Part 42

[502] Which fact would disqualify him from taking the post.

[503] Literally, “Square hole.” A common name for the Chinese cash. See No. II., note 42.

[504] In the case of wealthy families these strong rooms often contain, in addition to bullion, jewels to a very great amount belonging to the ladies of the house; and, as a rule, the door may not be opened unless in the presence of a certain number of the male representatives of the house.

[505] Pieces of silver and gold paper made up to represent the ordinary Chinese “shoes” of bullion (See No. XVIII., note 133), and burnt for the use of the dead. Generally known to foreigners in China as “joss-paper.”

[506] See No. VII., note 54. In this case the reference is to a similar Board in the Infernal Regions.

[507] These would be sure to sneer at him behind his back.

[508] A compliment usually paid to an in-coming official.

[509] See No. I., note 39.

[510] The retinue of a Mandarin should be in accordance with his rank. I have given elsewhere (See No. LVI., note 315) what would be that of an official of the highest rank.

[511] See No. LXXVII., note 431.

[512] Good writing holds a much higher place in the estimation of the Chinese than among western nations. The very nature of their characters raises calligraphy almost to the rank of an art.

[513] The commentator here adds a somewhat similar case, which actually occurred in the reign of K‘ang Hsi, of a Viceroy modestly attended falling in with the gorgeous retinue of a Magistrate, and being somewhat rudely treated by the servants of the latter. On arriving at his destination, the Viceroy sent for that Magistrate, and sternly bade him retire from office, remarking that no simple magistrate could afford to keep such a retinue of attendants unless by illegal exactions from the suffering people committed to his charge.

XCVIII.

A CHINESE JONAH.

A man named Sun Pi-chên was crossing the river[514] when a great thunder-squall broke upon the vessel and caused her to toss about fearfully, to the great terror of all the passengers. Just then, an angel in golden armour appeared standing upon the clouds above them, holding in his hand a scroll inscribed with certain characters, also written in gold, which the people on the vessel easily made out to be three in number, namely _Sun Pi-chên_. So, turning at once to their fellow-traveller, they said to him, “You have evidently incurred the displeasure of Heaven; get into a boat by yourself, and do not involve us in your punishment.” And without giving him time to reply whether he would do so or not, they hurried him over the side into a small boat and set him adrift; but when Sun Pi-chên looked back, lo! the vessel itself had capsized.[515]

FOOTNOTES:

[514] The Yang-tsze: sometimes spoken of as the Long River.

[515] The full point of this story can hardly be conveyed in translation. The man’s surname was Sun, and his prænomen, Pi-chên, (which in Chinese _follows_ the nomen) might be rendered “Must-be-saved.” However, there is another word meaning “struck,” precisely similar in sound and tone, though written differently, to the above _chên_; and, as far as the ear alone is concerned, our hero’s name might have been either _Sun Must-be-saved_ or _Sun Must-be-struck_. That the merchants mistook the character _chên_, “saved,” for _chên_, “struck,” is evident from the catastrophe which overtook their vessel, while Mr. Sun’s little boat rode safely through the storm.

XCIX.

CHANG PU-LIANG.

A certain trader who was travelling in the province of Chih-li, being overtaken by a storm of rain and hail, took shelter among some standing crops by the way-side. There he heard a voice from heaven, saying, “These are Chang Pu-liang’s fields; do not injure his crops.” The trader began to wonder who this Chang Pu-liang could be, and how, if he was _pu liang_ (not virtuous), he came to be under divine protection; so when the storm was over and he had reached the neighbouring village, he made enquiries on the subject, and told the people there what he had heard. The villagers then informed him that Chang Pu-liang was a very wealthy farmer, who was accustomed every spring to make loans of grain to the poor of the district, and who was not too particular about getting back the exact amount he had lent,--taking, in fact, whatever they brought him without discussion; hence the sobriquet of _pu liang_ “no measure” (_i.e._, the man who doesn’t measure the repayments of his loans).[516] After that, they all proceeded in a body to the fields, where it was discovered that vast damage had been done to the crops generally, with the exception of Chang Pu-liang’s, which had escaped uninjured.

