the officers would hear of us, and endeavor to capture or drive us away. The people, though inoffensive, were by no means forward to help or house us. We seldom had anything offered us, and even by asking could get little else than water. In some instances they did ask us to sit down on the ground, and very rarely to enter their houses; so that my impression is, that had we to depend on the charity of the people of Shantung we should be poorly off.

With regard to their reception of our message, this journal will speak for itself. On the north side they were more willing to receive books than on the south, and in the places first visited, than in the latter; so that the further we went the worse we fared. This may be ascribed partly to the report of our arrival and operations having got the start of us, and to the consequent prohibitions which the officers had issued against receiving our books, or holding any intercourse with us. The people on the sea shore aud in places immediately adjoining it were so greedy after books as even to rob us of them, while those in the interior generally kept aloof. This may result from the better acquaintance of the former with strangers, while the latter are more secluded from the world. Ou the whole, the number of books (3500) distributed in Shantung, considering the time spent in it, the extent of ground traveled over, and the number of persons met with, has not at all equaled my expectations. As to oral instruction much cannot be said, for though the people even to the youngest child and meanest clown all spoke and understood the mandarin (or court) dialect, yet the time that we could afford to stay with them was short, the subjects treated of so strange, and my utterance, from long disuse of this dialect, being rather stiff and awkward, it was not to be expected that the people would be greatly interested or improved. Still something was attempted at each stopping place, enough to give them a general idea of the gospel, and a clue to the better understanding of the books left among them.

The temporal condition of this people in general seems comparatively good. We saw nothing of that squalled poverty and distress spoken of in other parts of the empire. The men were generally well fed, robust, and good looking; and no want, so far as we could see, prevailed. We saw no beggars and few ragged people: their clothing generally consisted of cottous, sometimes doubled, and not unfrequently quilted. Some of them wore shoes and stockings, and many had more jackets than one. Some had coats of skins with the hair or wool inside as a defense against the cold weather. A pecular kind of cap was worn by the generality, and made of white felt, sitting close to the head, and turned up on each side so that it might be pulled down over the ears in the winter. Every person was provided with a pipe and a light sort of tobacco, which he smoked very frequently. Their steel and tinder were carried with them, and as the ground was covered with a kind of white quartz which easily produced fire, they had only to stoop down and pick up a stone, and after striking fire throw their flint away.

The dwellings of the people in Shantung are mostly built of granite, a few of mud, while the roofs are in some instances of tiles, but more generally of straw. Some are plastered and whitewashed and rather tastefully fitted up, while the dwellings of the poorer sort stand forth in all their rude simplicity. The general run of the houses are twenty or thirty feet long, ten wide, and eight to twelve high: a door occupies the centre, with a window on each hand. On each side of the door-way, in the wall, are fixed two blocks of granite, projecting a little from the front, with loop-holes in them, which are used for tying oxen or asses when people dismount, or while the animals are feeding. Some houses are double, having a front and back row of buildings, but we have seen none of more than one story high. The streets are generally from ten to twenty feet wide, with narrower lanes leading across them. Each considerable village is provided with a temple, but in bad repair, and the gods worshiped are either Budha, or a martial hero, probably Kwan footsze. Little shrines are also to be seen in the fields, with rude stone images in them, or a mere tablet. On every projecting point of land throughout the coasts, were small temples or rather sheds, built as I was told by the fishermen to ensure success in their endeavors to obtain a livelihood.

The ground is well cultivated where it is capable of culture, and the sterility of the soil is improved by the attention paid to manuring the land. Almost every person met with in the fields is provided with a hand-basket and a prong, with which he collects the dung of all the cattle in the way, and carefully conveys it home; while at the entrance of every village are met heaps where the manure is collected and maturing for use. The productions are beans in great quantities, millet of various kinds, buckwheat of a poor quality, rice, wheat, and maize. The fields are fenced off by hedges, but divided by small grassy ridges sufficient to enable every man to know his own; and the houses are not scattered over the various farms, but stand together in villages, either for defense or for society. The cattle are a small kind of oxen, horses of a diminutive size, asses in abundance, and some mules; shaggy-haired goats were seen, but no sheep except those which were presented to us by the officers at Keshan so. Birds in great numbers, and very tame, were seen; but no venemous serpent or wild beast of any kind was seen or heard of.

