" etc. An "inch of time" refers to the
sundial, which was known to the Chinese in the earliest ages, and
was the only means they had for measuring time until the invention
or introduction--it is not certain which--of the more serviceable
_clepsydra_, or water-clock, already mentioned.

This consists of several large jars of water, with a tube at the bottom
of each, placed one above another on steps, so that the tube of an upper
jar overhangs the top of a lower jar. The water from the top jar is made
to drip through its tube into the second jar, and so into a vessel at
the bottom, which contains either the floating figure of a man, or some
other kind of index to mark the rise of the water on a scale divided
into periods of two hours each. The day and night were originally
divided by the Chinese into twelve such periods; but now-a-days
watches and clocks are in universal use, and the European division into
twenty-four hours prevails everywhere. Formerly, too, sticks of incense,
to burn for a certain number of hours, as well as graduated candles,
made with the assistance of the water-clock, were in great demand; these
have now quite disappeared as time-recorders.

The Chinese year is a lunar year. When the moon has travelled twelve
times round the earth, the year is completed. This makes it about ten
days short of our solar year; and to bring things right again, an extra
month, that is a thirteenth month, is inserted in every three years.
When foreigners first began to employ servants extensively, the latter
objected to being paid their wages according to the European system, for
they complained that they were thus cheated out of a month's wages in
every third year. An elaborate official almanack is published annually
in Peking, and circulated all over the empire; and in addition to such
information as would naturally be looked for in a work of the kind, the
public are informed what days are lucky, and what days are unlucky, the
right and the wrong days for doing or abstaining from doing this, that,
or the other. The anniversaries of the death-days of the sovereigns
of the ruling dynasty are carefully noted; for on such days all the
government offices are supposed to be shut. Any foreign official who
wishes to see a mandarin for urgent business will find it possible to do
so, but the visitor can only be admitted through a side-door; the
large entrance-gate cannot possibly be opened under any circumstances
whatever.

No