steam-engine, to acknowledge the microscopic revelations spread out before
their eyes, to put faith in the Atlantic cable or the East India House,
and they will tell you that you are a barbarian with blue eyes, a fan
kwai, and a sayer of that which is not. The dragon and the phœnix are
true, but the rotifer and the message, the sixty miles an hour, the cable,
and the captive kings are false."--_Household Words_, October 30th, 1855.
[11] Address delivered to the Biological Section of the British
Association. Glasgow, 1876.
[12] In 1854 a communication from the Torquay Natural History Society,
confirming previous accounts by Mr. Goodwin Austen, Mr. Vivian, and the
Rev. Mr. McEnery, "that worked flints occurred in Kents Hole with remains
of extinct species," was rejected as too improbable for publication.
[13] "She is set down a thorough heretic, not at all to be believed, a
manufacturer of unsound natural history, an inventor of false facts in
science."--Gosse, _Romance of Nat. Hist._, 2nd Series, p. 227.
[14] _Pop. Sci. Monthly_, No. 60, April 1877.
[15] "By the kindness of my friend, Mr. Bartlett, I have been enabled to
examine a most beautiful Japanese carving in ivory, said to be one hundred
and fifty years old, and called by the Japanese _net suke_ or _togle_.
These togles are handed down from one generation to the next, and they
record any remarkable event that happens to any member of a family. This
carving is an inch and a half long, and about as big as a walnut. It
represents a lady in a quasi-leaning attitude, and at first sight it is
difficult to perceive what she is doing; but after a while the details
come out magnificently. The unfortunate lady has been seized by an octopus
when bathing--for the lady wears a bathing-dress. One extended arm of the
octopus is in the act of coiling round the lady's neck, and she is
endeavouring to pull it off with her right hand; another arm of the
sea-monster is entwined round the left wrist, while the hand is fiercely
tearing at the mouth of the brute. The other arms of the octopus are
twined round, grasping the lady's body and waist--in fact, her position
reminds one very much of Laocoon in the celebrated statue of the snakes
seizing him and his two sons. The sucking discs of the octopus are carved
exactly as they are in nature, and the colour of the body of the creature,
together with the formidable aspect of the eye, are wonderfully
represented. The face of this Japanese lady is most admirably done; it
expresses the utmost terror and alarm, and possibly may be a portrait. So
carefully is the carving executed that the lady's white teeth can be seen
between her lips. The hair is a perfect gem of work; it is jet black,
extended down the back, and tied at the end in a knot; in fact, it is so
well done that I can hardly bring myself to think that it is not real
hair, fastened on in some most ingenious manner; but by examining it under
a powerful magnifying glass I find it is not so--it is the result of
extraordinary cleverness in carving. The back of the little white comb
fixed into the thick of the black hair adds to the effect of this
magnificent carving of the hair. I congratulate Mr. Bartlett on the
acquisition of this most beautiful curiosity. There is an inscription in
Japanese characters on the underneath part of the carving, and Mr.
Bartlett and myself would, of course, only be too glad to get this
translated."--Frank Buckland, in _Land and Water_.
[16] Max Müller, _Science of Language_, 4th edition, p. 163-165. London,
1864.
[17] _Science of Language_, p. 168.
[18] "When a naturalist, either by visiting such spots of earth as are
still out of the way, or by his good fortune, finds a very queer plant or
animal, he is forthwith accused of inventing his game, the word not being
used in its old sense of _discovery_ but in its modern of _creation_. As
soon as the creature is found to sin against preconception, the great
(mis?) guiding spirit, _à priori_ by name, who furnishes philosophers with
their omniscience _pro re natâ_, whispers that no such thing _can_ be, and
forthwith there is a charge of hoax. The heavens themselves have been
charged with hoaxes. When Leverrier and Adams predicted a planet by
calculation, it was gravely asserted in some quarters that the planet
which had been calculated was not _the_ planet but another which had
clandestinely and improperly got into the neighbourhood of the true body.
The disposition to suspect hoax is stronger than the disposition to hoax.
Who was it that first announced that the classical writings of Greece and
Rome were one huge hoax perpetrated by the monks in what the announcer
would be as little or less inclined than Dr. Maitland to call the dark
ages?"--_Macmillan_, 1860.
[19] _Poetic Epistles_, Bk. iii., Ep. 3.
[20] _Rara avis in terris, nigroque simillima cygno._
[21] "Having showed the foregoing description of the mountain cow, called
by the Spaniards _ante_ [_manatee_?], to a person of honour, he was
pleased to send it to a learned person in Holland." This learned person
discusses it and compares it with the hippopotamus, and winds up by
saying, in reference to a description of the habits of the hippopotamus,
as noticed at Loango by Captain Rogers, to the effect that when they are
in the water they will sink to the bottom, and then walk as on dry ground,
"but what he says of her sinking to the bottom in deep rivers, and walking
there, if he adds, what I think he supposes, that it rises again, and
comes on the land, I much question; for that such a huge body should raise
itself up again (though I know whales and great fish can do) transcends
the faith of J. H."--F. J. Knapton, _Collection of Voyages_, vol. ii.,
part ii. p. 13. 4 vols., London, 1729.
[22] _Historical Account of Discoveries and Travels in Asia._ Hugh Murray,
F.R.S.E., 3 vols. 8vo. Edinburgh, 1820.
[23] Bk. x., chap. 53.
[24] A writer in _Macmillan's Magazine_ in 1860 concludes a series of
objections to the canal as follows: "And the Emperor must hesitate to
identify himself with an operation which might not impossibly come to be
designated by posterity as 'Napoleon's Folly.'"
[25] The Bower Bird, _Ptilonorhyncus holosericeus_, and the
Garden-building Bird of New Guinea, _Amblyornis inornara_.
[26] _Recherches, &c. des Mammiferes_, plate 1. Paris, 1868 to 1874.
[27] "This obstacle was a forest of oaks, not giant oaks, but the very
reverse, a forest of dwarf oaks (_Quercus nana_). Far as the eye could
reach extended the singular wood, in which no tree rose above thirty
inches in height. Yet was it no thicket, no undergrowth of shrubs, but a
true forest of oaks, each tree having its separate stem, its boughs, its
lobed leaves, and its bunches of brown acorns."--Capt. Mayne Reid, _The
War Trail_, chap. lxiv.
[28] Respecting the timber trees of this tract, Dr. Ferdinand von Mueller,
the Government botanist, thus writes:--"At the desire of the writer of
these pages, Mr. D. Bogle measured a fallen tree of _Eucalyptus
amygdalina_, in the deep recesses of Dandenong, and obtained for it a
length of 420 feet, with proportions of width, indicated in a design of a
monumental structure placed in the exhibition; while Mr. G. Klein took the
measurement of a _Eucalyptus_ on the Black Spur, ten miles distant from
Healesville, 480 feet high! In the State forest of Dandenong, it was found
by actual measurement that an acre of ground contained twenty large trees
of an apparent average height of about 350 feet."--R. Brough Smyth, _The
Gold Fields of Victoria_. Melbourne, 1869.
[29] "In the next place, we must remember how impossible it is for the
mind to invent an entirely new fact. There is nothing in the mind of man
that has not pre-existed in nature. Can we imagine a person, who never saw
or heard of an elephant, drawing a picture of such a two-tailed
creature?"--J. Donelly, _Rangarok_, p. 119. New York, 1883.
[30] "I conceive that quite a large proportion of the most profound
thinkers are satisfied to exert their memory very moderately. It is, in
fact, a distraction from close thought to exert the memory overmuch, and a
man engaged in the study of an abstruse subject will commonly rather turn
to his book-shelves for the information he requires than tax his memory to
supply it."--R. A. Proctor, _Pop. Sci. Monthly_, Jan. 1874.
[31] "It was through one of these happy chances (so the Brothers Grimm
wrote in 1819) that we came to make the acquaintance of a peasant woman of
the village of Nieder-Zwehrn, near Cassel, who told us the greater part of
the Märchen of the second volume, and the most beautiful of it too. She
held the old tales firmly in her memory, and would sometimes say that this
gift was not granted to everyone, and that many a one could not keep
anything in its proper connection. Anyone inclined to believe that
tradition is easily corrupted or carelessly kept, and that therefore it
could not possibly last long, should have heard how steadily she always
abided by her record, and how she stuck to its accuracy. She never altered
anything in repeating it, and if she made a slip, at once righted herself
as soon as she became aware of it, in the very midst of her tale. The
attachment to tradition among people living on in the same kind of life
with unbroken regularity, is stronger than we, who are fond of change, can
understand."--_Odinic Songs in Shetland._ Karl Blind, _Nineteenth
Century_, June 1879.
[32] See quotation from Gladstone, _Nineteenth Century_, Oct. 1879.
[33] Mr. C. P. Daly, President of the American Geographical Society,
informs us, in his Annual Address [for 1880], that in one book found in
the royal library at Nineveh, of the date 2000 B.C., there is--
1. A catalogue of stars.
2. Enumeration of twelve constellations forming our present zodiac.
3. The intimation of a Sabbath.
4. A connection indicated (according to Mr. Perville) between the weather
and the changes of the moon.
5. A notice of the spots on the sun: a fact they could only have known by
the aid of telescopes, which it is supposed they possessed from
observations that they have noted down of the rising of Venus, and the
fact that Layard found a crystal lens in the ruins of Nineveh. (N.B.--As
to the above, I must say that telescopes are not always necessary to see
the spots on the sun: these were distinctly visible with the naked eye, in
the early mornings, to myself and the officers of the S.S. _Scotia_, in
the Red Sea, in the month of August of 1883, after the great volcanic
disturbances near Batavia. The resulting atmospheric effects were very
marked in the Red Sea, as elsewhere, the sun, when near the horizon,
appearing of a pale green colour, and exhibiting the spots distinctly.)
