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LION AND DRAGON
IN NORTHERN CHINA

LION AND DRAGON
IN NORTHERN CHIN;^

BY R. F. JOHNSTON, M.A. (Oxon.), F.R.G.S.

DISTRICT OFFICER AND MAGISTRATE, WEIHAIWEl

FORMERLY PRIVATE SECRETARY TO THE GOVERNOR OF HONGKONG, ETC.

AUTHOR OF " FROM PEKING TO MANDALAY "

WITH MAP AND ILLUSTRATIONS

LONDON
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.

1910

\6

DEC 16 1971

PRINTED BY

HAZELL, WATSON AND VINEY, LD.,

LONDON AND AYLESBURY.

'P^

^

u

1

TO

Sir JAMES HALDANE STEWART LOCKHART

K.C.M.G., COMMISSIONER OF WEIHAIWEI

IN MEMORY OF

TWO MOONLIT NIGHTS AT LUTAO-K'OU

FIVE FROSTY MORNINGS AT PEI-K'OU TEMPLE

AND A HUNDRED BREEZY GALLOPS
OVER THE HILLS AND SANDS OF WEIHAIWEI

PREFACE

The meeting-place of the British Lion and the Chinese
Dragon in northern China consists of the port and
Territory of Weihaiwei. It is therefore with this
district, and the history, folk-lore, religious practices
and social customs of its people, that the following
pages are largely occupied. But Weihaiwei is in
many respects a true miniature of China, and a careful
study of native life and character, as they are ex-
hibited in this small district, may perhaps give us a
clearer and truer insight into the life and character
of the Chinese race than we should gain from any
superficial survey of China as a whole. Its present
status under the British Crown supplies European
observers with a unique opportunity for the close
study of sociological and other conditions in rural
China. If several chapters of this book seem to be
but slightly concerned with the special subject of
Weihaiwei, it is because the chief interest of the place
to the student lies in the fact that it is an epitomised
China, and because if we wish fully to understand
even this small fragment of the Empire we must

make many long excursions through the wider fields

vii

viii PREFACE

of Chinese history, sociology and religion. The
photographs (with certain exceptions noted in each
case) have been taken by the author during his
residence at Weihaiwei. From Sir James H. Stewart
Lockhart, K.C.M.G., Commissioner of Weihaiwei, he
has received much kind encouragement which he
is glad to take this opportunity of acknowledging;
and he is indebted to Captain A. Hilton-Johnson for
certain information regarding the personnel of the late
Chinese Regiment. His thanks are more especially
due to his old friend Mr. D. P. Heatley, Lecturer
in History at the University of Edinburgh, for his
generous assistance in superintending the publication
of the book.

R. F. Johnston.

W£n-ch*uan-t'ang,
Weihaiwei,
May I, 1910.

CONTENTS

CHAP. PAGE

I. INTRODUCTION I

II, WEIHAIWEI AND THE SHANTUNG PROMONTORY 12

III. HISTORY AND LEGEND 34

IV. CHINESE CHRONICLES AND LOCAL CELEBRITIES 57
V, BRITISH RULE 'jy

VI. LITIGATION I02

VII. VILLAGE LIFE AND LAND TENURE . . .127

VIII. VILLAGE CUSTOMS, FESTIVALS AND FOLK-LORE 1 55

IX. THE WOMEN OF WEIHAIWEI .... 195

X. WIDOWS AND CHILDREN 217

XI. FAMILY GRAVEYARDS 254

XII. DEAD MEN AND GHOST-LORE .... 276

ix

X CONTENTS

CHAP. PAGE

XIII. CONFUCIANISM — I 300

XIV. CONFUCIANISM — II 328

XV, TAOISM, LOCAL DEITIES, TREE-WORSHIP. . 35 1

XVI. THE DRAGON, MOUNTAIN-WORSHIP, BUDDHISM 385

XVII. RELIGION AND SUPERSTITION IN EAST AND

WEST 408

XVIII. THE FUTURE 426

INDEX . - 451

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

VIEW FROM THE HUAN-TS'UI-LOU ON THE CITY WALL OF

WEIHAIWEI Frontispiece

FACING PAGE

THE MANG-TAO TREE l8

A HALT IN YU-CHIA-K'UANG DEFILE l8

THE TEMPLE AT THE SHANTUNG PROMONTORY ... 22

WEIHAIWEI HARBOUR, LIUKUNGTAO AND CHU-TAO LIGHT-
HOUSE 26

IMAGES OF "MR. AND MRS. LIU " 28

A VIEW FROM THE WALL OF WEIHAIWEI CITY ... 30

PART OF WEIHAIWEI CITY WALL 46

THE AUTHOR AND TOMMIE ON THE QUORK'S PEAK . . 46

THE HARBOUR WITH BRITISH WARSHIPS, FROM LIUKUNGTAO 80

DISTRICT OFFICER'S QUARTERS lOO

THE COURT-HOUSE, WEN-CH'uAN-T'ANG TOO

xi

xii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

FACING PAGE

"we are three" 128

VILLAGE OF t'aNG HO-HSI I28

A TYPICAL theatrical STAGE BELONGING TO A TEMPLE . I30

VILLAGE THEATRICALS 130

A DISTRICT HEADMAN AND HIS COMPLIMENTARY TABLET . 1 58

THREE VILLAGE HEADMEN 1 58

PROTECTIVE CHARMS USED IN WEIHAIWEI . . . .174

FIRST-FULL-MOON STILT- WALKERS 1 82

"walking boats" at THE FIRST- FULL-MOON FESTIVAL . 182

MASQUERADERS AT FESTIVAL OF FIRST FULL MOON . . 184

GROUP OF VILLAGERS WATCHING FIRST-FULL-MOON MAS-
QUERADERS 184

THREE WOMEN AND A HAYRICK 2o6

THREE GENERATIONS — AT THE VILLAGE GRINDSTONE . . 2o6

VILLAGE OF KU-SHAN-HOU, SHOWING HONORARY POLES IN

FRONT OF THE ANCESTRAL TEMPLE 224

MONUMENT TO FAITHFUL WIDOW, KU-SHAN-HOU . . . 224

AN AFTERNOON SIESTA . . '. 252

WASHING CLOTHES 252

THE ANCESTRAL GRAVEYARD OF THE CHOU FAMILY . . 256

A PEDIGREE-SCROLL (CHIA P'u) 264

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xiii

FACING PAGE

SPIRIT-TABLETS 278

A PEDIGREE SCROLL (CHIA P'u) 280

A WRECKED JUNK 288

A JUNK ASHORE 288

WEIHAIWEI VILLAGERS SM

SHEN-TZU (mule-litter) FORDING A STREAM. . . . 3x4

HILLS NEAR AI-SHAN 33°

HILL, WOOD AND STREAM 33°

IMAGE OF KUAN TI, WEIHAIWEI 362

THE BUDDHA OF KU SHAN TEMPLE 368

THE CITY-GOD OF WEIHAIWEI 368

SHRINE TO THE GOD OF LITERATURE 372

A T'U TI SHRINE 372

YUAN DYNASTY GRAVES 37^

A T'U TI SHRINE, SHOWING RAG-POLES AND TREE . . 376

THE HAUNTED TREE OF LIN-CHIA-YUAN 380

A VILLAGE 382

AT CHANG-CHIA-SHAN 3^2

AI-SHAN PASS AND TEMPLE 3^6

xiv LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

FACING PAGE

SHRINES TO THE MOUNTAIN-SPIRIT AND LUNG WANG . . 396

WORSHIP AT THE ANCESTRAL TOMBS 396

AT THE VILLAGE OF VU-CHIA-K'UANG 398

a mountain stream and hamlet 398

wen-ch'Uan-t'ang 400

shrine on summit of ku shan ....... 414

villagers at a temple doorway 414

two british rulers on the march, with mule-litter

and horse 434

a roadside scene 434

the commissioner of weihaiwei (sir j. h. stewart
lockhart, k.c.m.g.), with priest and attendants

AT THE TEMPLE OF CH'ENG SHAN 440

MAP

WEIHAIWEI at the etid

LION AND DRAGON
IN NORTHERN CHINA

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

Less than a dozen years have passed since the guns
of British warships first saluted the flag of their
country at the Chinese port of Weihaiwei, yet it is
nearly a century since the white ensign was seen
there for the first time. In the summer of 1816 His
Britannic Majesty's frigate Alceste, accompanied by
the sloop Lyra, bound for the still mysterious and
unsurveyed coasts of Korea and the Luchu Islands,
sailed eastwards from the mouth of the Pei-ho along
the northern coast of the province of Shantung, and
on the 27th August of that year cast anchor in the
harbour of " Oie-hai-oie." Had the gallant officers of
the Alceste and Lyra been inspired with knowledge of
future political developments, they would doubtless
have handed down to us an interesting account of the
place and its inhabitants. All we learn from Captain
Basil Hall's delightful chronicle of the voyage of the
two ships consists of a few details — in the truest sense
ephemeral — as to wind and weather, and a statement
that the rocks of the mainland consist of "yellowish
felspar, white quartz, and black mica." The rest is
silence.

