Page:Illustrations of China and Its People vol. II.pdf/61



THE sedan-chair is one of the most useful institutions in China, and has been employed there from a very ancient date. Private sedans are kept by the civil mandarins, and by people of wealth and rank. In former days strict rules existed, which forbade certain of the lower orders, and even foreigners, from using sedans.

These rules are still in force among the Chinese, and with the civil mandarins the sedan is the official means of conveyance, their rank being denoted by the covering and furniture of their chairs, as well as by the number of bearers, and of the footmen in attendance. Military mandarins, on the other hand, travel, or pay their official visits, on horseback, as is shown in No. 56. Public chairs are now in use in different parts of the empire, and these I have already described in Volume I.

THE Chinese plough, like that in use with us, is furnished with a share and mould-boards of iron. The one shown in No. 57 has, however, only a single lever fastened to the beam in place of the two which are employed to guide our ploughs. It will be seen that the ploughman is enabled by this means to direct his implement with one hand, while the other is left disengaged for managing the ox, which is yoked to the plough. This ox, in the Fukien province, is of a very small breed, and is employed for light work, such as the ploughing of orchards and gardens.

A NORTH China pony, one that was trained successfully as a racer, is shown in No. 58. Most of these ponies are bred on the Mongolian plain, and are brought down during the winter months to Peking for sale. There they fetch from £5 to ^"50 apiece, and are then commonly transported by their purchasers to the ports on the coast, and re-sold at much higher prices. They are hardy and strong -limbed animals, and the example in the photograph affords a handsome type of its class; although, in common with all the ponies of Mongolia and China, it has the head large, and a frame which inclines to be heavy. No horses are either bred or made use of in China; even the cavalry there are mounted on ponies such as this one, and mules are held in greater esteem than horses among the Chinese. It seems strange that they should not have endeavoured to improve their own stock by making use of some of those high-bred horses which were left by our troops in the country at the close of the last war; but it is clear they have not done so, as they have still nothing better than their own heavy-limbed ponies to show.