[260] Alluding to a well-known expression which occurs in the Historical Record, and is often used in the sense of deriving advantage from connection with some influential person.
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[261] Without any regard to precedence, which plays quite as important a part at a Chinese as at a western dinner-party. In China, however, the most honoured guest sits at (what may be called) the head of the table, the host at the foot. I say “what may be called,” as Chinese dining-tables are almost invariably square, and position alone determines which is the head and which the foot. They are usually made to accommodate eight persons; hence the fancy name “eight-angel table,” in allusion to the eight famous angels, or Immortals, of the Taoist religion. (See No. V., note 48.) Occasionally, round tables are used; especially in cases where the party consists of some such number as ten.
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[262] It is almost impossible to give in translation the true spirit of a Chinese antithetical couplet. There are so many points to be brought out, each word of the second line being in opposition both in tone and sense to a corresponding word in the first, that anything beyond a rough rendering of the idea conveyed would be superfluous in a work like this. Suffice it to say that Miao has here successfully capped the verse given; and the more so because he has introduced, through the medium of “sword” and “shattered vase,” an allusion to a classical story in which a certain Wang Tun, when drunk with wine, beat time on a vase with his sword, and smashed the lip.
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[263] This is the vel ego vel Cluvienus style of satire, his own verse having been particularly good.
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[264] Many candidates, successful or otherwise, have their verses and essays printed, and circulate them among an admiring circle of friends.
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[265] Accurately described in Tylor’s Primitive Culture, Vol. I., p. 75:—“Each player throws out a hand, and the sum of all the fingers shown has to be called, the successful caller scoring a point; practically each calls the total before he sees his adversary’s hand.” The insertion of the word “simultaneously” after “called” would improve this description. This game is so noisy that the Hong-kong authorities have forbidden it, except within certain authorised limits, between the hours of 11 p.m. and 6 a.m.—Ordinance No. 2 of 1872.
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[266] This delicate stroke is of itself sufficient to prove the truth of the oft-quoted Chinese saying, that all between the Four Seas are brothers.
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[267] The “substitution” theory by which disembodied spirits are enabled to find their way back to the world of mortals. A very interesting and important example of this belief occurs in a later story (No. CVII.), for which place I reserve further comments.
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[268] Such is the dominant belief regarding the due selection of an auspicious site, whether for a house or grave; and with this superstition deeply ingrained in the minds of the people, it is easy to understand the hold on the public mind possessed by the pseudo-scientific professors of Fêng-Shui, or the geomantic art.
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[269] The bridegroom leads off the procession, and the bride follows shortly afterwards in an elaborately-gilt sedan-chair, closed in on all sides so that the occupant cannot be seen.
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[270] Here again we have the common Chinese belief that fate is fate only within certain limits, and is always liable to be altered at the will of heaven.
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[271] This is another curious phase of Chinese superstition, namely, that each individual is so constituted by nature as to be able to absorb only a given quantity of good fortune and no more, any superfluity of luck doing actual harm to the person on whom it falls.
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[272] The word here used is fan, generally translated “barbarian.”
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[273] The disciples of Shâkyamuni Buddha. Same as Arhans.
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[274] There is no limit as to age in the competitive examinations of China. The San-tzŭ-Ching records the case of a man who graduated at the mature age of eighty-two.
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[275] In 1665, that is between fourteen and fifteen years previous to the completion of the Liao Chai.
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[276] See No. I., note 36.
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[277] Religion and the drama work hand in hand in China.
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[278] Always the first step in the prosecution of a graduate. In this case, the accused was also an official.
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[279] Of what date, our author does not say, or it would be curious to try and hunt up the official record of this case as it appeared in the government organ of the day. The unfortunate man was in all probability insane.
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[280] A.D. 1675. His full name was Wu San-kuei.
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[281] Such is the literal translation of a term which I presume to be the name of some particular kind of jade, which is ordinarily distinguished from the imitation article by its comparative coldness.
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[282] A.D. 1682; that is, three years after the date of our author’s preface. See Introduction.
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[283] A curious note here follows in the original, not however from the pen of the great commentator, I Shih-shih:—“In 1696 a severe earthquake occurred at P‘ing-yang, and out of seventeen or eighteen cities destroyed, only one room remained uninjured—a room inhabited by a certain filial son. And thus, when in the crash of a collapsing universe, filial piety is specially marked out for protection, who shall say that God Almighty does not know black from white?”
