the hills. He would sing and cry by turns, without any apparent
reason; and once somebody saw him boiling a stone for his dinner. At
the autumn festival of the 9th day of the 9th moon,[623] an official
of the district went up in that direction for the usual picnic, taking
with him his chair and his red umbrellas. After luncheon he was
passing by the temple, and had hardly reached the door, when out
rushed the priest, barefooted and ragged, and himself opening a yellow
umbrella, cried out as the attendants of a mandarin do when ordering
the people to stand back. He then approached the official, and made as
though he were jesting at him; at which the latter was extremely
indignant, and bade his servants drive the priest away. The priest
moved off with the servants after him, and in another moment had
thrown down his yellow umbrella, which split into a number of pieces,
each piece changing immediately into a falcon, and flying about in all
directions. The umbrella handle became a huge serpent, with red
scales and glaring eyes; and then the party would have turned and
fled, but that one of them declared it was only an optical delusion,
and that the creature couldn’t do any hurt. The speaker accordingly
seized a knife and rushed at the serpent, which forthwith opened its
mouth and swallowed its assailant whole. In a terrible fright the
servants crowded round their master and hurried him away, not stopping
to draw breath until they were fully a mile off. By-and-by several of
them stealthily returned to see what was going on; and, on entering
the temple, they found that both priest and serpent had disappeared.
But from an old ash-tree hard by they heard a sound proceeding,--a
sound, as it were, of a donkey panting; and at first they were afraid
to go near, though after a while they ventured to peep through a hole
in the tree, which was an old hollow trunk; and there, jammed hard and
fast with his head downwards, was the rash assailant of the serpent.
It being quite impossible to drag him out, they began at once to cut
the tree away; but by the time they had set him free he was already
perfectly unconscious. However, he ultimately came round and was
carried home; but from this day the priest was never seen again.[624]
FOOTNOTES:
[623] See No. CXXXI., note 605.
[624] The story is intended as a satire on those puffed-up dignitaries
who cannot even go to a picnic without all the retinue belonging to
their particular rank. See No. LVI., note 315.
CXXXVII.
FEASTING THE RULER OF PURGATORY.
At Ching-hai there lived a young man, named Shao, whose family was
very poor. On the occasion of his mother completing her cycle,[625] he
arranged a quantity of meat-offerings and wine on a table in the
court-yard, and proceeded to invoke the Gods in the usual manner; but
when he rose from his knees, lo and behold! all the meat and wine had
disappeared. His mother thought this was a bad omen, and that she was
not destined to enjoy a long life; however, she said nothing on the
subject to her son, who was himself quite at a loss to account for
what had happened. A short time afterwards the Literary
Chancellor[626] arrived; and young Chao, scraping together what funds
he could, went off to present himself as a candidate. On the road he
met with a man who gave him such a cordial invitation to his house
that he willingly accepted; and the stranger led him to a stately
mansion, with towers and terraces rising one above the other as far
as the eye could reach. In one of the apartments was a king, sitting
upon a throne, who received Shao in a very friendly manner; and, after
regaling him with an excellent banquet, said, “I have to thank you for
the food and drink you gave my servants that day we passed your
house.” Shao was greatly astonished at this remark, when the King
proceeded, “I am the Ruler of Purgatory. Don’t you recollect
sacrificing on your mother’s birthday?” The King then bestowed on Shao
a packet of silver, saying, “Pray accept this in return for your
kindness.” Shao thanked him and retired; and in another moment the
palace and its occupants had one and all vanished from his sight,
leaving him alone in the midst of some tall trees. On opening his
packet he found it to contain five ounces of pure gold; and, after
defraying the expenses of his examination, half was still left, which
he carried home and gave to his mother.
FOOTNOTES:
[625] See No. XXIII., note 152.
[626] The examiner for the bachelor’s, or lowest, degree.
CXXXVIII.
THE PICTURE HORSE.
A certain Mr. Ts‘ui, of Lin-ch‘ing, was too poor to keep his garden
walls in repair, and used often to find a strange horse lying down on
the grass inside. It was a black horse marked with white, and having a
scrubby tail, which looked as if the end had been burnt off;[627] and,
though always driven away, would still return to the same spot. Now
Mr. Ts‘ui had a friend, who was holding an appointment in Shansi; and
though he had frequently felt desirous of paying him a visit, he had
no means of travelling so far. Accordingly, he one day caught the
strange horse and, putting a saddle on its back, rode away, telling
his servant that if the owner of the horse should appear, he was to
inform him where the animal was to be found. The horse started off at
a very rapid pace, and, in a short time, they were thirty or forty
miles from home; but at night it did not seem to care for its food, so
the next day Mr. Ts‘ui, who thought perhaps illness might be the
cause, held the horse in, and would not let it gallop so fast.
