is lighted up from one extremity to the other, in every possible way that fancy can suggest, is an ancient religious usage of which, at the present day, they can give no plausible account. It is just possible that, among other Egyptian ceremonies, this may be one derived from a common origin with an annual illumination of the same kind mentioned by Herodotus; which was generally observed, from the cataracts of the Nile to the borders of the Mediterranean, by hanging lamps of different kinds to the sides of the houses. On this day the Chinese not only illuminate their houses, but they also exercise their ingenuity in making transparencies in the shape of different animals, with which they run through the streets by night. The effect when perfectly dark is whimsical enough. Birds, beasts, fishes, and other animals are seen darting through the air, and contending with each other; some with squibs in their mouths, breathing fire, and others with crackers in their tails: some sending out sky-rockets, others rising into pyramids of party-coloured fire, and others bursting like a mine with violent explosions. But the most ingenious are those that, Proteus-like, change their shape from time to time, and under every form exhibit a different display of fire-works.

I have observed, at the beginning of this chapter, that the temples are occasionally appropriated to the use of state-officers, embassadors and other public characters, when travelling through the country, there being no other houses affording accommodations equally suitable. On quitting the temple it is generally thought necessary to perform an act of reverence bordering on devotion, not however to the Deity, but to the name of the Emperor inscribed on the altar. This custom, together with that of depositing rice and other grain, tea and oil at certain seasons, especially on the day of his nativity, although perhaps, in the first instance, a token only of respect and gratitude, and in the other an acknowledgment of his being the sole proprietary of the soil, are nevertheless acts that tend, from the sanctity of the place where they are performed, to the encouragement of idolatry. By thus associating the offerings made to the Deity and to the Monarch, the vulgar become apt to magnify the power of the latter and to raise it on a level with that of the former. A Chinese in speaking of a propitious event occurring, either in his own or any other country, generally attributes it to the joint Will of Heaven and the Emperor of China.

The conversion of the temples into lodging-houses is attended with some temporal advantages to the priests, by the donations that are generally made on such occasions. Most of them being supported entirely by voluntary contributions and trifling legacies that may be left by pious persons, they are thankful for the smallest gifts: for as there is little or no connection between the church and the state, they derive no pay, nor emolument, nor preferment from the latter. The Emperor pays his own priests, which are those of all his Tartar subjects; the Chinese Confucionists, or men of learning, and the state officers contribute to the maintenance of theirs, whether of Fo or Tao-tze, and the mass of the people, from the prevailing propensity of enquiring into futurity, afford the means of support to many thousands, I might perhaps say millions of priests, by the offerings carried to the altars whenever they find it necessary to consult the book of fate, which is done on most of the common occurrences in life.

From the short view I have here taken of the different sects, I think it may justly be concluded that the primitive religion of China no longer exists, or exists only in a corrupted state; that there is at present no national nor scarcely a state religion: and that the articles of faith are as various as the modes of worship; in all of which the people appear to be rather actuated by the dread of evil in this life, than by the fear of punishment in another: that the duties they perform are more with a view to appease an angry deity and to avert impending calamities, than from any hope of obtaining a positive good: that they rather consult or enquire of their gods what may happen, than petition them to accomplish or avert it; for a Chinese can scarcely be said to pray; he is grateful when the event proves favourable to his wishes; petulant and peevish with his gods when adverse.

Little as the priests, or the numerous noviciates that are found in all the principal temples, are employed in the duties of their office, or in worldly concerns, they are not less uncleanly in their persons and their apartments than those are whose time is taken up in providing for the necessities of life. The room, in which some of us should have slept, was so full of scorpions and scolopendras, and they crept in such numbers into our beds, that we were fairly driven out and obliged to swing our cots in the open air between two trees. Here we were not much less annoyed by myriads of musquitoes and the unceasing noise of the chirping cicadas, which continued without intermission until the still more noisy gong announced the break of day, and summoned the holy men to their morning devotions.

CHAP. IX. Journey from Tong-choo-foo to the Province of Canton—Face
of the Country, and its Productions.—Buildings and other
Public Works.—Condition of the People—State of
Agriculture.—Population.