FOOTNOTE:

[516] Here again we have a play upon words similar to that in the last story.

C.

THE DUTCH CARPET.

Formerly, when the Dutch[517] were permitted to trade with China, the officer in command of the coast defences would not allow them, on account of their great numbers, to come ashore. The Dutch begged very hard for the grant of a piece of land such as a carpet would cover; and the officer above-mentioned, thinking that this could not be very large, acceded to their request. A carpet was accordingly laid down, big enough for about two people to stand on; but by dint of stretching, it was soon enough for four or five; and so they went on, stretching and stretching, until at last it covered about an acre, and by-and-by, with the help of their knives, they had filched a piece of ground several miles in extent.[518]

FOOTNOTES:

[517] We read in the _History of Amoy_:--“In the year 1622 the red-haired barbarians seized the Pescadores and attacked Amoy.” From the Pescadores they finally retired, on a promise that trade would be permitted, to Formosa, whence they were expelled by the famous Koxinga in 1662. “Red-haired barbarians,” a term now commonly applied to all foreigners, was first used in the records of the Ming dynasty to designate the Dutch.

[518] Our author would here seem to have heard of the famous bull’s hide which is mentioned in the first book of the _Æneid_. In any case, the substitution of “stretching” is no improvement on the celebrated device by which the bull’s hide was made to enclose so large a space.

CI.

CARRYING A CORPSE.

A woodsman who had been to market was returning home with his pole across his shoulder,[519] when suddenly he felt it become very heavy at the end behind him, and looking round he saw attached to it the headless trunk of a man. In great alarm, he got his pole quit of the burden and struck about him right and left, whereupon the body disappeared. He then hurried on to the next village, and when he arrived there in the dusk of the evening, he found several men holding lights to the ground as if looking for something. On asking what was the matter, they told him that while sitting together a man’s head had fallen from the sky into their midst; that they had noticed the hair and beard were all draggled, but in a moment the head had vanished. The woodsman then related what had happened to himself; and thus one whole man was accounted for, though no one could tell whence he came. Subsequently, another man was carrying a basket when some one saw a man’s head in it, and called out to him; whereupon he dropped the basket in a fright, and the head rolled away and disappeared.

FOOTNOTE:

[519] The common method of porterage in China is by a bamboo pole over the shoulder with well-balanced burdens hanging from each end. I have often seen children carried thus, sitting in wicker baskets; sometimes for long journeys.

CII.

A TAOIST DEVOTEE.

Chü Yao-ju was a Ch‘ing-chou man, who, when his wife died, left his home and became a priest.[520] Some years afterwards he returned, dressed in the Taoist garb, and carrying his praying-mat[521] over his shoulder; and after staying one night he wanted to go away again. His friends, however, would not give him back his cassock and staff; so at length he pretended to take a stroll outside the village, and when there, his clothes and other belongings came flying out of the house after him, and he got safely away.

FOOTNOTES:

[520] It would be more usual to “renew the guitar string,” as the Chinese idiom runs. In the paraphrase of the first maxim of the _Sacred Edict_ we are told that “The closest of all ties is that of husband and wife; but suppose your wife dies, why, you can marry another. But if your brother were to die,” &c., &c.

[521] This, as well as the staff mentioned below, belongs to Buddhism. See No. IV., note 46.

CIII.

JUSTICE FOR REBELS.

During the reign of Shun Chih,[522] of the people of T‘êng-i, seven in ten were opposed to the Manchu dynasty. The officials dared not touch them; and subsequently, when the country became more settled, the magistrates used to distinguish them from the others by always deciding any cases in their favour: for they feared lest these men should revert to their old opposition. And thus it came about that one litigant would begin by declaring himself to have been a “rebel,” while his adversary would follow up by shewing such statement to be false; so that before any case could be heard on its actual merits, it was necessary to determine the status both of plaintiff and defendant, whereby infinite labour was entailed upon the Registrars.

