Directory_and_Chronicle_1841 — Page 186

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Illustrations of Men and Things in China. MARCH,

ART. III. Illustrations of men and things in China: mode of

making walls and walks; a lampoon; a worshiper.

Mode of making walls and walks. The Chinese have a substitute for stone or brick pavements, called by foreigners chunam, derivep from an Indian word meaning lime, from the use of lime in its com- position, and which they call sha hwuy, or 'sanded lime.' It is made by mixing sifted sand with quicklime in the proportion of about 15 to 1, and thoroughly working them together with a hoe, occasionally sprinkling the heap. It is then thinly spread upon the ground, and beat very solid with a kind of wooden peels, now and then wetting the place to assist the solidification. The materials for walls are the same, but the gravel is rather coarser. In constructing a wall, boards are set within posts on each side of the foundation just the thickness of the intended wall, and the prepared gravel poured in and pounded down solid with long heavy beaters.

heavy beaters. When full to the top of the boards, additional ones are placed above them, and the process repeated, till by successive increments the wall is done. When thoroughly dry, it is coated with coarse plaster for preservation from rain, and if the coating is well done, the wall becomes in time very hard and stony. Besides the usual mode of laying brick to make the walls of dwellings, either plastered or not, houses are also con- structed in the same manner of this sanded lime; but more commonly tiers of bricks are loosely laid in to render it more substantial, and the whole covered with plaster, and whitewashed.

In places where burned bricks are expensive, the people have devised a substitute, viz., large blocks made of disintegrated felspar and lime. Localities often occur in the granitic strata in this region where the felspar predominates, and, by exposure, has disinte- grated and fallen down in the form of coarse clay. The workman brings his tools to the place, consisting of a sliding wooden form of the size of his intended bricks, and a long beater. He turns

He turns up the clayey felspar, and mixing more or less lime with it as he sees fit, pours the same into the mold, and pounds it in as solid as possible then opening the frame, he dries the mass in the sun. These blocks. are about 14 inches long by 6 square, and sell for $3 to $3≥ a hun- dred. Almost all the houses on the island of Hongkong are built of this material, which in dry situations answers well enough to sustain, a roof, and shelter the inmates from wind and rain; but when a freshet