whose duties brought him to this place; and hearing the story of the
cave, he said he did not believe it, but would penetrate into it and
see for himself. People tried to dissuade him from such an enterprise;
however, he paid no heed to their remonstrances, and entered the cave
with a lighted candle in his hand, followed by two attendants. They
had proceeded about half a mile, when suddenly the candle was
violently extinguished, and Mr. Hua saw before him a broad flight of
steps leading up to the Ten Courts, or Judgment-halls, in each of
which a judge was sitting with his robes and tablets all complete. On
the eastern side there was one vacant place; and when the judges saw
Mr. Hua, they hastened down the steps to meet him, and each one cried
out, “So you have come at last, have you? I hope you have been quite
well since last we met.” Mr. Hua asked what the place was; to which
they replied that it was the Court of Purgatory, and then Mr. Hua in a
great fright was about to take his leave, when the judges stopped him,
saying, “No, no, Sir! that is your seat there; how can you imagine you
are to go back again?” Thereupon Mr. Hua was overwhelmed with fear,
and begged and implored the judges to forgive him; but the latter
declared they could not interfere with the decrees of fate, and taking
down the register of Life and Death they showed him that it had been
ordained that on such a day of such a month his living body would pass
into the realms of darkness. When Mr. Hua read these words he shivered
and shook as if iced water was being poured down his back, and
thinking of his old mother and his young children, his tears began to
flow. At that juncture an angel in golden armour appeared, holding in
his hand a document written on yellow silk,[578] before which the
judges all performed a respectful obeisance. They then unfolded and
read the document, which was nothing more or less than a general
pardon from the Almighty for the suffering sinners in Purgatory, by
virtue of which Mr. Hua’s fate would be set aside, and he would be
enabled to return once more to the light of day. Thereupon the judges
congratulated him upon his release, and started him on his way home;
but he had not got more than a few steps of the way before he found
himself plunged in total darkness. He was just beginning to despair,
when forth from the gloom came a God with a red face and a long beard,
rays of light shooting out from his body and illuminating the darkness
around. Mr. Hua made up to him at once, and begged to know how he
could get out of the cave; to which the God curtly replied, “Repeat
the _sûtras_ of Buddha!” and vanished instantly from his sight. Now
Mr. Hua had forgotten almost all the _sûtras_ he had ever known;
however, he remembered a little of the diamond _sûtra_, and, clasping
his hands in an attitude of prayer, he began to repeat it aloud. No
sooner had he done this than a faint streak of light glimmered through
the darkness, and revealed to him the direction of the path; but the
next moment he was at a loss how to go on and the light forthwith
disappeared. He then set himself to think hard what the next verse
was, and as fast as he recollected and could go on repeating, so fast
did the light reappear to guide him on his way, until at length he
emerged once more from the mouth of the cave. As to the fate of the
two servants who accompanied him it is needless to inquire.
FOOTNOTES:
[575] 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.
[576] 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.
[577] See No. XXXII., note 197.
[578] 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.
CXIX.
MR. WILLOW AND THE LOCUSTS.
During the Ming dynasty a plague of locusts[579] visited Ch‘ing-yen,
and was advancing rapidly towards the I district, when the magistrate
of that place, in great tribulation at the pending disaster, retired
one day to sleep behind the screen in his office. There he dreamt that
a young graduate, named Willow, wearing a tall hat and a green robe,
and of very commanding stature, came to see him, and declared that he
could tell the magistrate how to get rid of the locusts. “To-morrow,”
said he, “on the south-west road, you will see a woman riding[580] on
a large jennet: she is the Spirit of the Locusts; ask her, and she
will help you.” The magistrate thought this strange advice; however,
he got everything ready, and waited, as he had been told, at the
roadside. By-and-by, along came a woman with her hair tied up in a
knot, and a serge cape over her shoulders, riding slowly northwards on
an old mule; whereupon the magistrate burned some sticks of incense,
and, seizing the mule’s bridle, humbly presented a goblet of wine. The
woman asked him what he wanted; to which he replied, “Lady, I implore
you to save my small magistracy from the dreadful ravages of your
locusts.” “Oho!” said the woman, “that scoundrel, Willow, has been
letting the cat out of the bag, has he? He shall suffer for it: I
won’t touch your crops.” She then drank three cups of wine, and
vanished out of sight. Subsequently, when the locusts did come, they
flew high in the air, and did not settle on the crops; but they
stripped the leaves off every willow-tree far and wide; and then the
magistrate awaked to the fact that the graduate of his dream was the
Spirit of the Willows. Some said that this happy result was owing to
the magistrate’s care for the welfare of his people.
