[687] “Boat-men” is the solution of the last two lines of the enigma.
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[688] The commentator actually supplies a list of the persons who
signed a congratulatory petition to the Viceroy on the arrest and
punishment of the criminals.
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[689] When the soul of the Emperor T‘ai Tsung of the T‘ang dynasty was
in the infernal regions, it promised to send Yen-lo (the Chinese
Yama or Pluto) a melon; and when His Majesty recovered from the
trance into which he had been plunged, he gave orders that his promise
was to be fulfilled. Just then a man, named Liu Ch‘üan, observed a
priest with a hairpin belonging to his wife, and misconstruing the
manner in which possession of it had been obtained, abused his wife so
severely that she committed suicide. Liu Ch‘üan himself then
determined to follow her example, and convey the melon to Yen-lo; for
which act he was subsequently deified. See the Hsi-yu-chi, Section
XI.
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[690] As the Chinese believe that their disembodied spirits proceed to
a world organised on much the same model as the one they know, so do
they think that there will be social distinctions of rank and
emolument proportioned to the merits of each.
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[691] A dying man is almost always moved into his coffin to die; and
aged persons frequently take to sleeping regularly in the coffins
provided against the inevitable hour by the pious thoughtfulness of a
loving son. Even in middle life Chinese like to see their coffins
ready for them, and store them sometimes on their own premises,
sometimes in the outhouses of a neighbouring temple.
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[692] See No. LXXIII., note 417.
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[693] The Chinese distinguish sixteen vital spots on the front of the
body and six on the back, with thirty-six and twenty non-vital spots
in similar positions, respectively. They allow, however, that a severe
blow on a non-vital spot might cause death, and vice versâ.
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[694] Certain classes of soothsayers are believed by the Chinese to be
possessed by foxes, which animals have the power of looking into the
future, &c., &c.
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[695] The Yü Li or Divine Panorama.
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[696] The Divine Ruler, immediately below God himself.
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[697] See No. XXVI., note 182.
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[698] See Author’s Own Record (in Introduction), note 28.
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[699] The three worst of the Six Paths.
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[700] That the state of one life is the result of behaviour in a
previous existence.
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[701] Lit.—the skin purse (of his bones).
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[702] Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism.
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[703] Violent deaths are regarded with horror by the Chinese. They
hold that a truly virtuous man always dies either of illness or old
age.
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[704] Good people go to Purgatory in the flesh, and are at once passed
up to Heaven without suffering any torture, or are sent back to earth
again.
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[705] The Supreme Ruler.
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[706] See No. I., note 36.
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[707] Supposed to be the gate of the Infernal Regions.
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[708] Hades.
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[709] Literally, “ten armfuls.”
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[710] To Heaven, Earth, sovereign, and relatives.
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[711] Held to be a great relief to the spirits of the dead.
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[712] It is commonly believed that if the spirit of a murdered man can
secure the violent death of some other person he returns to earth
again as if nothing had happened, the spirit of his victim passing
into the world below and suffering all the misery of a disembodied
soul in his stead. See No. XLV., note 267.
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[713] A very common trick in China. The drunken bully Lu Ta in the
celebrated novel Shui-hu saved himself by these means, and I have
heard that the Mandarin who in the war of 1842 spent a large sum in
constructing a paddle-wheel steamer to be worked by men, hoping
thereby to match the wheel-ships of the Outer Barbarians, is now
expiating his failure at a monastery in Fukien. Apropos of which, it
may not be generally known that at this moment there are small
paddle-wheel boats for Chinese passengers, plying up and down the
Canton river, the wheels of which are turned by gangs of coolies who
perform a movement precisely similar to that required on the
treadmill.
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[714] In order that their marriage destiny may not be interfered with.
It is considered disgraceful not to accept the ransom of a slave girl
of 15 or 16 years of age. See No. XXVI., note 185.
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[715] The soil of China belongs, every inch of it, to the Emperor.
Consequently, the people owe him a debt of gratitude for permitting
them to live upon it.
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[716] Do their duty as men and women.
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[717] A Chinaman may have three kinds of fathers; (1) his real father,
(2) an adopted father, such as an uncle without children to whom he
has been given as heir, and (3) the man his widowed mother may marry.
The first two are to all intents and purposes equal; the third is
entitled only to one year’s mourning instead of the usual three.
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[718] As taxes.