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[284] Or “Director of Studies.”
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[285] The Chinese distinguish five degrees of homicide, of which accidental homicide is one (see Penal Code, Book VI.) Thus, if a gun goes off of itself in a man’s hand and kills a bystander, the holder of the gun is guilty of homicide; but were the same gun lying on a table, it would be regarded as the will of Heaven. Similarly, a man is held responsible for any death caused by an animal belonging to him; though in such cases the affair can usually be hushed up by a money payment, no notice being taken of crimes in general unless at the instigation of a prosecutor, at whose will the case may be subsequently withdrawn. Where the circumstances are purely accidental, the law admits of a money compensation.
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[286] Women in China ride à califourchon.
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[287] Which, although tolerably stout and strong, is hardly capable of sustaining a man’s weight.
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[288] The Chinese acknowledge seven just causes for putting away a wife. (1) Bad behaviour towards the husband’s father and mother. (2) Adultery. (3) Jealousy. (4) Garrulity. (5) Theft. (6) Disease. (7) Barrenness. The right of divorce may not, however, be enforced if the husband’s father and mother have died since the marriage, as thus it would be inferred that the wife had served them well up to the time of their death; or if the husband has recently risen to wealth and power (hence the saying, “The wife of my poverty shall not go down from my hall”); or thirdly, if the wife’s parents and brothers are dead, and she has no home in which she can seek shelter.
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[289] This elegant simile is taken from a song ascribed to Pan Chieh-yü, a favourite of the Emperor Ch‘êng Ti of the Han dynasty, written when her influence with the Son of Heaven began to wane. I venture to reproduce it here.

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[290] Signifying that it would be impossible for him to enter.
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[291] The result of A-ch‘ien’s depredations as a rat.
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[292] I have already discussed the subject of drunkenness in China (Chinese Sketches, pp. 113, 114), and shall not return to it here, further than to quote a single sentence, to which I adhere as firmly now as when the book in question was published:—“Who ever sees in China a tipsy man reeling about a crowded thoroughfare, or lying with his head in a ditch by the side of some country road?”

It is not, however, generally known that the Chinese, with their usual quaintness, distinguish between five kinds of drunkenness, different people being differently affected, according to the physical constitution of each. Wine may fly (1) to the heart, and produce maudlin emotions; or (2) to the liver, and incite to pugnacity; or (3) to the stomach, and cause drowsiness, accompanied by a flushing of the face; or (4) to the lungs, and induce hilarity; or (5) to the kidneys, and excite desire.
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[293] “The very name of Buddha, if pronounced with a devout heart 1,000 or 5,000 times, will effectually dispel all harassing thoughts, all fightings within and fears without.”—Eitel.
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[294] A religious and social offence of the deepest dye, sure to entail punishment in the world to come, even if the perpetrator escapes detection in this life.
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[295] The Buddhist rosary consists of 108 beads, which number is the same as that of the compartments in the Phrabat or sacred footprint of Buddha.
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[296] It here occurred to me that the word hitherto translated “well” should have been “shaft;” but the commentator refers expressly to the Tso Chuan, where the phrase for “a dry well,” as first used, is so explained. We must accordingly fall back on the supposition that our author has committed a trifling slip.
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[297] See No. LI., note 285.
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[298] That is, as to whether or not there were extenuating circumstances, in which case no punishment would be inflicted.
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[299] Such is the invariable result of confinement in a Chinese prison, unless the prisoner has the wherewithal to purchase food.
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[300] The provincial examiner for the degree of bachelor.
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[301] To worship at his tomb.
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[302] See No. XLIII., note 248.
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[303] See No. LIII., note 288.
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[304] Such is the Chinese idiom for what we should call “bitter” tears. This phrase is constantly employed in the notices of the death of a parent sent round to friends and relatives.
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[305] A disgraceful state of things, in the eyes of the Chinese. See the paraphrase of the Sacred Edict, Maxim 1.