FOOTNOTES:
[579] 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.
[580] See No. LII., note 286. The mules of the north of China are
marvels of beauty and strength; and the price of a fine animal often
goes as high as £100.
CXX.
MR. TUNG; OR, VIRTUE REWARDED.
At Ch‘ing-chow there lived a Mr. Tung, President of one of the Six
Boards, whose domestic regulations were so strict that the men and
women servants were not allowed to speak to each other.[581] One day
he caught a slave-girl laughing and talking with one of his
attendants, and gave them both a sound rating. That night he retired
to sleep, accompanied by his _valet-de-chambre_, in his library, the
door of which, as it was very hot weather, was left wide open. When
the night was far advanced, the valet was awaked by a noise at his
master’s bed: and, opening his eyes, he saw, by the light of the moon,
the attendant above-mentioned pass out of the door with something in
his hand. Recognizing the man as one of the family, he thought nothing
of the occurrence, but turned round and went to sleep again. Soon
after, however, he was again aroused by the noise of footsteps
tramping heavily across the room, and, looking up, he beheld a huge
being with a red face and a long beard, very like the God of
War,[582] carrying a man’s head. Horribly frightened, he crawled under
the bed, and then he heard sounds above him as of clothes being shaken
out, and as if some one was being shampooed.[583] In a few moments,
the boots tramped once more across the room and went away; and then he
gradually put out his head, and, seeing the dawn beginning to peep
through the window, he stretched out his hand to reach his clothes.
These he found to be soaked through and through, and, on applying his
hand to his nose, he smelt the smell of blood. He now called out
loudly to his master, who jumped up at once; and, by the light of a
candle, they saw that the bed clothes and pillows were alike steeped
in blood. Just then some constables knocked at the door, and when Mr.
Tung went out to see who it was, the constables were all astonishment;
“for,” said they, “a few minutes ago a man rushed wildly up to our
yamên, and said he had killed his master; and, as he himself was
covered with blood, he was arrested, and turned out to be a servant of
yours. He also declared that he had buried your head alongside the
temple of the God of War; and when we went to look, there, indeed, was
a freshly-dug hole, but the head was gone.” Mr. Tung was amazed at all
this story, and, on proceeding to the magistrate’s yamên, he
discovered that the man in charge was the attendant whom he had
scolded the day before. Thereupon, the criminal was severely bambooed
and released; and then Mr. Tung, who was unwilling to make an enemy of
a man of this stamp, gave him the girl to wife. However, a few nights
afterwards the people who lived next door to the newly-married couple
heard a terrific crash in their house, and, rushing in to see what was
the matter, found that husband and wife, and the bedstead as well, had
been cut clean in two as if by a sword. The ways of the God are many,
indeed, but few more extraordinary than this.[584]
FOOTNOTES:
[581] See No. XL., note 233, and No. XCIV., note 489.
[582] See No. I., note 39.
[583] See No. LXIX., note 38.
[584] It was the God of War who replaced Mr. Tung’s head after it had
actually been cut off and buried.
CXXI.
THE DEAD PRIEST.
A certain Taoist priest, overtaken in his wanderings by the shades of
evening, sought refuge in a small Buddhist monastery. The monk’s
apartment was, however, locked; so he threw his mat down in the
vestibule of the shrine, and seated himself upon it. In the middle of
the night, when all was still, he heard a sound of some one opening
the door behind him; and looking round, he saw a Buddhist priest,
covered with blood from head to foot, who did not seem to notice that
anybody else was present. Accordingly, he himself pretended not to be
aware of what was going on; and then he saw the other priest enter the
shrine, mount the altar, and remain there some time embracing Buddha’s
head, and laughing by turns. When morning came, he found the monk’s
room still locked; and, suspecting something was wrong, he walked to a
neighbouring village, where he told the people what he had seen.
