and jealous Mongols followed on the footsteps of their former allies, and entering
Asia Minor, defeated them in a pitched battle. But the Turks recovered themselves
after a desperate struggle, drove the Mongols out of Asiatic Turkey, regained
the ascendancy, and have kept it from that time to the present.
We now find them in possession of Asia Minor, Syria, European Turkey,
Egypt, and various strong holds on the Barbary coast.
Osman, the Turkish chief who vanquished the Mongols in Asia Minor, transmitted
his name to his nation, whence they call themselves Osmanlies, which in
Europe has been perverted to Ottomans.*
10. TH E CHINESE FAMILY.
These people are rather below the middle stature, stout limbed and inclined
to flesh. The head is large, rounded and somewhat conical, owing to a high,
retreating forehead. The face is flat, and the cheek bones expanded; the eye is
small, half closed, and drawn obliquely upwards towards the temple, at the same
time that the upper lid is a little projecting beyond the lower: the eyebrows are
black, highly arched and linear: the nose is small, flattened towards the nostril,
broad at its root, and separated from the forehead by a strongly marked depression.
The mouth is large, and the lips rather fleshy. They have uniformly black hair;
and the complexion of young persons of the higher classes is fresh and fair, but
that of the multitude is pallid or sallow, and has been compared to a dried leaf.
“ People in Europe have been strangely misled in their notions of Chinese
physiognomy and appearance, by the figures represented on those specimens of
manufacture which proceed from Canton, and which are commonly in a style of
broad caricature. A Chinese of Peking might as well form an idea of us from
some of the performances of Cruikshank. The consequence is, that a character
of silly levity and farce has been associated, in the minds of many persons, with
the most steady, considerate and matter of fact people in the world. Their
features have, perhaps, less of the harsh angularity of the Tartar countenance in
the south than in Peking. Among those who are not exposed to the climate, the
complexion is fully as fair as that of the Spaniards and Portuguese. Up to the
age of twenty they are often very good looking; soon after that period the
prominent cheek bones generally give a harshness to the features* as the roundness
* For a brief and graphic view of the connections between the Turks, Tartars and Mongols, in
relation to language, history and physical character, see Wiseman’s Lectures, p. 110.
of youth wears off.”* The old people of both sexes are for the most part much
wrinkled and very ugly; and the women are proverbially celebrated for thé
artificial smallness and deformity of their feet.
The Chinese skull, so far as I can judge from the specimens that have come
under my inspection, is oblong-oval in its general form; the os frontis is narrow
in proportion to the width of the face, and the vertex is prominent: the occiput
is moderately flattened; the face projects more than in the Caucasian, giving an
angle of about seventy-five degrees; the teeth are nearly vertical, in which respect
they differ essentially from those of the Malay; and the orbits are of moderate
dimensions, and rounded.
The moral character of the Chinese is thus summed up by Dr. Morrison,
whose opinion is derived from long and intimate acquaintance with these people.
“ The good traits of the Chinese character, amongst themselves, are mildness and
urbanity; a wish to show that their conduct is reasonable, and, generally, a
willingness to yield to what appears so: docility, industry, subordination of
juniors; respect for the aged and for parents; acknowledging the claims of poor
kindred. These are virtues of public opinion, which, of course, are in particular
cases often, more show than reality; for, on the other hand, the Chinese are
specious, but insincere; jealous, envious, and distrustful to a high degree. Conscience
has few checks but the laws of the land; and a little frigid ratiocination
on the fitness of things, which is not generally found effectual to restrain, when
the selfish and vicious propensities of our nature may be indulged with present
impunity. The Chinese are generally selfish, cold-blooded and inhumane. ”f
“ He might with great propriety have added,” says Mr. Ellis, “ that in the punishment
of criminals, in the infliction of torture, they are barbarously cruel; that
human suffering, or human life, are but rarely regarded by those in authority,
when the infliction of the one, or the destruction of the other, can be made subservient
to the acquisition of wealth or power.”
The intellectual character of the Chinese is deserving of especial attention,
although in letters, in science and in art, they are the same now what they were
many centuries ago. They have their national music and their national poetry,
but of sculpture, painting and architecture, they have no just conceptions, and
their national pride prevents their adopting the arts of other countries. Their
faculty of imitation is a proverb; and their mechanical ingenuity is universally
known. “ That nation cannot be viewed with indifference which possessed an
* Davies, Descrip, of the Emp. of China, I, p. 253.
12
t Morrison, in Gutzlaff, Introd. p. 28.