From that time until the outbreak of the Sino-

2 INTRODUCTION

Japanese War in 1894 the British public heard little
or nothing of Weihaiwei. After the fall of Port
Arthur, during that war, it was China's only remaining
naval base. The struggle that ensued in January
1895, when, with vastly superior force, the Japanese
attacked it by land and sea, forms one of the few
episodes of that war upon which the Chinese can look
back without overwhelming shame. Victory, how-
ever, went to those who had the strongest battalions
and the stoutest hearts. The three-weeks siege ended
in the suicide of the brave Chinese Commander-in-
Chief, Admiral Ting, and in the loss to China of
her last coast-fortress and the whole of her fleet.
Finally, as a result of the seizure of Port Arthur by
Russia and a subsequent three-cornered agreement
between Japan, China and England, Weihaiwei was
leased to Great Britain under the terms of a Conven-
tion signed at Peking in July 1898.

The British robe of empire is a very splendid and
wonderfull}' variegated garment. It bears the gor-
geous scarlets and purples of the Indies, it shimmers
with the diamonds of Africa, it is lustrous with the
whiteness of our Lady of Snows, it is scented with
the spices of Ceylon, it is decked with the pearls and
soft fleeces of Australia. But there is also— pinned to
the edge of this magnificent robe— a little drab-
coloured ribbon that is in constant danger of being
dragged in the mud or trodden underfoot, and is
frequently the object of disrespectful gibes. This is
Weihaiwei.

Whether the imperial robe would not look more
imposing without this nondescript appendage is a
question which may be left to the student of political
fashion-plates : it will concern us hardly at all in the
pages of this book. An English newspaper published
in China has dubbed Weihaiwei the Cinderella of the
British Empire, and speculates vaguely as to where
her Fairy Prince is to come from. Alas, the Fairy
Godmother must first do her share in making poor

THE CINDERELLA OF THE EMPIRE 3

Cinderella beautiful and presentable before any Fairy
Prince can be expected to find in her the lady of his
dreams : and the Godmother has certainly not yet
made her appearance, unless, indeed, the British
Colonial Office is presumptuous enough to put
forward a claim (totally unjustifiable) to that position.
By no means do I, in the absence of the Fairy Prince,
propose to ride knight-like into the lists of political
controversy wearing the gage of so forlorn a damsel-
in-distress as Weihaiwei. Let me explain, dropping
metaphor, that the following pages will contain but
slender contribution to the vexed questions of the
strategic importance of the port or of its potential
value as a depot of commerce. Are not such things
set down in the books of the official scribes ? Nor
will they constitute a guide-book that might help
exiled Europeans to decide upon the merits of
Weihaiwei as a resort for white-cheeked children
from Shanghai and Hongkong, or as affording a
dumping-ground for brass-bands and bathing-machines.
On these matters, too, information is not lacking. As
for the position of Weihaiwei on the playground of
international politics, it may be that Foreign Ministers
have not yet ceased to regard it as an interesting toy
to be played with when sterner excitements are
lacking. But it will be the aim of these pages to
avoid as far as possible any incursion into the realm
of politics : for it is not with Weihaiwei as a diplo-
matic shuttlecock that they profess to deal, but with
Weihaiwei as the ancestral home of many thousands
of Chinese peasants, who present a stolid and almost
changeless front to all the storms and fluctuations of
politics and war.

Books on China have appeared in large numbers
during the past few years, and the production of
another seems to demand some kind of apology. Yet
it cannot be said that as a field for the ethnologist, the
historian, the student of comparative religion and of
folk-lore, the sociologist or the moral philosopher,

4 INTRODUCTION

China has been worked out. The demand for books
that profess to deal in a broad and general way with
China and its people as a whole has probably, indeed,
been fully satisfied : but China is too vast a country
to be adequately described by any one writer or group
of writers, and the more we know about China and its
people the more strongly we shall feel that future
workers must confine themselves to less ambitious
objects of study than the whole Empire. The pioneer
who with his prismatic compass passes rapidly over
half a continent has nearly finished all he can be
expected to do ; he must soon give place to the
surveyor who with plane-table and theodolite will
content himself with mapping a section of a single
province.

It is a mistake to suppose that any class of
European residents in or visitors to the Far East
possesses the means of acquiring sound knowledge
of China and the Chinese. Government officials —
whether Colonial or Consular — are sometimes rather
apt to assume that what they do not know about
China is not worth knowing ; missionaries show a
similar tendency to believe that an adequate knowledge
of the life and " soul" of the Chinese people is attain-
able only by themselves ; while journalists and
travellers, believing that officials and missionaries
are necessarily one-sided or bigoted, profess to speak
with the authority that comes of breezy open-minded-
ness and impartiality. The tendency in future will
be for each writer to confine himself to that aspect
of Chinese life with which he is personally familiar,
or that small portion of the Empire that comes within
the radius of his personal experience. If he is a
keen observer he will find no lack of material ready
to his hand. Perhaps the richer and more luxuriant
fields of inquiry may be occupied by other zealous
workers : then let him steal quietly into some thorny
and stony corner which they have neglected, some
wilderness that no one else cares about, and set to

WEIHAIWEI S

work with spade and hoe to prepare a little garden
for himself. Perhaps if he is industrious the results
maybe not wholly disappointing; and the passer-by
who peeps over his hedge to jeer at his folly and
simplicity in cultivating a barren moor may be
astonished to find that the stony soil has after all
produced good fruit and beautiful flowers. In
attempting a description of the people of Weihaiwei,
their customs and manners, their religion and super-
stitions, their folk-lore, their personal characteristics,
their village homes, 1 have endeavoured to justify my
choice of a field of investigation that has so far been
neglected by serious students of things Chinese. It
may be foolish to hope that this little wilderness will
prove to be of the kind that blossoms like a rose, yet
at least I shall escape the charge of having staked
out a valley and a hill and labelled it " China."

Hitherto Weihaiwei has been left in placid enjoy-
ment of its bucolic repose. The lords of commerce
despise it, the traveller dismisses it in a line, the
sinologue knows it not, the ethnologist ignores it,
the historian omits to recognise its existence before
the fateful year 1895, while the local British official,
contenting himself with issuing tiny Blue-book reports
which nobody reads, dexterously strives to convince
himself and others that its administrative problems
are sufficiently weighty to justify his existence and
his salary. And yet a few years of residence in this
unpampered little patch of territory — years spent to
a great extent without European companionship,
when one must either come to know something of
the inhabitants and their ways or live like a mole —
have convinced one observer, and would doubtless
convince many others, that to the people of Wei-
haiwei life is as momentous and vivid, as full of
joyous and tragic interest, as it is to the proud people
of the West, and that mankind here is no less worthy
the pains of study than mankind elsewhere.

There is an interesting discovery to be made almost

6 INTRODUCTION

as soon as one has dipped below the surface of the daily
life of the Weihaiwei villagers, and it affords perhaps
ample compensation and consolation for the apparent
narrowness of our field of inquiry. In spite of their
position at one of the extremities of the empire, a
position which would seemingly render them peculiarly
receptive to alien ideas from foreign lands, the people
of Weihaiwei remain on the whole steadfastly loyal
to the views of life and conduct which are, or were
till recently, recognised as typically Chinese. Indeed,
not only do we find here most of the religious ideas,
•superstitious notions and social practices which are
still a living force in more centrally-situated parts
of the Empire, but we may also discover strange in-
stances of the survival of immemorial rites and quasi-
religious usages which are known to have flourished
dim ages ago throughout China, but which in less
conservative districts than Weihaiwei have been
gradually eliminated and forgotten. One example of
this is the queer practice of celebrating marriages
between the dead. The reasons for this strange cus-
tom must be dealt with later;^ here it is only desirable
to mention the fact that in many other parts of China
it appears to have been long extinct. The greatest
authority on the religious systems of China, Dr. De
Groot, whose erudite volumes should be in the hands
of every serious student of Chinese rites and cere-
monies, came across no case of " dead-marriage "
during his residence in China, and he expressed un-
certainty as to whether this custom was still practised.'
Another religious rite which has died out in many
other places and yet survives in Weihaiwei, is that of
burying the soul of a dead man (or perhaps it would
be more correct to say one of his souls) without his
body.' Of such burials, which must also be dealt with
later on. Dr. De Groot, in spite of all his researches,

' See pp. 230 seq.f 233 seq.

^ The Religious System of CImta, vol. ii. p. 806.

' See pp. 281 seq.

