[209] Of course only pretending to be hurt, the pain of the blows being transferred by his magical art to the back of the Taot‘ai.
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[210] That is, missionaries from India.
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[211] See No. LVI., note 320.
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[212] Much of the above recalls Fa Hsien’s narrative of his celebrated journey from China to India in the early years of the fifth century of our era, with which our author was evidently well acquainted. That courageous traveller complained that of those who had set out with him some had stopped on the way and others had died, leaving him only his own shadow as a companion.
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[213] This may almost be said to have been the belief of the Arabs at the date of the composition of “The Arabian Nights.”
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[214] For Kuan-yin, see No. XXXIII., note 208. Wên-shu, or Manjusiri, is the God of Wisdom, and is generally represented as riding on a lion, in attendance, together with P‘u-hsien, the God of Action, who rides an elephant, upon Shâkyamuni Buddha.
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[215] See No. XLVIII., note 277.
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[216] The term here used stands for a vitreous composition that has long been prepared by the Chinese. Glass, properly so called, is said to have been introduced into China from the west, by a eunuch, during the Ming dynasty.
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[217] The perfect man, according to the Confucian standard.
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[218] A large, smooth, area of concrete, to be seen outside all country houses of any size, and used for preparing the various kinds of grain.
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[219] Compare—“The not uncommon practice of strewing ashes to show the footprints of ghosts or demons takes for granted that they are substantial bodies.”—Tylor’s Primitive Culture, Vol. I., p. 455.
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[220] Fêng-tu is a district city in the province of Szechuen, and near it are said to be fire-wells (see Williams’ Syllabic Dictionary, s.v.), otherwise known as the entrance to Purgatory, the capital city of which is also called Fêng-tu.
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[221] To the Imperial Treasury. From what I know of the barefacedness of similar official impostures, I should say that this statement is quite within the bounds of truth. For instance, at Amoy one per cent. is collected by the local mandarins on all imports, ostensibly for the purpose of providing the Imperial table with a delicious kind of bird’s-nest said to be found in the neighbourhood! Seven-tenths of the sum thus collected is pocketed by the various officials of the place, and with the remaining three-tenths a certain quantity of the ordinary article of commerce is imported from the Straits and forwarded to Peking.
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[222] See No. XXXII., note 197.
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[223] An Imperial mandate is always written on yellow silk, and the ceremony of opening and perusing it is accompanied by prostrations and other acts of reverential submission.
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[224] Innumerable pamphlets have been published in China on the best methods of getting rid of these destructive insects, but none to my knowledge contain much sound or practical advice.
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[225] See No. LII., note 286. The mules of the north of China are marvels of beauty and strength; and the price of a fine animal often goes as high as £100.
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[226] See No. XL., note 233, and No. XCIV., note 134.
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[227] See No. I., note 39.
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[228] See No. LXIX., note 38.
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[229] It was the God of War who replaced Mr. Tung’s head after it had actually been cut off and buried.
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[230] See No. VI., note 51.
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[231] The highly educated Confucianist rises above the superstition that darkens the lives of his less fortunate fellow countrymen. Had such a dream as the above received an inauspicious interpretation at the hands of some local soothsayer, the owner of the animal would in nine cases out of ten have taken an early opportunity of getting rid of it.
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[232] The Chinese love to refer to the “good old time” of their forefathers, when a man who dropped anything on the highway would have no cause to hurry back for fear of its being carried off by a stranger.
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[233] One method is to wrap an old mirror (formerly a polished metal disc) in a handkerchief, and then, no one being present, to bow seven times towards the Spirit of the Hearth: after which the first words heard spoken by any one will give a clue to the issue under investigation. Another method is to close the eyes and take seven paces, opening them at the seventh and getting some hint from the objects first seen in a mirror held in the hand, coupled with the words first spoken within the experimenter’s hearing.
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[234] In former days, these messengers of good tidings to candidates whose homes were in distant parts used to earn handsome sums if first to announce the news; but now, at any rate along the coast, steamers and the telegraph have taken their occupation from them.
