thousands of persons were compelled out of sheer want to take refuge in Pekin. Yung Ching devoted all his energy and resources to the task of alleviating the prevalent distress and of mitigating the public misfortune. Large supplies of rice were brought from the south at the expense of the State, and when the Emperor learnt that owing to the peculation of minor officials rice of a very inferior quality was being distributed, he immediately took steps to put an end to these malpractices, ordering, under penalty of death, that none save the very best rice should be purchased and supplied to those in want. About the same time the amount of taxes leviable on the important cities of Nankin and Nanchang, the capital of Kiangsi, was greatly reduced in compliance with a petition made on the ground of their excessive character. Yung Ching showed in both these matters that he kept his people's best interests very much at heart. His sincerity in these acts of public charity was demonstrated by his emphatic refusal to allow a statue to be erected in his honour, and by his grave rebuke of those who suggested such a useless expenditure during a time of great public want. At one period during this time of famine as many as forty thousand persons were fed daily for more than four months at Pekin alone. The suffering from this cause had scarcely been allayed, when one of those terrible visitations of nature, which come at long intervals to startle the world into a general feeling of insecurity, carried wholesale destruction throughout the metropolitan province of Pechihli. As if to afford some counterpoise for the too bounteous favours showered on them by Providence, the northern districts of China have for many centuries been liable to the frequent recurrence of earthquakes on a vast and terribly destructive scale. None, however, of which any record has been preserved equalled in its terrific grandeur that of the year 1730. More than one hundred thousand persons in the capital were overwhelmed in a moment, the suburbs were laid in ruins, and the havoc extended for a wide distance round the country. In several places the ground opened, and from the fissures issued forth either a thick smoke or jets of black water. During a period of ten days, from 30th of September to 10th of October, 1730, AN EARTHQUAKE. 655 the shocks were repeated at frequent intervals, and terror reigned supreme among a superstitious people. The Emperor himself feared to remain in the interior of his palace, and camped out with his court and family in tents specially erected for their accommodation. Even the splendid pleasurehouse of Yuen Ming Yuen, which Yung Ching had erected near his father's palace at Chang Chun Yuen, was so seriously damaged that for a time it was thought to be uninhabitable. Large sums were drawn from the Treasury for the alleviation of the public necessities, and as much as fifteen millions sterling is stated to have been distributed before the exigencies of the occasion were considered to have been met, or before Yung Ching's feelings of humanity rested satisfied. Yet notwithstanding these terrible visitations and afflictions the general state of the country continued to be most prosperous. A full exchequer and a contented people were accompanied by their necessary concomitant and consequence, an increase in the population. In Yunnan and Kweichow in particular this increase was so great as to attract much notice, and to raise no inconsiderable alarm on the score of the rice supply. A partial remedy was applied to the evil by the distribution of large tracts of waste lands among the poorer classes. Yung Ching seems to have attached great importance to the growth of the population, which he evidently regarded as a permanent feature in the condition of his country rather than as a passing phase in its social history. It was in view of that evil that he issued an edict offering special rewards to such widows as did not marry again, and to bachelors who preserved their state. To the former he decreed that there should be erected in their native town at the public expense a triumphal arch, and to the latter, who had devoted themselves to the performance of their filial duties, he gave titles of honour. By this latter means he also enhanced the merit. The superstition of the Chinese is an admitted fact, although their general character is at variance with the idea implied. A proof of it may be found in the statement of a competent observer that "Hope is half a Chinese faith; his cult is to him as a lottery; he will pay his last farthing to a soothsayer to predict good fortune." of that filial obedience which is not only the corner-stone of Chinese social life, but also the very foundation on which Chinese sovereignty rests. These endeavours to check in a simple and natural way any excessive increase in the number of his subjects did not blind Yung Ching to the claims that the aged and infirm had upon the care and consideration of the State. Imitating the example of his father he issued doles to those who had exceeded the allotted space of man's life. These were divided into three classes-those above seventy, those above eighty, and those who had exceeded ninety years. He also encouraged the Empress to institute a similar system of relief for women who had passed the seventieth year of their age. From these instances it may be recognized that Yung Ching had formed a high ideal of the duties of a paternal ruler, and he was employed, to use his own words, from the rising to the going down of the sun in performing the numerous and varied duties of his onerous position. Although Yung Ching had from the first shown but scant favour to the foreigners, yet in the second year of his reign he allowed an envoy, who had been sent by