Page:Passages from the Life of a Philosopher.djvu/390

374 mere sight of them procured me many little attentions in diligences and steamboats.

Of course I never appeared to be the possessor of more than one of these treasured buttons; so that if any one had saved my life, its gift would have been thought a handsome acknowledgment. If I had travelled in the East, as I had originally intended until the battle of Navarino prevented me, my buttons might have given me unlimited success in the celestial empire.

The Chinese, like ourselves, have five orders of nobility. They are indicated by spherical buttons. The Chinese nobles, however, wear them on the top of their caps, whilst our nobility wear their pearls and strawberry-leaves in their armorial bearings.

It is a curious circumstance that the most anciently civilized nation should have invented an order of knighthood almost exactly similar to our own—the order of the Peacock's Feather—which, like our own Garter, is confined to certain classes of nobility of the highest rank. Of the two the decoration of the Chinese noble is certainly the more graceful.

One out of many illustrations may show the use I made of a button. During my first visit to Venice I wished to see a manufactory of gold chains for which that city is justly celebrated. I readily got permission, and the proprietor was so good as to accompany me round his factory. I had inquired the price of various chains, and had expressed my wish to purchase a few inches of each kind; but I was informed that they never sold less than a braccia of any one chain. This amount would have made my purchase more costly than I proposed, so I gave it up.

In the meantime we proceeded through several rooms in which various processes were going on. Observing some