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[235] Accurate anatomical descriptions must not be looked for in Chinese literature. “Man has three hundred and sixty-five bones, corresponding to the number of days it takes the heavens to revolve.” From the Hsi-yüan-lu, or Institutions to Coroners, Book I., ch. 12. [See No. XIV., note 100.]
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[236] See No. X., note 79.
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[237] Radix robiniæ amaræ.
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[238] As the Chinese invariably do whenever they get hold of a useful prescription or remedy. Master workmen also invariably try to withhold something of their art from the apprentices they engage to teach.
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[239] The text has “of two hundred hoofs.”
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[240] The ordinary “wine” of China is a spirit distilled from rice. See No. XCIII., note 122.
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[241] The commentator would have us believe that Mr. Lin’s fondness for wine was to him an element of health and happiness rather than a disease to be cured, and that the priest was wrong in meddling with the natural bent of his constitution.
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[242] In an entry on torture (see No. LXXIII., note 62), which occurs in my Glossary of Reference, I made the following statement:—“The real tortures of a Chinese prison are the filthy dens in which the unfortunate victims are confined, the stench in which they have to draw breath, the fetters and manacles by which they are secured, the absolute insufficiency even of the disgusting rations doled out to them, and above all the mental agony which must ensue in a country with no Habeas corpus to protect the lives and fortunes of its citizens.”
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[243] For a small bribe, the soldiers at the gates of a Chinese city will usually pass people in and out by means of a ladder placed against the wall at some convenient spot.
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[244] I believe it is with us only a recently determined fact that dogs perspire through the skin.
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[245] The exact date is given,—the 17th of the 6th moon, which would probably fall towards the end of June.
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[246] See No. XCVIII., note 159.
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[247] This corresponds to our ceremony of laying the foundation stone, except that one commemorates the beginning, the other the completion, of a new building.
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[248] That is, the disembodied spirit of the oilman.
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[249] A most abstruse and complicated game of skill, for which the Chinese claim an antiquity of four thousand years, and which I was the first to introduce to a European public through an article in Temple Bar Magazine for January, 1877. Apropos of which, an accomplished American lady, Miss A. M. Fielde, of Swatow, wrote as follows:—“The game seems to me the peer of chess.... It is a game for the slow, persistent, astute, multitudinous Chinese; while chess, by the picturesque appearance of the board, the variety and prominent individuality of the men, and the erratic combination of the attack,—is for the Anglo-Saxon.”
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[250] On this day, annually dedicated to kite-flying, picnics, and good cheer, everybody tries to get up to as great an elevation as possible, in the hope, as some say, of thereby prolonging life. It was this day—4th October, 1878—which was fixed for the total extermination of foreigners in Foochow.
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[251] See No. XXVI., note 180.
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[252] One of the prêtas, or the fourth of the six paths (gâti) of existence; the other five being (1) angels, (2) men, (3) demons, (5) brute beasts, and (6) sinners in hell. The term is often used colloquially for a self-invited guest.
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[253] An imaginary building in the Infernal Regions.
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[254] Mencius reckoned “to play wei-ch‘i for money” among the five unfilial acts.
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[255] See No. LV., note 310; and No. XCIV., note 137.
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[256] That is, in carrying out the obligations he had entered into, such as conducting the ceremonies of ancestral worship, repairing the family tombs, &c.
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[257] The long flowing robe is a sign of respectability which all but the very poorest classes love to affect in public. At the port of Haiphong, shoes are the criterion of social standing; but, as a rule, the well-to-do native merchants prefer to go barefoot rather than give the authorities a chance of exacting heavier squeezes, on the strength of such a palpable acknowledgment of wealth.
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[258] See No. I., note 36.
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[259] See No. LVI., note 317; and No. XCVII., note 150.
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[260] The lictor had no right to divulge his errand when he first met the cloth merchant, or to remove the latter’s name from the top to the bottom of the list.
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[261] The clay image makers of Tientsin are wonderfully clever in taking likenesses by these means. Some of the most skilful will even manipulate the clay behind their backs, and then, adding the proper colours, will succeed in producing an exceedingly good resemblance. They find, however, more difficulty with foreign faces, to which they are less accustomed in the trade.
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[262] See No. LXI., note 346.