Thereupon the villagers went back with him, and broke open the door,
and there before them lay the priest weltering in his blood, having
evidently been killed by robbers, who had stripped the place bare.
Anxious now to find out what had made the disembodied spirit of the
priest laugh in the way it had been seen to do, they proceeded to
inspect the head of the Buddha on the altar; and, at the back of it,
they noticed a small mark, scraping through which they discovered a
sum of over thirty ounces of silver. This sum was forthwith used for
defraying the funeral expenses of the murdered man.
CXXII.
THE FLYING COW.
A certain man, who had bought a fine cow, dreamt the same night that
wings grew out of the animal’s back, and that it had flown away.
Regarding this as an omen of some pending misfortune, he led the cow
off to market again, and sold it at a ruinous loss. Wrapping up in a
cloth the silver he received, he slung it over his back, and was half
way home, when he saw a falcon eating part of a hare.[585] Approaching
the bird, he found it was quite tame, and accordingly tied it by the
leg to one of the corners of the cloth, in which his money was. The
falcon fluttered about a good deal, trying to escape; and, by-and-by,
the man’s hold being for a moment relaxed, away went the bird, cloth,
money, and all. “It was destiny,” said the man every time he told the
story; ignorant as he was, first, that no faith should be put in
dreams;[586] and, secondly, that people shouldn’t take things they see
by the wayside.[587] Quadrupeds don’t usually fly.
FOOTNOTES:
[585] See No. VI., note 51.
[586] 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.
[587] 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.
CXXIII.
THE “MIRROR AND LISTEN” TRICK.
At I-tu there lived a family of the name of Chêng. The two sons were
both distinguished scholars, but the elder was early known to fame,
and, consequently, the favourite with his parents, who also extended
their preference to his wife. The younger brother was a trifle wild,
which displeased his father and mother very much, and made them regard
his wife, too, with anything but a friendly eye. The latter reproached
her husband for being the cause of this, and asked him why he, being a
man like his brother, could not vindicate the slights that were put
upon her. This piqued him; and, setting to work in good earnest, he
soon gained a fair reputation, though still not equal to his
brother’s. That year the two went up for the highest degree; and, on
New Year’s Eve, the wife of the younger, very anxious for the success
of her husband, secretly tried the “mirror and listen” trick.[588] She
saw two men pushing each other in jest, and heard them say, “You go
and get cool,” which remark she was quite unable to interpret for good
or for bad, so she thought no more about the matter. After the
examination, the two brothers returned home; and one day, when the
weather was extremely hot, and their two wives were hard at work in
the cook-house, preparing food for their field-labourers, a messenger
rode up in hot haste[589] to announce that the elder brother had
passed. Thereupon his mother went into the cook-house, and, calling to
her daughter-in-law, said, “Your husband has passed; _you go and get
cool_.” Rage and grief now filled the breast of the second son’s wife,
who, with tears in her eyes, continued her task of cooking, when
suddenly another messenger rushed in to say, that the second son had
passed, too. At this, his wife flung down her frying-pan, and cried
out, “Now I’ll _go and get cool_;” and as in the heat of her
excitement she uttered these words, the recollection of her trial of
the “mirror and listen” trick flashed upon her, and she knew that the
words of that evening had been fulfilled.
FOOTNOTES:
[588] 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.
[589] 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.
CXXIV.
THE CATTLE PLAGUE.
