in China, and the converts were numbered by hundreds of thousands. The successors of Ricci were well-informed and cultivated men, and to them Europe was long indebted for its chief authentic information as to China. They were well acquainted with mathematical and mechanical science, and made themselves so useful that they rose in high favour at the Court. They diversified their employments by teaching and superintending the casting of cannon, and by constructing water-clocks and fountains. Schaal and Verbiest both cast cannon for the Emperor. The latter cast 130 pieces for Kanghi on one occasion, and afterwards 320 more, solemnly blessing them, and bestowing on every piece the name of a saint.

The Jesuits were also possessed of considerable medical skill. They cured the Emperor of an ague with cinchona bark, and in his gratitude he gave them the ground occupied by the Pey-tang. But the next Emperor, Yung-chung, was jealous of the influence of the Jesuits in China, and gave as his ostensible reasons for expelling them that their doctrines were bad, leading to the disturbance of the relations of social life, to the congregating of men and women together, and to the reception of the latter in dark places. by priests for purposes of confession. Some of the fathers managed to secrete themselves, while others found means of getting back to their flocks, but for over a hundred years the Christians experienced alternating seasons of favour and persecution, and many native Christians and some foreign teachers suffered martyrdom. During the latter half of the eighteenth century the celebrated Father Amiot was resident here from 1750 till his death in 1794, at the age of seventy-seven. His works on Chinese history and literature are numerous and profound; he was also a mathematician, which procured him the warm favour of the Emperor, a lover of science. In 1826 there was one solitary Jesuit dwelling at the Pey-tang, from whom the Chinese Government bought the estate for 5,000 taels. In 1860 the French made the restoration of the Jesuit buildings an article in the treaty, but the Chinese pleaded that they had paid for the premises; whereupon the French offered to repay the money if the Chinese would restore the church and other buildings. This was, of course, impossible; so under military pressure the ground was yielded back without payment.

A great many more temples, palaces of the nobility, and other buildings might be enumerated, but the mere names would be uninteresting, and the details would be very monotonous. But let the reader guard against illusions. Whilst Pekin is certainly one of those incomparable cities which, like Venice and Constantinople and Ispahan, resemble no other city upon earth, yet it is by no means all grandeur and beauty. The ordinary houses are never more than one storey in height. "In walking about the city," says Mrs. Collins, "objects betokening decay meet the eye on every side: massive archways of wood, finely carved, more or less out of the perpendicular, threaten you with destruction as you pass under them, notwithstanding the huge props by which they are supported. There are magnificent temples, the courtyards paved with marble, but overgrown with weeds, and fine gateways, the entrances to large palaces, with their once gorgeous painting unrenewed for years, and covered with dust. The streets in many places are filled with water, or intersected with what are intended for drains, deep enough to engulf a horse and its rider. A house in process of building is a thing unknown in Pekin; repairs, also, are very uncommon, and decay is the rule."

Turning now to the Chinese City, we find it much more populous than that already described. It is of an oblong form, surrounded by walls, and approached by seven gates, of which three connect it with the Tartar City, as already mentioned. It contains no palaces or official residences; the great street of the centre is about a hundred feet broad, and a few other of the principal streets are of a respectable width; but excepting the extensive parks attached to the Temples of Heaven and of Agriculture, and a broad cultivated tract close by (all in the south of the city), the remainder is a mass of winding, narrow, stifling lanes and alleys, filthy in the extreme, smelling most vilely, and yet presenting intensely interesting scenes of Chinese life.

The street leading from the North-eastern Gate to the Central Avenue is of considerable width and fairly built, and is lined both sides of the way with the shops of the merchants dealing in silks and porcelain and other wares. In front of each shop is a board ten or twelve feet high, carefully varnished and gilded, upon which are inscribed in large characters the names of the articles sold at that establishment. The long rows of these gaudy signboards, ornamented at the top with a profusion of gay banners and streamers, give a very theatrical appearance to the streets. Some of these boards are very diffuse in their information, including even the genealogy of the proprietor, and often display phrases intended to invite public confidence, such as "They don't cheat here," and the like.

At the junction of the above street with the Central Avenue is an open space, frequented by crowds of country people selling different sorts of food, especially game and vegetables. Here are enormous piles of onions and cabbages, as high as the shop-fronts. The peasants, male and female, squat on mats or low stools, peacefully smoking, whilst their asses and mules wander round helping themselves to unprotected provender. Citizens, guarding themselves demurely with their fans from the sultry sun, mingle with the robust, brown-skinned countrymen in their sandals and huge straw hats.

