Identifier: pictorialhistoci00sear (find matches)
Title: Pictorial history of China and India; comprising a description of those countries and their inhabitants
Year: 1851 (1850s)
Authors: Sears, Robert, 1810-1892
Subjects:
Publisher: New York, R. Sears
Contributing Library: Robarts - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: University of Toronto

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n the price of tea is therefore obvious, and all lovers of that pleasant beverage may well rejoice at the removal of these difficulties by the event of the late war, which has opened the desired ports to foreign vessels, so that teas will be henceforward shipped at more convenient stations. China, properly so called, being divided into eighteen provinces, and some of them even larger than those above mentioned, it may easily be imagined how impossible it is for the emperor to take cognizance of the whole of his vast dominions. The actual administration is, in fact, completely in the hands of the viceroys, to whom a great share of power is necessarily given, and who exercise in their respective spheres the same absolute authority that the emperor does over the whole. Each viceroy maintains a splendid court, and, when he appears abroad, is attended by a numerous retinue, bearing the symbols of his high office, among which are standards emblazoned with the golden dragon, carried before none but the
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A) j)earanoe in Public of a Viceroy attended bj his Retinue greatest dignitaries. He is borne in a gilded chair, and always followed by the public execu-tioners, some carrying chains, others that universal instrument of justice, thebamboo, which is very unceremoniously applied on the spot to any unluckywight who may chance to be detected in a misdemeanor; consequendy, the approach of the high functionary never fails to inspire a degree of awe,which is manifested by the respectful haste with which the people make way for the procession, ranging themselves close to the wall, where theystand perfectly still and motionless till the whole cavalcade has passed. Theviceroys are intrusted with despotic authorit)% but they must be careful how 132 CHINA, HISTORICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE. they use it, as they are always liable to the visits of the imperial commis-sioners, who frequently arrive from the capital without giving notice of theirapproach, for the purpose of seeing whether all is as it should be

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