Now it chanced that the yamên of one of the officials was haunted by a fox, and the official’s daughter was bewitched by it. Her father, therefore, engaged the services of a magician, who succeeded in capturing the animal and putting it into a bottle; but just as he was going to commit it to the flames, the fox cried out from inside the bottle, “I’m a rebel!” at which the bystanders were unable to suppress their laughter.

FOOTNOTE:

[522] The first Manchu ruler of the empire of China. He came to the throne in A.D. 1644.

CIV.

THEFT OF THE PEACH.

When I was a little boy I went one day to the prefectural city.[523] It was the time of the Spring festival,[524] and the custom was that on the day before, all the merchants of the place should proceed with banners and drums to the judge’s yamên: this was called “bringing in the Spring.” I went with a friend to see the fun; the crowd was immense, and there sat the officials in crimson robes arranged right and left in the hall; but I was small and didn’t know who they were, my attention being attracted chiefly by the hum of voices and the noise of the drums. In the middle of it all, a man leading a boy with his hair unplaited and hanging down his back, walked up to the dais. He carried a pole on his shoulder, and appeared to be saying something which I couldn’t hear for the noise; I only saw the officials smile, and immediately afterwards an attendant came down, and in a loud voice ordered the man to give a performance. “What shall it be?” asked the man in reply; whereupon, after some consultation between the officials on the dais, the attendant inquired what he could do best. The man said he could invert the order of nature; and then, after another pause, he was instructed to produce some peaches; to this he assented; and taking off his coat, laid it on his box, at the same time observing that they had set him a hard task, the winter frost not having broken up, and adding that he was afraid the gentlemen would be angry with him, &c., &c. His son here reminded him that he had agreed to the task and couldn’t well get out of it; so, after fretting and grumbling awhile, he cried out, “I have it! with snow on the ground we shall never get peaches here; but I guess there are some up in heaven in the Royal Mother’s garden,[525] and there we must try.” “How are we to get up, father?” asked the boy; whereupon the man said, “I have the means,” and immediately proceeded to take from his box a cord some tens of feet in length. This he carefully arranged, and then threw one end of it high up into the air where it remained as if caught by something. He now paid out the rope which kept going up higher and higher until the end he had thrown up disappeared in the clouds and only a short piece was left in his hands. Calling his son, he then explained that he himself was too heavy, and, handing him the end of the rope, bid him go up at once. The boy, however, made some difficulty, objecting that the rope was too thin to bear his weight up to such a height, and that he would surely fall down and be killed; upon which his father said that his promise had been given and that repentance was now too late, adding that if the peaches were obtained they would surely be rewarded with a hundred ounces of silver, which should be set aside to get the boy a pretty wife. So his son seized the rope and swarmed up, like a spider running up a thread of its web; and in a few moments he was out of sight in the clouds. By-and-by down fell a peach as large as a basin, which the delighted father handed up to his patrons on the dais who were some time coming to a conclusion whether it was real or imitation. But just then down came the rope with a run, and the affrighted father shrieked out, “Alas! alas! some one has cut the rope: what will my boy do now?” and in another minute down fell something else, which was found on examination to be his son’s head. “Ah me!” said he, weeping bitterly and shewing the head; “the gardener has caught him, and my boy is no more.” After that, his arms, and legs, and body, all came down in like manner; and the father, gathering them up, put them in the box and said, “This was my only son, who accompanied me everywhere; and now what a cruel fate is his. I must away and bury him.” He then approached the dais and said, “Your peach, gentlemen, was obtained at the cost of my boy’s life; help me now to pay his funeral expenses, and I will be ever grateful to you.” The officials who had been watching the scene in horror and amazement, forthwith collected a good purse for him; and when he had received the money, he rapped on his box and said, “Pa-pa‘rh! why don’t you come out and thank the gentlemen?” Thereupon, there was a thump on the box from the inside and up came the boy himself, who jumped out and bowed to the assembled company. I have never forgotten this strange trick, which I subsequently heard could be done by the White Lily sect,[526] who probably got it from this source.[527]

FOOTNOTES:

[523] It is worth noting that the author professes actually to have witnessed the following extraordinary scene.