[34] Ammianus Marcellinus (bk. xxii., ch. xv., s. 20), in speaking of the
Pyramids, says: "There are also subterranean passages and winding
retreats, which, it is said, men skilful in the ancient mysteries, by
means of which they divined the coming of a flood, constructed in
different places lest the memory of all their sacred ceremonies should be
lost."
As affording a minor example of prophesy, I quote a correspondent's
communication, relating to Siam, to the _North China Daily News_ of July
28th, 1881:--"Singularly enough the prevalence of cholera in Siam this
season has been predicted for some months. The blossoming of the bamboo
(which in India is considered the invariable forerunner of an epidemic)
was looked upon as ominous, while the enormous quantity and high quality
of the fruit produced was cited as pointing out the overcharge of the
earth with matter which, though tending to the development of vegetable
life, is deleterious to human. From these and other sources of knowledge
open to those accustomed to read the book of nature, the prevalence of
cholera, which, since 1873, has been almost unknown in Siam, was predicted
and looked for; and, unlike most modern predictions, it has been certainly
fulfilled. So common was the belief, that when, some months since, a
foreign official in Siamese employ applied for leave of absence, it was
opposed by some of the native officials on the ground that he ought to
stay and take his chance of the cholera with the rest of them."
[35] "It is now generally admitted by biologists who have made a study of
the Vertebrata that birds have come down to us through the Dinosaurs, and
the close affinity of the latter with recent struthious birds will hardly
be questioned. The case amounts almost to a demonstration if we compare
with Dinosaurs their contemporaries, the Mesozoic birds. The classes of
birds and reptiles as now living are separated by a gulf so profound that
a few years since it was cited by the opponents of evolution as the most
important break in the animal series, and one which that doctrine could
not bridge over. Since then, as Huxley has clearly shown, this gap has
been virtually filled by the discoveries of bird-like reptiles and
reptilian birds. Compsognathus and Archæopteryx of the old world, and
Icthyornis and Hesperornis of the new, are the stepping-stones by which
the evolutionist of to-day leads the doubting brother across the shallow
remnant of the gulf, once thought impassable."--_Marsh._
[36] Professor Carl Vogt regards the Archæopteryx "as neither reptile nor
bird, but as constituting an intermediate type. He points out that there
is complete homology between the scales or spines of reptiles and the
feathers of birds. The feather of the bird is only a reptile's scale
further developed, and the reptile's scale is a feather which has remained
in the embryonic condition. He considers the reptilian homologies to
preponderate."
[37] A similar habit is ascribed by the Chinese to the mammoth and to the
gigantic Sivatherium (Fig. 6, p. 39), a four-horned stag, which had the
bulk of an elephant, and exceeded it in height. It was remarkable for
being in some respects between the stags and the pachyderms. The
Dinotherium (Fig. 8), which had a trunk like an elephant, and two inverted
tusks, presented in its skull a mixture of the characteristics of the
elephant, hippopotamus, tapir, and dugong. Its remains occur in the
Miocene of Europe.
[Illustration: FIG. 8.--DINOTHERIUM. (_After Figuier._)]
[38] "It enters Europe early in April, spreads over France, Britain,
Denmark, and the south of Sweden, which it reaches by the beginning of
May. It does not enter Brittany, the Channel Islands, or the western part
of England, never visiting Wales, except the extreme south of
Glamorganshire, and rarely extending farther north than Yorkshire."--A. R.
Wallace, _Geographical Distribution of Animals_, vol. i. p. 21. London,
1876.
[39] _Bible Customs in Bible Lands._ By H. J. Van Lennep, D.D. 1875.
Quoted in _Nature_, March 24, 1881.
[40] _Origin of Species_, C. Darwin, 5th edit. 1869.
[41] Thus Mr. Wallace considers that the identity of the small fish,
_Galaxias attenuatus_, which occurs in the mountain streams of Tasmania,
with one found in those of New Zealand, the Falkland Islands, and the
temperate regions of South America, cannot be considered as demonstrating
a land connection between these places within the period of its specific
existence. For there is a possibility that its ova have been transported
from one point to another on floating ice; and for similar reasons
fresh-water fish generally are unsafe guides to a classification of
zoological regions. Mr. Darwin has shown (_Origin of Species_, and
_Nature_, vol. xviii. p. 120 and vol. xxv. p. 529) that mollusca can be
conveyed attached to or entangled in the claws of migratory birds. Birds
themselves are liable to be blown great distances by gales of wind.
Beetles and other flying insects may be similarly transferred. Reptiles
are occasionally conveyed on floating logs and uprooted trees. Mammals
alone appear to be really trustworthy guides towards such a
classification, from their being less liable than the other classes to
accidental dispersion.
[42] _Mémoires concernant l'histoire, &c. des Chinois, par les
Missionaires de Pekin_, vol. iv. p. 481.
[43] _The Natural History of Pliny_, J. Bostock and H. T. Riley, book
viii. chap iv.
[44] _The Voyage of the Vega_, A. E. Nordenskjöld. London, 1881.
[45] _On the Range of the Mammoth in Space and Time_, by W. B. Dawkins,
_Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc._, 1879, p. 138.
[46] The notice is taken from _Les Peuples du Caucause, ou Voyage
d'Abou-el-Cassim_, par M. C. D'Ohsson, p. 80, as follows:--"On trouve
souvent dans la Boulgarie des os (fossils) d'une grandeur prodigieuse.
J'ai vu une dent qui avait deux palmes de large sur quatre de long, et un
crâne qui ressemblait à une hutte (Arabe). On y déterre des dents
semblables aux défenses d'éléphants, blanche comme la neige et pesant
jusqu' à deux cents menns. On ne sait pas à quel animal elles out
appartenu, mais on les transporte dans le Khoragur (Kiva), où elles se
vendent à grand prix. On en fait des peignes, des vases, et d'autres
objets, comme on façonne l'ivoire; toute fois cette substance est plus
dure que l'ivoire; jamais elle ne se brise."
[47] _The World before the Deluge_, L. Figuier. London, 1865.
[48] According to Woodward, over two thousand grinders were dredged up by
the fishermen of Happisburgh in the space of thirteen years; and other
localities in and about England are also noted.--Dana's _Manual of
Geology_, p. 564.
[49] Lyell, _Antiquity of Man_, p. 185, 2nd edit., 1863.
[50] Fr. μάχαιρα "a sword," and ὀδούς "a tooth."
[51] From μαστός "a teat," and ὀδούς "a tooth."
[52] _Palæontology_, R. Owen. Edinburgh, 1860.
[53] _The British Lion_, W. Boyd Dawkins, _Contemporary Review_, 1882.
[54] The Moa was associated with other species also nearly or totally
extinct: some belonging to the same genus, others to those of _Papteryx_,
of _Nestor_, and of _Notornis_. One survivor of the latter was obtained by
Mr. Gideon Mantell, and described by my father, Mr. John Gould, in 1850. I
believe the Nestor is still, rarely, met with. Mr. Mantell is of opinion
that the Moa and his congeners continued in existence long after the
advent of the aboriginal Maori. Mr. Mantell discovered a gigantic fossil
egg, presumably that of the Moa.
[55] A. E. Nordenskjöld, _The Voyage of the 'Vega,'_ vol. i. p. 272, _et
seq._ London, 1881.
[56] Pliny, _Nat. Hist._, Bk. x., chap. xvii., and Bk. xxx., chap. liii.
[57] _The Romance of Natural History_, by P. H. Gosse, 2nd Series, London
1875.
[58] _Pop. Sci. Monthly_, October 1878.
[59] _Excelsior_, vol. iii. London, 1855.
[60] _The Chinese Classics_, vol. iii. p. 1, by James Legge, B.D.
[61] Inaugural Address by President, T. W. Kingsmill, North China Branch
of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1877.
[62] Chabas, _Études sur l'Antiquité Historique, d'après les sources
Égyptiennes_.
[63] Subsequently to 1874.
[64] O. F. von Mollendorf, _Journal_ of North China Branch of the Royal
Asiatic Society, New Series, No. 2, and T. W. Kingsmill, "The Border Lands
of Geology and History," _Journal_ of North China Branch of the Royal
Asiatic Society, 1877.
[65] "Intercourse of China with Eastern Turkestan and the adjacent country
in the second century B.C.," T. W. Kingsmill, _Journal_ of North China
Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, New Series, No. 14.
[66] _The Natural History of Pliny._ Translated by J. Bostock and H. T.
Biley, 6 vols. Bohn, London, 1857.
[67] _Æliani de Natura Animalium_, F. Jacobs. Jenæ, 1832.
[68] _Géographie d'Edrisi, traduite de l'Arabe en Français_, P. Amédée
Jaubert, 2 vols. Paris, 1836.
[69] _Phil. Trans._, vol. cxlix. p. 43, 1859; vol. clxxi. p. 1,037, 1880;
vol. clxxii. p. 547, 1881.
[70] Description of some New Species and Genera of Reptiles from Western
Australia, discovered by John Gould, Esq., _Annals and Magazine of Natural
History_, vol. vii. p. 88, 1841.
[71] "We shall, I think, eventually more fully recognise that, as is the
case with the periods of the day, each of the larger geological divisions
follows the other, without any actual break or boundary; and that the
minor subdivisions are like the hours on the clock, useful and
conventional rather than absolutely fixed by any general cause in
Nature."--Annual Address, President of Geological Society, 1875.
