1841.
Reminiscences of Chusan.
4ă7
which contained a number of very valuable works, principally statis. tical, and mostly unknown to the sinologues of the west. With Van- dalic destruction this valuable collection was soon thinned ; and only when it was too late, the loss of such a treasure was discovered by its few remaining fragments. The collection of official papers was ¡mmense, and literally filled one considerable building. They were huddled together without any order, and the worms had indeed done their best. Still there were picked out of the mass, some edicts issued as early as Shunche's reign. The office itself was in a miserable condition. How the old gentleman could spend a winter in such a
hovel is quite inexplicable.
The civil magistrate's office was still worse than that of the admi- ral's, and the smell in the rooms as bad as that arising from moulder- ing graves. Even the ladies' apartments, which had only a few hours previously been abandoned, were so uncleanly that a Chinese coolie actually fainted on entering them. There were numerous rooms for clerks and officers of every description, but it is difficult to under- stand how people could live in such damp and infected places, unless they possessed something of the amphibious nature of the toad. There was also a public treasury, labeled with large letters, and sealed in the Chinese fashion, to prevent the barbarians from forcing the deposit. The latter, however, might have spared themselves the trouble, for when our commissioners went to ascertain what the place contained, they found only four dollars, a quantity of small and useless cash, with rusty guns in abundance and a few old nets, and a good deal of rubbish. Here also, in the office of the civil magistrate, were the Luh Poo, or Six Boards, in miniature; and each of the buildings, dedicated to their use, contained the necessary papers. None other however was so well stored as that appropriated to the Board of Punishments, for there were lawsuits literally ten yards long, with -sundry remarks of the magistrates. In any museum they would be a great curiosity. To rummage them, however, could not be done with impunity, for they had been heaped up for many generations, and at the least touch they would fly about as if they had gotten wings, occa- sioning such a disagreeable smell, that one person got severely ill for having ventured to examine them. Order seems to have been en- tirely forgotten, and there was an utter want of arrangement in all the archives.
These papers had been abandoned, even by the soldiers, when all at once some emissaries sent by the officers of Ningpo began to steal them. And then it was that one of them lost his tail for his temerity,