were in the habit of presenting roasted pigs at the morais, as the most savory and acceptable offering to their deities which they could bestow.
ASIA.
Throughout the greater part of Asia, swine are to be found. The extensive and magnificent forests which cover much of the Birmese Empire, Siam, Cochin China, and other kingdoms of the south-east, abound with hogs, as well as other pachydermatous animals.
Here are found the celebrated Siamese or Chinese breed, so much esteemed throughout all parts of the world to which they have been exported: distinguished for their small size, fine head and snout, compact deep carcass, large hams and shoulders, short limbs, delicate feet, fine hair and skin, aptitude to fatten and grow, and the sweet, delicate meat they yield.
CHINA AND JAPAN.
The Chinese and Japanese are great pig-breeders, and make the art of crossing, breeding, and rearing swine, which furnishes them with their principal animal food, an object of peculiar attention and study. Merchants who have resided for some time in China, and even travellers who have merely been able to bestow a superficial glance on matters, speak of the great care bestowed on this point; but no author appears to have given any details as to the course of practice adopted. Perhaps from the naturally jealous and uncommunicative disposition of the Chinese, they have been unable to acquire any; and, perhaps, few have thought it worth while to trouble themselves about so degraded an animal as the hog. However this may be, it is much to be regretted that the information is so very scanty, for many valuable hints might probably have been thus obtained.
Tradescent Lay, the naturalist in Beechy's expedition, in his interesting work on China, thus amusingly speaks of the natives and their swine:—"There is a striking analogy between these two. A Chinese admires a round face and the smooth curvatures of a tun-belly, and where opportunity serves, cultivates these additions to personal beauty in himself. The Chinese pig is fashioned on the same model. At an early period the back becomes convex, the belly protuberant, and the visage shows a remarkable disposition to rotundity. Nor is the resemblance merely personal; in the moral character there is an amusing similitude, contrariety and obstinacy being the prevailing characteristics of both men and brutes."
The same author informs us that swine arc rarely driven or made to walk in China, but convoyed from place, to place in a species of
