Page:Illustrations of China and Its People vol. II.pdf/31



THE subjects of this plate are types of the male heads of China and Mongolia, No. 20 being that of a boy of the upper or most highly educated class, the son of a distinguished civil officer of Canton. He is a fine, attractive-looking little fellow, his full hazel eyes beaming with kindliness and intelligence. The almond form and oblique setting of the eye, so peculiar to the natives of the south, is well brought out in this picture. The face is altogether a pleasing one, but, as is common among children in China, it will gradually lose its attractions as it grows to maturity. The softness of the eye is then frequently replaced by a cold,, calculating expression, the result of their peculiar training, and the countenance assumes an air of apathetic indifference which is so necessary to veil the inner feelings of a polished Chinese gentleman. No. 21 will convey an idea of what this bright little fellow may in time become. It shows the head of a full-grown Chinaman, though of a somewhat lower grade in the social scale — a man whose natural shrewdness and capacity for business have helped him on to a successful mercantile career. The cap he wears is that common in the south during the summer months. Nos. 22 and 25 give the profile and full face of a Mongol. This type belongs to the north of the empire, and the features here are heavier than those of the pure Chinese; indeed, the face, taken as a whole, approaches more closely to that of the European cast. The Mongols wear the head wholly shaven, and in this practice they differ from the Chinese, who invariably carry a plaited queue. No. 24 presents the head of an ordinary Chinese coolie, a fine specimen of the lower orders in China. A man of this sort has enjoyed no opportunities of taking on the polish which is acquired by study and by the high experiences of official life. He is, as a rule, a kindlydisposed person, quite alive to his own interests, and endowed by nature with a profound contempt and compassion for all barbarians who dwell without the pale of Chinese civilization. This will account for the expression he is casting upon me as I am about to hand him down to posterity to be a type of his class. He is thoroughly honest and sincere in his views, wishing in his heart, when kindly treated by a foreigner, that his benefactor had enjoyed the exalted privilege of being born a Chinaman, and that he may yet, in after periods of transmigration, luckily attain to that dignity of birth in some future state. No. 23 is a very old man, with the number of his years, one might almost fancy, registered in the furrows of his brow. He is a labourer, and, although over eighty, still earns a living as a porter; his white hairs and woefully curtailed queue gain him much respect and consideration among his neighbours.