"With regard to stratigraphical geology, the main foundations are already
laid, and a great part of the details filled in. The tendency of modern
discoveries has already been, and will probably still be, to fill up those
breaks, which, according to the view of many, though by no means all
geologists, are so frequently assumed to exist between different
geological periods and to bring about a more full recognition of the
continuity of geological time. As knowledge increases, it will, I think,
become more and more apparent that all existing divisions of time are to a
considerable extent local and arbitrary. But, even when this is fully
recognised, it will still be found desirable to retain them, if only for
the sake of convenience and approximate precision."--Annual Address,
President of Geological Society, 1876.
[72] "It was not until January 1832, that the second volume of the
_Principles_ was published, when it was received with as much favour as
the first had been. It related more especially to the changes in the
organic world, while the former volume had treated mainly of the inorganic
forces of nature. Singularly enough, some of the points which were seized
on by his great fellow-labourer Murchison for his presidential address to
this Society in 1832, as subjects for felicitation, are precisely those
which the candid mind of Lyell, ever ready to attach the full value to
discoveries or arguments from time to time brought forward, even when in
opposition to his own views, ultimately found reason to modify. We can
never, I think, more highly appreciate Sir Charles Lyell's freshness of
mind, his candour and love of truth, than when we compare certain portions
of the first edition of the _Principles_ with those which occupy the same
place in the last, and trace the manner in which his judicial intellect
was eventually led to conclusions diametrically opposed to those which he
originally held. To those acquainted only with the latest editions of the
_Principles_, and with his _Antiquity of Man_, it may sound almost
ironical in Murchison to have written, 'I cannot avoid noticing the clear
and impartial manner in which the untenable parts of the dogmas concerning
the alteration and transmutation of species and genera are refuted, and
how satisfactorily the author confirms the great truth of the recent
appearance of man upon our planet.'
"By the work (_Principles of Geology_, vol. iii.), as a whole, was dealt
the most telling blow that had ever fallen upon those to whom it appears
'more philosophical to speculate on the possibilities of the past than
patiently to explore the realities of the present,' while the earnest and
careful endeavour to reconcile the former indications of change with the
evidence of gradual mutation now in progress, or _which may be_ in
progress, received its greatest encouragement. The doctrines which Hutton
and Playfair had held and taught assumed new and more vigorous life as
better principles were explained by their eminent successor, and were
supported by arguments which, as a whole, were incontrovertible."--Annual
Address, President of Geological Society, 1876.
"But, as Sir Roderick Murchison has long ago proved, there are parts of
the record which are singularly complete, and in those parts we have the
proof of creation without any indication of development. The Silurian
rocks, as regards oceanic life, are perfect and abundant in the forms they
have preserved. _Yet there are no fish._ The Devonian age followed
tranquilly and without a break, and in the Devonian sea, suddenly, fish
appear, appear in shoals, and in form of the highest and most perfect
type."--The Duke of Argyll, _Primeval Man_, p. 45, London, 1869.
[73] T. Mellard Reade, "Limestone as an Index of Geological Time,"
_Proceedings_, Royal Society, London, vol. xxviii., p. 281.
[74] _Scientific American_, Supplement, February 1881.
[75] _Proceedings_, Royal Society, vol. xv. No. 82, 1866.
[76] _Athenæum_, August 25, 1860, &c.
[77] The mass of astronomers, however, deny that this is possible to any
very great extent.
[78] James Croll, F.R.S., &c., _Climate and Time in their Geological
Relations_.
[79] Figs. 19 and 21 are taken, by permission of Edmund Christy, Esq.,
from _Reliquiæ Aquitanicæ_, &c., London, 1875.
[80] In some cases as much as 150 feet.
[81] "Starting from the opinion generally accepted among geologists, that
man was on the earth at the close of the Glacial epoch, Professor B. F.
Mudge adduces evidence to prove that the antiquity of man cannot be less
than 200,000 years.
"His argument, as given in the Kansas City Review of Science, is about as
follows:--
"After the Glacial epoch, geologists fix three distinct epochs, the
Champlain, the Terrace, and the Delta, all supposed to be of nearly equal
lengths.
"Now we have in the delta of the Mississippi a means of measuring the
duration of the third of these epochs.
"For a distance of about two hundred miles of this delta are seen forest
growths of large trees, one after the other, with interspaces of sand.
There are ten of these distinct forest growths, which have begun and ended
one after the other. The trees are the bald cypress (_Taxodium_) of the
Southern States, and some of them were over twenty-five feet in diameter.
One contained over five thousand seven hundred annual rings. In some
instances these huge trees have grown over the stumps of others equally
large, and such instances occur in all, or nearly all, of the ten forest
beds. This gives to each forest a period of 10,000 years.
"Ten such periods give 100,000 years, to say nothing of the time covered
by the interval between the ending of one forest and the beginning of
another, an interval which in most cases was considerable.
"'Such evidence,' writes Professor Mudge, 'would be received in any court
of law as sound and satisfactory. We do not see how such proof is to be
discarded when applied to the antiquity of our race.
"'There is satisfactory evidence that man lived in the Champlain epoch.
But the Terrace epoch, or the greater part of it, intervenes between the
Champlain and the Delta epochs, thus adding to my 100,000 years.
"'If only as much time is given to both those epochs as to the Delta
period, 200,000 years is the total result.'"--_Popular Science Monthly_,
No. 91, vol. xvi. No. 1, p. 140, November 1878.
[82] Such as the destruction of the Alexandrine Library on three distinct
occasions, (1) upon the conquest of Alexandria by Julius Cæsar, B.C. 48;
(2) in A.D. 390; and, (3) by Amrou, the general of the Caliph Omar, in
640, who ordered it to be burnt, and so supplied the baths with fuel for
six months. Again, the destruction of all Chinese books by order of Tsin
Shi Hwang-ti, the founder of the Imperial branch of the Tsin dynasty, and
the first Emperor of United China; the only exceptions allowed being those
relating to medicine, divination, and husbandry. This took place in the
year 213 B.C.
[83] The Chinese have used composite blocks (wood engraved blocks with
many characters, analogous to our stereotype plates) from an early period.
May not the brick-clay tablets preserved in the Imperial Library at
Babylon have been used for striking off impressions on some plastic
material, just as rubbings may be taken from the stone drums in China: may
not the cylinders with inscribed characters have been used in some way or
other as printing-rollers for propagating knowledge or proclamations?
[84] As, for example, the old canal from the Nile to the Red Sea, in
reference to which Herodotus says (_Euterpe_, 158), "Neco was the son of
Psammitichus, and became King of Egypt: he first set about the canal that
leads to the Red Sea, which Darius the Persian afterwards completed. Its
length is a voyage of four days, and in width it was dug so that two
triremes might sail rowed abreast. The water is drawn into it from the
Nile, and it enters it a little above the city Bubastis, passes near the
Arabian city Patumos, and reaches to the Red Sea." In the digging of which
one hundred and twenty thousand Egyptians perished in the reign of Neco.
[85] The co-called tanks at Aden, reservoirs constructed one below the
other, in a gorge near the cantonments, are as perfect now as they were
when they left the hand of the contractor or royal engineer in the time of
Moses.
[86] In the 29th year of the Emperor Kwei [B.C. 1559] they chiselled
through mountains and tunnelled hills, according to the Bamboo Books.
[87] An interesting line of investigation might be opened up as to the
origin of inventions and the date of their migrations. The Chinese claim
the priority of many discoveries, such as chess, printing, issue of
bank-notes, sinking of artesian wells, gunpowder, suspension bridges, the
mariner's compass, &c. &c. I extract two remarkable wood-cuts from the
_San Li T'u_, one appended here showing the origin of our college cap; the
other, in the chapter on the Unicorn, appearing to illustrate the fable of
the Sphynx.
[Illustration: FIG. 22.--ROYAL DIADEM OF THE CHEN DYNASTY. (_From the San
Li T'u._)]
I also give a series of engravings, reduced facsimiles of those contained
in a celebrated Chinese work on antiquities, showing the gradual evolution
of the so-called Grecian pattern or scroll ornamentation, and origination
of some of the Greek forms of tripods.
[88] "The old Troglodytes, pile villagers, and bog people, prove to be
quite a respectable society. They have heads so large that many a living
person would be only too happy to possess such."--A. Mitchell, _The Past
in the Present_, Edinburgh, 1880.
[89] I have given in the annexed plates a few examples of the early
hieroglyphics on which the modern Chinese system of writing is based,
selected from a limited number collected by the early Jesuit fathers in
China, and contained in the _Mémoirs concernant l'Histoire, &c. des
Chinois, par les Missionaires de Pekin_, vol. i., Paris, 1776. The modern
Chinese characters conveying the same idea are attached, and their
derivation from the pictorial hieroglyphics, by modification or
contraction, is in nearly all cases obvious.
[90] "The Porcelain Tower of Nankin, once one of the seven wonders of the
world, can now only be found piecemeal in walls of peasants'
huts."--Gutzlaff, _Hist. China_, vol. i. p. 372.
[91] The outer casing of the pyramid of Cheops, which Herodotus
(_Euterpe_, 125) states to have still exhibited in his time an
inscription, telling how much was expended (one thousand six hundred
talents of silver) in radishes, onions, and garlic for the workmen, has
entirely disappeared; as also, almost completely, the marble casing of the
adjacent pyramid of Sen-Saophis. According to tradition the missing
marbles in each instance were taken to build palaces with in Cairo.
