Excerpt from The Chinese Empire, Vol. 1: Historical and Descriptive, Illustrating the Manners and Customs of the Chinese, in a Series of Steel Engravings, From Original Sketches This Work has been produced with a View to illustrate, by means of Steel Engravings and descriptive letterpress, the manners and customs, arts, sciences, and antiquities of the Chinese empirez China is a peculiar country, and its inhabitants are a peculiar people - perhaps the most peculiar people on the face of the earth. Though possessing many claims to our attention, and these claims being continually added to by the ever-increasing intercourse between that country and other nations, their habits and surroundings have never yet been adequately brought under the notice of the public. The series of Engravings with which this book is illustrated will, it is believed, do much to supply this deficiency. They have been engraved from drawings taken on the spot, and may be relied on, in every case, as depicting, with truth and accuracy, the scenes they represent. Aided by the accompanying descriptions, it will be found that a better and truer notion of things Chinese is here embodied than can elsewhere be gained. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.