Volume 2

The Chinese Empire illustrated : being a series of views from original sketches, displaying the scenery, architecture, social habits etc. of that ancient and exclusive nation / by Thomas Allom ; with historical and descriptive letterpress by G.N. Wright. The work will also contain a succinct account of the history of China : a narrative of British connexion with that nation, the opium war of 1840, and full details of the causes and events of the present war.

  • Allom, Thomas, 1804-1872.
Date:
[1858?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Chinese Empire illustrated : being a series of views from original sketches, displaying the scenery, architecture, social habits etc. of that ancient and exclusive nation / by Thomas Allom ; with historical and descriptive letterpress by G.N. Wright. The work will also contain a succinct account of the history of China : a narrative of British connexion with that nation, the opium war of 1840, and full details of the causes and events of the present war. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Conseequa in the liberality, or taste, which he has displayed in his villa hear Canton. His courts, halls, galleries, porticos, corridors, verandas, and other fantastic forms of architecture, are multiplied beyond the extent to which luxury usually reaches; and the liberty which the members of his family enjoy, seems almost to exceed the best ability to exercise, of which their crippled feet can possibly admit. An octagonal portico, beneath which two figures are represented, one pointing to the pleasure boat, the other looking in the same direction, is roofed with a representa- tion of the lotus, or nelumbium inverted. This beautiful flower, held sacred, as far as that term can be understood by the followers of Fo, amongst the Chinese, seems to have been the origin of the Tee, or umbrella, which forms the finial in Chinese architecture. In its original, inviolate shape, it corresponds precisely with the inverted cup that covers the pagoda; elongated, it is adapted to buildings of any length, but of limited breadth, the character of the flower being still preserved; and, that architects should have felt a strong inclination to introduce an ornament, or member, into the national style, borrowed from the sacred emblem of the land, is perfectly natural. Here, however, in Conseequa’s house, the inverted lotus is undisguisedly employed as the ornamental canopy of a porch or a portico. The Greeks borrowed their columns from the stem of the tree— the ornaments of their capitals, from the acanthus and other flowers; we, of the farther west, have taken our clustered columns and intersecting, arches from the Druid’s grove; and, another style of nature’s architecture, the interior of a cave, with its stalagmitic decorations, has unquestionably suggested the ornamental manner in which the Moors have finished their most gorgeous palaces. AN ITINERANT DOCTOR AT TIEN-SING. “ They in the danger have no share, But purely come to hear and stare; Have no concern for Doctor’s sake, Which gets the better—leech or snake.” ‘ Old Poem. If years of civilization have brought to the Chinese people very many comforts, and even elegancies of life, they have also introduced an alloy that materially debases the value of these refinements. This detraction consists in the variety of low gratifications, gambling, opium-eating, smoking, devotion to bufibonery of the meanest kind, and reliance upon jugglers, fortune-tellers, and quack doctors. One favourite haunt of these itinerant adventurers is Tien-Sing, a place of much commercial importance, and whose population, like the tide of the ocean, is in a state of eternal oscillation. The most frequented thoroughfare, such as the vicinity of a public gate, is the spot usually selected for the performance of these contemptible exhibitions; and the credulity manifested by the auditors and spectators, fully demonstrates the humble intellectual state of the Chinese nation generally.