The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, November 18, 1900, Page 7

THE SUNDAY CALL. T Japanese commissary wagons, rickshaws B and every native that carriers worked under ng bullion and coins into e austere general from the Xk e, who would’ not let his & mat to sleep on, for Japanese got the credit of hg they also got about all could be legally ence it t ernment. s lace. hidden be had, from the There ich more money in the Dowager and but this was who ey could fons for the mere us. of Chinese » state from ing ted or > same re cut out world the he Chinese what diamonds e stone— lered good minute g of it. As to- fts price it in order to be- f the of a pea, N s although of st as much ab. be reasoned what the these tab- of darker green . the pleces of were cut are over of the rarest tint of seals bear on one al characters, such as the writin of Confucius classics; signs which are emblematic rather than other half of the sesl e form of characters, h unused at the present nderstood by the literati nired by every one for grace and beauty of design; for the Chinese, like Mohammedans and many others of the East, admire beautiful writing as much as we do plotures, and they ‘con- sider it more tasteful to have a house decorated with handsome chirography than with colored designs, landscapes and portraits, One of the seals was regularly used in transacting the more important busine: of the Government; the other was evi- dently kept in reserve to use on rare oc- , for the characters, besides being incised, were laid in with thin sheets of gold, as if intended for only the most ex- alted purposes. No traces of wax are casfo: ble on this gold-covered one, but the her has evidently had much use, the thinner lines being worn down and traces of wax and abrasions all over the stone. Wt those are the most important lection, they are but a pleces « lish at Tientsin were load- with bullion from the for those gems g value and will history the has returned to the of 14 be more at- and fond d and sub- silver and jewels 1d. form of g er bonds, mortgages, notes and e often the sole evidences ir worldly goods. s the rite money in Chi xes only a few hundred dollars’ worth of it to make a heavy load for a man. For that reason the greater part of all of the money was left, and was too ky to be even readily concealed. This e been the case had the population known the true state of af- fairs, but is a maxim of the Tartar that the knowledge of the Princes be d for the deception of the For this reason none of the peo- ew until the very last that the al- ming, and their first warning was the sound of the guns. Even after t the authorities assured them that the pigs of foreign devils would never dare to enter the gr tal. When the last minute came no prepara- and the result was strewn every- and {t ple lles were of the silver Is cast o Ingots these I have, glwayay of the same pecullar basket shape, thick on the bottom and thin on the ends, and of different s s from one to twenty and fifty From wh adise for numismatis with even eis in value I saw China would be a par Coins which werg ‘mada; coins sent hich beth m: from the bullioa which, Drake brought from tne Span'<n in; Roman, French and German coins, ) together, worth so much a pound. reasure shipments to China have con tinued since history began and as far as 1 ow this is abo the first lot which was ever brought out, most of the res having been deposited in the banks o. China it Each of the Ingots in the pile on the table is stamped with characters show- ing its weight and value. The rough-look- ing mass is silver which I got at Tien- tein from the ruins of the mint after the fire. It is the last coining of that mint, you might say. Coined by the fire fiend. The reasons that ingots are preferred 1s because each has an individuality of its and Japan and exchange taken for D ————— UFF OTTLES - - CUT From —— ! ; JADE CARNELIAN anD LAPIS LAZU own which the propriecor can soon learn 50 as to be able to recognize and Identify it in case of stealing, just as we do with our numbered paper money. For the sama reason coins are usuaily stamped with a mark or name by each person who han- dles them so that in time they too como to be easily recognized and to bear a sort of history of their travels upon them. The statuettes are from the great tem- ple of the Sacred City. They are of old silver bronze. The one on the right of the photograph 18 the best of my colleo- tion and one of the most beautiful in ex- istence. The grace and perfection of its outlines grow upon one as he looks until 1t becomes fascinating. The Chinese explain that every point, line and curve in this statue means some- ®hing. That it is 2 mnemonic and was