met with. Near the populous city of Shang-hae, coffins were seen in the corners of the fields, kept above ground till the bodies should decay; when the bones might be collected into jars, placed by the cottage door, and the coffin and the room might serve for other occupants. At the great island of Choo-san, scores of coffins were observed under a precipice, scattered about in confusion, some fresh, and others in a state of decay, all denied the right of sepulture, from the crying necessity of a want of room. In the neighbourhood of Peking, the cemetery may be large, because the population is great, and the ground round the capital comparatively barren; but generally throughout the country, and particularly in the more level and fertile provinces, the living cannot afford much room for the dead, and the cemeteries are therefore contracted and few.
The encouragement given to agriculture would also argue a dense population. It is an ancient maxim with the Chinese, that when people are hungry there is no attending to the dictates of justice and propriety, and only when a population is well fed, can they be well governed. Hence from the earliest antiquity, the emperor has set an example of industry to his people, by personally and publicly holding the plough once a year, while the empress does the same with regard to the loom. In arranging the various classes of the people, the Chinese place the literati in the foremost rank, as learning is with them the stepping stone to honour; but immediately after the learned, the husbandman takes the precedence of all others, because being engaged in raising the necessaries of life, he is abundantly more important than the mechanic, who merely changes the forms of matter; and the merchant, who originates