October 19th. Island of Pooto, latitude 30°03′ N. We landed this morning with a boat-load of books, and commenced scaling those romantic heights covered with fantastic temples, so glowingly described by our predecessor in his account of this island. We soon found a broad and well beaten pathway, which led us to the top of one of the hills, at every crag and turn of which we encountered a temple, or a grotto, an iuscription or an image, with here and there a garden tastefully laid out, and walks lined with aromatic shrubs, which diffused a grateful fragrance through the air. The prospect from these heights was extremely delightful; numerous islands far and near bestudded the main, rocks and precipices above and below,

here and there a mountain monastery rearing its head, and in the valley the great temple with its yellow tiles indicative of imperial distinction, basked like a basilisk in the rays of the noon-day sun. All the aids that could be collected from nature, and from Chinese art were there concentrated to render the scene enchanting. But to the eye of the Christian philanthropist it presented a melancholy picture of moral and spiritual death. Viewed in the light of revelation and in the prospect of eternity, the whole island of Pooto, with its picturesque scenery, its sixty temples, and its two thousand priests, shows but a waste of property, a gross misemployment of time, and a pernicious nest of erroneous doctrines, tending to corrupt the whole surrounding country, and to draw off the minds of men from the worship of the true God to the phantom Budha. All the sumptuous and extensive buildings of this island are intended for no other purpose than to screen wooden images from the sun and rain; and all its inhabitants are employed in no other work than in reciting unmeaning contemplations towards these same senseless logs, so that human science and human happiness would not be in the least diminished, if the whole island of Pooto with its gaudy temples and lazy priests were blotted out from the face of creation.

The only thing that we heard out of the mouths of these priests was "Ometo Fuh," or Amida Budha; to every observation that was made reëchoed "Ometo Fuh;" and the reply to every enquiry was "Ometo Fuh." Each priest was furnished with a string of beads which he was constantly counting, and as he counted repeated the same senseless, monotonous exclamation. These characters met the eye at every turn of the road, at every corner of the temples, and on every scrap of paper; on the bells, on the gateways, and on the walls, the same words presented themselves: indeed the whole island seemed to be under the spell of this talismanic phrase, and devoted to recording and reechoing "Ometo Fuh." I never was so disgusted with a phrase in my life, and heartily wished myself out of sight and hearing of its sound and form. The temples on the hills which look pretty at a distance, lose much of their beauty on entering, and the caverns which I thought would repay me the trouble of exploring, proved to be merely cavities, eight or ten feet deep, with rude images at the farther end carved in a rock. The inscriptions on the rocks by the road-side were most of them so shallow that the action of the rain had rendered them nearly illegible; and the sculpture of the images in granite, which here and there lined the path, was so rudely designed and badly executed, that it sometimes needed an explanation to conceive what the artist would represent. Small temples abound everywhere, and present nothing remarkable; of large temples there are two, very much resembling each other, and, except in color, not unlike that at Honan, opposite to the city of Canton.

These temples, one of which stands near the north, and the other the south end of the island, consist of four central buildings, one behind the other, flanked on each side by the dwellings of priests. The

first of these central buildings is a kind of porch, occupied by four colossal figures, which appear to be placed as guards to the establishment; behind this, is the principal hall with the three Budhas in collossal form, and surrounded by the disciples of the god seated around the hall: these latter, though in a sitting posture, are about eight feet high. The third hall is dedicated to the goddess Kwanyin, and the fourth is occupied by blue-bearded images with savage aspects. In this last hall we observed the library, which contained some thousand volumes of the Budhistic classics, relating the conversations of Budha with his disciples, and containing the prayers which are to be used by his votaries. In the rear of the great temple I found a school, taught by a disciple of Confucius, but the scholars were all young fellows designed for priests of Budha. I asked whether the priests ever taught the boys under their care, of whom there are great numbers on the island, but was told that their sole employment is to recite prayers to Budha. Attached to the other great temple, I observed a refectory where the holy brotherhood get supplied with their daily rations, and though they profess to live solely on a vegetable diet, they are not remiss in preparing the good things of this life; for on entering their temples I almost invariably found them in the kitchen.