[92] "The work of destruction was carried on methodically. From the
Caspian Sea to the Indus, the Mongols ruined, within four years, more than
four centuries of continuous labour have since restored. The most
flourishing cities became a mass of ruins: Samarkand, Bokhara, Nizabour,
Balkh, and Kandahar shared in the same destruction."--Gutzlaff, _Hist.
China_, vol. i. p. 358.
[93] "An army of 700,000 Mongols met half the number of
Mahommedans."--_Ibid._ p. 357.
[94] Those interested in the subject may read with great advantage the
section on dynamical geology in Dana's valuable manual. He points out the
large amount of wear accomplished by wind carrying sand in arid regions,
by seeds falling in some crevice, and bursting rocks open through the
action of the roots developed from their sprouting, to say nothing of the
more ordinarily recognized destructive agencies of frost and rain,
carbonic acid resulting from vegetable decomposition, &c.
[95] Darwin, in _Vegetable Mould and Earth-worms_, has shown that
earthworms play a considerable part in burying old buildings, even to a
depth of several feet.
[96] Rev. T. K. Cheyne, Article "Deluge," _Encyclopædia Britannica_, 1877.
François Lenormant, "The Deluge, its Traditions in Ancient Histories,"
_Contemporary Review_, Nov., 1879.
[97] Bunsen estimates that 20,000 years were requisite for the formation
of the Chinese language. This, however, is not conceded by other
philologists.
[98] Rawlinson quotes the African type on the Egyptian sculptures as being
identical with that of the negro of the present day.
[99] "While the tradition of the Deluge holds so considerable a place in
the legendary memories of all branches of the Aryan race, the monuments
and original texts of Egypt, with their many cosmogenic speculations, have
not afforded one, even distant, allusion to this cataclysm. When the
Greeks told the Egyptian priests of the Deluge of Deucalion, their reply
was that they had been preserved from it as well as from the conflagration
produced by Phaeton; they even added that the Hellenes were childish in
attaching so much importance to that event, as there had been several
local catastrophes resembling it."--Lenormant, _Contemporary Review_,
November 1879.
[100] François Lenormant, "The Deluge; its Traditions in Ancient
Histories," _Contemporary Review_, vol. xxxvi. p. 465.
[101] Here several verses are wanting.
[102] "The water of the twilight at break of day," one of the
personifications of rain.
[103] The god of thunder.
[104] The god of war and death.
[105] The Chaldæo-Assyrian Hercules.
[106] The superior heaven of the fixed stars.
[107] Vases of the measure called in Hebrew _Seäh_. This relates to a
detail of the ritualistic prescriptions for sacrifice.
[108] These metaphorical expressions appear to designate the rainbow.
[109] The god of epidemics.
[110] It is probably as much from a superstitious sentiment as upon merely
physical grounds that many of the deserted cities in Asia have been
abandoned; while, as a noticeable instance, we may quote Gour, the ruined
capital of Bengal, which is computed to have extended from fifteen to
twenty miles along the bank of the river, and three in depth. The native
tradition is that it was struck by the wrath of the gods in the form of an
epidemic which slew the whole population. Another case is the reputed
presence of a ruined city, in the vicinity of the populous city of
Nanking, and at some distance from the right bank of the river Yangtsze,
of which the walls only remain, and of the history of which those in the
vicinity profess to have lost all record.
[111] _i.e._ (according to the Historical Records) a carriage to travel
along the dry land, a boat to travel along the water, a sledge to travel
through miry places, and, by using spikes, to travel on the hills.
[112] Balfour, _North China Daily News_, Feb. 11, 1881.
[113] Dr. Schliemann found a vase in the lowest strata of his excavations
at Hissarlik with an inscription in an unknown language.
Six years ago the Orientalist E. Burnouf declared it to be in Chinese, for
which he was generally laughed at at the time.
The Chinese ambassador at Berlin, Li Fang-pau, has read and translated the
inscription, which states that three pieces of linen gauze are packed in
the vase for inspection.
The Chinese ambassador fixes the date of the inscription at about 1200
B.C., and further states that the unknown characters so frequently
occurring on the terra cotta are also in the Chinese language, which would
show that at this remote period commercial intercourse existed between
China and the eastern shores of Asia Minor and Greece.--_Pop. Sci.
Monthly_, No. 98, p. 176, June 1880.
[114] Pierre Bergeron suggests that Solomon's fleets, starting from
Ezion-geber (subsequently Berenice and now Alcacu), arrived at
Babelmandeb, and then divided, one portion going to Malacca, Sumatra, or
Java, the other to Sofala, round Africa, and returning by way of Cadiz and
the Mediterranean to Joppa.
[115] There are various accounts of the circumnavigation of Africa in old
times. For example, Herodotus (_Melpomene_, 42): "Libya shows itself to be
surrounded by water, except so much of it as borders upon Asia. Neco, King
of Egypt, was the first whom we know of that proved this; he, when he had
ceased digging the canal leading from the Nile to the Arabian gulf, sent
certain Phœnicians in ships with orders to sail back through the pillars
of Hercules into the Northern Sea, and so to return to Egypt. The
Phœnicians accordingly, setting out from the Red Sea, navigated the
Southern Sea; when autumn came they went ashore, and sowed the land, by
whatever part of Libya they happened to be sailing, and waited for
harvest; then, having reaped the corn, they put to sea again. When two
years had thus passed, in the third, having doubled the pillars of
Hercules, they arrived in Egypt, and related what to me does not seem
credible, but may to others, that as they sailed round Libya, they had the
sun on the right hand." Again, Pliny tells us (Book ii. chap. lxvii,
Translation by Bostock and Riley), "While the power of Carthage was at its
height, Hanno published an account of a voyage which he made from Gades to
the extremity of Arabia: besides, we learn from Cornelius Nepos, that one
Eudoxus, a contemporary of his, when he was flying from King Lathyrus, set
out from the Arabian Gulf, and was carried as far as Gades. And long
before him, Cœlius Antipater informs us, that he had seen a person who had
sailed from Spain to Ethiopia for the purposes of trade. The same
Cornelius Nepos, when speaking of the northern circumnavigation, tells us
that Q. Metellus Celer, the colleague of L. Afranius in the consulship,
but then proconsul in Gaul, had a present made to him by the King of the
Suevi, of certain Indians, who, sailing from India for the purposes of
commerce, had been driven by tempests into Germany."
Ptolemy Lathyrus commenced his reign 117 B.C. and reigned for thirty-six
years. Cornelius Nepos is supposed to have lived in the century previous
to the Christian era, and Cœlius Antipater to have been born in the middle
of the second century B.C.
[116] Edrisi compiled, under the instruction of Roger, King of Sicily,
Italy, Lombardy, and Calabria, an exhaustive geographical treatise
comprising information derived from numerous preceding works, principally
Arabic, and from the testimony of all the geographers of the day.
_Vide_ the Translation into French by M. Amédée Jaubert, 2 vols. 4to,
Paris, 1836, included in the _Recueil de Voyages et de Mémoires publié par
la Société de Géographie_.
"Ce pays touch celui de Wac Wac où sont deux villes misérables et mal
peuplées à cause de la rareté des subsistances et du peu de ressource en
tout genre; l'une se nomme Derou et l'autre Nebhena; dans son voisinage
est un grand bourg nommé Da'rgha. Les naturels sont noirs, de figure
hideuse, de complexion difformé; leur langage est une espèce de
sifflement. Ils sont absolument nus et sont peu visités (par les
étrangers). Ils vivent de poissons, de coquillages, et de tortues. Ils
sont (comme il vient d'être dit) voisins de l'ile de Wac Wac dont nous
reparlerons, s'il plait à Dieu. Chacun de ces pays et de ces iles est
situé sur un grand golfe, on n'y trouve ni or, ni commerce, ni navire, ni
bêtes de somme."--_El Edrisi_, vol. i. p. 79.
[117] The _Agave Americane_, which substance has as many uses among the
Mexicans as the bamboo (the iron of China) among the Chinese, or the camel
among nomads.
[118] _The Thousand and One Nights_, vol. iii. chap. xxv. p. 480, Note 32,
E. W. Lane, London, 1877.
A similar account is given by Quazvini. See _Scriptorum Arabum de Rebus
Indicis_, J. Gildemeister, Bonn, 1838.
[119] The diggings are seventy to one hundred and fifty miles from Port
Darwin. There is gold on Victoria River.
Jacks, in his report to the Queensland Government, published March or
April of 1880, reports no paying gold in Yorke's peninsula.
One hundred miles from Port Darwin and twenty-six miles from the Adelaide
River a new rush occurred in July 1880: nuggets from 70 to 80 oz. of
common occurrence; one found weighed 187 oz.
[120] _Scientific American_, Aug. 14, 1880.
[121] E. J. Elliott, "The Age of Cave Dwellers in America," _Pop. Sci.
Monthly_, vol. xv. p. 488.
[122] _Scientific American_, Jan. 24, 1880.
[123] _Macmillan's Magazine_, quoted in _Pop. Sci. Monthly_, No. 82.
[124] _Œuvres_, I. 7, pp. 197, 198.
[125] _Two Voyages to New England_, p. 124; London, 1673.
[126] Robert Knox, _The Races of Men_; London, 1850.
[127] _Principles of Geology_, chap. xii.
[128] _Atlantis_, by Ignatius Donelly; New York, 1882.
[129] It is given in great detail by Mr. Donelly; want of space forbids my
including it.
[130] I use the text of the edition of Diodorus Siculus of L. Rhodomanus,
Amsterdam, 1746.
[131] "Professor Virchow considers this an example how certain artistical
or technical forms are developed simultaneously, without any connection or
relation between the artists or craftsmen."--Preface to _Ilios_,
Schliemann. Murray, 1880.
