that which cannot be grasped. I have explained the term in my _Chinese
Sketches_, p. 143, as “a system of geomancy, by the _science_ of which
it is possible to determine the desirability of sites,--whether of
tombs, houses, or cities, from the configuration of such natural
objects as rivers, trees, and hills, and to foretell with certainty
the fortunes of any family, community, or individual, according to the
spot selected; by the _art_ of which it is in the power of the
geomancer to counteract evil influences by good ones, to transform
straight and noxious outlines into undulating and propitious curves,
and rescue whole districts from the devastations of flood or
pestilence.”
[668] As a rule, only the daughters of wealthy families receive any
education to speak of.
[669] A reprehensible proceeding in the eyes of all respectable
Chinese, both from a moral and a practical point of view; “for when
brothers fall out,” says the proverb, “strangers get an advantage over
them.”
CLII.
THE LINGERING DEATH.
There was a man in our village who led an exceedingly disreputable
life. One morning when he got up rather early, two men appeared, and
led him away to the market-place, where he saw a butcher hanging up
half a pig. As they approached, the two men shoved him with all their
might against the dead animal, and lo! his own flesh began to blend
with the pork before him, while his conductors hurried off in an
opposite direction. By-and-by the butcher wanted to sell a piece of
his meat; and seizing a knife, began to cut off the quantity required.
At every touch of the blade our disreputable friend experienced a
severe pang, which penetrated into his very marrow; and when, at
length, an old man came and haggled over the weight given him, crying
out for a little bit more fat, or an extra portion of lean,[670] then,
as the butcher sliced away the pork ounce by ounce, the pain was
unendurable in the extreme. By about nine o’clock the pork was all
sold, and our hero went home, whereupon his family asked him what he
meant by staying in bed so late.[671] He then narrated all that had
taken place, and on making inquiries, they found that the pork-butcher
had only just come home; besides which our friend was able to tell him
every pound of meat he had sold, and every slice he had cut off. Fancy
a man being put to the lingering death[672] like this before
breakfast!
FOOTNOTES:
[670] Chinese tradesmen invariably begin by giving short weight in
such transactions as these, partly in order to be in a position to
gratify the customer by throwing in a trifle more and thus acquire a
reputation for fair dealing.
[671] It was only his soul that had left the house.
[672] See No. LVI., note 322.
CLIII.
DREAMING HONOURS.
Wang Tzŭ-ngan was a Tung-ch‘ang man, and a scholar of some repute, but
unfortunate at the public examinations. On one occasion, after having
been up for his master’s degree, his anxiety was very great; and when
the time for the publication of the list drew near, he drank himself
gloriously tipsy, and went and lay down on the bed. In a few moments a
man rushed in, and cried out, “Sir! you have passed!” whereupon Wang
jumped up, and said, “Give him ten strings of cash.”[673] Wang’s wife,
seeing he was drunk, and wishing to keep him quiet, replied, “You go
on sleeping: I’ve given him the money.” So Wang lay down again, but
before long in came another man who informed Wang that his name was
among the successful candidates for the highest degree. “Why, I
haven’t been up for it yet;” said Wang, “how can I have passed?”
“What! you don’t mean to say you have forgotten the examination?”
answered the man; and then Wang got up once more, and gave orders to
present the informant with ten strings of cash. “All right,” replied
his wife; “you go on sleeping: I’ve given him the money.” Another
short interval, and in burst a third messenger to say that Wang had
been elected a member of the National Academy, and that two official
servants had come to escort him thither. Sure enough there were the
two servants bowing at the bedside, and accordingly Wang directed that
they should be served with wine and meat, which his wife, smiling at
his drunken nonsense, declared had been already done. Wang now
bethought him that he should go out and receive the congratulations of
the neighbours, and roared out several times to his official servants;
but without receiving any answer. “Go to sleep,” said his wife, “and
wait till I have fetched them;” and after awhile the servants actually
came in; whereupon Wang stamped and swore at them for being such
idiots as to go away. “What! you wretched scoundrel,” cried the
servants, “are you cursing us in earnest, when we are only joking with
you!” At this Wang’s rage knew no bounds, and he set upon the men, and
gave them a sound beating, knocking the hat of one off on to the
ground. In the _mêlée_, he himself tumbled over, and his wife ran in
to pick him up, saying, “Shame upon you, for getting so drunk as
this!” “I was only punishing the servants as they deserved,” replied
Wang; “why do you call me drunk?” “Do you mean the old woman who cooks
our rice and boils the water for your foot-bath,” asked his wife,
smiling, “that you talk of servants to wait upon your poverty-stricken
carcase?” At this sally all the women burst out in a roar of
laughter; and Wang, who was just beginning to get sober, waked up as
if from a dream, and knew that there was no reality in all that had
taken place. However, he recollected the spot where the servant’s hat
had fallen off, and on going thither to look for it, lo! he beheld a
tiny official hat, no larger than a wine-cup, lying there behind the
door. They were all much astonished at this, and Wang himself cried
out, “Formerly people were thus tricked by devils; and now foxes are
playing the fool with me!”[674]
FOOTNOTES:
[673] See No. CXXIII., note 589.