Ch‘ên Hua-fêng, of Mêng-shan, overpowered by the great heat, went and
lay down under a tree, when suddenly up came a man with a thick
comforter round his neck, who also sat down on a stone in the shade,
and began fanning himself as hard as he could, the perspiration all
the time running off him like a waterfall. Ch‘ên rose and said to him
with a smile, “If Sir, you were to remove that comforter, you would be
cool enough without the help of a fan.” “It would be easy enough,”
replied the stranger, “to take off my comforter; but the difficulty
would be in getting it on again.” He then went on to converse
generally upon other matters, in a manner which betokened considerable
refinement; and by-and-by he exclaimed, “What I should like now is
just a draught of iced wine to cool the twelve joints of my
œsophagus.”[590] “Come along, then,” cried Ch‘ên, “my house is close
by, and I shall be happy to give you what you want.” So off they went
together; and Ch‘ên set before them some capital wine, which he
produced from a cave, cold enough to numb their teeth. The stranger
was delighted, and remained there drinking until late in the evening,
when, all at once, it began to rain. Ch‘ên lighted a lamp; and he and
his guest, who now took off the comforter, sat talking together in
_dishabille_. Every now and again the former thought he saw a light
coming from the back of the stranger’s head; and when at length he had
gone off into a tipsy sleep, Ch‘ên took the light to examine more
closely. He found behind the ears a large cavity, partitioned by a
number of membranes, and looking like a lattice, with a thin skin
hanging down in front of each, the spaces being apparently empty. In
great astonishment Ch‘ên took a hair-pin, and inserted it into one of
these places, when pff! out flew something like a tiny cow, which
broke through the window,[591] and was gone. This frightened Ch‘ên,
and he determined to play no more tricks; just then, however, the
stranger waked up. “Alas!” cried he, “you have been at my head, and
have let out the Cattle Plague. What is to be done, now?” Ch‘ên asked
what he meant: upon which the stranger said, “There is no object in
further concealment. I will tell you all. I am the Angel of
Pestilence for the six kinds of domestic animals. That form which you
have let out attacks oxen, and I fear that, for miles round, few will
escape alive.” Now Ch‘ên himself was a cattle-farmer, and when he
heard this was dreadfully alarmed, and implored the stranger to tell
him what to do. “What to do!” replied he; “why, I shall not escape
punishment myself; how can I tell you what to do. However, you will
find powdered _K‘u-ts‘an_[592] an efficacious remedy, that is if you
don’t keep it a secret for your private use.”[593] The stranger then
departed, first of all piling up a quantity of earth in a niche in the
wall, a handful of which, he told Ch‘ên, given to each animal, might
prove of some avail. Before long the plague did break out; and Ch‘ên,
who was desirous of making a little money by it, told the remedy to no
one, with the exception of his younger brother. The latter tried it on
his own beasts with great success; while, on the other hand, those
belonging to Ch‘ên himself died off, to the number of fifty head,[594]
leaving him only four or five old cows, which shewed every sign of
soon sharing the same fate. In his distress, Ch‘ên suddenly bethought
himself of the earth in the niche; and, as a last resource, gave some
to the sick animals. By the next morning they were quite well, and
then he knew that his secrecy about the remedy had caused it to have
no effect. From that moment his stock went on increasing, and in a few
years he had as many as ever.
FOOTNOTES:
[590] Accurate anatomical descriptions must not be looked for in
Chinese literature. “Man has three hundred and sixty-five bones,
corresponding to the number of days it takes the heavens to revolve.”
From the _Hsi-yüan-lu_, or _Institutions to Coroners_, Book I., ch.
12. [See No. XIV., note 100.]
[591] See No. X., note 79.
[592] _Radix robiniæ amaræ._
[593] 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.
[594] The text has “of two hundred hoofs.”
CXXV.
THE MARRIAGE OF THE VIRGIN GODDESS.
At Kuei-chi there is a shrine to the Plum Virgin, who was formerly a
young lady named Ma, and lived at Tung-wan. Her betrothed husband
dying before the wedding, she swore she would never marry, and at
thirty years of age she died. Her kinsfolk built a shrine to her
memory, and gave her the title of the Plum Virgin. Some years
afterwards, a Mr. Chin, on his way to the examination, happened to
pass by the shrine; and entering in, he walked up and down thinking
very much of the young lady in whose honour it had been erected. That
night he dreamt that a servant came to summon him into the presence of
the Goddess; and that, in obedience to her command, he went and found
her waiting for him just outside the shrine. “I am deeply grateful to
you, Sir,” said the Goddess, on his approach, “for giving me so large
a share of your thoughts; and I intend to repay you by becoming your
humble handmaid.” Mr. Chin bowed an assent; and then the Goddess
escorted him back, saying, “When your place is ready, I will come and
fetch you.” On waking in the morning, Mr. Chin was not over pleased
with his dream; however that very night every one of the villagers
dreamt that the Goddess appeared and said she was going to marry Mr.