[132] Knivet's description of the West Indies, _Harris' Voyages_, vol. i.
p. 705.
[133] T. Wright, _Marco Polo_, p. 267. Bohn, 1854.
[134] _Harris' Voyages_, vol. i. p. 859.
[135] Dr. J. le Conte describes a ceremonial of cremation among the Cocopa
Indians of California, and it is an ancient practice among the Chinese,
dating back beyond the Greek and Roman historical periods.
[136] British Association, 1871.
[137] Staunton, _China_, vol. ii. p. 455.
[138] Humboldt, _Researches in America_, English Translation, vol. i. p.
133.
[139] "In turning to the consideration of the primitive works of art of
the American continent ... when in the bronze work of the later iron
period, imitative forms at length appear, they are chiefly the snake and
dragon shapes and patterns, borrowed seemingly by Celtic and Teutonic
wanderers, with the wild fancies of their mythology, from the far eastern
land of their birth."--D. Wilson, _Prehistoric Man_, 1862.
"He had remarked that the Indians of the north-west coast frequently
repeat in their well-known blackstone carvings the dragon, the lotus
flower, and the alligator."--C. G. Leland, _Fusang_, London, 1875.
[140] "Dragon, an imaginary animal something like a crocodile."--Rev. Dr.
Brewer, _Dictionary of Phrase and Fable_, p. 243.
[141] "In the woods of Java are certain flying snakes, or rather drakes;
they have four legs, a long tail, and their skin speckled with many spots,
their wings are not unlike those of a bat, which they move in flying, but
otherwise keep them almost unperceived close to the body. They fly nimbly,
but cannot hold it long, so that they fly from tree to tree at about
twenty or thirty paces' distance. On the outside of the throat are two
bladders, which, being extended when they fly, serve them instead of a
sail. They feed upon flies and other insects."--Mr. John Nieuhoff's Voyage
and Travels to the East Indies, contained in a collection of _Voyages and
Travels_, in 6 vols., vol. ii. p. 317; Churchill, London, 1732.
[142] _Chambers' Encyclopædia_, vol. iii. p. 635.
[143] The following is the nearest approach to such an assertion I have
met with, but appears from the context to apply to geologic time prior to
the advent of man. "When all those large and monstrous amphibia since
regarded as fabulous still in reality existed, when the confines of the
water and the land teemed with gigantic saurians, with lizards of
dimensions much exceeding those of the largest crocodiles of the present
day: who to the scaly bodies of fish, added the claws of beasts, and the
neck and wings of birds: who to the faculty of swimming in water, added
not only that of moving on the earth but that of sailing in air: and who
had all the characteristics of what we now call chimeras and dragons, and
perhaps of such monsters the remains, found among the bones and skeletons
of other animals more resembling those that still exist and propagate, in
the grottos and caverns in which they sought shelter during the deluges
that affected the infancy of the globe, gave first rise to the idea that
these dens and caves were once retreats whence such monsters watched and
in which they devoured other animals."--Thomas Hope, _On the Origin and
Prospects of Man_, vol. ii. p. 346; London, 1831.
Southey, in his Commonplace Book, pityingly alludes to this passage,
saying, "He believes in dragons and griffins as having heretofore
existed."
[144] From the context, Lanuvium appears to have been on the Appian Road,
in Latium, about twenty-fives miles from Rome.
[145] Propertius, _Elegy VIII._; Bohn, 1854.
[146] _History of Animals_, Book ix., chap. ii. § 3; Bohn.
[147] _Ibid._, Book vi., chap. xx. § 12.
[148] _Ibid._, Book i., § 6.
[149] _History of Animals_, Book ix., chap. vii. § 4.
[150] _Natural History of Pliny_, Book viii., chap. xli., translated by J.
Bostock and H. T. Riley; London, 1855.
[151] _Anim. Nat._, Book vi., chap. iv.
[152] _Natural History_, Book viii., chap. xxii.
[153] "On the contrary, towards ourselves they were disappointingly
undemonstrative, and only evinced their consciousness of the presence of
strangers by entwining themselves about the members of the family as if
soliciting their protection.... They were very jealous of each other, Mr.
Mann said; jealous also of other company, as if unwilling to lose their
share of attention.... Two sweet little children were equally familiar
with the other boas, that seemed quite to know who were their friends and
playfellows, for the children handled them and petted them and talked to
them as we talk to pet birds and cats."--Account of Snakes kept by Mr. and
Mrs. Mann, of Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, in _Snakes_, by C. C. Hopley; London,
1882.
[154] _Natural History_, Book xxix., chap. xx.
[155] "It is probable that the island of Zanig described by Qazvinius, in
his geographical work (for extracts from which vide _Scriptorum Arabum de
Rebus Indicis loci et opuscula inedita_, by I. Gildemeister, Bonnæ, 1838),
as the seat of the empire of the Mahraj, is identical with Zaledj. He says
that it is a large island on the confines of China towards India, and that
among other remarkable features is a mountain called Nacan (Kini Balu?),
on which are serpents of such magnitude as to be able to swallow oxen,
buffaloes, and even elephants. Masudi includes Zanig, Kalah, and Taprobana
among the islands constituting the territory of the Mahraj."--P. Amédée
Jaubert, _Géographie d'Edrisi_, vol. i. p. 104; Paris, 1836.
[156] Book vi., chap. iv. § 16.
[157] _Serpent Worship_, p. 35; Welder, New York, 1877.
[158] _Pliny's Natural History_, Book viii., chap. xi., translated by J.
Bostock and H. T. Riley; Bohn, London, 1855.
[159] _Pliny's Natural History_, Book viii., chap. xii.
[160] _Ibid._, Book viii., chap. xiii.
[161] _Ibid._, Book viii., chap. xiv.
[162] "At the present day the longest Italian serpents are the Æsculapian
serpent (a harmless animal) and the _Colubes quadrilineatus_, neither of
which exceeds ten feet in length."--_Nat. Hist._, Book viii., chap. xiv.
[163] _Aristotle's History of Animals_, Book viii., chap. xxvii. § 6, by
R. Cresswell, Bohn's Series; Bell, London, 1878.
[164] An abridgment of these travels is contained in _Voyages par Pierre
Bergeron_, à la Haye, 1735. They were originally written in Hebrew,
translated into Latin by Benoit Arian Montare, and subsequently into
French. [The introduction refers to his return to Castille in 1173,
presumably after the termination of his voyages; but in the opening
paragraph there is a marginal note giving the same date to his setting out
from Sarragossa.] Sir John Mandeville gives a similar account in speaking
of the tower of Babylon; he says, "but it is full long sithe that any man
durste neyhe to the Tour: for it is all deserte and fulle of Dragouns and
grete serpents, and fulle of dyverse venemous Bestes alle about he."--_The
Voyages of Sir John Mandeville, Kt._, p. 40; J. O. Halliwell, London,
1839.
[165] _Harris's Voyages_, vol. i. p. 360.
[166] _Ibid._, vol. i. p. 392.
[167] _Encyclopædia of Arts and Sciences_, first American edition,
Philadelphia, 1798.
[168] See _Voyage to the East Indies_, by Francis Leguat; London, 1708.
Leguat hardly makes the positive affirmation stated in the text. In
describing Batavia he says there is another sort of serpents which are at
least fifty feet long.
[169] Broderip, _Leaves from the Note Book of a Naturalist_, p. 357.
[170] _Australasia_, p. 273.
[171] _Quedah_; London, 1857.
[172] _Perak and the Malays_, p. 77.
[173] _Figuier, Reptiles and Birds_, p. 51.
[174] _La Chine Illustré_, d'Athase Keichere, chap. x. p. 272. Amsterdam,
CIↃ ICↃ LXX.
[175] Vol. i. p. 601.
[176] See _Proceedings_ of Royal Society of Tasmania, September 13, 1880.
Mr. C. M. Officer states--"With reference to the Mindi or Mallee snake, it
has often been described to me as a formidable creature of at least thirty
feet in length, which confined itself to the Mallee scrub. No one,
however, has ever seen one, for the simple reason that to see it is to
die, so fierce it is, and so great its power of destruction. Like the
Bunyip, I believe the Mindi to be a myth, a mere tradition."
[177] Pinkerton's _Voyages_, vol. xiv. p. 247.
[178] _Ibid._, vol. xiv. p. 514.
[179] It is interesting to compare this belief with stories given
elsewhere, by Pliny, Book viii. chap. xiv., and Ælian, Book ii. chap.
xxi., of the power of the serpents or dragons of the river Rhyndacus to
attract birds by inhalation.
[180] Pinkerton's _Voyages_, vol. xiv. p. 713.
[181] Herodotus, Book iii. chap. cvii., cviii.
[182] Herodotus, Book iii. chap. cviii.
[183] Herodotus, Book ii., chap. lxxv.
[184] _Ibid._, Book ii., chap. lxxvi.
[185] _Ibid._, Book i., chap. v.
[186] _Antiquities of the Jews_, Book ii., chap. x.
[187] Book viii. chap. xxxv.
[188] _Pharsalia_, Book ix.
[189] Herodotus, Book iv. chap. cv.
[190] Book iii. chap. xx.