BRITISH INFLUENCE 7

seems to have come across no instance, though he
confidently expressed the correct belief that some-
where or other they still took place.^

As the people of Weihaiwei are so tenacious of old
customs and traditions, the reader may ask with what
feelings they regard the small foreign community
which for the last decade and more has been dwelling
in their midst. Is British authority merely regarded
as an unavoidable evil, something like a drought or
bad harvest ? Does British influence have no effect
whatever on the evolution of the native character and
modes of thought ? The last chapter of this book
will be found to contain some observations on these
matters : but in a general way it may be said that
the great mass of the Chinese population of Weihaiwei
has been only very slightly, and perhaps transiently,
affected by foreign influences. The British com-
munity is very small, consisting of a few officials,
merchants, and missionaries. With two or three
exceptions all the Europeans reside on the island of
Liukung and in the small British settlement of Port
Edward, where the native population (especially
on the island) is to a great extent drawn from the
south-eastern provinces of China and from Japan,
The European residents — other than officials and
missionaries — have few or no dealings with the people
except through the medium of their native clerks and
servants. The missionaries, it need hardly be said,
do not interfere, and of course in no circumstances
would be permitted to interfere, with the cherished
customs of the people, even those which are branded
as the idolatrous rites of " paganism."

Apart from the missionaries, the officials are the
only Europeans who come in direct contact with the
people, and it is, and always has been, the settled
policy of the local Government not only to leave the
people to lead their own lives in their own way, but,
when disputes arise between natives, to adjudicate

^ Op. cit. vol. iii. p. 854.

8 INTRODUCTION

between them in strict conformity with their own
ancestral usages. In this the local Government is
only acting in obedience to the Order-in-Council
under which British rule in Weihaiwei was in-
augurated. " In civil cases between natives," says the
Order, "the Court shall be guided by Chinese or
other native law and custom, so far as any such law
or custom is not repugnant to justice and morality."
The treatment accorded to the people of Weihaiwei
in this respect is, indeed, no different from that
accorded to other subject races of the Empire ;
but whereas, in other colonies and protectorates,
commercial or economic interests or political con-
siderations have generally made it necessary to
introduce a body of English-made law which to a
great extent annuls or transforms the native traditions
and customary law, the circumstances of Weihaiwei
have not yet made it necessary to introduce more
than a very slender body of legislative enactments,
hardly any of which run counter to or modify Chinese
theory or local practice.

From the point of view of the European student of
Chinese life and manners the conditions thus existing
in Weihaiwei are highly advantageous. Nowhere else
can " Old China " be studied in pleasanter or more
suitable surroundings than here. The theories of
" Young China," which are destined to improve so
much of the bad and to spoil so much of the good
elements in the political and social systems of the
Empire, have not yet had any deeply-marked influ-
ence on the minds of this industrious population of
simple-minded farmers. The Government official in
Weihaiwei, whose duties throw him into immediate
contact with the natives, and who in a combined
magisterial and executive capacity is obliged to ac-
quaint himself with the multitudinous details of their
daily life, has a unique opportunity for acquiring an
insight into the actual working of the social machine
and the complexities of Chinese character.

OFFICIALS AND PEOPLE 9

This satisfactory state of things cannot be regarded as
permanent, even if the foreigner himself does not soon
become a mere memory. If Weihaiwei were to under-
go development as a commercial or industrial centre,
present conditions would be greatly modified. Not only
would the people themselves pass through a startling
change in manners and disposition — a change more
or less rapid and fundamental according to the manner
in which the new conditions affected the ordinary life
of the villagers — but their foreign rulers would, in a
great measure, lose the opportunities which they now
possess of acquiring first-hand knowledge of the
people and their ancestral customs. Government
departments and officials would be multiplied in order
to cope with the necessary increase of routine work,
the executive and judicial functions would be carefully
separated, and the individual civil servant would
become a mere member or mouthpiece of a single
department, instead of uniting in his own person — as
he does at present — half a dozen different executive
functions and wide discretionary powers with regard
to general administration. Losing thereby a great
part of his personal influence and prestige, he would
tend to be regarded more and more as the salaried
servant of the public, less and less as a recognisable
representative of the fu-mu-kuan (the " father-and-
mother official ") of the time-honoured administrative
system of China. That these results would assuredly
be brought about by any great change in the economic
position of Weihaiwei cannot be doubted, since
similar causes have produced such results in nearly
all the foreign and especially the Asiatic possessions
of the British Crown.

But there are other forces at work besides those
that may come from foreign commercial or industrial
enterprise, whereby Weihaiwei may become a far
less desirable school than it is at present for the
student of the Chinese social organism. Hitherto
Weihaiwei has with considerable success protected

lo INTRODUCTION

itself behind walls of conservatism and obedience
to tradition against the onslaughts of what a Con-
fucian archbishop, if such a dignitary existed, might
denounce as " Modernism." But those walls, how-
ever substantial they may appear to the casual eye,
are beginning to show signs of decay. There is
indeed no part of China, or perhaps it would be truer
to say no section of the Chinese people, that is totally
unaffected at the present day by the modern spirit
of change and reform. It is naturally the most highly
educated of the people who are the most quickly
influenced and roused to action, and the people of
Weihaiwei, as it happens, are, with comparatively few
exceptions, almost illiterate. But the spirit of change
is " in the air," and reveals itself in cottage-homes as
well as in books and newspapers and the market-
places of great cities. Let us hope, for the good of
China, that the stout walls of conservatism both in
Weihaiwei and elsewhere will not be battered down
too soon or too suddenly.

One of the gravest dangers overhanging China at
the present day is the threatened triumph of mere
theory over the results of accumulated experience.
Multitudes of the ardent young reformers of to-day —
not unlike some of the early dreamers of the French
Revolution — are aiming at the destruction of all the
doctrines that have guided the political and social life
of their country for three thousand years, and hope
to build up a strong and progressive China on a
foundation of abstract principles. With the hot-
headed enthusiasm of youth they speak lightly of the
impending overthrow, not only of the decaying forces
of Buddhism and Taoism, but also of the great
politico-social structure of Confucianism, heedless of
the possibility that these may drag with them to
destruction all that is good and sound in Chinese
life and thought. Buddhism (in its present Chinese
form) might, indeed, be extinguished without much
loss to the people ; Taoism (such as it is nowadays)

CONSERVATISM AND REFORM ii

might vanish absolutely and for ever, leaving perhaps
no greater sense of loss than was left by the decay
of a belief in witchcraft and alchemy among our-
selves ; but Confucianism (or rather the principles and
doctrines which Confucianism connotes, for the system
dates from an age long anterior to that of Confucius)
cannot be annihilated without perhaps irreparable
injury to the body-social and body-politic of China.
The collapse of Confucianism would undoubtedly
involve, for example, the partial or total ruin of the
Chinese family system and the cult of ancestors.

With the exception of Roman Catholics and the
older generation of Protestant missionaries with a
good many of their successors, who condemn all
Chinese religion as false or " idolatrous," few, if any,
European students of China will be heard to dis-
approve— whether on ethical or religious grounds — of
that keystone of the Chinese social edifice known to
Europeans as ancestor-worship. To the revolutionary
doctrines of the extreme reformers Weihaiwei and
other "backward " and conservative parts of China are
— half unconsciously — opposing a salutary bulwark.
They cannot hope to keep change and reform alto-
gether at a distance, nor is it at all desirable that
they should do so ; indeed, as we have seen, their
walls of conservatism are already beginning to crumble.
But if they only succeed in keeping the old flag flying
until the attacking party has been sobered down by
time and experience and has become less anxious
to sweep away all the time-honoured bases of morality
and social government, these old centres of conserva-
tism will have deserved the gratitude of their country.
What indeed could be more fitting than that the
Confucian system should find its strongest support,
and perhaps make its last fight for life, in the very
province in which the national sage lived and taught,
and where his body has lain buried for twenty-five
centuries ?

CHAPTER II

WEIHAIWEI AND THE SHANTUNG PROMONTORY

As applied to the territory leased by China to Great
Britain the word Weihaiwei is in certain respects a
misnomer. The European reader should understand
that the name is composed of three separate Chinese
characters, each of which has a meaning of its own.*
The first of the three characters (transliterated Wei
in Roman letters) is not the same as the third : the
pronunciation is the same but the "tone" is different,
and the Chinese symbols for the two words are quite
distinct. The first Wei is a word meaning Terrible,
Majestic, or Imposing, according to its context or
combinations. The word Jiai means the Sea. The
combined words Wei-hai Ch'eng or Weihai City,
which is the real name of the little town that stands
on the mainland opposite the island of Liukung, might
be roughly explained as meaning " City of the August
Ocean," but in the case of Chinese place-names, as
of personal names, translations are always unnecessary
and often meaningless. The third character, Wei^
signifies a Guard or Protection; but in a technical sense,
as applied to the names of places, it denotes a certain
kind of garrisoned and fortified post partially ex-
empted from civil jurisdiction and established for the
protection of the coast from piratical raids, or for

' The three characters in question are depicted on the binding of this
book.

12

THE WEI OF VVEIHAI 13

guarding the highways along which tribute-grain and
pubhc funds are carried through the provinces to the
capital.