However, the animal did not seem to approve of this, and kicked and
foamed until at length Mr. Ts‘ui let it go at the same old pace; and
by mid-day he had reached his destination. As he rode into the town,
the people were astonished to hear of the marvellous journey just
accomplished, and the Prince[628] sent to say he should like to buy
the horse. Mr. Ts‘ui, fearing that the real owner might come forward,
was compelled to refuse this offer; but when, after six months had
elapsed, no inquiries had been made, he agreed to accept eight hundred
ounces of silver, and handed over the horse to the Prince. He then
bought himself a good mule, and returned home. Subsequently, the
Prince had occasion to use the horse for some important business at
Lin-ch‘ing; and when there it took the opportunity to run away. The
officer in charge pursued it right up to the house of a Mr. Tsêng, who
lived next door to Mr. Ts‘ui, and saw it run in and disappear.
Thereupon he called upon Mr. Tsêng to restore it to him; and, on the
latter declaring he had never even seen the animal, the officer walked
into his private apartments, where he found, hanging on the wall, a
picture of a horse, by Tzŭ-ang,[629] exactly like the one he was in
search of, and with part of the tail burnt away by a joss-stick. It
was now clear that the Prince’s horse was a supernatural creature; but
the officer, being afraid to go back without it, would have
prosecuted Mr. Tsêng, had not Ts‘ui, whose eight hundred ounces of
silver had since increased to something like ten thousand, stepped in
and paid back the original purchase-money. Mr. Tsêng was exceedingly
grateful to him for this act of kindness, ignorant, as he was, of the
previous sale of the horse by Ts‘ui to the Prince.
FOOTNOTES:
[627] The Chinese never cut the tails of their horses or mules.
[628] One of the feudal Governors of by-gone days.
[629] A Chinese Landseer.
CXXXIX.
THE BUTTERFLY’S REVENGE.
Mr. Wang, of Ch‘ang-shan, was in the habit, when a District
Magistrate, of commuting the fines and penalties of the Penal Code,
inflicted on the various prisoners, for a corresponding number of
butterflies. These he would let go all at once in the court, rejoicing
to see them fluttering hither and thither, like so many tinsel
snippings borne about by the breeze. One night he dreamt that a young
lady, dressed in gay-coloured clothes, appeared to him and said, “Your
cruel practice has brought many of my sisters to an untimely end, and
now you shall pay the penalty of thus gratifying your tastes.” The
young lady then changed into a butterfly and flew away. Next day, the
magistrate was sitting alone, over a cup of wine, when it was
announced to him that the censor was at the door; and out he ran at
once to receive His Excellency, with a white flower, that some of his
women had put in his official hat, still sticking there. His
Excellency was very angry at what he deemed a piece of disrespect to
himself; and, after severely censuring Mr. Wang, turned round and went
away. Thenceforward no more penalties were commuted for butterflies.
CXL.
THE DOCTOR.
A certain poor man, named Chang, who lived at I, fell in one day with
a Taoist priest. The latter was highly skilled in the science of
physiognomy;[630] and, after looking at Chang’s features, said to him,
“You would make your fortune as a doctor.” “Alas!” replied Chang, “I
can barely read and write; how then could I follow such a calling as
that?” “And where, you simple fellow,” asked the priest, “is the
necessity for a doctor to be a scholar? You just try, that’s all.”