[191] "It may be some comfort to graziers and selectors who are
struggling, under many discouragements, to suppress the rabbit plague in
Victoria, to learn that our condition, bad as it is, is certainly less
serious than that of New Zealand. There, not only is an immense area of
good country being abandoned in consequence of the inability of lessees to
bear the great expense of clearing the land of rabbits, but, owing to the
increase of the pest, the number of sheep depastured is decreasing at a
serious rate. Three years ago the number exceeded thirteen millions; but
it is estimated that they have since been diminished by two millions,
while the exports of the colony have, in consequence, fallen off to the
extent of £500,000 per annum. A Rabbit Nuisance Act has been in existence
for some time, but it is obviously inefficient, and it is now proposed to
make its provisions more stringent, and applicable alike to the Government
as well as to private landowners. A select committee of both Houses of the
Legislature, which has recently taken a large amount of evidence upon this
subject, reports in the most emphatic terms its conviction that unless
immediate and energetic action is taken to arrest the further extension
of, and to suppress the plague, the result will be ruinous to the colony.
A perusal of the evidence adduced decidedly supports this opinion. Many of
the squatters cannot be accused of apathy. Some of them have employed
scores of men, and spent thousands of pounds a year in ineffectual efforts
to eradicate the rabbits from their runs. One firm last year is believed
to have killed no less than 500,000; but the following spring their run
was in as bad a state as if they had never put any poison down. Similar
instances of failure could be easily multiplied. It is found, as with us,
that one of the chief causes of non-success is the fact that the
Government do not take sufficient steps to destroy the rabbits on
unoccupied Crown lands. This foolish policy, of course, at once diminishes
the letting value of the adjacent pastoral country--to such an extent,
indeed, that instances have occurred in which 34,000 acres have been
leased for £10 a year. Poison is regarded as the most destructive agent
that can be employed, and it is especially effective when mixed with oats
and wheat, a striking testimony to the value of Captain Raymond's
discovery. Most of the witnesses examined were strongly of opinion that
the Administration of the Rabbit Suppression Act should not be left to
private and, perhaps, interested persons, as at present, but should be
conducted by officers of the Government, probably the sheep inspectors, on
a principle similar to that by which the scab was eradicated from the
flocks of the colony. The joint committee adopted this view, and also
recommended the Legislature to enact that all unoccupied Crown land, as
well as all native, reserved, or private land, should bear a proportionate
share of the cost of destroying the rabbits, and of administering the act.
It is to be hoped that, in the midst of the party conflicts which have so
impeded practical legislation this session, the Parliament will yet find
time to give effect to the useful recommendations of the Rabbit Nuisance
Committee."--_Australasian_, 10th September 1881.
[192] Book xv. chap. i. § 37.
[193] See Smith's _Dictionary of the Bible_, p. 145-47. Murray, 1863.
[194] _Æneid_, Book vii. 561.
[195]
Non Arabum volucer serpens, innataque rubris
Æquoribus custos pretiosæ vipera conchæ
Aut viventis adhuc Lybici membrana cerastæ.--
_Pharsalia_, Book vi. 677.
[196] The popular illustrations of the Story of the Black and White Snakes
given by him, a favourite story among the Chinese, always represent them
as winged. _Folk Lore of China_, N. P. Dennys, Ph.D.
[197] Broderip, _Zoological Recreations_, p. 333.
[198] Compare Shakspeare, "Peace, Kent. Come not between the Dragon and
his wrath."
[199] _Metamorphoses_, Book iii. 35, translated by H. J. Riley; London,
1872.
[200] In reference to colours so bright as to be inconsistent with our
knowledge of the ordinary colours of reptiles, it may be of interest to
compare the description by D'Argensola--who wrote the history of the
successive conquests of the Moluccas, by the Spaniards, Portuguese and
Dutch--of a blue and golden saurian existing upon a volcanic mountain in
Tarnate. "Il y a aussi sur cette montagne un grand lac d'eau douce,
entouré d'arbres, dans lequel on voit de crocodiles azurés et dorés qui
ont plus d'un brasse de longueur, et qui se plongent dans l'eau lors
qu'ils entendent des hommes."--D'Argensola, vol. iii. p. 4, translated
from the Spanish, 3 vols.; J. Desbordes, Amsterdam, 1706. And Pliny, _Nat.
Hist._, Book viii. chap. xxviii., speaks of lizards upon Nysa, a mountain
of India, twenty-four feet long, their colour being either yellow, purple,
or azure blue.
[201] Ovid, _Fasti_, Book iv. 501.
[202] These wood-cuts occur on pp. 239, 240.
[203] Broderip, _Zoological Recreations_, p. 332.
[204] Lucan, _Pharsalia_, Book ix. 726-32.
[205] Book xvi. chap. x.
[206] Book xv. chap. v.; A.D. 355.
[207] Lord Lytton, _King Arthur_, Book i. Stanza 4.
[208] _Chamber's Cyclopædia_, 1881.
[209] J. Grimm, _Deutsche Mythologie_, vol. ii. p. 653.
[210] A dragon without wings is called a lintworm or lindworm, which Grimm
explains to mean a beautiful or shining worm (here again we have a
corroboration of the idea of the gold and silver dragon given _ante_.)
[211] Brewer's _Dictionary of Phrase and Fable_.
[212] Rev. Dr. Brewer, _Dictionary of Phrase and Fable_, London.
[213] _The Harleian Collection of Travels_, vol. ii. p. 457. 1745.
[214] The italics are mine.
[215] Churchill, _Collection of Voyages_, vol. v. p. 213; London, 1746.
[216] Ulyssis Aldrovandi _Serpentum et Draconum Historiæ_; Bononiæ, 1640.
[217] Scaliger, lib. iii. Miscell. cap. i. See _ante_, p. 182, "Winged
Serpents."
[218] _De Naturâ Rerum_, lib. vii., cap. 29.
[219] Athanasii Kircheri _Mundus Subterraneus_, Book viii. 27.
[220] Probably many of my readers are acquainted with Schiller's poem
based on this story, and with the beautiful designs by Retsch illustrating
it.
[221] Harris, _Collection of Voyages_, vol. i. p. 474; London, 1764.
[222] _De Moribus Brachmanorum_, p. 63. Strabo, lib. 16, p. 75. Bochart
Hieroz, p. 11, lib. 3, cap. 13.
[223] Ælian, _De Animal._, lib. xv. cap. 21.
[224] Strabo, lib. xvi.
[225] Gosse tells us that it is still a common belief in Jamaica that
crested snakes exist there which crow like a cock.
[226] Strabo, lib. xvi.
[227] Jonston, _Theatr. Animal._, tome ii. p. 34, "De Serpentibus."
Note.--It is interesting to record that in China, to the present day, the
tradition of the gold and silver scaled species of dragons remains alive.
Two magnificent dragons, 200 feet and 150 feet long, representing
respectively the gold and silver dragon, formed part of the processions in
Hongkong in December 1881, in honour of the young princes.
[228] Strabo, lib. xvi.
[229] In China the dragon is peculiarly the emblem of imperial power, as
with us the lion is of the kingly. The Emperor is said to be seated on the
dragon throne. A five-clawed dragon is embroidered on the Emperor's
court-robes. It often surrounds his edicts, and the title-pages of books
published by his authority, and dragons are inscribed on his banners. It
is drawn stretched out at full length or curled up with two legs pointing
forwards and two backwards; sometimes holding a pearl in one hand, and
surrounded by clouds and fire.
[230] The _Yih King_--extracts from papers by Monsieur De la Couperie, in
the _Journal_ of the Royal Asiatic Society.
"The _Yih King_ is the oldest of the Chinese books, and is the mysterious
classic which requires '_a prolonged attention to make it reveal its
secrets_'; it has peculiarities of style, making it the most difficult of
all the Chinese classics to present in an intelligible version."
"We have multifarious proofs that the writing, first known in China, was
already an old one, partially decayed, but also much improved since its
primitive hieroglyphic stage. We have convincing proofs (_vide_ my 'Early
History of Chinese Civilization,' pp. 21-23, and the last section of the
present paper) that it had been borrowed, by the early leaders of the
Chinese Bak families [Poh Sing] in Western Asia, from an horizontal
writing traced from left to right, the pre-cuneiform character, which
previously had itself undergone several important modifications.
"At that time the Ku-wen was really the phonetic expression of speech. (By
an analysis of the old inscriptions and fragments, and by the help of the
native works on palæography, some most valuable, I have compiled a
dictionary of this period.)
"If the _kwas_, which were a survival of the arrows of divination known to
the ancestors of Chinese culture before their emigration eastward," &c.
&c.--Vol. xiv. part 4.
"This mysterious book is still avowedly not understood, and we assist,
now-a-days, at a most curious spectacle. There are not a few Chinese of
education among those who have picked up some knowledge in Europe or in
translations of European works of our modern sciences, who believe openly
that all these may be found in their _Yih_. Electricity, steam power,
astronomical laws, sphericity of the earth, &c., are all, according to
their views, to be found in the _Yih King_; they firmly believe that these
discoveries were not ignored by their sages, who have embodied them in
their mysterious classics, of which they will be able to unveil the
secrets when they themselves apply to its study a thorough knowledge of
the modern sciences. It is unnecessary for any European mind to insist
upon the childishness of such an opinion. Even in admitting, what seems
probable, that the early leaders of the Bak people (Poh Sing) were not
without some astronomical and mathematical principles, which have been
long since forgotten, there is no possible comparison between their rude
notions and our sciences.
"It is not a mysterious book of fate and prognostics. It contains a
valuable collection of documents of old antiquity, in which is embodied
much information on the ethnography, customs, language, and writing of
early China.