Chin, bidding them at once prepare an image of him. This the village
elders, out of respect for their Goddess, positively refused to do;
until at length they all began to fall ill, and then they made a clay
image of Mr. Chin, and placed it on the left of the Goddess. Mr. Chin
now told his wife that the Plum Virgin had come for him; and, putting
on his official cap and robes, he straightway died. Thereupon his wife
was very angry; and, going to the shrine, she first abused the
Goddess, and then, getting on the altar, slapped her face well. The
Goddess is now called Chin’s virgin wife.
CXXVI.
THE WINE INSECT.
A Mr. Lin of Ch‘ang-shan was extremely fat, and so fond of wine[595]
that he would often finish a pitcher by himself. However, he owned
about fifty acres of land, half of which was covered with millet, and
being well off, he did not consider that his drinking would bring him
into trouble. One day a foreign Buddhist priest saw him, and remarked
that he appeared to be suffering from some extraordinary complaint.
Mr. Lin said nothing was the matter with him; whereupon the priest
asked him if he often got drunk. Lin acknowledged that he did; and the
priest told him that he was afflicted by the wine insect. “Dear me!”
cried Lin, in great alarm, “do you think you could cure me?” The
priest declared there would be no difficulty in doing so; but when Lin
asked him what drugs he intended to use, the priest said he should not
use any at all. He then made Lin lie down in the sun; and tying his
hands and feet together, he placed a stoup of good wine about half a
foot from his head. By-and-by, Lin felt a deadly thirst coming on; and
the flavour of the wine passing through his nostrils, seemed to set
his vitals on fire. Just then he experienced a tickling sensation in
his throat, and something ran out of his mouth and jumped into the
wine. On being released from his bonds, he saw that it was an insect
about three inches in length, which wriggled about in the wine like a
tadpole, and had mouth and eyes all complete. Lin was overjoyed, and
offered money to the priest, who refused to take it, saying, all he
wanted was the insect, which he explained to Lin was the essence of
wine, and which, on being stirred up in water, would turn it into
wine. Lin tried this, and found it was so; and ever afterwards he
detested the sight of wine. He subsequently became very thin, and so
poor that he had hardly enough to eat and drink.[596]
FOOTNOTES:
[595] The ordinary “wine” of China is a spirit distilled from rice.
See No. XCIII., note 477.
[596] 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.
CXXVII.
THE FAITHFUL DOG.
A certain man of Lu-ngan, whose father had been cast into prison, and
was brought almost to death’s door,[597] scraped together one hundred
ounces of silver, and set out for the city to try and arrange for his
parent’s release. Jumping on a mule, he saw that a black dog,
belonging to the family, was following him. He tried in vain to make
the dog remain at home; and when, after travelling for some miles, he
got off his mule to rest awhile, he picked up a large stone and threw
it at the dog, which then ran off. However, he was no sooner on the
road again, than up came the dog, and tried to stop the mule by
holding on to its tail. His master beat it off with the whip;
whereupon the dog ran barking loudly in front of the mule, and seemed
to be using every means in its power to cause his master to stop. The
latter thought this a very inauspicious omen, and turning upon the
animal in a rage, drove it away out of sight. He now went on to the
city; but when, in the dusk of the evening, he arrived there, he found
that about half his money was gone. In a terrible state of mind he
tossed about all night; then, all of a sudden, it flashed across him
that the strange behaviour of the dog might possibly have some
meaning; so getting up very early, he left the city as soon as the
gates were open,[598] and though, from the number of passers-by, he
never expected to find his money again, he went on until he reached
the spot where he had got off his mule the day before. There he saw
his dog lying dead upon the ground, its hair having apparently been
wetted through with perspiration;[599] and, lifting up the body by one
of its ears, he found his lost silver. Full of gratitude, he bought a
coffin and buried the dead animal; and the people now call the place
the Grave of the Faithful Dog.
FOOTNOTES:
[597] In an entry on torture (see No. LXXIII., note 417), which occurs
in my _Glossary of Reference_, I made the following statement:--“The
real tortures of a Chinese prison are the filthy dens in which the
unfortunate victims are confined, the stench in which they have to
draw breath, the fetters and manacles by which they are secured, the
absolute insufficiency even of the disgusting rations doled out to
them, and above all the mental agony which must ensue in a country
with no _Habeas corpus_ to protect the lives and fortunes of its
citizens.”