Thereupon Chang returned home; and, being very poor, he simply
collected a few of the commonest prescriptions, and set up a small
stall with a handful of fishes’ teeth and some dry honeycomb from a
wasp’s nest,[631] hoping thus to earn, by his tongue, enough to keep
body and soul together, to which, however, no one paid any particular
attention. Now it chanced that just then the Governor of Ch‘ing-chou
was suffering from a bad cough, and had given orders to his
subordinates to send to him the most skilful doctors in their
respective districts; and the magistrate of I, which was an
out-of-the-way mountainous district, being unable to lay his hands on
any one whom he could send in, gave orders to the beadle[632] to do
the best he could under the circumstances. Accordingly, Chang was
nominated by the people, and the magistrate put his name down to go in
to the Governor. When Chang heard of his appointment, he happened to
be suffering himself from a bad attack of bronchitis, which he was
quite unable to cure, and he begged, therefore, to be excused; but the
magistrate would not hear of this, and forwarded him at once in charge
of some constables. While crossing the hills, he became very thirsty,
and went into a village to ask for a drink of water; but water there
was worth its weight in jade, and no one would give him any. By-and-by
he saw an old woman washing a quantity of vegetables in a scanty
supply of water which was, consequently, very thick and muddy; and,
being unable to bear his thirst any longer, he obtained this and drank
it up. Shortly afterwards he found that his cough was quite cured, and
then it occurred to him that he had hit upon a capital remedy. When he
reached the city, he learned that a great many doctors had already
tried their hand upon the patient, but without success; so asking for
a private room in which to prepare his medicines, he obtained from the
town some bunches of bishop-wort, and proceeded to wash them as the
old woman had done. He then took the dirty water, and gave a dose of
it to the Governor, who was immediately and permanently relieved. The
patient was overjoyed; and, besides making Chang a handsome present,
gave him a certificate written in golden characters, in consequence of
which his fame spread far and wide;[633] and of the numerous cases he
subsequently undertook, in not a single instance did he fail to effect
a cure. One day, however, a patient came to him, complaining of a
violent chill; and Chang, who happened to be tipsy at the time,
treated him by mistake for remittent fever. When he got sober, he
became aware of what he had done; but he said nothing to anybody about
it, and three days afterwards the same patient waited upon him with
all kinds of presents to thank him for a rapid recovery. Such cases as
this were by no means rare with him; and soon he got so rich that he
would not attend when summoned to visit a sick person, unless the
summons was accompanied by a heavy fee and a comfortable chair to ride
in.[634]
FOOTNOTES:
[630] Advertisements of these professors of physiognomy are to be seen
in every Chinese city.
[631] In order to make some show for the public eye.
[632] See No. LXIV., note 373.
[633] A doctor of any repute generally has large numbers of such
certificates, generally engraved on wood, hanging before and about his
front door. When I was stationed at Swatow, the writer at Her
Majesty’s Consulate presented one to Dr. E. J. Scott, the resident
medical practitioner, who had cured him of opium smoking. It bore two
principal characters, “Miraculous Indeed!” accompanied by a few
remarks, in a smaller sized character, laudatory of Dr. Scott’s
professional skill. Banners, with graceful inscriptions written upon
them, are frequently presented by Chinese passengers to the captains
of coasting steamers who may have brought them safely through bad
weather.
[634] The story is intended as a satire upon Chinese doctors
generally, whose ranks are recruited from the swarms of half-educated
candidates who have been rejected at the great competitive
examinations, medical diplomas being quite unknown in China. Doctors’
fees are, by a pleasant fiction, called “horse-money;” and all
prescriptions are made up by the local apothecary, never by the
physician himself.
CXLI.
SNOW IN SUMMER.
On the 6th day of the 7th moon[635] of the year Ting-Hai (1647) there
was a heavy fall of snow at Soochow. The people were in a great state
of consternation at this, and went off to the temple of the Great
Prince[636] to pray. Then the spirit moved one of them to say, “You
now address me as _Your Honour_. Make it _Your Excellency_, and,
though I am but a lesser deity, it may be well worth your while to do
so.” Thereupon the people began to use the latter term, and the snow
stopped at once; from which I infer that flattery is just as pleasant
to divine as to mortal ears.[637]
FOOTNOTES:
[635] This would be exactly at the hottest season.
[636] The _Jupiter Pluvius_ of the neighbourhood.
[637] A sneer at the superstitious custom of praying for good or bad
weather, which obtains in China from the Son of Heaven himself down to
the lowest agriculturist whose interests are involved. Droughts,
floods, famines, and pestilences, are alike set down to the anger of
Heaven, to be appeased only by prayer and repentance.
CXLII.
PLANCHETTE.[638]
At Ch‘ang-shan there lived a man, named Wang Jui-t‘ing, who understood
the art of planchette. He called himself a disciple of Lü
Tung-pin,[639] and some one said he was probably that worthy’s crane.