"Proofs of various kinds--similitude of institutions, traditions and
knowledge, affinities of words of culture; and, in what concerns the
writing, likenesses of shapes of characters, hieroglyphic and arbitrary,
with the same sounds (sometimes polyphons) and meanings attached to them,
the same morphology of written words, the same phonetic laws of
orthography--had led me, several years ago, to no other conclusion than
that (as the reverse is proved impossible by numerous reasons), at an
early period of their history, and before their emigration to the far
East, the Chinese Bak families had borrowed the pre-cuneiform writing and
elements of their knowledge and institutions from a region connected with
the old focus of culture of south-western Asia.
"Numerous affinities of traditions, institutions, and customs, connect the
borrowing of script and culture by the Chinese Bak families with the
region of Elam, the confederation of states of which Susa was the chief
town, and the Kussi the principal population.
"What are the historical facts of this connection we do not know. Has the
break-up which happened in those states and resulted in the conquest of
Babylonia by the Elamite king, Kudur Nakhunta, at the date, which is
certain, of 2285 B.C., been also the cause of an eastern conquest and a
settlement in Bactria? and would this account for the old focus of culture
coeval with the earlier period of Assyrian monarchy said to have existed
in Central Asia?
"The two ethnic names, which, as we have pointed out, were those of the
Chinese invaders, Bak and Kutti or Kutta, are not altogether foreign to
those regions. The Chinese Kutti and the Kussi, the Chinese Bak and Bakh,
the ethnic of Bakhdi (Bactria), will be, most likely, one day proved to be
the same ethnic names. Had not the Chinese, previous to my researches, and
quite on different reasons, been traced back westerly to the regions of
Yarkand and Khotan? This is not far distant from the old focus of culture
of Central Asia, and the connection cannot be objected to by geographical
reasons."--Vol. xv. part 2.
[231] Dr. Williams, _Hien-ning_.
[232] Williams, _Shi-Wéi_.
[233] Williams, _Liu-Léi_.
[234] Williams, _Shu King_.
[235] Williams, _Yih and Ts‘ih_.
[236] I am under the impression that the dragons to which Mencius refers
were probably alligators, of which one small species still exists, though
rare, in the Yang-tsze-kiang. So also we may regard as alligators the
dragons referred to above in the annals of the Bamboo Books on the passage
of the Kiang by Yu. Mr. Griffis, in his work on Corea, says, "The creature
called _a-ke_, or alligator, capable of devouring a man, is sometimes
found in the largest rivers."
[237] For a full account of this work, see an Article by E. C. Bridgman in
_Chinese Repository_, xviii. (1849), p. 169; and _Botanicon Sinicum_, by
Dr. E. Bretschneider, in the _Journal_ of the North China Branch of the
Royal Asiatic Society, New Series, vol. xvi. 1881.
[238] _Notes on Chinese Literature_, A. Wylie, Shanghai and London, 1867.
[239] "Bot. Sin." in _Journal_ of N. China Branch R. A. S., 1881.
[240] _Journal Asiatique, Extr._ No. 17 (1839).
[241] The three prefaces by these authors are given in _extenso_ in the
Appendix to this Chapter.
[242] The reader is referred, for a careful _précis_ of the contents of
this valuable work, to an exhaustive paper entitled "Botanicon Sinicum,"
in the _Journal_ of North China Branch Royal Asiatic Society, 1881, by E.
Bretschneider, M.D.
[243] The character for a hare is very like the character for a devil. The
Japanese, in quoting this passage, have fallen into this error.
[244] The dragons' bones sold by apothecaries in China consist of the
fossilized teeth and bones of a variety of species, generally in a
fragmentary condition. The white earth striæ, or dragons' brains, here
referred to, are probably asbestos. The asbestos sold in Chefoo market,
under the name of Lung Ku or dragons' bones, is procured at O-tzu-kung.
[245] The _boletus_, supposed to possess mystic efficacy.
[246] The first two stories are from the _Ko Ku Shi Riyăh_, a recent
history of Japan, from the earliest periods down to the present time, by
Matsunai, with a continuation by a later author. They are contained in the
first chapter of the first volume. The third is given as an ordinary item
of news in the journal called the _Chin-jei-Nippo_, April 30th, 1884.
[247] The idea of the eight heads probably originated in China; thus, in
the caves in Shantung, near Chi-ning Chou, among carvings of mythological
figures and divinities, dating from A.D. 147, we find a tiger's body with
eight heads, all human.
[248] _Mourakoumo_ means "clouds of clouds"; _ama_ means "heaven";
_tsurogi_ means "sword."
[249] White snakes are occasionally, although rarely, seen in Japan. They
are supposed to be messengers from the gods, and are never killed by the
people, but always taken and carried to some temple. The white snake is
worshipped in Nagasaki at a temple called Miyo-ken, at Nishi-yama, which
is the northern part of the city of Nagasaki.
[250] _Mémoires sur les Contrées occidentales, traduits du Sanscrit en
Chinois en l'an 648; et du Chinois en Francais_, par M. Stanislas Julien.
2 vols., Paris, 1857.
[251] _Foĕ Kouĕ Ki, ou Relation des Royaumes Bouddhiques, par Chĕ Fa
Hien._ Translated from the Chinese by M. Abel Remusat; Paris, 1836. This
volume contains a number of very interesting dragon legends, and quaint
conceits about them; but I find nothing in it to supplement my
materialistic argument.
[252] Montaigne, _Essays_, chap. xxvi.
[253] "I fully believe in this great marine monster. I have as much
evidence as to its existence as of anything not seen. Some years ago,
Captain Austin Cooper and the officers and crew of the _Carlisle Castle_,
on a voyage to Melbourne, saw the 'varmint.' A description and sketch of
it were published in the _Argus_. This, when it arrived in London, it
being the 'silly season' in journalism, was seized and torn to pieces by
one of the young lions of the _Daily Telegraph_, in a leading article, in
which much fun was poked at the gallant sailor. 'I don't see any more
sea-serpents,' said my Irish friend to me. 'It is too much to be told that
one of Green's commanders can't tell the difference between a piece of
sea-weed and a live body in the water. If twenty serpents come on the
starboard, all hands shall be ordered to look to port. No London
penny-a-liner shall say again that Austin Cooper is a liar and a fool.'
After this we softened down over some Coleraine whiskey. Again, some three
years ago, the monster was plainly seen off the great reef of New
Caledonia by Commandant Villeneuve, and the officers of the French
man-of-war, the _Seudre_. Chassepots were procured to shoot it, but before
it came within easy range it disappeared. During my late visit to Fiji,
Major James Harding, who was an officer in Cakoban's army when that chief,
'by the grace of God' was king of Fiji, described exactly the same
creature as passing within a few yards of his canoe on a clear moonlight
night in the Bay of Suva. It swam towards a small island outside the reef,
which is known amongst Fijians as the 'Cave of the Big Snake.' Major
Harding is a cool, brave soldier, who saw much hot work with Cakoban's men
against the hill tribes of Vonua Levu. He was once riddled by bullets, and
left for dead. Accustomed for years to travel about the reefs in canoes,
every phase of the aspect of the waters was known to him, and he was not
likely to be frightened with false fire. The extraordinary thing is, that
the English sailor, the French commander, and the Fijian soldier, all gave
the same account of this monster. It is something with a head slightly
raised out of the water, and with a sort of mane streaming behind it,
whilst the back of a long body is seen underneath the water. So, from
these instances, in which I know the witnesses, I fully believe in the
sea-serpent. What is there very wonderful in it, after all? The whale is
the largest living thing. Why shouldn't the waters produce snakes of
gigantic size." THE VAGABOND, in Supplement to the _Australasian_,
September 10, 1881.
[254] Contained in Eden's _Travels_.
[255] Connected with the breathing apparatus?
[256] Pinkerton, _Voyages and Travels_, vol. i. p. 376.
[257] A. de Brooke, _Travels to the North Cape_.
[258] 1 ell = 2 feet.
[259] _Transactions_ of the Wernerian Society, vol. i. p. 442.
[260] No. 92, May 1873; London, Van Voorst.
[261] _Shetland Islands_, p. 565.
[262] Jardine's _Naturalist's Library_, vol. xxv.
[263] How this reminds one of the Chinese dragon.
[264] Within a few days of writing these lines I made one of a party of
four to visit the waterfalls of Taki-kwannon, near Nagasaki. I asked for
estimates of the height of the fall, which was variously guessed, by
different members of the party, at from forty-three to one hundred and
fifty feet.
[265] _Folklore of China_, p. 113.
[266] _Vide Verhandelingen van Het Bataviaasch Genootschap van Kunsten en
Weten Schappen, Deel_ xxxix., 1ere Stuk., Batavia, 1877.
[267] About 1-1/3 lb. avoirdupois.
[268] _Contributions to Materia Medica and Natural History of China_, by
F. P. Smith, M.B., London; Shanghai and London, 1871.
I give, in the appendix to this chapter, some accounts of a reputed
monster, the Shan, the description of which by Chinese authors, although
vague, appears to me to point to the sea-serpent. I only insert a portion
of the latter part of the legends regarding it which I find in my
authority, as they are perfectly valueless. The sample given may, however,
be interesting as an example of how the Taouists compiled their absurd
miraculous stories.
[269] For _sea-serpent_ read _octopus_.
[270] I must also add, on the information of Mr. H. C. Syers, of Selangor,
that Captain Douglas, late Resident of Perak, had a large sea-serpent rise
close to him, somewhere off Perak, when in a boat manned by Malays. Mr.
Syers had the account both from Captain Douglas and from the crew; and he
tells me that there is a universal belief in the existence of some large
sea-monster among the Malays of the western coast of the Peninsula.
[271] This is one of the fleet of the important Japanese Mitsu Bish
Company, the equivalent of the P. and O. Company in Japan.