[674] A common saying is “Foxes in the north; devils in the south,” as
illustrative of the folk-lore of these two great divisions of China.
CLIV.
THE SHE-WOLF AND THE HERD-BOYS.
Two herd-boys went up among the hills and found a wolf’s lair with two
little wolves in it. Seizing each of them one, they forthwith climbed
two trees which stood there, at a distance of forty or fifty paces
apart. Before long the old wolf came back, and, finding her cubs gone,
was in a great state of distress. Just then, one of the herd-boys
pinched his cub and made it squeak; whereupon the mother ran angrily
towards the tree whence the sound proceeded, and tried to climb up it.
At this juncture, the boy in the other tree pinched the other cub, and
thereby diverted the wolf’s attention in that direction. But no sooner
had she reached the foot of the second tree, than the boy who had
first pinched his cub did so again, and away ran the old wolf back to
the tree in which her other young one was. Thus they went on time
after time, until the mother was dead tired, and lay down exhausted on
the ground. Then, when after some time she shewed no signs of moving,
the herd-boys crept stealthily down, and found that the wolf was
already stiff and cold. And truly, it is better to meet a blustering
foe with his hand upon his sword-hilt, by retiring within doors, and
leaving him to fret his violence away unopposed; for such is but the
behaviour of brute beasts, of which men thus take advantage.
CLV.
ADULTERATION[675] PUNISHED.
At Chin-ling there lived a seller of spirits, who was in the habit of
adulterating his liquor with water and a certain drug, the effect of
which was that even a few cups would make the strongest-headed man as
drunk as a jelly-fish.[676] Thus his shop acquired a reputation for
having a good article on sale, and by degrees he became a rich man.
One morning, on getting up, he found a fox lying drunk alongside of
the spirit vat; and tying its legs together, he was about to fetch a
knife, when suddenly the fox waked up, and began pleading for its
life, promising in return to do anything the spirit-merchant might
require. The latter then released the animal, which instantly changed
into the form of a human being. Now, at that very time, the
wife of a neighbour was suffering under fox influence, and this
recently-transformed animal confessed to the spirit-merchant that it
was he who had been troubling her. Thereupon the spirit-merchant, who
knew the lady in question to be a celebrated beauty, begged his fox
friend to secretly introduce him to her. After raising some
objections, the fox at length consented, and conducted the
spirit-merchant to a cave, where he gave him a suit of serge clothes,
which he said had belonged to his late brother, and in which he told
him he could easily go. The merchant put them on, and returned home,
when to his great delight he observed that no one could see him, but
that if he changed into his ordinary clothes everybody could see him
as before. Accordingly he set off with the fox for his neighbour’s
house; and, when they arrived, the first thing they beheld was a charm
on the wall, like a great wriggling dragon. At this the fox was
greatly alarmed, and said, “That scoundrel of a priest! I can’t go any
farther.” He then ran off home, leaving the spirit-merchant to proceed
by himself. The latter walked quietly in to find that the dragon on
the wall was a real one, and preparing to fly at him, so he too
turned, and ran away as fast as his legs could carry him. The fact was
that the family had engaged a priest to drive away the fox influence;
and he, not being able to go at the moment himself, gave them this
charm to stick up on the wall. The following day the priest himself
came, and, arranging an altar, proceeded to exorcise the fox. All the
villagers crowded round to see, and among others was the
spirit-merchant, who, in the middle of the ceremony, suddenly changed
colour, and hurried out of the front door, where he fell on the ground
in the shape of a fox, having his clothes still hanging about his arms
and legs. The bystanders would have killed him on the spot, but his
wife begged them to spare him; and the priest let her take the fox
home, where in a few days it died.
FOOTNOTES:
[675] In no country in the world is adulteration more extensively
practised than in China, the only formal check upon it being a
religious one--the dread of punishment in the world below.
[676] The text has here a word (literally, “mud”) explained to be the
name of a boneless aquatic creature, which on being removed from the
water lies motionless like a lump of mud. The common term for a
jelly-fish is _shui-mu_, “water-mother.”
CLVI.
A CHINESE SOLOMON.