At his _séances_ the subjects were always literary--essays, poetry,
and so on. The well-known scholar, Li Chih, thought very highly of
him, and availed himself of his aid on more than one occasion; so that
by degrees the literati generally also patronized him. His responses
to questions of doubt or difficulty were remarkable for their
reasonableness; matters of mere good or bad fortune he did not care to
enter into. In 1631, just after the examination at Chi-nan, a number
of the candidates requested Mr. Wang to tell them how they would stand
on the list; and, after having examined their essays, he proceeded to
pass his opinion on their merits.[640] Among the rest there happened
to be one who was very intimate with another candidate, not present,
whose name was Li Pien; and who, being an enthusiastic student and a
deep thinker, was confidently expected to appear among the successful
few. Accordingly, the friend submitted Mr. Li’s essay for inspection;
and in a few minutes two characters appeared on the sand--namely,
“Number one.” After a short interval this sentence followed:--“The
decision given just now had reference to Mr. Li’s essay simply as an
essay. Mr. Li’s destiny is darkly obscured, and he will suffer
accordingly. It is strange, indeed, that a man’s literary powers and
his destiny should thus be out of harmony.[641] Surely the Examiner
will judge of him by his essay;--but stay: I will go and see how
matters stand.” Another pause ensued, and then these words were
written down:--“I have been over to the Examiner’s yamên, and have
found a pretty state of things going on; instead of reading the
candidates’ papers himself, he has handed them over to his clerks,
some half-dozen illiterate fellows who purchased their own degrees,
and who, in their previous existence, had no status whatever,--‘hungry
devils’[642] begging their bread in all directions; and who, after
eight hundred years passed in the murky gloom of the infernal regions,
have lost all discrimination, like men long buried in a cave and
suddenly transferred to the light of day. Among them may be one or two
who have risen above their former selves, but the odds are against an
essay falling into the hands of one of these.” The young men then
begged to know if there was any method by which such an evil might be
counteracted; to which the planchette replied that there was, but, as
it was universally understood, there was no occasion for asking the
question. Thereupon they went off and told Mr. Li, who was so much
distressed at the prediction that he submitted his essay to His
Excellency Sun Tzŭ-mei, one of the finest scholars of the day. This
gentleman examined it, and was so pleased with its literary merit that
he told Li he was quite sure to pass, and the latter thought no more
about the planchette prophecy. However, when the list came out, there
he was down in the fourth class; and this so much disconcerted His
Excellency Mr. Sun, that he went carefully through the essay again for
fear lest any blemishes might have escaped his attention. Then he
cried out, “Well, I have always thought this Examiner to be a scholar;
he can never have made such a mistake as this; it must be the fault of
some of his drunken assistants, who don’t know the mere rudiments of
composition.” This fulfilment of the prophecy raised Mr. Wang very
high in the estimation of the candidates, who forthwith went and
burned incense and invoked the spirit of the planchette, which at once
replied in the following terms:--“Let not Mr. Li be disheartened by
temporary failure. Let him rather strive to improve himself still
further, and next year he may be among the first on the list.” Li
carried out these injunctions; and after a time the story reached the
ears of the Examiner, who gratified Li by making a public
acknowledgment that there had been some miscarriage of justice at the
examination; and the following year he was passed high up on the
list.[643]
FOOTNOTES:
[638] Planchette was in full swing in China at the date of the
composition of these stories, more than 200 years ago, and remains so
at the present day. The character _chi_, used here and elsewhere for
Planchette, is defined in the _Shuo Wên_, a Chinese dictionary,
published A.D. 100, “to inquire by divination on doubtful topics,” no
mention being made of the particular manner in which responses are
obtained. For the purpose of writing from personal experience, I
recently attended a _séance_ at a temple in Amoy, and witnessed the
whole performance. After much delay, I was requested to write on a
slip of paper “any question I might have to put to the God;” and,
accordingly, I took a pencil and wrote down, “A humble suppliant
ventures to inquire if he will win the Manila lottery.” This question
was then placed upon the altar, at the feet of the God; and shortly
afterwards two respectable-looking Chinamen, not priests, approached a
small table covered with sand, and each seized one arm of a forked
piece of wood, at the fork of which was a stumpy end, at right angles
to the plane of the arms. Immediately the attendants began burning
quantities of joss-paper, while the two performers whirled the
instrument round and round at a rapid rate, its vertical point being
all the time pressed down upon the table of sand. All of a sudden the
whirling movement stopped, and the point of the instrument rapidly
traced a character in the sand, which was at once identified by
several of the bystanders, and forthwith copied down by a clerk in
attendance. The whirling movement was then continued until a similar
pause was made and another character appeared; and so on, until I had
four lines of correctly-rhymed Chinese verse, each line consisting of
seven characters. The following is an almost word-for-word
translation:--
“The pulse of human nature throbs from England to Cathay,
And gambling mortals ever love to swell their gains by play;
For gold in this vile world of ours is everywhere a prize--
A thousand taels shall meet the prayer that on this altar lies.”
As the question is not concealed from view, all that is necessary for
such a hollow deception is a quick-witted versifier who can put
together a poetical response _stans pede in uno_. But in such matters
the unlettered masses of China are easily outwitted, and are a
profitable source of income to the more astute of their
fellow-countrymen.