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[306] An illegal form of punishment, under the present dynasty, which authorizes only bambooing of two kinds, each of five degrees of severity; banishment, of three degrees of duration; transportation for life, of three degrees of distance; and death, of two kinds, namely, by strangulation and decapitation. That torture is occasionally resorted to by the officers of the Chinese Empire is an indisputable fact; that it is commonly employed by the whole body of mandarins could only be averred by those who have not had the opportunities or the desire to discover the actual truth.
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[307] Lagerstrœmia indica.
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[308] That is, old Mr. Jen’s body had been possessed by the disembodied spirit of Ta-ch‘êng’s father.
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[309] Five is considered a large number for an ordinary Chinese woman.
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[310] In order to leave some one behind to look after their graves and perform the duties of ancestral worship. No one can well refuse to give a son to be adopted by a childless brother.
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[311] That is, of rising to the highest offices of State.
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[312] The Chinese term used throughout is “star-man.”
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[313] Chinese official life is divided into nine grades.
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[314] Prostrating himself three times, and knocking his head on the ground thrice at each prostration.
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[315] The retinue of a high mandarin is composed as follows:—First, gong-bearers, then bannermen, tablet-bearers (on which tablets are inscribed the titles of the official), a large red umbrella, mounted attendants, a box containing a change of clothes, bearers of regalia, a second gong, a small umbrella or sunshade, a large wooden fan, executioners, lictors from hell, who wear tall hats; a mace (called a “golden melon”), bamboos for “bambooing,” incense-bearers, more attendants, and now the great man himself, followed by a body-guard of soldiers and a few personal attendants, amounting in all to nearly one hundred persons, many of whom are mere street-rowdies or beggars, hired at a trifling outlay when required to join what might otherwise be an imposing procession. The scanty retinues of foreign officials in China still continue to excite the scorn of the populace, who love to compare the rag-tag and bob-tail magnificence of their own functionaries with the modest show even of H.B.M.’s Minister at Peking.
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[316] A land journey of about three months, ending in a region which the Chinese have always regarded as semi-barbarous.
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[317] This use of paper money in China is said to date from A.D. 1236; that is, during the reign of the Mongol Emperor, Ogdai Khan.
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[318] This contingency is much dreaded by the Chinese.
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[319] A yojana has been variously estimated at from five to nine English miles.
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[320] The patra and khakkharam of the bikshu or Buddhist mendicant.
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[321] It is not considered quite correct to take a concubine unless the wife is childless, in which case it is held that the proposition to do so, and thus secure the much-desired posterity, should emanate from the wife herself. On page 41 of Vol. XIII., of this author, we read, “and if at thirty years of age you have no children, then sell your hair-pins and other ornaments, and buy a concubine for your husband. For the childless state is a hard one to bear;” or, as Victor Hugo puts it in his Légende des Siècles, there is nothing so sad as “la maison sans enfants.”
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[322] This is the celebrated form of death, reserved for parricide and similar awful crimes, about which so much has been written. Strictly speaking, the malefactor should be literally chopped to pieces in order to prolong his agonies; but the sentence is now rarely, if ever, carried out in its extreme sense. A few gashes are made upon the wretched victim’s body, and he is soon put out of his misery by decapitation. As a matter of fact, this death is not enumerated among the Five Punishments authorized by the Penal Code of the present dynasty. See No. LV., note 306.
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[323] Alluding to a well-known Buddhist miracle in which a bikshu was to be thrown into a cauldron of boiling water in a fiery pit, when suddenly a lotus-flower came forth, the fire was extinguished, and the water became cold.
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[324] The Chinese term—here translated “Cannibals”—is a meaningless imitation by two Chinese characters of the Sanscrit yakcha, or certain demons who feed upon human flesh.
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[325] Hué, the capital of Cochin-China.
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[326] The island of Hainan, inhabited as it was in earlier times by a race of savages, is the most likely source of the following marvellous adventures.
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[327] To which sounds the languages of the west have been more than once likened by the Chinese. It is only fair, however, to the lettered classes to state that they have a similar contempt for their own local dialects; regarding Mandarin as the only form of speech worthy to be employed by men.
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[328] The occasional analogies to the story of the Cyclops must be evident to all readers.
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[329] The animal here mentioned is the plain brown deer, or Rusa Swinhoii, of Formosa, in which island I should prefer to believe, but for the great distance from Hué, that the scenes here narrated took place.
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