In our district there lived two men, named Hu Ch‘êng and Fêng Ngan,
between whom there existed an old feud. The former, however, was the
stronger of the two; and accordingly Fêng disguised his feelings under
a specious appearance of friendship, though Hu never placed much faith
in his professions. One day they were drinking together, and being
both of them rather the worse for liquor, they began to brag of the
various exploits they had achieved. “What care I for poverty,” cried
Hu, “when I can lay a hundred ounces of silver on the table at a
moment’s notice?” Now Fêng was well aware of the state of Hu’s
affairs, and did not hesitate to scout such pretensions, until Hu
further informed him in perfect seriousness that the day before he had
met a merchant travelling with a large sum of money and had tumbled
him down a dry well by the wayside; in confirmation of which he
produced several hundred ounces of silver, which really belonged to a
brother-in-law on whose behalf he was managing some negotiation for
the purchase of land. When they separated, Fêng went off and gave
information to the magistrate of the place, who summoned Hu to answer
to the charge. Hu then told the actual facts of the case, and his
brother-in-law and the owner of the land in question corroborated his
statement. However, on examining the dry well by letting a man down
with a rope round him, lo! there was a headless corpse lying at the
bottom. Hu was horrified at this, and called Heaven to witness that he
was innocent; whereupon the magistrate ordered him twenty or thirty
blows on the mouth for lying in the presence of such irrefragable
proof, and cast him into the condemned cell, where he lay loaded with
chains. Orders were issued that the corpse was not to be removed, and
a notification was made to the people, calling upon the relatives of
the deceased to come forward and claim the body. Next day a woman
appeared, and said deceased was her husband; that his name was Ho, and
that he was proceeding on business with a large sum of money about him
when he was killed by Hu. The magistrate observed that possibly the
body in the well might not be that of her husband, to which the woman
replied that she felt sure it was; and accordingly the corpse was
brought up and examined, when the woman’s story was found to be
correct. She herself did not go near the body, but stood at a little
distance making the most doleful lamentations; until at length the
magistrate said, “We have got the murderer, but the body is not
complete; you go home and wait until the head has been discovered,
when life shall be given for life.” He then summoned Hu before him, and
told him to produce the head by the next day under penalty of severe
torture; but Hu only wandered about with the guard sent in charge of
him, crying and lamenting his fate, but finding nothing. The
instruments of torture were then produced, and preparations were made
as if for torturing Hu; however, they were not applied,[677] and
finally the magistrate sent him back to prison, saying, “I suppose
that in your hurry you didn’t notice where you dropped the head.” The
woman was then brought before him again; and on learning that her
relatives consisted only of one uncle, the magistrate remarked, “A
young woman like you, left alone in the world, will hardly be able to
earn a livelihood. [Here she burst into tears and implored the
magistrate’s pity.] The punishment of the guilty man has been already
decided upon, but until we get the head, the case cannot be closed. As
soon as it is closed, the best thing you can do is to marry again. A
young woman like yourself should not be in and out of a police-court.”
The woman thanked the magistrate and retired; and the latter issued a
notice to the people, calling upon them to make a search for the head.
On the following day, a man named Wang, a fellow villager of the
deceased, reported that he had found the missing head; and his report
proving to be true, he was rewarded with 1,000 _cash_. The magistrate
now summoned the woman’s uncle above-mentioned, and told him that the
case was complete, but that as it involved such an important matter as
the life of a human being, there would necessarily be some delay in
closing it for good and all.[678] “Meanwhile,” added the magistrate,
“your niece is a young woman and has no children; persuade her to
marry again and so keep herself out of these troubles, and never mind
what people may say.”[679] The uncle at first refused to do this; upon
which the magistrate was obliged to threaten him until he was
ultimately forced to consent. At this, the woman appeared before the
magistrate to thank him for what he had done; whereupon the latter
gave out that any person who was willing to take the woman to wife was
to present himself at his yamên. Immediately afterwards an application
was made--by the very man who had found the head. The magistrate then
sent for the woman and asked her if she could say who was the real
murderer; to which she replied that Hu Chêng had done the deed. “No!”
cried the magistrate; “it was not he. It was you and this man here.
[Here both began loudly to protest their innocence.] I have long known
this; but, fearing to leave the smallest loophole for escape, I have
tarried thus long in elucidating the circumstances. How [to the
woman], before the corpse was removed from the well, were you so
certain that it was your husband’s body? _Because you already knew he
was dead._ And does a trader who has several hundred ounces of silver
about him dress as shabbily as your husband was dressed? And you, [to
the man], how did you manage to find the head so readily? _Because you
were in a hurry to marry the woman._” The two culprits stood there as
pale as death, unable to utter a word in their defence; and on the
application of torture both confessed the crime. For this man, the
woman’s paramour, had killed her husband, curiously enough, about the
time of Hu Chêng’s braggart joke. Hu was accordingly released, but
Fêng suffered the penalty of a false accuser; he was severely
bambooed, and banished for three years. The case was thus brought to a
close without the wrongful punishment of a single person.
FOOTNOTES:
[677] See No. LXXIII., note 471.
