The Population of China
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Their country without a fixed purpose to return to worship in the ancestral hall — to bring sacrifices to the tombs of their fathers; but it may be doubted if one in ten revisits his native land. The loss of life from disease — from bad arrangements — from shipwreck and other casualties, amounts to a frightful percentage on those who emigrate,
The multitudes of persons who live by the fisheries in China afford evidence not only that the land is cultivated to the greatest possible extent, but that it is insufficient to supply the necessities of the overflowing population; for agriculture is held in high honour in China, and the husbandman stands next in rank to the sage or literary man in the social hierarchy. It has been supposed that nearly a tenth of the population derive their means of support from fisheries. Hundreds and thousands of boats crowd the whole coast of China — sometimes acting in communities, sometimes independent and isolated. There is no species of craft by which a fish can be inveigled which is not practised with success in China — every variety of net, from vast seines embracing miles, to the smallest hand-net in the care of a child. Fishing by night and fishing by day, fishing in moon-light, by torch-light, and in utter darkness, fishing in boats of all sizes, fishing by those who are stationary on the rock by the sea-side, and by those who are absent for weeks on the wildest of seas, fishing by cormorants, fishing by divers, fishing with lines, with baskets by every imaginable decoy and device. There is no river which is not staked to assist the fisherman in his craft. There is no lake, no pond, which is not crowded with fish. A piece of water is nearly as valuable as a field of fertile land. At day-break every city is crowded with sellers of live fish, who carry their commodity in buckets of water, saving all they do not sell to be returned to the pond or kept for another day's service. And the lakes and ponds of China not only supply large provisions of fish — they produce considerable quantities of edible roots and seeds which are largely consumed by the people. Among these the esculent Arum, the Water Chestnut (Scirpus tuberosus) and the Lotus (Nelumbium) are the most remarkable.
The enormous river population of China, who live only in boats, who are born and educated, who marry, rear their families, and die — who, in a word, begin and end their existence