Directory_and_Chronicle_1842 — Page 451

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Account of the Mantchous at Chap

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writing, commended itself to those who knew nothing of the Man- ichou character. These beautiful specunens of calligraphy show that the secretaries of the executives of the Mantchou army were fully alive to what is tasteful and ingenious.

Of the Tartars themselves, so far as personal acquaintance goes, little information was gained at Chápú. An old woman suspended by her neck, another wandering from house to house, and three of the same sex killed by poison, or another presenting a rose to the manes of her daughter, who had plunged herself into a well, were not calculated to give us much insight into the habits of the people. On one occasion, we found two girls tending upon a wounded father. Their heads were large and their hair bushy, their faces broad and flat. The younger of the twain was, however, not ill looking, and a decent apparel and intelligible language might have made her a pleasing object of interest. The Mantchou prisoners were persons of no outward promise, with one or two exceptions. One of them, who distinguished himself in the defense of the temple, was a well built man, and was perhaps not inexpert in martial exercises. He spoke Chinese as if it had been his native dialect, and when asked to write a plirase, he seemed more ready to put it into Chinese than in Mantchou. He had copied something from the courteous etiquette and complimentary address of the celestials, and of course found many topics for eulogium and flattering titles in the writer. The habit of blending two languages, and rendering them alike native has in this case a very important result. For we obtain from it transla- tions of doubtful words and phrases in Chinese into a language, which is furnished with cases, tenses, adjective terminations, and other grammatical contrivances for securing exactness of synthesis and perspicuity of meaning.

The last thing I shall mention is the box of archives, which was often found reposing upon a shelf near the top or highest part of the room. It generally contained one or more rolls of white silk various- ly trimmed and decorated with embroidery of a more showy color, such for example, as yellow flowers upon a red ground. This roll was a diploma from the emperor granted as a public recognition of praise- worthy qualities. The calligraphy is remarkable, and presented most engaging specimens of Mantchou as well as Chinese writing. The date of the diploma is inscribed in the interval between the Mantchou and Chinese, and the name of the individual in whose favor it was Issued written beside the date. The composition is divided into two

In one the soldier is addressed by name the qua

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