de- signed before writing or even hleroglyphs came ‘into use to impress upon its be- holders the sacred truths of Buddha. Just as a palmist reads a life from the little creases and fullnesses of the hand so not only the hands but every part of the statue, each symbol with which it is dec- orated, the attitude and all, is part of their system of religion. As I would un- derstand the thing is & whole Bible tn itself and when they spend their time in contemplating it they are not worshiping the statue, but impressing on thelr minds those truths which it represents. From the number of these Buddhist statues and the reverence with which they were held it must be that the Chinese are nearly all Buddhists as far as their religion goes and that Confucianism is rather a philosophy than a religion with them. The object in front of the middle statu- ette is a sort of an idol's eye. The lower crascent-shaped part is a moonstone, the dark round one in the middle is some red stone like a ruby and the small one sur- rounded by the seven points is a clear blue stone. This combination was taken off the principal idol in the great temple. It was the most adored object in China, if the place which it occuples is any in- dication of the esteem in which it was held. These clothes I found in the palace on the island where the Emperor was con- fined. Like all of the imnerial property, they bear the picture of the five-toed dragon, which is exclusively imperial. Mandarins may have four-toed dragons and common people may have but three- toed ones, but the five-toed dragon, like the team of six cream-colored horses in England, or the sixteen-petaled chrysan- themum in Japan, is reserved exclusively for the monarch. It may be true to say that clothes do not make the man, but they make the man feel himself a mighty superior sort of person, when he gets on a suit of lilac silk with a thousand dollars’ worth of gold bullion sewed on it, and pink - sllk primroses embroidered all around. It takes a Chinaman to be the real thing in Gudes. The pompom on the hat is the only one of its kind that there is. Fifty- eyed peacock feathers all fastened to- gether. It does not show, for:they are all one behind the other, but that is llke the Chinese—they do not care to show all of their wealth, merely to know that it is there. Here underneath the fringe of the hat is a pearl worth several hundred dol- lars and hardly %o be seen under ‘any circunistances, but like Cleopatra’s pear) in the vinegar, the Emperor knew it was there and that was sufficient. The peacock, which is held In front of the ated figure, is unique. It has no duplicate. It was to all China what the scepter is to England. It was borne by the personal guards of the Emperor as their standard. It Is of cloisonne lald upon a gold ground and with gold inlaid wires. The beak is of solid gold. Tre trousers shown in this picture are a perfect dream of violet silk, embroid« ered more finely than any lady’s handker- chief, and the whole scented with the rare (] Gl incoTs FROM PEKIN. AMELTED SILVER FROM TIEN TSIN ZANINT LI perfumes of ambergris and other scents, which are almost exclusively bought up by the Chiness and cannot be obtalned elsewhere at any price. It may be that some people really be- lieve that there is nothing but vanity in clothes, but they cannot wear garments such as these without feeling a sense of importance coming over them, like that EMBLEMS OFABSOLUTE POWER OVERTHREE HUNDRED ‘which one assumes when riding in & Pull- man car. They will find that clothes do help to make a man. Half the dignity, or more than that perhaps, of all Oriental diplomats comes from the wonderful sults which their Governments encourage them to wear. These costumes are made in large number for the Emperor every year, much of the taxes there being tithes pay- able in kind. The result of this {s that all of the palaces were full of clothing, spices, silk cloths,raw silk, bulllon thread, embroidery silks, beads, buttons, scented woods—anything, In fact, that was of great value. Tlese snuff-bottles are only a part of the Emperor’s collection, and some of them probably belonged to other officers of the court. Those which ars set on top of the rose- wood chest were packed in it, and are all cut from soid gems of jade, carmellan, agate and other hard stones. They are perfect bottles, being without a flaw, and all of the interior was excavated from the small necks, which are no larger than those of an ordinary smelling salts bot- tle. There are no holes or plugs cut in the bottom, as one would expect to fi but every particle of the interior has been polished to the smoothness of glass through the same small opening. These snuff-bottles are worth in