[524] The vernal equinox, which would fall on or about the 20th of March.

[525] A fabulous lady, said to reside at the summit of the K‘un-lun mountain, where, on the border of the Gem Lake, grows the peach-tree of the angels, the fruit of which confers immortality on him who eats it.

[526] One of the most celebrated of the numerous secret societies of China, the origin of which dates back to about A.D. 1350. Its members have always been credited with a knowledge of the black art.

[527] Of Chinese jugglers, Ibn Batuta writes as follows:--“They produced a chain fifty cubits in length, and in my presence threw one end of it towards the sky, where it remained, as if fastened to something in the air. A dog was then brought forward, and, being placed at the lower end of the chain, immediately ran up, and reaching the other end immediately disappeared in the air. In the same manner a hog, a panther, a lion, and a tiger were alternately sent up the chain, and all equally disappeared at the upper end of it. At last they took down the chain, and put it into a bag, no one ever discerning in what way the different animals were made to vanish into the air in the mysterious manner above described. This, I may venture to affirm, was beyond measure strange and surprising.”

_Apropos_ of which passage, Mr. Maskelyne, the prince of all black-artists, ancient or modern, says:--“These apparent effects were, doubtless, due to the aid of concave mirrors, the use of which was known to the ancients, especially in the East, but they could not have been produced in the open air.”

CV.

KILLING A SERPENT.

At Ku-chi island in the eastern sea, there were camellias of all colours which bloomed throughout the year. No one, however, lived there, and very few people ever visited the spot. One day, a young man of Têng-chou, named Chang, who was fond of hunting and adventure, hearing of the beauties of the place, put together some wine and food, and rowed himself across in a small open boat. The flowers were just then even finer than usual, and their perfume was diffused for a mile or so around; while many of the trees he saw were several armfuls in circumference. So he roamed about and gave himself up to enjoyment of the scene; and by-and-by he opened a flask of wine, regretting very much that he had no companion to share it with him, when all of a sudden a most beautiful young girl, with extremely bright eyes and dressed in red, stepped down from one of the camellias before him.[528] “Dear me!” said she on seeing Mr. Chang; “I expected to be alone here, and was not aware that the place was already occupied.” Chang was somewhat alarmed at this apparition, and asked the young lady whence she came; to which she replied that her name was Chiao-ch‘ang, and that she had accompanied thither a Mr. Hai, who had gone off for a stroll and had left her to await his return. Thereupon Chang begged her to join him in a cup of wine, which she very willingly did, and they were just beginning to enjoy themselves when a sound of rushing wind was heard and the trees and plants bent beneath it. “Here’s Mr. Hai!” cried the young lady; and jumping quickly up, disappeared in a moment. The horrified Chang now beheld a huge serpent coming out of the bushes near by, and immediately ran behind a large tree for shelter, hoping the reptile would not see him. But the serpent advanced and enveloped both Chang and the tree in its great folds, binding Chang’s arms down to his sides so as to prevent him from moving them; and then raising its head, darted out its tongue and bit the poor man’s nose, causing the blood to flow freely out. This blood it was quietly sucking up, when Chang, who thought that his last hour had come, remembered that he had in his pocket some fox poison; and managing to insert a couple of fingers, he drew out the packet, broke the paper, and let the powder lie in the palm of his hand. He next leaned his hand over the serpent’s coils in such a way that the blood from his nose dripped into his hand, and when it was nearly full the serpent actually did begin to drink it. And in a few moments the grip was relaxed; the serpent struck the ground heavily with its tail, and dashed away up against another tree, which was broken in half, and then stretched itself out and died. Chang was a long time unable to rise, but at length he got up and carried the serpent off with him. He was very ill for more than a month afterwards, and even suspected the young lady of being a serpent, too, in disguise.

FOOTNOTE:

[528] See No. LXXI., note 408.

CVI.

THE RESUSCITATED CORPSE.