The Central Street of the Chinese City of Pekin presents one of the most animated spectacles in the world. The long lines of huts and booths, of every size and form and colour, give the street all the aspect of a fair. Everywhere surges the dense, evermoving crowd-carriages and mules and horses and sedan-chairs and hand-barrows mixed in inextricable confusion. Itinerant dealers of all sorts swarm everywhere, some displaying their stock in hampers slung from their necks; others selling the food which is cooking before them in public on portable stoves; the blacksmith sets up his establishment in a suitable corner, and blows his bellows and wields his hammer without interruption; the barber rings his little bell, and sees customers sit down on his little stool to have their heads shaved, eyebrows painted, "tails " adjusted, and garments brushed, all for a small fee; story-tellers, singers, conjurers, quack doctors, hold forth to eager crowds, that ever and anon break up suddenly as some grandee is borne past in triumph, or as processions pass bearing, with lamentable cries, corpses to the graves, or, with squalling music, brides to their husbands. It must be remembered that the various street vendors by no means offer their wares in silence; on the contrary, they all loudly proclaim the quality of their goods and their low prices in shrill tones of the most ear-piercing description, and the noise of buying and selling, bawling and wrangling, mirth and laughter, makes up a very Babel of sound. The Central Street is crossed by a substantial

bilge of mouse and wol, in which a very fine view of this remarkable thonnghfare is obtained

Amonges the sleestreets are some that are specially devoted to partienlar trades. Tony there is the street ledy given up to borselen. The centre is as crowded as elsewhere, and in the shops are seen pilies of locks, paintings, maps, caricatures, and placards. Here the Pebia Gazere of other formals are wild se lens to mal Pok 4 In some ships the place of humour & wonpied by di eland backs, or paintings on leaves of trees; in the latter, hich are very high-prind, the pity portion of the laf has been removed, and replaced by a preparation of powdered talt, upon which, when by, designs in bright colours are painted very self.lg.

Some of the envened passages are very entions-tamow hates ecvered with ill-fitting planke, unpaved, and belly it in the day-time with sm by lamps. Some of these passages are famous for dealers in bric-a-brag, or bateang, as the Chinese call it, and upon rough stalls are heaped up vases, porcelain exps, bronzes, arms, pipes, and all sorts of old relics. The delers are very clever at making new crockery into cd; and by using a particular kind of reddish clay, and by burying the chjeet for a few months, they manage to produce splendid ounterfeits of the old porcelains of Ly-gine days, so sight after by amateurs. The passages we are describing are very foul, the door a mass of mod and nameless dris, the wood-work of the shops seems perspiring with nauses moisture, and the smell of the smoky lamps seems positively agreeable in ecntrast with the fetid air in which they struggle.

The Cabbage-market at the cross-roads just now described is the common executionground of Pekin. When executions are to take place, some of the stalls are cleared away, and on a pile of rubbish in the street the criminals are beheaded; then, on short poles stuck in the earth, small wooden cages are slung, in which the heads are exhibited. As soon as the executioner has done his work, market goes on as usual, and it is not at all uncommon to see a dozen fresh heads in the cages among the vegetable stalls, and the buying and selling going on, and nobody apparently taking any notice of these ghastly trophies. Here in autumn the great execution takes place, to clear the gals before the Emperor makes his annual sacrifice to Heaven at the winter solstice.

This spot is the usual scene of political executions, for it is customary to put to death ex-ministers when they have not succeeded in carrying out the plans of the Government satisfactorily. In December, 1861, the ex-Regent of the Empire, Su-shun, was beheaded here. He had abused the Imperial confidence, and, as proprietor of several banks in the city, hal issued vast numbers of bank-notes, which he afterwards refused to redeem. Contractors and shopkeepers and bankers who had lost heavily by these notes stood in the streets and jeered at him as he passed to execution at the Cabbage-market. Here also was exerated, one morning before sunrise, the governor who unsuccessfully defended Suchan against the Tueping rebels.

The Tien-tan, or Altar of Heaven, is situated in the south-eastern part of the Chinese City, and is surrounded by a wall twenty feet high and three miles in extent, within which is a large park, with broad avenues of trees, and in the middle another enclosure in which steps and terraces with marble balustrades form two large circular altars. Upon the centre of the