A IVet is more than a mere fort or even a fortified
town. It often implies the existence of a military
colony and lands held by military tenure, and may
embrace an area of some scores of square miles.
Perhaps the best translation of the term would be
" Military District." The Wei of Weihai was only
one of several Wei established along the coast of
Shantung, and like them it owed its creation chiefly
to the piratical attacks of the Japanese. More remains
to be said on this point in the next chapter ; here it
will be enough to say that the Military District of
Weihai was established in 1398 and was abolished in
1735. From that time up to the date of the Japanese
occupation in 1895 it formed part of the magisterial
(civil) district of Wen-teng, though this does not mean
that the forts were dismantled or the place left without
troops. In strictness, therefore, we should speak not
of Weihaiwei but of Weihai, which would have the
advantage of brevity : though as the old name is used
quite as much by the Chinese as by ourselves there
is no urgent necessity for a change. But in yet an-
other respect the name is erroneous, for the territory
leased to Great Britain, though much larger than that
assigned to the ancient Wei, does not include the
walled city which gives its name to the whole. The
Territory, however, embraces not only all that
the Wei included except the city, but also a con-
siderable slice of the districts of Wen-teng and Jung-
ch'eng. It should therefore be understood that the
Weihaiwei with which these pages deal is not merel}'^
the small area comprised in the old Chinese Wei, but
the three hundred square miles (nearly) of territory
ruled since 1898 by Great Britain. We shall have
cause also to make an occasional excursion into the
much larger area (comprising perhaps a thousand
square miles) over which Great Britain has certain

14 WEIHAIWEI AND SHANTUNG PROMONTORY

vague military rights but vvitliin which she has no
civil jurisdiction.

A glance at a map of eastern Shantung will show
the position of the Weihaiwei Territory (for such is
its official designation under the British administra-
tion) with regard to the cities of Wen-teng (south),
Jung-ch'eng (east), and Ning-hai (west). Starting
from the most easterly point in the Province, the
Shantung Promontory, and proceeding westwards
towards Weihaiwei, we find that the Jung-ch'eng
district embraces all the country lying eastward of
the Territory ; under the Chinese regime it also in-
cluded all that portion of what is at present British
territory which lies east of a line drawn from the
sea near the village of Sheng-tzii to the British frontier
south of the village of Ch'iao-t'ou. All the rest of
the Territory falls within the Chinese district of which
Wen-teng is the capital. Jung-ch'eng city is situated
five miles from the eastern British frontier, Wen-teng
city about six miles from the southern. The magis-
terial district of Ning-hai has its headquarters in a
city that lies over thirty miles west of the British
western boundary. The official Chinese distances
from Weihaiwei city to the principal places of im-
portance in the neighbourhood are these : to Ning-hai,
I20 li; to Wen-teng, loo //; to Jung-ch'eng, no it.
A li is somewhat variable, but is generally regarded
as equivalent to about a third of an English mile.
The distance to Chinan, the capital of the Shantung
Province, is reckoned at 1,350 //, and to Peking (by
road) 2,300 ii}

The mention of magisterial districts makes it desir-
able to explain, for the benefit of readers whose

• The following list of distances by sea to the principal neigh-
bouring ports may be of interest. The distance is in each case
reckoned from the Weihaiwei harbour. Shantung Promotitory,
30 miles; Chefoo, 42 miles; Fori Arthicr, 89 miles; Dalny, 91 miles ;
Chemulpo, 232 miles; Taku, 234 miles; Shanghai, 452 miles;
Kiaochou, 194 miles; Nagasaki^ 510 miles.

PREFECTS AND MAGISTRATES 15

knowledge of China is limited, that every Province
(there are at present eighteen Provinces in China
excluding Chinese Turkestan and the Manchurian
Provinces) is subdivided for administrative purposes
into Fii and Hsien^ words generally translated by the
terms Prefecture and District-Magistracy. The pre-
fects and magistrates are the fn-mu-kuan or Father-
and-mother officials ; that is, it is they who are the
direct rulers of the people, are supposed to know
their wants, to be always ready to listen to their
complaints and relieve their necessities, and to love
them as if the relationship were in reality that of
parent and children. That a Chinese magistrate has
often very queer ways of showing his paternal affec-
tion is a matter which need not concern us here. In
the eyes of the people the fn-mu-kuan is the living
embodiment of imperial as well as merely patriarchal
authority, and in the eyes of the higher rulers of the
Province he is the official representative of the
thousands of families over whom his jurisdiction
extends. The father-and-mother official is in short
looked up to by the people as representing the Em-
peror, the august Head of all the heads of families,
the Universal Patriarch ; he is looked down to by his
superiors as representing all the families to whom
he stands in loco parentis} A district magistrate is
subordinate to a prefect, for there are several magis-
tracies in each prefecture, but both are addressed as
Ta lao-yeh. This term — a very appropriate one for
an official who represents the patriarchal idea — may
be literally rendered Great Old Parent or Grand-
father ; whereas the more exalted provincial officials,
who are regarded less as parents of the people than
as Servants of the Emperor, are known as Ta-jen : a
term which, literally meaning Great Man, is often but

' " The magistrate is the unit of government ; he is the backbone of
the whole official system ; and to ninety per cent, of the population he
is the Government." — Byron Brenan's Office of District Magistrate in
China.

i6 WEIHAIWEI AND SHANTUNG PROMONTORY

not always appropriately regarded as equivalent to
" Excellency."

All the district-magistracies mentioned in connexion
with Weihaiwei are subordinate to a single prefecture.
The headquarters of the prefect, who presides over
a tract of country several thousand square miles in
extent, are at the city of Teng-chou, situated on the
north coast of Shantung 330 // or about 1 10 miles
by road west of Weihaiwei. The total number of
prefectures (/«) in Shantung is ten, of magistracies
one hundred and seven. As Shantung itself is esti-
mated to contain 56,000 square miles of territory,' the
average size of each of the Shantung prefectures may
be put down at 5,600 and that of each of the magis-
tracies at about 520 square miles. The British terri-
tory of Weihaiwei being rather less than 300 square
miles in extent is equivalent in area to a small-sized
district-magistracy. The functions of a Chinese
district magistrate have been described by some
Europeans as somewhat analogous to those of an
English mayor, but the analogy is very misleading.
Not only has the district magistrate greater powers
and responsibilities than the average mayor, but he
presides over a far larger area. He is chief civil
officer not only within the walls of the district capital
but also throughout an extensive tract of country that
is often rich and populous and full of towns and
villages.

The eastern part of the Shantung Peninsula, in
which Weihaiwei and the neighbouring districts of
Jung-ch'eng, Wen-teng and Ning-hai are situated,
is neither rich nor populous as compared with the
south-western parts of the Province. The land is not
unfertile, but the agricultural area is somewhat small,
for the country is very hilly. Like the greater part of
north China, Shantung is liable to floods and droughts,
and local famines are not uncommon. The unequal

' England and Wales contain 58,000 square miles, with a population
perhaps slightly less than that of Shantung.

FORESTATION 17

distribution of the rainfall is no doubt partly the
result of the almost total absence of forest. Foresta-
tion is and always has been a totally neglected art
in China, and the wanton manner in which timber
has been wasted and destroyed without any serious
attempt at replacement is one of the most serious blots
on Chinese administration, as well as one of the chief
causes of the poverty of the people.^ If north China
is to be saved from becoming a desert (for the arable
land in certain districts is undoubtedly diminishing
in quantity year by year) it will become urgently
necessary for the Government to undertake forestation
on a large scale and to spend money liberally in
protecting the young forests from the cupidity of the
ignorant peasants. The German Government in
Kiaochou is doing most valuable work in the re-
forestation of the hills that lie within its jurisdiction,
and to a very modest extent Weihaiwei is acting
similarly. Perhaps the most encouraging sign is the
genuine interest that the Chinese are beginning to
take in these experiments, though it is difficult to
make them realise the enormous economic and climatic
advantages which forestation on a large scale would
bring to their country.

It must have been the treelessness of the district
and the waterless condition of the mountains as viewed
from the harbour and the sea-coast that prompted the
remark made in an official report some years ago that
Weihaiwei is "a colder Aden"; and indeed if we
contemplate the coast-line from the deck of a steamer
the description seems apt enough, A ramble through
the Territory among the valleys and glens that pene-
trate the interior in every direction is bound to modify
one's first cheerless impressions very considerably.
Trees, it is true, are abundant only in the immediate

* As early as the seventh century B.C. deforestation had become
a recognised evil in the State of Ch'i (part of the modern Shantung),
chiefly owing to the lavish use of timber for coffins and grave-vaults.
{See De Groot's Religioits System of China, vol. ii. pp. 660-1.)

