Page:Illustrations of China and Its People vol. IV.pdf/48

 Some five or six years since, Le-shen-lan was recommended to the notice of the Emperor, and appointed to fill the post of professor of mathematics in the Peking College. He has compiled several small works on mathematics, for the most part original investigations, and appears to have a mind thoroughly adapted for mathematical study, being a minute and close reasoner, and accurate and rapid in calculation.

He is presented to the reader, surrounded by his pupils, in No. 37.

THIS Pai-Iau, or Chinese honorary portal, is erected at the gate of the Ta-ka-tien temple which the Emperor visits when he prays for rain. Structures of this sort are very numerous in Peking. Many of them span the widest thoroughfares, and, when Jreshly painted, break the monotony of the scene with their bright colours and imposing proportions. A man may obtain permission to erect a Pai-lau in honour of himself or children; many erect one in honour of deceased parents; or a widow who has not ceased to mourn for many years for the loss of a loved husband may perpetuate the memory, not of her dear husband, but of her own virtues, by erecting such a monument, and receives from the Emperor an honorary name to be inscribed over the centre of the structure. Anciently, Le Comte tells us, these triple gates were to be met with crossing the trade routes of the interior, when they were inscribed with directions for the traveller regarding the route to be followed, and the distance to different towns.

THE Manchus, like the Chinese, deem it their duty when they are advanced in years to make provision for their own decease. Accordingly they themselves determine what ' kind of coffin shall carry their remains to the grave, and will have one, if they can afford it, made of Szechuan wood, costing sometimes as much as three hundred pounds of our money. The aged owner takes a great interest in the varnishing and finishing of this his last resting-place; and he also takes care to purchase his own grave-clothes. These are, with the rich, of red silk, lined with light blue and thickly wadded, having a mattress also, and a pillow, to accompany them; and in the case of a mandarin, a suit of his finest official robes, which will be placed over his body, in what is euphemistically termed his " longevity case." This sort of phraseology is adopted because the people do not admit the idea of death; the close of one's days is simply the passage from life to life, from one world into another, or from one state of existence into a different one. When the hour of dissolution approaches, the body is laid upon a stretcher which the undertaker supplies, and surrounded with a pall of black satin, and then the dying person is dressed in his most costly robes. They have a belief that if the body were to be dressed after decease instead of before that event, the soul would pass naked into the next world, whereas, if decked out while life is still present they suppose that it will carry the robes and rank of the wearer along with it in its flight. Nor do they in Peking allow a person to die upon his bed, lest the spirit should haunt it afterwards. If a female, her ornaments of gold are worn in the hair, but her bracelets are laid by her side and never put on, for fear that Yen-wang-yen, the prince of hell, should use them as shackles to bind her in the other world. For the same reason a mandarin never wears his necklace.

Pillows in use with the Manchus in the north of China are generally filled with small millet husks, but those for the dead are stuffed with paper, each small husk being supposed to represent a period of time, which for