[639] An official who flourished in the eighth century of our era, and
who, for his devotion to the Taoist religion, was subsequently
canonized as one of the Eight Immortals. He is generally represented
as riding on a crane.
[640] That is, by means of the planchette-table.
[641] Our author was here evidently thinking of his own unlucky fate.
[642] See No. CXXXI., note 607.
[643] See No. LXXV., note 426.
CXLIII.
FRIENDSHIP WITH FOXES.
A certain man had an enormous stack of straw, as big as a hill, in
which his servants, taking what was daily required for use, had made
quite a hole. In this hole a fox fixed his abode, and would often shew
himself to the master of the house under the form of an old man. One
day the latter invited the master to walk into the cave, which he at
first declined, but accepted on being pressed by the fox; and when he
got inside, lo! he saw a long suite of handsome apartments. They then
sat down, and exquisitely perfumed tea and wine were brought; but the
place was so gloomy that there was no difference between night and
day. By-and-by, the entertainment being over, the guest took his
leave; and on looking back the beautiful rooms and their contents had
all disappeared. The old man himself was in the habit of going away in
the evening and returning with the first streaks of morning; and as no
one was able to follow him, the master of the house asked him one day
whither he went. To this he replied that a friend invited him to take
wine; and then the master begged to be allowed to accompany him, a
proposal to which the old man very reluctantly consented. However, he
seized the master by the arm, and away they went as though riding on
the wings of the wind; and, in about the time it takes to cook a pot
of millet, they reached a city, and walked into a restaurant, where
there were a number of people drinking together and making a great
noise. The old man led his companion to a gallery above, from which
they could look down on the feasters below; and he himself went down
and brought away from the tables all kinds of nice food and wine,
without appearing to be seen or noticed by any of the company. After
awhile a man dressed in red garments came forward and laid upon the
table some dishes of cumquats;[644] and the master at once requested
the old man to go down and get him some of these. “Ah,” replied the
latter, “that is an upright man: I cannot approach him.” Thereupon the
master said to himself, “By thus seeking the companionship of a fox, I
then am deflected from the true course. Henceforth I, too, will be an
upright man.” No sooner had he formed this resolution, than he
suddenly lost all control over his body, and fell from the gallery
down among the revellers below. These gentlemen were much astonished
by his unexpected descent; and he himself, looking up, saw there was
no gallery to the house, but only a large beam upon which he had been
sitting. He now detailed the whole of the circumstances, and those
present made up a purse for him to pay his travelling expenses; for he
was at Yü-t‘ai--one thousand _li_ from home.
FOOTNOTE:
[644] Literally, “golden oranges.” These are skilfully preserved by
the Cantonese, and form a delicious sweetmeat for dessert.
CXLIV.
THE GREAT RAT.
During the reign of the Emperor Wan Li,[645] the palace was troubled
by the presence of a huge rat, quite as big as a cat, which ate up all
the cats that were set to catch it. Just then it chanced that among
the tribute offerings sent by some foreign State was a lion-cat, as
white as snow. This cat was accordingly put into the room where the
rat usually appeared; and, the door being closely shut, a secret watch
was kept. By-and-by the rat came out of its hole and rushed at the
cat, which turned and fled, finally jumping up on the table. The rat
followed, upon which the cat jumped down; and thus they went on up and
down for some time. Those who were watching said the cat was afraid
and of no use; however, in a little while the rat began to jump less
briskly, and soon after squatted down out of breath. Then the cat
rushed at it, and, seizing the rat by the back of the neck, shook and
shook while its victim squeaked and squeaked, until life was extinct.
Thus they knew the cat was not afraid, but merely waited for its
adversary to be fatigued, fleeing when pursued and itself pursuing the
fleeing rat. Truly, many a bad swordsman may be compared with that
rat!
FOOTNOTE:
[645] A.D. 1573-1620, the epoch of the most celebrated “blue china.”
CXLV.
WOLVES.
I.--A certain village butcher, who had bought some meat at market and
was returning home in the evening, suddenly came across a wolf, which
followed him closely, its mouth watering at the sight of what he was
carrying. The butcher drew his knife and drove the animal off; and
then reflecting that his meat was the attraction, he determined to
hang it up in a tree and fetch it the next morning. This he
accordingly did, and the wolf followed him no further; but when he
went at daylight to recover his property, he saw something hanging up
in the tree resembling a human corpse. It turned out to be the wolf,
which, in its efforts to get at the meat, had been caught on the
meat-hook like a fish; and as the skin of a wolf was just then worth
ten ounces of silver, the butcher found himself possessed of quite a
little capital. Here we have a laughable instance of the result of
“climbing trees to catch fish.”[646]