2

i8 WEIHAIWEI AND SHANTUNG PROMONTORY

neighbourhood of villages and in the numerous family
burial-grounds ; but the streams are often lined with
graceful willows, and large areas on the mountain-
slopes are covered with green vegetation in the shape
of scrub-oak. At certain seasons of the year the want
of trees is from an aesthetic point of view partly
atoned for by the blended tints of the growing crops ;
and certainly to the average English eye the waving
wheat-fields and the harvesters moving sickle in hand
through the 3"ellow grain offer a fairer and more home-
like spectacle than is afforded by the marshy rice-
lands of the southern provinces. On the whole,
indeed, the scenery of Weihaiwei is picturesque and
in some places beautiful.^ The chief drawback next
to lack of forest is the want of running water. The
streams are only brooks that can be crossed by
stepping-stones. In July and August, when the
rainfall is greatest, they become enormously swollen
for a few days, but their courses are short and
the flood-waters are soon carried down to the sea.
In winter and spring some of the streams wholly
disappear, and the greatest of them becomes the
merest rivulet.

The traveller who approaches Weihaiwei by sea
from the east or south makes his first acquaintance
with the Shantung coast at a point about thirty miles
(by sea) east of the Weihaiwei harbour. This is the
Shantung Promontory, the Chinese name of which is
Ch'eng Shan Tsui or Ch'eng Shan T'ou. Ch'eng
Shan is the nam-e of the hill which forms the Promon-
tory, while Tsui and T^oti (literally Mouth and Head)
mean Cape or Headland. Before the Jung-ch'eng
magistracy was founded (in 1735) this extreme eastern
region was a military district like Weihaiwei. Taking
its name from the Promontory, it was known as Ch'eng-

• Especially some of the sea-beaches, the defiles that lie between
Yii-chia-k'uang and Shang Chuang, and the valleys in which are
situated Ch'i-k'uang, Wang-chia-k'uang, Pei k'ou, Chang-chia-shan, and
Ch'ien Li-k'ou.

THE PROMONTORY 19

shan-wei. Ch'eng Shan, with all the rest of the present
Jun-ch'eng district, is within the British " sphere of
influence" ; that is to say, Great Britain has the right
to erect fortifications there and to station troops :
rights which, it may be mentioned, have never been
exercised.

The Shantung Promontory has been the scene of
innumerable shipwrecks, for the sea there is apt to be
rough, fogs are not uncommon, and there are many
dangerous rocks. The first lighthouse — a primitive
affair — is said to have been erected in 1821 by a pious
person named Hsu Fu-ch'ang ; but long before that a
guild of merchants used to light a great beacon fire
every night on a conspicuous part of the hill. A large
bell was struck, so the records state, when the weather
was foggy. The present lighthouse is a modern
structure under the charge of the Chinese Imperial
Customs authorities. Behind the Promontory — that
is, to the west (landward) side — there is a wide stretch
of comparatively flat land which extends across the
peninsula. It may be worth noting that an official
ot the Ming dynasty named T'ien Shih.-lung actually
recommended in a state paper that a canal should be
cut through this neck of land so as to enable junks to
escape the perils of the rock-bound Promontory. He
pointed out that the land was level and sandy and
that several ponds already existed which could be
utilised in the construction of the canal. Thus, he
said, could be avoided the great dangers of the rocks
known as Shih Huang Ch'iao and Wo Lung Shih.
The advice of the amateur engineer was not acted
upon, but his memorial (perhaps on account of its
literary style) was carefully preserved and has been
printed in the Chinese annals of the Jung-ch'eng
district.

These annals contain an interesting reference to one
of the two groups of rocks just named. Wo Lung
Shih means " Sleeping dragon rocks," and no particular
legend appears to be attached to them, though it

20 WEIHAIWEI AND SHANTUNG PROMONTORY

would have been easy to invent one. But the Shih
Huang Ch'iao, or Bridge of the First Emperor, is
regarded by the people as a permanent memorial of
that distinguished monarch who in the third century b.c.
seized the tottering throne of the classic Chou dynasty
and established himself as the First Emperor (for such
is the title he gave himself) of a united China.
Most Europeans know nothing of this remarkable
man except that he built the Great Wall of China and
rendered his reign infamous by the Burning of the
Books and the slaughter of the scholars. Whether
his main object in the latter proceeding was to stamp
out all memory of the acts of former dynasties so that
to succeeding ages he might indeed be the First of the
historical Emperors, or whether it was not rather an
act of savagery such as might have been expected of
one who was not " born in the purple " and who derived
his notions of civilisation from the semi-barbarous
far-western state of Ch'in, is perhaps an impossible
question to decide : and indeed the hatred of the
Chinese literati for a sovereign who despised literature
and art may possibly have led them to be guilty of
some exaggeration in the accounts they have given
us of his acts of vandalism and murder.

During his short reign as Emperor, Ch'in Shih
Huang-ti (who died in 210 b.c.) is said to have
travelled through the Empire to an extent that was
only surpassed by the shadowy Emperor Yu who
lived in the third millennium b.c. Yu was, according
to tradition, the prince of engineers. He it was who
" drained the Empire " and led the rivers into their
proper and appropriate channels. The First Emperor
might be said, had he not affected contempt for all
who went before him, to have taken the great Yii as
his model, for he too left a reputation of an ambitious
if not altogether successful engineer. The story goes
that he travelled all the way to the easternmost point
of Shantung, and having arrived at the Promontory,
decided to build a bridge from there to Korea, or to

"THE FIRST EMPEROR" 21

the mysterious islands of P'eng-lai where the herb of
immortality grew, or to the equally marvellous region
of Fu-sang.

The case of the First Emperor affords a good
example of how wild myths can be built up on a
slender substratum of fact. Had he lived a few
centuries earlier instead of in historic times, his name
doubtless would have come down the ages as that of
a demi-god; even as things are, the legends that sprang
up about him in various parts of northern China might
well be connected with the name of some prehistoric
hero. The Chinese of eastern Shantung have less to
say of him as a monarch than as a mighty magician.
In order to have continuous daylight for building the
Great Wall, he is said to have been inspired with the
happy device of transfixing the sun with a needle, thus
preventing it from moving. His idea of bridge-
building had the simplicity of genius : it was simply
to pick up the neighbouring mountains and throw
them into the sea. He was not without valuable
assistance from persons who possessed powers even
more remarkable than his own. A certain spirit helped
him by summoning a number of hills to contribute
their building-stone. At the spirit's summons, so the
story goes, thirteen hills obediently sent their stones
rolling down eastwards towards the sea. On came
the boulders, big and little, one after another, just as
if they were so many live things walking. When
they went too slowly or showed signs of laziness
the spirit flogged them with a whip nntil the blood
came.

The truth of this story, in the opinion of the people,
is sufficiently attested by the facts that one of the
mountains is still known as Chao-shih-shan or " Sum-
mon-the-rocks hill," and that many of the stones on
its slopes and at its base are reddish in hue.^ The
Emperor was also helped by certain Spirits of the
Ocean {hai-shen), who did useful work in establishing

' The story is quoted in the T'ai PHng Huan Yii Chi {chilan 20).

22 WEIHAIWEI AND SHANTUNG PROMONTORY

the piers of his bridge in deep water.^ The Emperor,
according to the story, was deeply grateful to these
Ocean Spirits for their assistance, and begged for a
personal interview with them so that he might express
his thanks in proper form. " We are horribly ugly,"
replied the modest Spirits, " and you must not pay us
a visit unless you will promise not to draw pictures
of us." The Emperor promised, and rode along the
bridge to pay his visit. When he had gone a distance
of forty li he was met by the Spirits, who received
him with due ceremony. During the interview, the
Emperor, who like Odysseus was a man of many
wiles, furtively drew his hosts' portraits on the ground
with his foot. As luck would have it the Spirits
discovered what he was doing, and naturally be-
came highly indignant. " Your Majesty has broken
faith with us," they said. *' Begone ! " The Emperor
mounted his horse and tried to ride back the way he
had come, but lo ! the animal remained rigid and
immovable, for the Spirits had bewitched it and turned
it into a rock ; and his Majesty had to go all the
way back to the shore on foot.^

This regrettable incident did not cause the cessation
of work on the bridge, though the Emperor pre-
sumably received no more help from the Spirits of
the Ocean. But on one unlucky day the Emperor's
wife presumed without invitation to pay her in-
dustrious husband a visit, and brought with her
such savoury dishes as she thought would tempt the
imperial appetite. Now the presence of women,
say the Chinese, is utterly destructive of all magical
influences. The alchemists, for example, cannot com-
pound the elixir of life in the presence of women,
chickens, or cats. The lady had no sooner made

' With regard to this assistance from spirits, cf. the Jewish legend
that King Solomon by the aid of a magic ring controlled the demons
and compelled them to give their help in the building of the great
Temple.

* See T'ai F'iug Huan Yii Chi, loc. cit.

A MAGIC BRIDGE 23

her appearance at Ch'eng Shan than the bridge,
which was all but finished, instantaneously crumbled
to pieces. So furious was her imperial spouse at
the ruin of his work that he immediately tore the
unhappy dame to pieces and scattered her limbs over
the sea-shore, where they can be seen in rock-form
to this day. The treacherous rocks that stretch out
seawards in a line from the Promontory are the ruins
of the famous bridge, and still bear the name of the
imperial magician.

