To make the tallow, the shell and kernel are beaten together in boiling water till the surface becomes covered with fat, which when cold, condenses; then, by adding fair proportions of linseed oil and wax to give consistency, they have produced the material which, when shaped around a wick of hollow reed, produces the candles in use in China. Thus does nature and the ingenuity of the people create from this extraordinary tree a double means of lighting the empire. As for the mulberry-tree, it is so well known that I need but tell you, that after rice, the Chinese consider its culture as a sacred duty, and deservedly so, for by feeding the silk-worm, it not only clothes the people, but silk, being in immense demand over the known world, is the primary means of giving them employment; indeed the mulberry-tree is an "institution," and of such ancient date, that even in four thousand years old China, which contains the oldest records in the world, there is no authentic record of its discovery. There is a legend, however, "that, till the days of Ti-Long, the wife of the Emperor Hoang-ti, the people were savages, and used the skins of animals for clothing, but her far-sighted majesty noticed that as the people were many, and the animals few, they would soon become short of garments, when, like the parent of invention, she was pushed to a discovery that worms might be made the greatest manufacturers of her empire;" and that there is some truth in this fable seems likely, as, from the earliest times, the Empress of China has had a portion of the grounds of the palace planted as a mulberry grove, where, at certain periods of the year, she goes in state, to show her interest in the silk manufacture, by gathering three mulberry leaves, and unwinding a quantity of silk. Lastly, I may tell you, that the most learned men and the greatest ministers have devoted a great portion of their lives to teach the people "how to bring up and feed silk worms, so as to obtain the greatest quantity and best quality of silk." Is it not unjust that the race of worms should have been so long despised, when, for thousands of years, one of their representatives has been at the base of the prosperity of the largest, most populated, and longest-enduring empire since the foundation of the world? CHAPTER XIX. THE PRINCESSES OF THE MINGS, AND THE LADY CANDIDA.