China from $25 to $200 each, according to the stone from which they are cut and their age. The tallest one on the top of the box with the spoon beside it is cut from a solid plece of carnelian in heavy cameo rellef. The stoppers are of turquoise, lapis lazuli and coral, with spoons of ivory or silver. There is a perfect mania among English in China for collecting these snuft-bottles, just as they collect scarabs from Egypt, rugs irom Persia or Indian baskets here. The snuff with which they are filled the he authenticates all of his acts. Thess two seals of the Government are both old that the characters which are scribed upon them are obsolets evem that country of slow changes. The carv- ing upon them is of infinite delicacy and beauty and taken all in all their value probably exceeds that of any other article it was my good luck to securs. The im- portance which the Chinese attach to seals will doubtless make the loss of these severely felt. The authority which was represented by these two seals was the greatest that any emblem ever possessed. Much won- der has been expressed at the daggers of the secret service of the palace, which conferred upon him who carried them the power to kill whom he pleased with im- punity; in other words the possession of the weapon was a warrant for the act But those daggers gave authority only over single lives; while the keeper of these sealed the fate of Viceroys and provinces. When attached to any docu- ment they made it official and therefore might be considered as the emblem of power over the 300,000,000 people. Their power is gone now, and never again will there be a successor to it, for the solidity of the empire is a thing of the past, and hereafter whatever author- ity the Chinese have will be minor-and advisory. 5is The ge: of all of thess things, though, are the ancestral tablets of the late Em- press r of the Emperor Kwang Su. There are six of t of which two the other four. re engraved w language and which 1s the other e into s, the AILLION PEOPLE . || more delightful than an rthing which peo- ple outside of China ve dreamed It is scented with j rose, vanila a many, delicate odors which I cannot p but seem to be com things. The perfumes ar and can be smelt upon hours after washing them Chinese offictal car: bottles In the pouch at girdle, and when meeting twb bottles are placed up tween them and they enjoy es two their quiet and dignified w: the delights of ir Ing the stimulating vet s ng aromn, made pungent by the zest of tobacc These snuffs c from $10 ward, and every one prides t carrying a better guality bor. This custom is alm: fined to the Manchus ern China. In the south it is v common except in offick lower.row of snuff-bottlc porcelain and cameo cut glass. them are setting some small jade finger rings from the apartments of the la of the harem, and a tLumb ring, such as is worn as a badge of office The carved chest is of rosewood, dee- orated with the five-toed imperial dragon, There was an Immense amount of carving of all sorts In the Imperfal City. At one time, before the last war with Japan, the present Dowager had 3000 wood carvers working in the palace grounds and upon the temples and palaces. That was where the money went that had been vuted to purchase munitions of war. The largest pieces of jewel jade of all that I saw In Peking are these two, which compose the imperial seals. A corpora- tion in this country can act only through its seal, but in China even men must act through their seals. In other words every Chinaman has a seal and with it up- v con- Brcrsksds W2 FEm AL T RILA s U BT R =FT iy L4 KATeR Fa w9 ¥ ng‘ wA g 4% XA 1 N A <A . & ANCESTRA TABLETS HINESE SHARACTERS The Chinese explain in this way thelr venera . making their d directly, nor to e God of their pa- at there was day. They do not mean no more to ned glass windows it their idols are and the most of all. y the complete- f the Manchu dy- t these tablets and 1d fall into the rce and untam- from across the A year ago there o poor or lowly that elves far superior Nothing marks ness of the an the Is to any living Before we had battered down the three outer gates of the southern approach to the palace the Chi- nese and Tdtars both had all of their lantern-makers hard at work painting lit- tle paper fac-similes of Japanese and American flags and these they -carrfed around on the streets with them for pro- tection. The looting of Peking was a part of the punishment which its people had brought upon themselves. The treasures which will in time be scattered over the world will do much to elevate the taste for rare articles, but [ most prize mine as mementoes of the Empress Dowager, and the day that [ spent in her Sacred Forbiddea City,