The People Have An Ornate Style Of Speech; They Salute Each Other With A
Cheerful Countenance, And With Great Politeness;
They behave like
gentlemen, and eat with great propriety.[NOTE 4] They show great respect
to their parents; and should
There be any son who offends his parents, or
fails to minister to their necessities, there is a public office which has
no other charge but that of punishing unnatural children, who are proved
to have acted with ingratitude towards their parents.[NOTE 5]
Criminals of sundry kinds who have been imprisoned, are released at a time
fixed by the Great Kaan (which occurs every three years), but on leaving
prison they are branded on one cheek that they may be recognized.
The Great Kaan hath prohibited all gambling and sharping, things more
prevalent there than in any other part of the world. In doing this, he
said: "I have conquered you by force of arms, and all that you have is
mine; if, therefore, you gamble away your property, it is in fact my
property that you are gambling away." Not that he took anything from them
however.
I must not omit to tell you of the orderly way in which the Kaan's Barons
and others conduct themselves in coming to his presence. In the first
place, within a half mile of the place where he is, out of reverence for
his exalted majesty, everybody preserves a mien of the greatest meekness
and quiet, so that no noise of shrill voices or loud talk shall be heard.
And every one of the chiefs and nobles carries always with him a handsome
little vessel to spit in whilst he remain in the Hall of Audience - for no
one dares spit on the floor of the hall, - and when he hath spitten he
covers it up and puts it aside.[NOTE 6] So also they all have certain
handsome buskins of white leather, which they carry with them, and, when
summoned by the sovereign, on arriving at the entrance to the hall, they
put on these white buskins, and give their others in charge to the
servants, in order that they may not foul the fine carpets of silk and
gold and divers colours.]
NOTE 1. - Ramusio's heading has Tartars, but it is manifestly of the
Cathayans or Chinese that the author speaks throughout this chapter.
NOTE 2. - "Sbattendo i denti." This is almost certainly, as Marsden has
noticed, due to some error of transcription. Probably Battono i fronti,
or something similar, was the true reading. [See following note,
p. 461. - H. C.]
NOTE 3. - The latter part of this passage has, I doubt not, been more or
less interpolated, seeing that it introduces again as a Chinese divinity
the rude object of primitive Tartar worship, of which we have already
heard in Bk. I. ch. liii. And regarding the former part of the passage,
one cannot but have some doubt whether what was taken for the symbol of
the Most High was not the ancestral tablet, which is usually placed in one
of the inner rooms of the house, and before which worship is performed at
fixed times, and according to certain established forms. Something, too,
may have been known of the Emperor's worship of Heaven at the great
circular temple at Peking, called T'ien-t'an, or Altar of Heaven (see p.
459), where incensed offerings are made before a tablet, on which is
inscribed the name Yuh-Hwang Shang-ti, which some interpret as "The
Supreme Ruler of the Imperial Heavens," and regard as the nearest approach
to pure Theism of which there is any indication in Chinese worship (See
Doolittle, pp. 170, 625; and Lockhart in J. R. G. S., xxxvi. 142).
This worship is mentioned by the Mahomedan narrator of Shah Rukh's embassy
(1421): "Every year there are some days on which the Emperor eats no
animal food.... He spends his time in an apartment which contains no idol,
and says that he is worshipping the God of Heaven."[1] (Ind. Antiquary,
II. 81.)
[Illustration: Great Temple of Heaven, Peking.]
The charge of irreligion against the Chinese is an old one, and is made by
Hayton in nearly the same terms as it often is by modern missionaries:
"And though these people have the acutest intelligence in all matters
wherein material things are concerned, yet you shall never find among them
any knowledge or perception of spiritual things." Yet it is a mistake to
suppose that this insensibility has been so universal as it is often
represented. To say nothing of the considerable numbers who have adhered
faithfully to the Roman Catholic Church, the large number of Mahomedans in
China, of whom many must have been proselytes, indicates an interest in
religion; and that Buddhism itself was in China once a spiritual power of
no small energy will, I think, be plain to any one who reads the very
interesting extracts in Schott's essay on Buddhism in Upper Asia and
China. (Berlin Acad. of Sciences, 1846.) These seem to be so little
known that I will translate two or three of them. "In the years Yuan-yeu
of the Sung (A.D. 1086-1093), a pious matron with her two servants lived
entirely to the Land of Enlightenment. One of the maids said one day to
her companion: 'To-night I shall pass over to the Realm of Amita.' The
same night a balsamic odour filled the house, and the maid died without
any preceding illness. On the following day the surviving maid said to the
lady: 'Yesterday my deceased companion appeared to me in a dream, and said
to me: "Thanks to the persevering exhortations of our mistress, I am
become a partaker of Paradise, and my blessedness is past all expression
in words."' The matron replied: 'If she will appear to me also then I will
believe what you say.' Next night the deceased really appeared to her, and
saluted her with respect.
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