Legends say that a successor of the First Emperor,
namely Han Wu Ti (140-87 b.c), who also made a
journey to eastern Shantung, was ill-advised enough
to make an attempt to continue the construction of
the mythical bridge ; but he only went so far as to
set up two great pillars. These are still to be seen at
ebb-tide, though the uninitiated would take them to
be mere shapeless rocks. Han Wu Ti's exploits were
but a faint copy of those of the First Emperor. Ch'eng
Shan Tsui has for many centuries been dedicated to
that ruler's memory, and on its slopes his temple may
still be visited. The original temple, we are told, was
built out of part of the ruins of the great bridge. In
1 5 12 it was destroyed by fire and rebuilt on a smaller
scale. Since then it has been restored more than once,
and the present building is comparatively new.

There is no legend, apparently, which associates
the First Emperor with the territory at present
directly administered by Great Britain, but there is a
foolish story that connects him with Wen-teng Shan,
a hill from which the W^n-teng district takes its name.
It is said that having arrived at this hill the Emperor
summoned his civil officials {wen) to ascend {ting) the
hill in question and there proclaim to a marvelling
world his own great exploits and virtues ; but this
story is evidently a late invention to account for the
name Wen-teng. Among other localities associated
with this Emperor may be mentioned a terrace, which
he visited for the sake of a sea-view, and a pond

24 WEIHAIVVEI AND SHANTUNG PROMONTORY

(near Jung-ch'eng city) at which His Majesty's horses
were watered : hence the name Yin-ma-ch^ih (Drink-
horse-pool). But the Chinese are always ready to
invent stories to suit place-names, and seeing that
every Chinese syllable (whether part of a name or
not) has several meanings, the strain on the imagina-
tive faculties is not severe.

The feat performed by the Emperor close to the
modern treaty-port of Chefoo— only a couple of hours'
steaming from Weihaiwei — may be slightly more
worthy of record than the Wen-teng legend. His first
visit to Chih-fu (Chefoo) Hill— by which is meant one
of the islands off the coast— is said to have taken place
in 218 B.C., when he left a record of himself in a rock-
inscription which — if it ever existed — has doubtless
long ago disappeared. In 210, the last year of his
busy life, he sent a certain Hsu Fu to gather medicinal
herbs (or rather the herbs out of which the drug of
immortality was made) at the Chefoo Hill. In his
iourneys across the waters to and from the hill
Hsu Fu was much harassed by the attacks of a mighty
fish, and gave his imperial master a full account of
the perils which constantly menaced him owing to
this monster's disagreeable attentions. The Emperor,
always ready for an adventure, immediately started
for Chefoo, climbed the hill, caught sight of the great
fish wallowing in the waters, and promptly shot it
dead with his bow and arrow.

It is natural that the Shantung Promontory and the
eastern peninsula in general should have become the
centre of legend and myth. We know from classical
tradition that to the people of Europe the western
ocean — the Atlantic — was a region of marvel. There —
beyond the ken of ships made or manned by ordinary
mortals — lay the Fortunate Islands, the Isles of the
Blest. The Chinese have similar legends, but their
Fairy Isles — P'eng-lai and Fu-sang — lay, as a matter
of course, somewhere in the undiscovered east, about
the shimmering region of the rising sun. Many and

THE ISLAND OF LIU RUNG 25

many are the Chinese dreamers and poets who have
yearned for those islands, and have longed to pluck
the wondrous fruit that ripened only once in three
thousand years and then imparted a golden lustre to
him who tasted of it. The Shantung Promontory
became a region of marvel because it formed the
borderland between the known and the unknown, the
stepping-stone from the realm of prosaic fact to that
of fancy and romance.

The coast-line from the Promontory to Weihaiwei
possesses no features of outstanding interest. It
consists of long sandy beaches broken by occasional
rocks and cliffs. The villages are small and, from the
sea, almost invisible. Undulating hills, seldom rising
above a thousand feet in height, but sometimes bold
and rugged in outline, form a pleasant background.
There are a few islets, of which one of the most
conspicuous is Chi-ming-tao — " Cock-crow Island " —
lying ten miles from the most easterly point of the
Weihaiwei harbour. All the mainland from here
onwards lies within the territory directly ruled by
Great Britain. On the port side of the steamer as
she enters the harbour will be seen a line of low
cliffs crowned by a lighthouse ; on the starboard side
lies Liukungtao, the island of Liukung.

As in the case of Hongkong, it is the island that
creates the harbour; and, similarly, the position
of the island provides two entrances available at
all times for the largest ships. The island is two
and a quarter miles long and has a maximum
breadth of seven-eighths of a mile and a circumfer-
ence of five and a half miles. The eastern harbour
entrance is two miles broad, the western entrance
only three-quarters of a mile. The total superficial
area of the harbour is estimated at eleven square
miles. Under the lee of the island, which might
be described as a miniature Hongkong, is the deep-
water anchorage for warships, and it is here that
the British Chin^ Squadron lies when it pays its

26 WEIHAIWEI AND SHANTUNG PROMONTORY

annual summer visit to north China. On the island
are situated the headquarters of the permanent
naval establishment, the naval canteen (formerly a
picturesque Chinese official yamcn), a United Services
club, a few bungalows for summer visitors, an hotel,
the offices of a few shipping firms, and several streets
of shops kept chiefly by natives of south China and
by Japanese. There are also the usual recreation-
grounds, tennis-courts, and golf-links, without which
no British colony would be able to exist. The whole
island practically consists of one hill, which rises
to a point (the Signal Station) 498 feet above sea-level.
On the seaward side it ends precipitously in a fringe
of broken cliffs, while on the landward side its gentle
slopes are covered with streets and houses and open
spaces.

The name Liukungtao means the Island of Mr. Liu,
and the records refer to it variously as Liu-chia-tao
(the Island of the Liu family), as Liutao (Liu Island),
and as Liukungtao. Who Mr. Liu was and when he
lived is a matter of uncertainty, upon which the
local Chinese chronicles have very little to tell us.
" Tradition says," so writes the chronicler, " that the
original Mr. Liu lived a very long time ago, but no
one knows when." The principal habitation of the
family is said to have been not on the island but at a
village called Shih-lo-ts'un on the mainland. This
village was situated somewhere to the south of the
walled city. The family must have been a wealthy
one, for it appears to have owned the island and made
of it a summer residence or *' retreat." It was while
residing at Shih-lo-ts'un that one of the Liu family
made a very remarkable discovery. On the sea-shore
he came across a gigantic decayed fish with a bone
measuring one hundred chang in length. According
to English measurement this monstrous creature
must have been no less than three hundred and ninety
yards long Liu had the mighty fish-bone carried to
a temple in the neighbouring walled city, and there it

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A CHINESE SEA-SERPENT 27

was reverently presented to the presiding deity. The
only way to get the bone into the temple was to cut
it up into shorter lengths. This was done, and the
various pieces were utilised as subsidiary rafters for
portions of the temple roof. They are still in existence,
as any inquirer may see for himself by visiting the
Kuan Ti temple in Weihaiwei city. Perhaps if
Europeans insist upon depriving China of the honour
of having invented the mariner's compass they may
be willing to leave her the distinction of having dis-
covered the first sea-serpent.^

From time immemorial there existed on the island
a temple which contained two images representing an
elderly gentleman and his wife. These were Liu
Kung and Liu Mu — Father and Mother Liu. They
afford a good example of how quite undistinguished
men and women can in favourable circumstances
attain the position of local deities or saints : for the
persons represented by these two images have been
regularly Worshipped — especially by sailors — for
several centuries. The curious thing is that the
deification of the old couple has taken place without
any apparent justification from legend or myth.
Perhaps they were a benevolent pair who were in
the habit of ministering to the wants of shipwrecked
sailors ; but if so there is no testimony to that effect.
When the British Government acquired the island
and began to make preparations for the construction
of naval works and forts, which were never completed,
the Chinese decided to remove the venerated images
of Father and Mother Liu to the mainland. They
are now handsomely housed in a new temple that
stands between the walled city and the European
settlement of Port Edward, and it is still the custom
for many of the local junkmen to come here and make
their pious offerings of money and incense, believing
that in return for these gifts old Liu and his wife will

' For accounts of other appearances of the " sea-serpent " in Chinese
waters, see Dennys's Folk-lore of China, pp. 109, 113-4.

28 WEIHAIWEI AND SHANTUNG PROMONTORY

graciously grant them good fortune at sea and freedom
from storm and shipwreck.

