A glossary of reference on subjects connected with the Far East / by Herbert A. Giles.
- Herbert Giles
- Date:
- 1886
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: A glossary of reference on subjects connected with the Far East / by Herbert A. Giles. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![YUAN DYNASTY : 7C IQ—original dynasty. Founded by tbe Mongol conqueror Kublai Khan (q-v.) A.D. 1280; ended 1368. YtiAN-MING-YUAN: |M| QQ ^—round bright garden. Formerly the summer residence of the Emperors of China, lying about 9 miles from Peking. Destroyed by the Allied Forces in 1860, out of revenge for the ill treatment of a number of European prisoners captured by the Chinese. We need make no apology for introducing here the follow¬ ing clever verses, written by Mr. E. C. Baber in imitation of W. S. Gilbert’s celebrated ballad Brave Alum Bey.”* Flat and unintelligible to a new arrival, these lines are, to an older resident in the Far East, full of exquisitely turned burlesque; and they constitute, moreover, an apt illustration of Anglo-Oriental terms in general. In Yuen-ming.yuen, all gaily arrayed In malachite kirtles and slippers of jade, ’Neath the wide-spreading tea-tree, fair damsels are seen All singing to Joss on the soft candareen. But fairer by far was the small-footed maid Who sat by my side in the sandal-wood shade, A-sipping the vintage of sparkling Lychee, And warbling the songs of the poet Maskee. Oh fair are the flowers in her tresses that glow. The sweet-scented cumshaw, the blue pummelow, And dearest I thought her of maids in Pekin, As from the pagoda she bade me chin-chin. One eve, in the twilight, to sing she began. As I touched the light notes of a jewelled sampan, While her own jetty finger-nails, taper and long. Swept softly the chords of a tremulous gong. [* “ Each morning he went to his garden to cull “ A branch of zenana or sprig of bul-bul, “ And offered the bouquet, in exquisite bloom, ^ To Bucksheesh, the daughter of Rabat Lakoum.”]](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b30093120_0293.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
