Medical sketches of the expedition to China / by Alexander Grant.

  • Grant, Alexander, 1947-
Date:
[1845]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Medical sketches of the expedition to China / by Alexander Grant. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    4/40 (page 4)
    tlie more respectable of tlie people view it as a sin to eat the Hesh of an animal so useful in agriculture ; the favorite meats are pork, goat, ducks, and fowls, their dishes are all stewed, and in general very rich. It is only the most wretched part of the popu- lation that eat rats, dogs, and horses, and in the north I have never ob- served even the poorest make use of these, although in Shantung there is a species of dog that is kept and fed up for the purpose of making hams which are considered a delicacy, and often sent as presents. Rice savoured with a small portion of salt-fish or salted vegetable, forms the food of the labouring class of Chinese, as much as rice with curry forms that of the natives of India. The facilities for intoxication are very great, there being in daily, but very moderate use among the people, a spirituous liquor called shamshoo, dis- tilled from rice, and occasionally from millet, it is of a clear colour, and tastes not unlike weak whisky and water ; the people take about a wine- glassful of it warmed before each meal, and there being large stores of it in every town and village, it affords a most dangerous temptation to Eu- ropean soldiers.* The Chinese have a strong and perhaps well founded prejudice against drinking cold or unboiled w'ater ; a very weak infusion of green tea is their common beverage ; visitors are always presented with this, and a pipe of tobacco, the latter being universal- ly used by both sexes. In the large tract of country tra- versed by the expeditionary force, no forests have been observed, but the isolated trees among the fields, (generally the useful tallow tree, Stillingia sebifera;) the groups of yews around the tombs, the bamboo plantations in the background of every cottage, and the dwarfish firs that line the steep hill sides, give to the * I Imve iicvcf seen but one native Chinese in u state of drunkenness. scenery a very wooded appearance. The baud of industry has long ago cleared the country of jungle, and even the rank wild grass and brush- wood is annually cut for the purjioses of firewood and manure. Almost the only marshes to be met with are those artificially formed for irrigation, and it is these that undoubtedly give to the autumnal months their notably unhealthy character. The water from the wells is good, that from the rivers is very muddy, but keeps well on board ship. The suppR is very abundant, and is conveved bv canals to the remotest districts, fertilizing lands that had othenvise been sterile, and forming high roads for the con- veyance of produce to the towns and provincial capitals. Famines are therefore very rare, the plenty of one district supplying the deficiency in another, and the variety of their crops securing to the farmer in the worst seasons, a sufficiency with which to support life. Locusts seldom if ever infest the eastern shores, their depre- dations being confined to the west. The soil of the valleys, an alluvial deposit, or a light colored clay, is for the most part rich ; notwithstanding perpetual cropping its returns are still very productive, through an excel- lent system of irrigation for which it is admirably fitted, being plastic and retentive of moisture. The loose stratum of soil on the hills is formed from the detritus of trap and other igneous rocks; it grows sweet-potatoc, barlej', peas, and beans ; it is often seen terraced and then admits of the growth of rice. The population is very dense, and there is not perhaps on the whole face of the globe an equal extent of country so rich in natural resources, nor w here these are better developed by the hand of man, and its people rendered independent of all external supply. The Government is an absolute despotism on the patriarehal model, but the popular voice has great intlu- euce over the imperial couucils, and