It is on the island that the majority of the British
residents dwell, but Liukungtao does not occupy with
respect to the mainland the same all-important and
dominating position that Hongkong occupies (or did
till recently occupy) with regard to the Kowloon
peninsula and the New Territory. The seat of the
British Government of Weihaiwei is on the mainland,
and the small group of civil officers are far more
busily employed in connexion with the administration
of that part of the Territory and its 150,000 villagers
than with the little island and its few British residents
and native shopkeepers. The British administrative
centre, then, is the village of Ma-t*ou, which before
the arrival of the British was the port of the walled
city of Weihaiwei, but is gradually becoming more
and more European in appearance and has been
appropriately re-named Port Edward. It lies snugly
on the south-west side of the harbour and is well
sheltered from storms ; the water in the vicinity of
Port Edward is, however, too shallow for vessels
larger than sea-going junks and small coasting-
steamers. Ferry-launches run several times daily
between the island and the mainland, the distance
between the two piers being two and a half miles.
Government House, the residence of the British Com-
missioner, is situated on a slight eminence overlooking
the village, and not far off are situated the Govern-
ment Offices and the buildings occupied, until 1906, by
the officers and men of the ist Chinese Regiment of
Infantry. At the northern end of the village, well
situated on a bluff overlooking the sea, is a large
hotel : far from beautiful in outward appearance, but
comfortable and well managed. A little further off
stands the Weihaiwei School for European boys. It
would be difficult anywhere in Asia to find a healthier
place for a school, and certainly on the coast of China
the site is peerless.

IMAGES OF " MR. AND MRS. LIU " (sce p. 27).

-p. 28]

WEIHAI CITV 29

Elsewhere in the neighbourhood of Port Edward
there are well-situated bungalows for European
summer visitors, natural sulphur baths well managed
by Japanese, and a small golf course. Other attrac-
tions for Europeans are not wanting, but as these pages
are not written for the purpose either of eulogising
British enterprise or of attracting British visitors,
detailed reference to them is unnecessary.

It may be mentioned, however, that from the
European point of view, the most pleasing feature of
Port Edward and 'its neighbourhood is the absence of
any large and congested centre of Chinese population.
The city of Weihaiwei is indeed close by — only half a
mile from the main street of Port Edward. But it is
a city only in name, for though it possesses a battle-
mented wall and imposing gates, it contains only a
few quiet streets, three or four temples, an official
yanien, wide open spaces which are a favourite resort
of snipe, and a population of about two thousand.

The reader may remember that when the New
Territory was added to the Colony of Hongkong in
1898 a clause in the treaty provided that the walled
city of Kowloon, though completely surrounded by
British territory, should be left under Chinese rule.
This arrangement was due merely to the strong senti-
mental objection of the Chinese to surrendering a
walled city. In the case of Kowloon, as it happened,
circumstances soon made it necessary for this part
of the treaty to be annulled, and very soon after the
New Territory had passed into British hands the
Union Jack was hoisted also on the walls of Kowloon.
When the territory of Weihaiwei was " leased " to
Great Britain in the same eventful year (1898) a some-
what similar agreement was made " that within the
walled city of Weihaiwei Chinese officials shall con-
tinue to exercise jurisdiction, except so far as may be
inconsistent with naval and military requirements for
the defence of the territory leased." So correct has
been the attitude of the Chinese officials since the

30 WEIHAIWEI AND SHANTUNG PROMONTORY

Weihaiwei Convention was signed that it has never
been found necessary to raise any question as to the
status of the Httle walled town.

Nominally it is ruled by the Wen-teng magistrate,
whose resident delegate is a hsun-chien or sub-district
deputy magistrate ; ^ but as the hsun-chien has no
authority an inch beyond the city walls, and in practice
is perfectly ready to acknowledge British authority in
such matters as sanitation (towards the expenses of
which he receives a small subsidy from the British
Government), it may be easily understood why this
imperium in impcrio has not hitherto led to friction or
unpleasantness,

A walk round the well-preserved walls of Weihaiwei
city affords a good view of the surroundings of Port
Edward and the contour of the sea-coast bordering on
the harbour. At the highest point of the city wall
stands a little tower called the Huan-ts*ui-lou, the
view from which has for centuries past been much
praised by the local bards. It was built in the Ming
dynasty by a military official named Wang, as a spot
from which he might observe the sunrise and enjoy
the sea view. From here can be seen, at favourable
times, a locally-celebrated mirage (called by the
Chinese a " market in the ocean ") over and beyond
the little islet of Jih-tao or Sun Island, which lies
between Liukungtao and the mainland. The view
from this tower is very pleasing, though one need not
be prepared to endorse the ecstatic words of a senti-
mental captain from the Wen-teng camp, who closed
a little poem of his own with the words *' How
entrancing is this fair landscape : this must indeed be
Fairyland ! "

Many of the most conspicuous hills in the northern
portion of the Territory can be seen to advantage
from the Huan-ts'ui-lou. The small hill immediately
behind the city wall and the tower is the Nai-ku-shan.^

• See pp. 53 and 36.

* Shan is the Chinese word for " Hill."

CO

<X>

s

o
J

O

I— (

>

o

CO

o

HILLS OF WEIHAIWEI 31

Like many other hills in the neighbourhood and along
the coast, it possesses the remains of a stone-built
beacon-tumulus {feng tun), on which signal fires were
lighted in the old days of warfare. To the northward
lie Ku-mo Shan, the hill of Yao-yao, and Tiao-wo
Shan, all included in the range that bears in the
British map the name of Admiral Fitzgerald.

The highest point of the range is described in the
local chronicle as " a solitary peak, seldom visited by
human foot," though it is nowadays a common ob-
jective for European pedestrians, and also, indeed,
for active Chinese children. The height is barely one
thousand feet above sea-level. Tiao-wo Shan and a
neighbouring peak called Sung Ting Shan were re-
sorted to by hundreds of the inhabitants of Weihaiwei
as a place of refuge from the bands of robbers and
disorganised soldiers who pillaged the homes and
fields of the people during the commotions which
marked the last year of the Ming dynasty (1643). To
the northward of the Huan-ts'ui-lou may be seen a
little hill — not far from the European bungalows at
Narcissus Bay — crowned with a small stone obelisk
of a kind often seen in China and known to foreigners
as a Confucian Pencil. This was put up by a graduate
of the present dynasty named Hsia Shih-yen and
others, as a means of bringing good luck to the
neighbourhood, and also, perhaps, as a memorial of
their own literary abilities and successes. It bears
no inscription.

A loftier hill is Lao-ya Shan, which is or used to
be the principal resort of the local officials and people
when offering up public supplications for rain. Its
name (which means the Hill of the Crows) is derived
from the black clouds which as they cluster round
the summit are supposed to resemble the gathering
of crows. An alternative name is Hsi-yu-ting — the
Happy Rain Peak. The highest point in this section
of the Territory lies among the imposing range of
mountains to the south of Weihaiwei city, and is

32 WEIHAIWEI AND SHANTUNG PROMONTORY

known to the Chinese as Fo-erh-ting — ** Buddha's
Head" — the height of which is about 1,350 feet. This
range of hills has been named by the British after
Admiral Sir Edward Seymour.

The enumeration of all the hills of so mountainous
a district as the Weihaiwei Territory would be useless
and of little interest. Some of them, distinguished by
miniature temples dedicated to the Shan-shcn (Spirit
of the Hill) and to the Supreme God of Taoism, will
be referred to later on.^ The loftiest hill in the
Territory — about 1,700 feet — lies fourteen miles south
of Port Edward, and is known to Europeans as Mount
Macdonald, and to the Chinese as Cheng-ch'i Shan
or Cho-ch'i Shan.- The Chinese name is derived
from a stone chess-board said to have been carved
out of a rock by a hsieii-jen, a kind of wizard or
mountain recluse who lived there in bygone ages.
Most of the more remarkable or conspicuous hills
in China are believed by the people to have been the
abode of weird old men who never came to an end
like ordinary people, but went on living with absurdly
long beards and a profound knowledge of nature's
secrets. There are endless legends about these mys-
terious beings, many of whom were in fact hermits
with a distaste for the commonplace joys of life and
a passion for mountain scenery,^

On the rocky summit of the Li-k'ou hill (situated
in the range of which Fo-erh-ting is the highest
point) there is a large stone which is symmetrical in
shape and differs in appearance from the surrounding
boulders. Legend says that a hermit who cultivated
the occult arts brewed for himself on the top of the
hill the elixir of life. An ox that was employed in
grinding wheat at the foot of the hill sniffed the
fragrant brew and broke away from his tether.
Rushing up the hill in hot haste, he dragged after
him the great grindstone. Arriving at the summit, he
butted against the cauldron in which the hermit had

^ See pp. 391 seq. * See pp. 397-8. ' See pp. 393 seq.

WIZARDS OF THE HILLS 33

cooked the soup of immortality, and eagerly lapped
up the liquid as it trickled down the side. The
hermit, emulating an ancient worthy called Kou
Shan-chih who was charioted on the wings of a
crane, jumped on the ox's back, and thereupon the
two immortal beings, leaving the grindstone behind
them as a memorial, passed away to heaven and were
seen no more. This is only one of many quaint
stories told by the old folks of Weihaiwei to explain
the peculiar formation of a rock, the existence of a
cave in a cliff, or the sanctity of some nameless
mountain-shrine. Thus even the hills of Weihaiwei,
bare of forests as they are and devoid of mystery
as they would seem to be, have yet their gleam of
human interest, their little store of romance, their
bond of kinship with the creative mind of man.