Asking to be admitted to the high priest, I was told that he was engaged in reciting prayers to Budha, but I rather suspected he was paying adoration to Morpheus; for on approaching his chamber, an attendant had to go and arouse him, taking with him at the same time his garment that he might not appear abroad in his dishabille. His conversation was as uninteresting to me as mine to him, and so I soon took my leave. Over the whole island, the priests readily took our books, and we found some that had been left there by Gutzlaff a few years ago; but I did not observe any soliciting books almost with tears in their eyes,' as he witnessed on a former occasion. On all sides, I was gratified with perceiving marks of decay in the temples and adjacent buildings, and earnestly hope that future travelers will find these worse than useless structures level with the ground, and the lazy drones who inhabit them scattered among the useful and intelligent part of their fellow-men.

ART. IV. Clanship among the Chinese: feuds between different clans near Canton; substitutes for those who are guilty of murder; republicanism among the clans.

THE Customs and laws of clanship in China often occasion and perpetuate any thing but a happy state of society. A few miscellaneous facts relative to this subject, which were recently communicated to us by a native friend, will give our readers some idea of the interior

policy of the people of this country. Those of the same surname will in general be found inhabiting the same village, or neighborhood; the various brances of the original stock, like the limbs of the banian tree, taking root around the parent trunk. In this way, not only a kindred feeling pervades all the members of such a family or clan, but the same characteristics, unchanged by the lapse of time. In this way too, the animosities which began in days long gone by are effectually preserved and cherished. Such old feuds, said our informant, are frequently seen at the present day, breaking out into open quarrels, the seeds of which were sowed many years ago.

An instance of the kind occurs in the feud now existing between the Chung family on Danes' island at Whampoa, and the Chuy fumily at the "second pagoda." This originated in real or supposed wrongs suffered by one of the ancestors of the Chung from the hands of the then more powerful Chuy. After many vain attempts of the foriner to avenge himself, on the near approach of death he bit off his own finger, and with the blood wrote the wrongs which he bequeathed as his chief legacy to his posterity, charging them to exact the full debt of vengeance. This bloody scroll is still preserved, and its precept most religiously observed. Hence the fruitful source of open quarrels between the two clans; hence a train of petty annoyances inflicted by the Chung upon the Chuy family; and hence a system of retaliation. If one of either clan be found alone, he is sure to be beaten or robbed, or both; their boats are often plundered, and redress is not easily obtained. But the clan on Danes' island has a great advantage over their antagonists, who live on the north side of the river, because that island unfortunately is the burying-place of the Chuy family. The natural reluctance of the latter to forsake the tombs of their fathers, subjects them to many an insult from their implacable hereditary foes. When a poor man goes thither to bury his dead, with but few to protect him, no secrecy on his part can at all times save him from attacks of the way-laying islanders. But worse than all, to be compelled to see their sacred and costly graves desecrated, the erection of which has consumed the hard earnings of many years, to have every new tomb marred by their enemies, is very galling to the Chuy family. All strangers who have walked over the island must have observed that some of the most costly of the gravestones are defaced and broken, evidently by the hand of violence. Not unfrequently too it happens that on the day of the annual visit at the tombs, the putrid remains of a human being are found placed on the head of some principal grave. It is not wonderful therefore that this day, when the wrongs of the past year are to be retaliated, should end in quarrels.

On the northern side of the river, which is the mainland, the villages have nothing to separate them or prevent their hostile inhabitants from assailing each other. Accordingly, in these parts the management of feuds is reduced to system, and the hostile families are ready armed with spears or bludgeons to enter into these not always bloodless broils. Where the hostile parties live within