Chapter 18

[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.return to text[210]That is, missionaries from India.return to text[211]SeeNo. LVI.,note 320.return to text[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.return to text[213]This may almost be said to have been the belief of the Arabs at the date of the composition of “The Arabian Nights.”return to text[214]For Kuan-yin, seeNo. 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.return to text[215]SeeNo. XLVIII.,note 277.return to text[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.return to text[217]The perfect man, according to the Confucian standard.return to text[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.return to text[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’sPrimitive Culture,Vol. I.,p.455.return to text[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.return to text[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.return to text[222]SeeNo. XXXII.,note 197.return to text[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.return to text[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.return to text[225]SeeNo. 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.return to text[226]SeeNo. XL.,note 233, andNo. XCIV.,note 134.return to text[227]SeeNo. I.,note 39.return to text[228]SeeNo. LXIX.,note 38.return to text[229]It was the God of War who replaced Mr. Tung’s head after it had actually been cut off and buried.return to text[230]SeeNo. VI.,note 51.return to text[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.return to text[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.return to text[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.return to text[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.return to footnote anchor 234return to footnote anchor 318[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 theHsi-yüan-lu, orInstitutions to Coroners, BookI.,ch.12. [SeeNo. XIV.,note 100.]return to text[236]SeeNo. X.,note 79.return to text[237]Radix robiniæ amaræ.return to text[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.return to text[239]The text has “of two hundred hoofs.”return to text[240]The ordinary “wine” of China is a spirit distilled from rice. SeeNo. XCIII.,note 122.return to text[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.return to text[242]In an entry on torture (seeNo. LXXIII.,note 62), which occurs in myGlossary 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 noHabeas corpusto protect the lives and fortunes of its citizens.”return to text[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.return to text[244]I believe it is with us only a recently determined fact that dogs perspire through the skin.return to text[245]The exact date is given,—the 17th of the 6th moon, which would probably fall towards the end of June.return to text[246]SeeNo. XCVIII.,note 159.return to text[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.return to text[248]That is, the disembodied spirit of the oilman.return to text[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 inTemple Bar Magazinefor January, 1877.Aproposof 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.”return to text[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.return to footnote anchor 250return to footnote anchor 268[251]SeeNo. XXVI.,note 180.return to text[252]One of theprêtas, 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.return to footnote anchor 252return to footnote anchor 287[253]An imaginary building in the Infernal Regions.return to text[254]Mencius reckoned “to playwei-ch‘ifor money” among the five unfilial acts.return to text[255]SeeNo. LV.,note 310; andNo. XCIV.,note 137.return to text[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.return to text[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,shoesare 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.return to text[258]SeeNo. I.,note 36.return to text[259]SeeNo. LVI.,note 317; andNo. XCVII.,note 150.return to text[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.return to text[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.return to text[262]SeeNo. LXI.,note 346.return to text[263]SeeNo. LXIV.,note 18.return to text[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.return to text[265]“In various savage superstitions the minute resemblance of soul to body is forcibly stated.”—Myths and Myth-makers, by John Fiske,p.228.return to text[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.return to text[267]By becoming his son and behaving badly to him. SeeNo. CX.,note 190, and the text to which it refers.return to text[268]SeeNo. CXXXI.,note 250.return to text[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. SeeNo. LVI.,note 315.return to text[270]SeeNo. XXIII.,note 152.return to text[271]The examiner for the bachelor’s, or lowest, degree.return to text[272]The Chinese never cut the tails of their horses or mules.return to text[273]One of the feudal Governors of by-gone days.return to text[274]A Chinese Landseer.return to text[275]Advertisements of these professors of physiognomy are to be seen in every Chinese city.return to text[276]In order to make some show for the public eye.return to text[277]SeeNo. LXIV.,note 18.return to text[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.return to text[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.return to text[280]This would be exactly at the hottest season.return to text[281]TheJupiter Pluviusof the neighbourhood.return to text[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.return to text[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 characterchi, used here and elsewhere for Planchette, is defined in theShuo Wên, a Chinese dictionary, publishedA.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 aséanceat 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-wordtranslation:—“The pulse of human nature throbs from England to Cathay,And gambling mortals ever love to swell their gains by play;For gold in this vile world of ours is everywhere a prize—A thousand taels shall meet the prayer that on this altar lies.”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 responsestans 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.return to text

[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.return to text

[210]That is, missionaries from India.return to text

[211]SeeNo. LVI.,note 320.return to text

[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.return to text

[213]This may almost be said to have been the belief of the Arabs at the date of the composition of “The Arabian Nights.”return to text

[214]For Kuan-yin, seeNo. 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.return to text

