for ill-success against a body of rebels.  Being a rich man, he made a free use of that argument which commonly proves effective at Peking.  But, so far from being advanced to the viceroyalty, he was not even reinstated in his original rank.  The most he was able to obtain by a lavish expenditure was the inspectorship of a college at Wuchang, to put his foot on one of the lower rounds of the official ladder.

Chang was never rich enough to buy official honours, even in the lower grades; and it is one of his chief glories that, after a score of years in the exercise of viceregal power, he continues to be relatively poor.

His name in full is Chang Chi-tung, meaning “Longbow of the Cavern,” an allusion to a tradition that one of his ancestors was born in a cave and famed for archery.  This was far back in the age of the troglodytes.  Now, for many generations, the family has been devoted to the peaceful pursuit of letters.  As for Chang himself, it will be seen with what deadly effect he has been able to use the pen, in his hands a more formidable weapon than the longbow of his ancestor.

Chang was born at Nanpi, in the metropolitan [Page 221] province of Chihli, not quite seventy years ago; and that circumstance debarred him from holding the highest viceroyalty in the Empire, as no man is permitted to hold office in his native place.  He has climbed to his present eminence without the extraneous aids of wealth and family influence.  This implies talents of no ordinary grade; but how could those talents have found a fit arena without that admirable system of literary competition which for so many centuries has served the double purpose of extending patronage to letters and of securing the fittest men for the service of the state.

Crowned with the laurel of A. B., or budding genius, before he was out of his teens, three years later he won the honour of A. M., or, as the Chinese say, he plucked a sprig of the olea fragrans in a contest with his fellow-provincials in which only one in a hundred gained a prize.  Proceeding to the imperial capital he entered the lists against the picked scholars of all the provinces.  The prizes were 3 per cent. of the whole number of competitors, and he gained the doctorate in letters, which, as the Chinese title indicates, assures its possessor of an official appointment.  Had he been content to wait for some obscure position he might have gone home to sleep on his laurels.  But his restless spirit saw fresh battle-fields beckoning him to fresh triumphs.  The three hundred new-made doctors were summoned to the palace to write on themes assigned by the Emperor, that His Majesty might select a score of them for places in the Hanlin Academy.  Here again fortune favoured young Chang; the elegance of his penmanship and his skill in composing [Page 222] mechanical verse were so remarkable that he secured a seat on the literary Olympus of the Empire.