all of whom were executed upon arrival.  Another son, familiar to foreigners under the name of Koxinga, a Portuguese corruption of his title, had remained behind with the fleet when his father surrendered, and he, determined to avenge his father’s treacherous death, declared an implacable war against the Manchus.  His piratical attacks on the coast of China had long been a terror to the inhabitants; to such an extent, indeed, that the populations of no fewer than eighty townships had been forced to remove inland.  Then Formosa, upon which the Dutch had begun to form colonies in 1634, and where substantial portions of their forts are still to be seen, attracted his piratical eye.  He attacked the Dutch, and succeeded in driving them out with great slaughter, thus possessing himself of the island; but gradually his followers began to drop off, in submission to the new dynasty, and at length he himself was reported to Peking as dead.  In 1874, partly on the ground that he was really a supporter of the Ming dynasty and not a rebel, and partly on the ground that “he had founded in the midst of the waters a dominion which he had transmitted to his descendants, and which was by them surrendered to the Imperial sway,”—­a memorial was presented to the throne, asking that his spirit might be canonized as the guardian angel of Formosa, and that a shrine might be built in his honour.  The request was granted.

Consolidation of the empire thus won by the sword was carried out as follows.  In addition to the large Manchu garrison at Peking, smaller garrisons were established at nine of the provincial capitals, and at ten other important points in the provinces.  The Manchu commandant of each of the nine garrisons above mentioned, familiar to foreigners as the Tartar General, was so placed in order to act as a check upon the civil Governor or Viceroy, of whom he, strictly speaking, took precedence, though in practice their ranks have always been regarded as equal.  With the empire at peace, the post of Tartar General has always been a sinecure, and altogether out of comparison with that of the Viceroy and his responsibilities; but in the case of a Viceroy suspected of disloyalty and collusion with rebels, the swift opportunity of the Tartar General was the great safeguard of the dynasty, further strengthened as he was by the regulation which gave to him the custody of the keys to the city gates.  Those garrisons, the soldiers of which were accompanied by their wives and families, were from the first intended to be permanent institutions; and there until quite recently were to be found the descendants of the original drafts, not allowed to intermarry with their Chinese neighbours, but otherwise influenced to such an extent that their Manchu characteristics had almost entirely disappeared.  In one direction the Manchus made a curious concession which, though entirely sentimental, was nevertheless well calculated to appeal to a proud though unconquered people.  A rule was established