[678] There is a widespread belief that human life in China is held at
a cheap rate. This may be accounted for by the fact that death is the
legal punishment for many crimes not considered capital in the West;
and by the severe measures that are always taken in cases of
rebellion, when the innocent and guilty are often indiscriminately
massacred. In times of tranquillity, however, this is not the case;
and the execution of a criminal is surrounded by a number of
formalities which go far to prevent the shedding of innocent blood.
The _Hsi-yüan-lu_ (see No. XIV., note 100) opens with the words,
“There is nothing more important than human life.”
[679] See No. LXVIII., note 385.
CLVII.
THE ROC.
Two herons built their nests under one of the ornaments on the roof of
a temple at Tientsin. The accumulated dust of years in the shrine
below concealed a huge serpent, having the diameter of a
washing-basin; and whenever the heron’s young were ready to fly, the
reptile proceeded to the nest and swallowed every one of them, to the
great distress of the bereaved parents. This took place three years
consecutively, and people thought the birds would build there no more.
However, the following year they came again; and when the time was
drawing nigh for their young ones to take wing, away they flew, and
remained absent for nearly three days. On their return, they went
straight to the nest, and began amidst much noisy chattering to feed
their young ones as usual. Just then the serpent crawled up to reach
his prey; and as he was nearing the nest the parent-birds flew out and
screamed loudly in mid-air. Immediately, there was heard a mighty
flapping of wings, and darkness came over the face of the earth, which
the astonished spectators now perceived to be caused by a huge bird
obscuring the light of the sun. Down it swooped with the speed of
wind or falling rain, and, striking the serpent with its talons, tore
its head off at a blow, bringing down at the same time several feet of
the masonry of the temple. Then it flew away, the herons accompanying
it as though escorting a guest. The nest too had come down, and of the
two young birds one was killed by the fall; the other was taken by the
priests and put in the bell tower, whither the old birds returned to
feed it until thoroughly fledged, when it spread its wings and was
gone.[680]
FOOTNOTE:
[680] This story is inserted chiefly in illustration of the fact that
all countries have a record of some enormous bird such as the _roc_ of
the “Arabian Nights.”
CLVIII.
THE FAITHFUL GANDER.[681]
A sportsman of Tientsin, having snared a wild goose, was followed to
his home by the gander, which flew round and round him in great
distress, and only went away at nightfall. Next day, when the
sportsman went out, there was the bird again; and at length it
alighted quite close to his feet. He was on the point of seizing it
when suddenly it stretched out its neck and disgorged a piece of pure
gold; whereupon, the sportsman, understanding what the bird meant,
cried out, “I see! this is to ransom your mate, eh?” Accordingly, he
at once released the goose, and the two birds flew away with many
expressions of their mutual joy, leaving to the sportsman nearly three
ounces of pure gold. Can, then, mere birds have such feelings as
these? Of all sorrows there is no sorrow like separation from those we
love; and it seems that the same holds good even of dumb animals.
FOOTNOTE:
[681] See No. XXXV., note 217.
CLIX.
THE ELEPHANTS AND THE LION.
A huntsman of Kuang-si, who was out on the hills with his bow and
arrows, lay down to rest awhile, and unwittingly fell fast asleep. As
he was slumbering, an elephant came up, and, coiling his trunk around
the man, carried him off. The latter gave himself up for dead; but
before long the elephant had deposited him at the foot of a tall tree,
and had summoned a whole herd of comrades, who crowded about the
huntsman as though asking his assistance. The elephant who had brought
him went and lay down under the tree, and first looked up into its
branches and then looked down at the man, apparently requesting him to
get up into the tree. So the latter jumped on the elephant’s back and
then clambered up to the topmost branch, not knowing what he was
expected to do next. By-and-by a lion[682] arrived, and from among
the frightened herd chose out a fat elephant, which he seemed as
though about to devour. The others remained there trembling, not
daring to run away, but looking wistfully up into the tree. Thereupon
the huntsman drew an arrow from his quiver and shot the lion dead, at
which all the elephants below made him a grateful obeisance. He then
descended, when the elephant lay down again and invited him to mount
by pulling at his clothes with its trunk. This he did, and was carried
to a place where the animal scratched the ground with its foot, and
revealed to him a vast number of old tusks. He jumped down and
collected them in a bundle, after which the elephant conveyed him to a
spot whence he easily found his way home.
FOOTNOTE:
[682] The term here used refers to a creature which partakes rather of
the fabulous than of the real. The _Kuang-yün_ says it is “a kind of
lion;” but other authorities describe it as a horse. Its favourite
food is tiger-flesh. Incense-burners are often made after the “lion”
pattern and called by this name, the smoke of the incense issuing from
the mouth of the animal, like our own gargoyles.
CLX.
THE HIDDEN TREASURE.