[272] _Pop. Sci. Monthly_, No. 56, December 1876, p. 234.
[273] It must be remembered that it is with a blow of its powerful tail
that the alligator stuns its prey and knocks it into the water (when any
stray animal approaches the bank), and it is with the tail that the
dragon, in the fable related by Ælian, chastises, although gently, its
mistress, and constricts, according to Pliny, the elephant in its folds.
[274] _Nineteenth Century_, March 1877, p. 20. Article on "Authority in
Matters of Opinion," by G. Cornewall Lewis. Reviewed by W. E. Gladstone.
[275] From the _Daheim_, No. 17, Supplement. January 27th, 1883. Leipzig.
[276] 41° Fahrenheit.
[277] _A Collection of Voyages_, in 4 volumes. J. J. Knapton, London,
1729.
[278] _A Voyage to the East Indies_, by Francis Leguat. London, 1708.
[279] I find the following note in _Maclean's Guide to Bombay_, for 1883:
"Since the first edition of this Gazette was published, Captain Dundas, of
the P. and O. Company's steamer _Cathay_, has informed me that the
statements of old travellers regarding these serpents are quite accurate.
The serpents are not seen excepting during the south-west monsoon the
season in which alone voyages used to be made to India. In Horsburgh's
_Sailing Directions_, shipmasters are warned to look out for the serpents,
whose presence is a sign that the ship is close to land. Captain Dundas
says that the serpents are yellow or copper-coloured. The largest ones are
farthest out to sea. They lie on the surface of the water, and appear too
lazy even to get out of a steamer's way."
[280] The _Romance of Natural History_, P. H. Gosse, F.R.S., First Series,
London, 1880, 12th edition; Second Series, 1875, 5th edition.
[281] "At length, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, they were
thrown open for examination by the desire which then existed in Germany to
possess the _ebur fossile_, or 'unicorn's horn,' a supposed infallible
specific for the cure of many diseases. The unicorn horn was to be found
in the caves, and the search for it revealed the remains of lions, hyænas,
elephants, and many other tropical and strange animals." _Pop. Sci.
Monthly_, No. 32.
[282] Book iv. ch. cxci. and cxcii.
[283] Book ii. ch. ii. § 8.
[284] Book viii. ch. xxxii.
[285] Book xi. ch. cvi.
[286] _Ibid._
[287] Ælian, _De Naturâ Animalium_, Book xvi. ch. xx.
[288] _De Bello Gallico_, ch. ii. p. 26.
[289] _Vide_ Charton's _Voyageurs du Moyen Ages_, vol. ii. p. 25.
[290] Harris' _Voyages_, vol. i. p. 362; "Africa," by John Leo.
[291] Pinkerton's _Voyages_, vol. i. p. 392; "Ethiopia," by Jobus
Ludolphus.
[292] _The Navigation and Voyage of Lewes Vertomannus, of Rome, into
Arabia, Egypt, &c., in 1503_, contained in "_The History of Travayle in
the East and West Indies_," done into English by Richard Eden. London,
1577.
[293] Berynto, a city on the seacoast of Syria, Phœnicia.
[294] Sining is on the western frontier of Kansuh, towards Kokonor.
[295] Pinkerton's _Voyages_, vol. xv. p. 23.
[296] Pinkerton's _Voyages_, vol. vii. p. 333.
[297] _Travels in Tartary, Thibet, and China._ Huc and Gabet. Translated
by W. Hazlitt, vol. ii. p. 245.
[298] Gosse, _Romance of Natural History_.
[299] Prejevalski's _Mongolia_, vol. ii. p. 207; London, 1876.
[300] See _'Rh Ya_ and _Yuen Keen Luy Han_, vol. ccccxxix. p. 1.
[301] This height will have to be reduced in accordance with the
difference between the magnitude of old and new standards of measurement.
[302] A poet, native of Hang Cheu.
[303] _Vide_ the translation into French by L. Serrurier, Leyden, 1875.
[304] "The Chinese have a tradition that this animal skips, and is so holy
or harmless that it won't even tread upon an insect, and that it is to
come in the shape of an incomparable man, a revealer of mysteries,
supernatural and divine, and a great lover of all mankind, who is expected
to come, about the time of a particular constellation in the heavens, on a
special mission for their benefit. The Japanese unicorn answers the
description of the animal bearing that name, and supposed to be still
extant in Ethiopia, and which is equal to the size of a small horse,
reddish in colour, and slender as a gazelle, the male having one horn. The
unicorn is the ancient crest of the kings of Israel, and is still retained
by the Mikado." _Epitome of the Ancient History of Japan_, p. 116; N.
McLeod, Nagasaki, 1875.
[305] Vol. ccccxxx. p. 18.
[306] Vol. ccccxxxii. p. 38.
[307] This will have to be reduced by nearly one-half, to equate it with
the present measures of length.
[308] _San Li T'u_, vol. viii. p. 3. The _San Li T'u_ is an illustrated,
modern, edition by Nieh Tsung I. of the old _San Li_; it was written
during the reign of the great patron of literature, Kang Hi (A.D. 1661 to
1723).
[309] Vol. vii. No. 1, p. 72.
[310] Harris, _Game and Wild Animals of Southern Africa_. The Oryx
Capensis--The Gemsbock.
"The figure of the renowned unicorn can be traced in all the ancient
ear-rings, coins, and Latin heraldic insignia, to some one of the members
of the oryxine family; of all the whimsies of antiquity, whether emanating
from the unbridled and fertile fancies of the people of Egypt and Persia,
or devised by the more chaste and classic taste which distinguished Greece
and Rome, the unicorn--unquestionably the most celebrated--is the chimera
which has in modern ages engrossed the largest portion of attention from
the curious.
"The rhinoceros is supposed to be the animal so often alluded to in
Scripture under the name of _reem_ or unicorn, yet the combination
presented in the oryx of the antelopine and equine characters, the horns
and cloven hoof of the one, blended with the erect mane, general contour
and long switch tail of the other, corresponds in all essential
particulars with the extant delineations and descriptions of the heraldic
unicorn, which is universally represented to have been possessed of a
straight slender horn, ringed at the base, and to have the hoof divided;
to have worn a mane reversed, a black flowing tail, and a turkey-like tuft
on the larynx, whilst both the size and ground colour were said to be
those of the ass, with the addition of sundry black markings, imparting to
the face and forehead a piebald appearance.
"The alterations required to reduce the African oryx to the standard of
this model, are slight and simple, nor can it be doubted that they have
been gradually introduced by successive copyists; the idea of the single
horn having been derived in the first instance from profile
representations of that animal given in bas-relief on the sculptured
monuments of ancient Egypt and Nubia.... They have in their aspect a
certain bovine expression; and Arabs and other natives never consider them
as antelopes but as a species of buffalo.... The oryx boldly defends
itself when pressed by the hunters, is quarrelsome during the rutting
season, and it is said that even the lion dreads an encounter with it."
[311] Even the patient ass, in a state of nature, is endowed with great
courage. Baharan, one of the early Persian monarchs, received the surname
Baharan Guz from his transfixing, with one arrow, a wild ass and a lion
engaged in active combat.
[312] Black, red, azure (green, blue, or black), white, yellow.
[313] Many species of bird do not attain their mature plumage until long
after they have attained adult size, as some among the gulls and birds of
prey. I think I am right in saying that some of these latter only become
perfect in their third year. We all know the story of the ugly duckling,
and the little promise which it gave of its future beauty.
[314] According to Dr. Williams, the Lwan was a fabulous bird described as
the essence of divine influence, and regarded as the embodiment of every
grace and beauty, and that the argus pheasant was the type of it.
Dr. Williams says that it was customary to hang little bells from the
phœnix that marked the royal cars.
[315] In reference to Hwang Ti (?) writing the Bamboo Books?
[316] The Wu Tung is the _Eleococca verrucosa_, according to Dr. Williams;
others identify it with the _Sterculia platanifolia_. There is a Chinese
proverb to the effect that without having Wu Tung trees you cannot expect
to see phœnixes in your garden.
[317] Berosus lived in the time of Alexander the Great, or about B.C.
330-260, or 300 years after the Jews were carried captive to Babylon.
[318] _Encyclopædia Britannica._
[319] _Jăn-jăn_ means a gradual but imperceptible advance.
[320] Defined by Williams "as the dragon of morasses and thickets, which
has scales and no horn, corresponding very nearly to the fossil
iguanodon." _Vide_ the description (ante) from the _Pan-Tsaou-Kang-mu_,
&c.
[321] _Ying_--correct, true.
[322] According to Williams, this is a young dragon without a horn,
although others, as in the text, say with one.
[323] _P'an_--to curl up, to coil.
[324] The male and female principle.
[325] See the notices in the body of the work from the _Shan Hai King_.
[326] See the description of the dragon from the _P'au-Tsaou-Kang-mu_.
[327] Waters of such specific gravity that even a feather would sink.
[328] Probably a pair from each stream.
[329] In Foh-kien.
[330] Probably equivalent to "abbot."
[331] Extract from the _Yuen Keen Lei Han_, vol. ccccxxxviii., p. 23.
[332] In drilling an army there are names for all positions of the army.
Thus, the general says: "Arrange yourselves like a snake, or like a
dragon, or any other imaginable shape."
[333] Williams gives this translation only, but I think there must be
another meaning; probably some sort of reptile is indicated.
* * * * *
Transcriber's note:
Footnote 128 appears on page 150 of the text, footnote 157 on page
168, and footnote 326 on page 400. The original text contains no
corresponding markers.
Several quotation marks are unmatched, as they were in the original
book.