42 Vessels near a Town. 43 A Lady of Rank. 44 Nursery Maid and Children. 45 Stage Player. 46 Trackers regaling. 47 Mandarin’s Officer. 48 Punishment of the Arrow. 49 Woman selling Chow-chow. 50 Groupe of Soldiers. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ PLATE I. FRONTISPIECE. EXHIBITING the various kinds of weapons, offensive and defensive, in use among the Chinese infantry, cavalry, artillery, and bowmen, arranged on a stand or frame of wood. One or more of these frames are commonly to be met with at the military posts and at the depôts of arms and guard-houses, close to the gates of their walled cities. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [Illustration: CHINA—PLATE 2 ] Plate II. KIEN LUNG. KIEN Lung was the fourth Emperor of the Tartar dynasty, which now possesses the throne of China. When the annexed Sketch was taken he was eighty-three years of age, but had all the appearance of a hale, vigorous man of sixty. Indeed his whole life had been spent in the active discharge of public business, and in the violent exercise of hunting and shooting in the wild regions of Tartary, which he continued with unabated zeal almost to the period of life above mentioned. He always commenced public business at two or three in the morning, and gave audience to foreign ambassadors at that early hour, whether in winter or summer, and he generally retired to rest at sunset; and to this invariable habit of rising and retiring at an early hour, he attributed much of his healthy and vigorous constitution. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [Illustration: CHINA—PLATE 3 ] Plate III. THE FISHING CORMORANTS. THE Leu-tzé, or fishing cormorant of China, is the _pelicanus sinensis_, and resembles very much the common cormorant of England, which, we are told by naturalists, was once trained up to catch fish, pretty much in the same manner as those of China are. They are exceedingly expert in taking fish, and pursue them under water with great eagerness. They are taken out, on the rivers and lakes, in boats or bamboo rafts; and though sent on the chace after long fasting, they are so well trained that they rarely swallow any of the fish they take until they are permitted to do so by their masters. Many thousand families in China earn their subsistence by means of these birds. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [Illustration: CHINA—PLATE 4 ] Plate IV. A MAN SERVANT.