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[263] See No. LXIV., note 18.
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[264] Such is the officially authorised method of determining a doubtful relationship between a dead parent and a living child, substituting a bone for the clay image here mentioned.
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[265] “In various savage superstitions the minute resemblance of soul to body is forcibly stated.”—Myths and Myth-makers, by John Fiske, p. 228.
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[266] An important point in Chinese etiquette. It is not considered polite for a person in a sitting position to address an equal who is standing.
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[267] By becoming his son and behaving badly to him. See No. CX., note 190, and the text to which it refers.
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[268] See No. CXXXI., note 250.
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[269] The story is intended as a satire on those puffed-up dignitaries who cannot even go to a picnic without all the retinue belonging to their particular rank. See No. LVI., note 315.
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[270] See No. XXIII., note 152.
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[271] The examiner for the bachelor’s, or lowest, degree.
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[272] The Chinese never cut the tails of their horses or mules.
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[273] One of the feudal Governors of by-gone days.
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[274] A Chinese Landseer.
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[275] Advertisements of these professors of physiognomy are to be seen in every Chinese city.
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[276] In order to make some show for the public eye.
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[277] See No. LXIV., note 18.
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[278] A doctor of any repute generally has large numbers of such certificates, generally engraved on wood, hanging before and about his front door. When I was stationed at Swatow, the writer at Her Majesty’s Consulate presented one to Dr. E. J. Scott, the resident medical practitioner, who had cured him of opium smoking. It bore two principal characters, “Miraculous Indeed!” accompanied by a few remarks, in a smaller sized character, laudatory of Dr. Scott’s professional skill. Banners, with graceful inscriptions written upon them, are frequently presented by Chinese passengers to the captains of coasting steamers who may have brought them safely through bad weather.
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[279] The story is intended as a satire upon Chinese doctors generally, whose ranks are recruited from the swarms of half-educated candidates who have been rejected at the great competitive examinations, medical diplomas being quite unknown in China. Doctors’ fees are, by a pleasant fiction, called “horse-money;” and all prescriptions are made up by the local apothecary, never by the physician himself.
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[280] This would be exactly at the hottest season.
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[281] The Jupiter Pluvius of the neighbourhood.
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[282] A sneer at the superstitious custom of praying for good or bad weather, which obtains in China from the Son of Heaven himself down to the lowest agriculturist whose interests are involved. Droughts, floods, famines, and pestilences, are alike set down to the anger of Heaven, to be appeased only by prayer and repentance.
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[283] Planchette was in full swing in China at the date of the composition of these stories, more than 200 years ago, and remains so at the present day. The character chi, used here and elsewhere for Planchette, is defined in the Shuo Wên, a Chinese dictionary, published A.D. 100, “to inquire by divination on doubtful topics,” no mention being made of the particular manner in which responses are obtained. For the purpose of writing from personal experience, I recently attended a séance at a temple in Amoy, and witnessed the whole performance. After much delay, I was requested to write on a slip of paper “any question I might have to put to the God;” and, accordingly, I took a pencil and wrote down, “A humble suppliant ventures to inquire if he will win the Manila lottery.” This question was then placed upon the altar, at the feet of the God; and shortly afterwards two respectable-looking Chinamen, not priests, approached a small table covered with sand, and each seized one arm of a forked piece of wood, at the fork of which was a stumpy end, at right angles to the plane of the arms. Immediately the attendants began burning quantities of joss-paper, while the two performers whirled the instrument round and round at a rapid rate, its vertical point being all the time pressed down upon the table of sand. All of a sudden the whirling movement stopped, and the point of the instrument rapidly traced a character in the sand, which was at once identified by several of the bystanders, and forthwith copied down by a clerk in attendance. The whirling movement was then continued until a similar pause was made and another character appeared; and so on, until I had four lines of correctly-rhymed Chinese verse, each line consisting of seven characters. The following is an almost word-for-word translation:—

As the question is not concealed from view, all that is necessary for such a hollow deception is a quick-witted versifier who can put together a poetical response stans pede in uno. But in such matters the unlettered masses of China are easily outwitted, and are a profitable source of income to the more astute of their fellow-countrymen.
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