Directory_and_Chronicle_1842 — Page 446

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Account of the Mantchous at Chipu

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watchfulness. The bed is a wide bench in the rear of this room, and sometimes separated from it by pannels and folding doors. The whole of the family seem to take their repose in this spot, with the simple conveniences of thick coverlids and hard pillows. The clus- tering together of the parents and their offspring at night reminds us of a phrase in Luke's Gospel, where the goodman of the house repre- sents himself as being in bed with his children, and therefore unable to rise without disturbing their balmy slumbers to grant his importu- nate friend the loan he desired. Notwithstanding the scanty limits in which economy has to exercise her resources there is uniformly a closet constructed of boards, and thus the requirements of decency are consulted in a way not always exemplified in China.

In speaking of the hall, I forgot to mention the chandeliers, which are made of glass beads moulded in pretty forms, and adorned with gay pendents. Here and there the beaded chandelier is replaced by one of painted facets ornamented with tassels after the Chinese model. The doors between the central and the lateral rooms are not unfrequently panneled, each pannel filled by a picture, or an inscription in the seal, running or printed characters of the Chi- nese. In one of these inscriptions, which I found in a house recently fitted up, the occupier seemed to rejoice in the prospect of dealing out his arrows among the barbarians. In times of yore, a doating ima- gination might have indulged such vagaries in harmless security; now the 'signs of the times' are changed, and a soldier must ex- change theory for pracice.

The reader might be tempted to take me for an epicurean or some- thing worse, were I to tell him that the most interesting object in these houses was the kitchen. The arrangements in this part of the dwelling showed a regard to neatness which I have never seen be- fore in China. The main feature is the cooking stove, which is white-washed, and variously adorned with portraitures of flowers, fruits, birds and beasts, all of the liveliest hues. Without a figure it is not easy to give a correct idea of this stove; it may perhaps be best described by saying that it consists of a frontispiece raised upon one side of a square mass of masonry. In the top of this square mass are two shallow boilers, with high wooden covers to condense the steam upon certain viands placed upon a latticed frame within. Besides the coppers, there is a bottle of a peculiar form, being cylin- drical above and conical below. This is used to heat water for tea, and rests in a hole like the coppers. The furnaces are on the other zide, so that the cook may proceed with her operations without fear-