The Sun.
London, England, 1853-10-05 00:00:00

THE CELESTIAL STRIPLING.

" The Emperor Hihn-foung is only twenty-two years
of age. He is of a middle height, and his form indicatei
great aptitude for bodily exercises. He is slender and
muscular. His face, which indicates a certain degree of
resolution, is chiefly characterised by a very high fore-
head, and by an almost defective obliquity of the eyes.
His cheek bones are very prominent, and strongly
marked. The space between the eyes is large and flat,
like the forehead of a buffalo. Hien-foung is of a stub-
born and credulous disposition. In the midst of the
most effeminate luxury he affects severity of morals,
and, notwithstanding his youth, he is already married.
The Empress is a Tartar princess, withlarge feet, totally
devoid of that delicacy and fragile gracefulness which
belong to the small-footed Chinese women. The Em-
peror loves to see her perform the violent exercises
which are the delight of the women of her nation, and
she often gallops about with him in the extensive gar-
denslof the palace."

Here, again, is the outline of
, THE SHADOWY DEMAGOGUE.

" Tien-te, the chief of the insurrection, is not above
twenty-three years of age ; but study and want of rest
have made him prematurely old. He is grave and me-
lancholy, leads a very retired life, and only communi-
cates with those about him when he gives his orders.
His face is expressive of mildness, but it is a mildness
peculiar to certain ascetics, and which neither excludes
firmness nor that obstinacy belonging to persons of
strong religious convictions. His complexion, which
borders on the colour of saffron, is that of the Chinese of
the southern provinces. In stature he is taller than
Hien-foung, but he appears less robust."

Shadowy we have termed the supposed leader of
the insurrection—for it is already tolerably well
ascertained that Tien-te (a name meaning Celestial
Virtue), if ever living, is no longer in existence,
and that in all probability time will prove him to be
nothing more substantial than a creation of the
imagination. And yet Tien-te is described here as
we have observed : and his engraved effigy figures
in the volume before us as its frontispiece ! The pro-
vince of the Kouang-si—producing little more than
the badiana and the white cinnamon—appears to
have been adroitly selected as the starting point of
the revolution—adroitly, because of its barren and
mountainous character, and the daring and hardi-
hood of its population. A geological discovery in
the Kouang-si aided considerably in forwarding the
cause of the insurgents—being regarded as nothing
short of a miracle by the ignorant multitude. It
was an episode in the civil war of the Chinese,
appropriate, as occuring at the precise time of the
discovery of the gold diggings in California and
Australia. The subjoined passage recounts the
nature of this propitious circumstance :
" At the beginning of the insurrection, the chiefs
wished to mark the date of their enterprise, by the erec-
tion of a religious monument. The workmen set about
their task, and they hollowed out some of the decom-
posed rocks, which offered no strong resistance to the
pick-axe. They had not descended many
to the flintsanyfeet,de
when
they came to some pebbles, very similar
posited by our rivers. These pebbles, being examined
with care, were found to be very heavy ; they were, in
fact, lumps of argentiferous lead, of surprising richness.
It was by means, they say, of this providential treasure
the Pretender paid his first soldiers."
August, 1850, was the month in which the Pekin
journals first mentioned the Chinese insurrection.
It was not long, however, before the warlike in-
habitants of the Kouang-si, a curious race of abo-
riginals, known as Miag-tze, drew the attention of
the imperial Government upon the progress made
in those quarters by the armed revolutionists. Ho
was the first town that fell into their possession. Siu,
the Governor-General of the two Kouangs, was the
first official personage of any importance startled by
the revolt into unwonted activity and vigilance.
Shortly after news of the rising reached Pekin, poor
old Lin, the hero of the opium-war with England,
was ordered by his imperial master to rouse him-
self from his luxurious retirement in the neighbour-
hood of Fou-tcheou, and to subdue the army of insur-
gents. Easier said than done, as it has since then
appeared. Lin was only disturbed to hasten his
dissolution. While proceeding to his post at Tchao-
tcheou-fou, in the province of the Kouang-si, the
old mandarin, aged sixty-nine years, expired.
His death was regarded as a bad augury by the Im-
perial Government. Subsequently an unsuccessful
attempt was made at the Emperor's assassination.
Meantime the revolt spread, and to lend additional
probability to the fancied existence of Tien-te—
sapeques (called in the Chinese language tsien), the
current coin of the realm, were issued by the insur-
gents—sapeques bearing upon them the name of
the Pretender. After the first onset, the revolu-
tionary cause prospered wonderfully—the rout 'of
the Imperial tigers iu the district of Young-Gan
leading rapidly to the storm and capture by the
rebels of Ping-Lo, Houen-Mon, and Young-Gan-
Tcheou. Ever since then the cause of the Ming
dynasty has been rising, while that of the Mantchou
or Tartar dynasty has been falling proportionately.
The throne of the Emperor Hien-foung has been
undermined in fact by what our authors admirably.
designate " those intellectual laboratories of de-
clining states—secret societies, or clandestine asso-
ciations." Of the Christian element of this extraor-
dinary rising among the Chinese we have all of us
in this country long ago become cognisant. It is
not, however, generally known that the originator of
the movement in this particular is said to be a con-
vert of the last secretary interpreter of Hong Kong,
the Rev. Dr. Gutzlaff, a Protestant missionary. Dr.
Gutzlaff, it seems, travelled over China in a twofold
capacity—selling cloth and distributing tracts—
carrying in one hand the Bible, and in the other
a yard measure. The results of his wander-
ings are too remarkable altogether not to render
his name one of interest to every intelligent ob-
server of this vast Asiatic revolution. Here is our
authors' sketch of the man through whose agency
a considerable portion of the believers in Bhuddism
have been converted to a mongrel kind of Chris-
tianity :

