The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1885-04-04


the bird, has been a puzzle TO the
philosophic from the time of its dis
covery TO the present; but hence, l
trust, it will be so no longer. During
my recent investigations in the val
ley of the Amazon, in opposition to
the several theories advanced by my
predecessors, L came to the conclu-
sion that the chief use Of the enOr-
nous beak of the toucan is as
passive weapon of defense and pro-
natural enemies of the bird by It's
formidable appearance, not oulA in
its prodigiOus proportions but also in
its peculiar painting and glazing,
rendering it the most prominent and
striking feature of the toucan anear
and afar; and that it belongs to the
thousand and one shams and assump-
tions which, for defense and protec-
ton, are found among the helpless
and weak of the animal kingdom,
from the lowest to the highest.
CHINESE sHAMs AND FALSE PRE-
TENSE.
Assuming this now 10 be, as I
firmly believe it, fact, the toucan
becomes especially the symbol of the
assumption of a power which in
reality is not possessed, and the
standard by which to measure, as 1
conceive it to be, the chief character
istic of the Chinese in their relation
with the intruding, aggressive and
irrepressible people around them. In
the expression of this characteristic,
they have exaggerated their great
population of 200 millions to 400 and
even 600 millions; and curiousIy
they have in great measure en-
larged themselves in the Imagination
of the outside world to power that
is appalling, albeit as passive as if
they had enumerated not their living
but their dead. So, they have built
the Great Wall, the most stupendous
sham of the globe; for what is wall,
howsoever long and high and thick,
without q soldier, with the heart of
a soldier to defend it, but sham.
So, at the mouth of the Hangkew
Pass, they have built as an impas-
sable barrier to an Invading army
that which will appear to it the
wall of a mighty city, or the pre-
sumptive garrison of the guard of
the great northern gate-wa but
which in reality is a wall that forms
only the one side of square, and be-
of miserable novels and more miser-
able inhabitants; and, [ may add, as
there has been nothing more from
the time of the building of the wall,
as is evident from the chaos of por-
phyritic powders among which the
novels are constructed.
So, as q defense to the Summer
Palace of the Emperor in the neigh
borhood of Picking, they have made it
to all appearances impregnable to an
advancing host, with a series of some
twentyfour or twenty-siX stone tow
ers or forts, as solid through and
through as mason work can be made,
that a soldier could not possibly get
into them to defend them, or charge
with powder and ball the imaginary
cannons, the painted muZZles of
which, in the form of black spots, APP
pear in the embrasures on the four
sides in despite of all which, the
Summer Palace is mass of ruins to-
day, as one of the results of the raid
of the French and English combined
some twenty years ago. So, above
and about the gates of the
CITY OF PEKING,
The capital of the Empire, they have
constructed the most formidable
looking forts at distance, which in
reality are the merest shells of bricks,
so insubstantial that were it possible
to fire one of the several scores of can
mons with which each is provided
with painted muzzles, the fabric
would fall to the ground from the eff
fects of the shock. So in the neigh
borhOod of Picking, as 1 have beheld
them only three years ago, the
soldiers, without other weapons than
the bow and arrow and a three
pronged spear, or haply the gingal, or
fuse-lock, the first of the firearms in
troduced into the far East by the
Portuguese some three and three
quarters centuries ago, are made SUI
perlatively formidable to the eyes of
all their enemies that can read the
Chinese hierOglyphics-and it must
be an outside barbarian very little to
be feared that cannot by having
the hierOglyphic of the word
"Brave - in the hugest of proper
tions possible painted or otherwise
displayed both on the breast and
back, that, whether advancing or re-
treating, they may seem to be the
very incarnation of courage, while,
in reality, they are seen to be the very
incarnation of cOwardice So, they
have painted and distorted the tiger,
the most terrible of wild beasts-but
enough. In their conflict to-day with
the French, in themselves, and with
out the intervention of other peoples
as warlike as the French and inimical
to them, they are DO more the equals