Excerpt from The Costume of China: Illustrated in Forty-Eight Engravings This officer (a colleague of Chow-ta-zhin, who was a mandarine of the civil department) was appointed by the Emperor to attend the British Embassy, from the time of its arrival in the gulf of Pe-tchi-li, till its departure from Canton. Van-ta-zhin was a man of a bold, generous, and amiable character, and possessed of qualifications emiuently suited to his profession being well skilled in the use of the bow, and in the management of the sabre. For services performed in the wars ofthibet, he wore appended from his cap, a peacock's feather, as an extraordinary mark of favour from his sovereign, besides a red globe of coral which distinguished his rank. He is represented in his usual, or undress, consisting ofa short loose jacket of fine cotton, and an under vest of embroidered silk; from his girdle hang suspended his handkerchief, his knife and chopsticks* in a case, and purses for tobacco: on his thumbs are two broad rings of agate, for the, purpose of drawing the bowstring. The heads of the arrows, which are thrust into the quiver, are variously pointed, as barbed, lozenge-headed, 8cc. His boots are of satin, with thick soles of paper: these are always. 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.