the Pope, to come to his capital. Beyond according him a favourable reception, and giving expression to several platitudes as to "all religions being calculated to do good," Yung Ching did not commit himself to any promise on the subject of his policy towards the Christians; and we have already seen how fully made up his mind was on that point. In the following year a Portuguese embassy under the charge of Don Alexander Metello, which had been despatched in consequence of communications made in the reign of Kanghi through the instrumentality of Antony Magelhaens, arrived in China, and as its origin was due to the initiative of the Chinese themselves the Emperor felt obliged to receive it in audience. While the Pope's legate had come to discuss matters of religion, Metello confined his attention to the more practical questions of commerce. gravity of demeanour and general tact made a favourable impression at a court where the etiquette reflects by its severity the polished taste of a people of culture; but of practical results, even for the Portuguese, this costly embassy produced His PATERNAL RESPECT. 657 It was very shortly after the departure of Metello that Yung Ching took steps of marked severity against several officials who were said to be Christians, and exposed for the first time in a public document his contempt for the religion of the foreigners. Strange as it may seem, he connected in this formal indictment Christianity with Buddhism, and expressed his final astonishment at the fact that any of his subjects should be so misguided as to "be ready to shed their blood in such a cause." It was not until the year 1732, towards the close of Yung Ching's reign, that the inimical sentiment of both the people and the Government towards the foreigners again revealed itself in open acts; and then Canton, the second city of importance in the Empire so far as the Christians were concerned, was the scene of these measures of national antipathy or repressive legislation, according as we may feel disposed to regard the question. At one moment the situation appeared to be pregnant with danger for the Europeans, as Yung Ching, influenced by the views expressed even by the Canton mandarins-who had been more sympathetic, from selfish motives it is true, towards Europeans-was on the point of giving an order for their expulsion without exception from the Empire, when in a moment of indignation he summoned the missionaries into his presence in order to read them a homily on their want of paternal respect. He appears to have been informed by some of his ministers that the Christian religion did not enjoin filial obedience, which of course shocked his understanding. When, however, the missionaries in defending themselves pointed out that it was one of their first and principal laws, Yung Ching was too just and enlightened a man to persist in his threats as soon as he found that he had been working on a fallacy and that his argument was untenable. From that time to his death, in 1735, the missionaries had nothing worse to complain of at his hands than his passive indifference to their presence. So far as notice of them by either the Emperor or the Court went, they might just as well, indeed, have quitted China and returned to their own countries. The arrival of recruits being interdicted, it was only a question of time until they should VOL. I. 2 U all die and disappear from the scene of their labours. It was also a question, as the event showed, of the duration of Yung Ching's own life. When Yung Ching ascended the throne, the wars which had long disturbed the Western Marches were far from being concluded. Kanghi's successful campaigns had given security to the Khalkas, and had asserted the predominance of Chinese influence at Lhasa; but they had not availed to curb the growing power and pretensions of Tse Wang Rabdan. The last few years of Kanghi's reign had been saddened by military reverses, and although there was no relaxing in the energy of the steps taken towards their retrieval, yet, with the absence of the Emperor and with no worthy successor for the intrepid Feyanku, the result had not corresponded either with Kanghi's hopes, or with the greatness of the effort made. Tse Wang Rabdan, although unable to attempt so distinct a trial of strength with the Chinese Emperor as his relative Galdan had done, continued his attitude of more or less open defiance, and his acts of aggression were numerous and frequently successful in their objects. The general opinion, certainly, was that Yung Ching would carry on these operations with renewed vigour, and that he would seek to exact a speedy and complete satisfaction for the reverses that marked, but could not dim the lustre of, his father's latest years. Yung Ching's policy disappointed these natural expectations. He was essentially a man of peace, caring nothing for the socalled glory of foreign wars and costly expeditions, and declaring that his proper province was to attend solely to the wants of his own people. Instead, therefore, of despatching fresh armies into Central Asia he withdrew those that were there, leaving the turbulent tribes of that region to fight out their own quarrels and to indulge their petty ambitions as they might feel disposed. The policy in this matter which * Here may be briefly summarised the closing scenes of the career of Tse Wang Rabdan, the most powerful of Jungarian monarchs. We have seen the success with which he had intervened in Tibet and operated against Kanghi. His paramount authority was generally recognized throughout Eastern Turkestan or Little Bokhara, where he had stepped in successfully to advance the interests and establish the authority of a chief called Daniel. His career was cut short by his murder in 1727, and |