[215]SeeNo. XLVIII.,note 277.return to text

[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.return to text

[217]The perfect man, according to the Confucian standard.return to text

[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.return to text

[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’sPrimitive Culture,Vol. I.,p.455.return to text

[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.return to text

[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.return to text

[222]SeeNo. XXXII.,note 197.return to text

[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.return to text

[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.return to text

[225]SeeNo. 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.return to text

[226]SeeNo. XL.,note 233, andNo. XCIV.,note 134.return to text

[227]SeeNo. I.,note 39.return to text

[228]SeeNo. LXIX.,note 38.return to text

[229]It was the God of War who replaced Mr. Tung’s head after it had actually been cut off and buried.return to text

[230]SeeNo. VI.,note 51.return to text

[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.return to text

[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.return to text

[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.return to text

[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.return to footnote anchor 234return to footnote anchor 318

[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 theHsi-yüan-lu, orInstitutions to Coroners, BookI.,ch.12. [SeeNo. XIV.,note 100.]return to text

[236]SeeNo. X.,note 79.return to text

[237]Radix robiniæ amaræ.return to text

[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.return to text

[239]The text has “of two hundred hoofs.”return to text

[240]The ordinary “wine” of China is a spirit distilled from rice. SeeNo. XCIII.,note 122.return to text

[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.return to text

[242]In an entry on torture (seeNo. LXXIII.,note 62), which occurs in myGlossary 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 noHabeas corpusto protect the lives and fortunes of its citizens.”return to text

[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.return to text

[244]I believe it is with us only a recently determined fact that dogs perspire through the skin.return to text

[245]The exact date is given,—the 17th of the 6th moon, which would probably fall towards the end of June.return to text

[246]SeeNo. XCVIII.,note 159.return to text

[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.return to text

[248]That is, the disembodied spirit of the oilman.return to text

[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 inTemple Bar Magazinefor January, 1877.Aproposof 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.”return to text

[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.return to footnote anchor 250return to footnote anchor 268

[251]SeeNo. XXVI.,note 180.return to text

[252]One of theprêtas, 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.return to footnote anchor 252return to footnote anchor 287

[253]An imaginary building in the Infernal Regions.return to text

[254]Mencius reckoned “to playwei-ch‘ifor money” among the five unfilial acts.return to text

[255]SeeNo. LV.,note 310; andNo. XCIV.,note 137.return to text

[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.return to text

[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,shoesare 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.return to text

[258]SeeNo. I.,note 36.return to text

[259]SeeNo. LVI.,note 317; andNo. XCVII.,note 150.return to text

[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.return to text

[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.return to text

[262]SeeNo. LXI.,note 346.return to text

[263]SeeNo. LXIV.,note 18.return to text

[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.return to text

[265]“In various savage superstitions the minute resemblance of soul to body is forcibly stated.”—Myths and Myth-makers, by John Fiske,p.228.return to text

[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.return to text

[267]By becoming his son and behaving badly to him. SeeNo. CX.,note 190, and the text to which it refers.return to text

[268]SeeNo. CXXXI.,note 250.return to text

[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. SeeNo. LVI.,note 315.return to text

[270]SeeNo. XXIII.,note 152.return to text

[271]The examiner for the bachelor’s, or lowest, degree.return to text

[272]The Chinese never cut the tails of their horses or mules.return to text

[273]One of the feudal Governors of by-gone days.return to text

[274]A Chinese Landseer.return to text

[275]Advertisements of these professors of physiognomy are to be seen in every Chinese city.return to text

[276]In order to make some show for the public eye.return to text

[277]SeeNo. LXIV.,note 18.return to text

[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.return to text

[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.return to text

[280]This would be exactly at the hottest season.return to text

[281]TheJupiter Pluviusof the neighbourhood.return to text

[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.return to text

[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 characterchi, used here and elsewhere for Planchette, is defined in theShuo Wên, a Chinese dictionary, publishedA.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 aséanceat 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-wordtranslation:—“The pulse of human nature throbs from England to Cathay,And gambling mortals ever love to swell their gains by play;For gold in this vile world of ours is everywhere a prize—A thousand taels shall meet the prayer that on this altar lies.”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 responsestans 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.return to text

“The pulse of human nature throbs from England to Cathay,And gambling mortals ever love to swell their gains by play;For gold in this vile world of ours is everywhere a prize—A thousand taels shall meet the prayer that on this altar lies.”

“The pulse of human nature throbs from England to Cathay,

And gambling mortals ever love to swell their gains by play;

For gold in this vile world of ours is everywhere a prize—

A thousand taels shall meet the prayer that on this altar lies.”

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 responsestans 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.return to text

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