" M. Gutzlaff had the art of inspiring the Chinese
people with the greatest confidence. He was of a
middle stature, and tolerably stout ; his prominent eyes
sparkled beneath thick lashes, which were overshadowed
by long black and bushy eye-brows. His face, with
features the reverse of angular, and its light olive com-
plexion, seemed to belong to that variety of the human
race which we call the Mongol. In his Chinese dress he
was so exactly like a native that he could have gone
through the streets of the walled city of Canton without
being recognised."
It yet remains to be seen, however, whether the
Chinese Christians are veritable Chang-ti, that is
to say, Protestants. Whatever their religious sen-
timents, there can be no longer any doubt that their
political successes have been multiplied trium-
phantly. So marvellous have been the changes
effected by the insurgent followers of Tae-ping-
wang, that we cannot be sufficiently thankful for
the light thrown by MM. Yvan and Gallery upon
an otherwise obscure portion of contemporary his-
tory. Their original narrative, moreover, has been
enhanced in value by the skill and industry of the
translator—Mr. Oxenford having supplied the
English reader with an additional store of really
valuable, because manifestly authentic, information.

The Russian Question ; or, the Crisis in the East.
Translated from the French of Leouzon Le Duo,
by J. H. Urquhart. Clarke, Bee n, and Co.
Another timely contribution to our political
literature. At this particular juncture we would
most earnestly commend the argument of M.
Leouzon Le Duo to the perusal of our intelligent
population. It reveals in the clearest light the
atrocity and daring of the sinister designs of the
Russian Autocrat. With this end in view it sets
out with a startling exposition of the real character
of Prince Menschikoff, the late Envoy Extraordi-
nary from the councils of St. Petersburg to those
of Constantinople. M. Leouzon Le Duo is a writer
we may observe, eminently qualified to enter into
this momentous discussion. His position as Charge
de Mission to the Courts of Russia and Finland has
given him the advantage of personal experience'
He writes, therefore, not from hearsay, but frc m
observation. In the English version of his work
here before us, the author has obtained the benefit
of a careful and precise translator. Justice has
been done to the lucidity of the original essay by
Mr. Urquhart's exact knowledge of the idiomatic
peculiarities of the French language. Consequently,
the work here published at an astonishingly cheap
rate may be read by the most fastidious with satis-
faction—as well as by the most informed with a
tolerable certainty of enlightenment. The little
volume is divided into four portions—the first being
a description of Prince Menschikoff ; the second
illustrative of the character of the Greek Church ;
the third explanatory of the actual position or
Russia with regard to the Great Powers of Europe ;
and the fourth (an Appendix), comprising a
most romantic and enthralling account of the