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[719] Visitors to Peking may often see the junkmen at T‘ung-chow
pouring water by the bucketful on to newly-arrived cargoes of Imperial
rice in order to make up the right weight and conceal the amount they
have filched on the way.
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[720] That is, with a false gloss on them.
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[721] In order to raise to nap and give an appearance of strength and
goodness.
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[722] Costermongers and others acquire certain rights to doorsteps or
snug corners in Chinese cities which are not usually infringed by
competitors in the same line of business. Chair-coolies,
carrying-coolies, ferrymen, &c., also claim whole districts as their
particular field of operations and are very jealous of any
interference. I know of a case in which the right of “scavengering” a
town had been in the same family for generations, and no one dreamt of
trying to take it out of their hands.
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[723] Chiefly alluding to small temples where some pious spirit may
have lighted a lamp or candle to the glory of his favourite P‘u-sa.
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[724] This is done either by making a figure of the person to be
injured and burning it in a slow fire, like the old practice of the
wax figure in English history; or by obtaining his nativity
characters, writing them out on a piece of paper and burning them in a
candle, muttering all the time whatsoever mischief it is hoped will
befall him.
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[725] Popularly known as the Chinese Pluto. The Indian Yama.
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[726] The celebrated “See-one’s-home Terrace.”
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[727] Regarded by the Chinese with intense disgust.
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[728] Father’s, mother’s, and wife’s families.
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[729] I know of few more pathetic passages throughout all the
exquisite imagery of the Divine Comedy than this in which the guilty
soul is supposed to look back to the home he has but lately left and
gaze in bitter anguish on his desolate hearth and broken household
gods. For once the gross tortures of Chinese Purgatory give place to
as refined and as dreadful a punishment as human ingenuity could well
devise.
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[730] A long pole tipped with a kind of birdlime is cautiously
inserted between the branches of a tree, and then suddenly dabbed on
to some unsuspecting sparrow.
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[731] If this is done in Winter or Spring the Spirits of the Hearth
and Threshold are liable to catch cold.
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[732] I presume because God sits with his face to the south.
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[733] Pious and wealthy people often give orders for an image of a
certain P‘u-sa to be made with an ounce or so of gold inside.
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[734] Primarily, because no living thing should be killed for food.
The ox and the dog are specified because of their kindly services to
man in tilling the earth and guarding his home.
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[735] The symbol of the Yin and the Yang, so ably and so poetically
explained by Mr. Alabaster in his pamphlet on the Doctrine of the
Ch‘i.
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[736] One being male and the other being female. This calls to mind
the extreme modesty of a celebrated French lady, who would not put
books by male and female authors on the same shelf.
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[737] The symbol on Buddha’s heart; more commonly known to the western
world as Thor’s Hammer.
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[738] Emblems of Imperial dignity.
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[739] Supposed to confer immortality.
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[740] Unfit for translation.
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[741] This is ingeniously expressed, as if mothers were the prime
movers in such unnatural acts.
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[742] On fête days at temples it is not uncommon to see cages full of
birds hawked about among the holiday-makers, that those who feel
twinges of conscience may purchase a sparrow or two and relieve
themselves from anxiety by the simple means of setting them at
liberty.
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[743] Bones are used in glazing porcelain, to give a higher finish.
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[744] The seven periods of seven days each which occur immediately
after a death and at which the departed shade is appeased with food
and offerings of various kinds.
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[745] To warm them.
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[746] When they are born again on earth.
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[747] Heart, lungs, spleen, liver, and kidneys.
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[748] Many millions of years.
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[749] The following recipe for this deadly poison is given in the
well-known Chinese work Instructions to Coroners:—“Take a quantity
of insects of all kinds and throw them into a vessel of any kind;
cover them up, and let a year pass away before you look at them again.
The insects will have killed and eaten each other, until there is only
one survivor, and this one is Ku.”
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[750] He who “turns the wheel;” a chakravartti raja.
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[751] The capital city of the Infernal Regions.
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[752] The ghosts of dead people are believed to be liable to death.
The ghost of a ghost is called chien.
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[753] On the “Three Systems.” See note 702, Appendix.
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[754] Women are considered in China to be far more revengeful than
men.
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[755] See Author’s Own Record (in Introduction), note 28.
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[756] While in Purgatory.
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[757] It was mentioned above that the rewards for virtue would be
continued to a man’s sons and grandsons.
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[758] That is, go to heaven.
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[759] Of meat, wine, &c.
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