CHAPTER III

HISTORY AND LEGEND

Though Chinese historians have never set themselves
to solve that modern European problem as to whether
history is or is not a science, they have always — or
at least since the days of Confucius— had a strong
sense of its philosophical significance and its didactic
value. Of the writings with which the name of
Confucius is connected, that known as the Ch^wi ChHu
or " Spring and Autumn Annals" is the one that he
himself considered his greatest achievement, and
Mencius assures us that when the iVIaster had written
this historical work, "rebellious ministers and bad
sons were struck with terror." The modern reader
is perhaps apt to wonder what there was in the jerky,
disconnected statements of the Ch'iin Ch^iu to terrify
any one, however conscience-stricken ; but Mencius's
remark shows that history was already regarded as
a serious employment, well fitted to engage the
attention of philosophers and teachers of the people.
For a long time, indeed, practice lagged a long way
behind theory. There is some reason to suppose that
Confucius himself was not above adapting facts to
suit his political opinions, which shows that history
had not yet secured for itself a position of great
dignity. The oldest historical work in the language
is the Shu Cliing, which is believed to have been
edited by Confucius. Certainly the sage's study of

34

CHINESE HISTORIANS 35

this work does not seem to have inspired him with
any lofty theories as to how history ought to be
treated, for his own work is considerably balder and
less interesting than the old one. The Confucian
who wrote the historical commentary known as the
Tso-chuan improved upon his master's methods very
greatly, and his work can be read with pleasure at
the present day; but the first great Chinese historian
did not appear till the second century b.c. in the
person of Ssu-ma Ch'ien. For several reasons it
would be incorrect to style him the Herodotus of
China, but he may at least be regarded as the father
of the modern art of historical writing in that
country.^

Yet his example did not bring about the abolition
of the old methods of the dry-bones annalists ; for
while the writers of the great Dynastic Histories have
been careful to imitate and if possible improve upon
his advanced style and method, and have thus pro-
duced historical works which for fidelity to truth,
comprehensiveness, and literary workmanship will
often bear comparison with similar productions in
Europe, the compilers of the innumerable local his-
tories have almost invariably contented themselves
with legends, fairy-tales, and the merest chronicle of
notable events arranged under the heads of successive
years. The enormous quantity of these local histories
may be realised from the fact that each province,
prefecture and district, as well as each famous lake
and each celebrated mountain, has one of its own.

These works are often very voluminous : an account
of a single famous mountain, with its monasteries,

' A writer in the Historians' Histoty of the World, published by
The Times (see vol. xxiv. p. 683), says of the Chinese, that "up to
the advent of Europeans in the sixteenth century a.d. their records
are untrustworthy." This is an erroneous and most extraordinary
statement. The Chinese possessed valuable and, on the whole,
reliable records centuries before a single one of the modern States
of Europe had begun even to furnish material for history, far less
produce trustworthy historical records of its own.

36 HISTORY AND LEGEND

sometimes extends over a dozen separate books ; and
the account of Ssuch'uan, a single province, is not
far short of two hundred volumes in length. These
productions are not, indeed, only of an historical and
legendary nature : they include full topographical
information, elaborate descriptions of cities, temples,
and physical features, separate chapters on local
customs, natural productions and distinguished men
and women, and anthologies of the best poems and
essays descriptive of special features of interest or
inspired by the local scenery.

On legends and folk-lore and anything that seems
in any way marvellous or miraculous, the compiler
lingers long and lovingly ; but when he comes to the
narrative of definite historical facts he is apparently
anxious to get over that dry but necessary part of
his labours as rapidly as possible, and so gives us
but a bare enumeration of the events in the order
of their occurrence, and in the briefest and most
direct manner possible.

As a rule, his succinctly-stated matters of fact may
be regarded as thoroughly reliable. When a Chinese
annalist states that in the year 990 there was a serious
famine at Weihaiwei, the reader may take it for
granted that the famine undoubtedly occurred, how-
ever uninstructive the fact may be in the opinion of
those who live nearly a thousand years later. What
is apt to strike one as inexplicable is the occasional
appearance, in a list of prosaic details which may be
accepted as generally reliable, of some statement
which suggests that the compiler must have suddenly
lost control of his senses. For instance, we read in
the Wen-tmg Chih or Annals of the district in which
the greater part of Weihaiwei is situated, that in the
year which corresponds with 1539 there were dis-
astrous floods, and that in the autumn a large dragon
suddenly made its appearance in a private dwelling.
" It burst the walls of the house," says the chronicler,
" and so got away ; and then there was a terrific

DRAGONS AND OTHER MARVELS 37

hailstorm." Why such startling absurdities are in-
troduced into a narrative that is generally devoid of
the least imaginative sparkle, may be easily under-
stood when w^e remember that such animals as
dragons, phoenixes and unicorns and many other
strange creatures were believed in (or at least their
existence was not questioned) by educated Chinese
up to a quite recent date ; and the writer of the
Wen-teng Cliili^ when noting down remarkable occur-
rences as they were brought to his notice, saw no
reason whatever why he should doubt the appearance
of the dragon any more than he should doubt the
reality of the floods or the hailstorm. That the
dragon episode could not have happened because
dragons did not exist was no more likely to occur
to the honest Chinese chronicler than a doubt about
the real existence of a personal Devil and a fiery Hell
was likely to beset a pious Scottish Presbyterian of
the eighteenth century, or than a disbelief in the
creation of the world in six days in the year 4004 B.C.
was likely to disturb the minds of the pupils of
Archbishop Ussher.

The Chinese chronicles from which we derive our
knowledge of the past history of Weihaiwei and the
adjacent country are those of Wen-teng in four
volumes, Jung-ch'eng in four, Ning-hai in six and
Weihaiwei (that is, the Wei of Weihai) in two. The
first three are printed from wooden blocks in the
usual old-fashioned Chinese style, and this means that
recently-printed copies are far less clear and legible
than the first impressions, which are unfortunately
difficult to obtain ; the last (that of Weihaiwei) seems
to exist in manuscript only, and is consequently very
rare. It is from these four works chiefly, though not
solely, that the information given in the rest of this
chapter, as in many other parts of the book, has been
culled ; and while endeavouring to include only such
details as are likely to be of some interest to the
European reader, I trust there will be enough to

38 HISTORY AND LEGEND

give him an accurate idea not only of the history
of Weihaiwei but also of that prodigious branch
of Chinese literature of which these works are
typical.

The traditions of Weihaiwei and its neighbourhood
take us back to the days of myth. The position of
this region at the end of a peninsula which formed,
so far as China knew, the eastern limit of the civilised
world, made it, as we have seen, the fitting birthplace
of legend and marvel. Not content with taking us
back to the earliest days of eastern Shantung as a
habitable region, the legends assure us of a time when
it was completely covered by the ocean. Thousands
of years ago, it is said, a Chinese princess was
drowned there.^ She was then miraculously turned
into a bird called a ching wet, and devoted herself in
her new state of existence to wreaking vengeance
on the cruel sea for having cut short her human life.
This she did by flying to and fro between land and
sea carrying stones in her beak and dropping them
into the water one by one until, by degrees, they
emerged above the surface and formed dry land.
Thus her revenge for the drowning incident was
complete : she punished the sea by annihilating it.

For many centuries— and in this matter history
and legend coincide — the peninsular district of Shan-
tung, including Weihaiwei, was inhabited by a non-
Chinese race of barbarians. Not improbably they
were among the aboriginal inhabitants of the central
plains of China, who were driven west, south and
east before the steady march of the invading Chinese,
or — if we prefer to believe that the latter were an
autochthonous race — by the irresistible pressure of

• This story is related in that ancient book of marvels the Skan
Hat Ching {"W'lW and Sea Classic"). The princess is there said to
have been the daughter of the mythical Emperor Shen-nung (twenty-
eighth century B.C.). As a ching wei, the princess is said to have had
a white bill and red claws and to have been in appearance something
like a crow.

THE BARBARIANS OF SHANTUNG 39

Chinese expansion. The eastward-driven section of
the aborigines, having been pressed into far-distant
Shantung, perhaps discovered that unless they made
a stand there they would be driven into the sea
and exterminated ; so they held their ground and
adapted themselves to the new conditions like the
Celts in Wales and Strathclyde, while the Chinese,
observing that the country was hilly, forest-clad,
and not very fertile, swept away to the richer and
more tempting plains of the south-west.

This may or may not be a correct statement of what
actually occurred : all we know for certain is that at
the dawn of the historical epoch eastern Shantung
was still inhabited by a people whom the Chinese
regarded as uncouth foreigners. The name given to
them in the Shu Chiiig is Yu I, words which, if they
are to be translated at all, may be rendered as " the
barbarians of the hill regions." The period to which
the Shti Ching assigns them is that of the more or
less mythical Emperors Yao, Shun and Yu, whose
reigns are assigned to the twenty-third and twenty-
fourth centuries b.c, the Chinese Golden Age. An
alternative view of the Yu I is that they were not
the people of eastern Shantung, but the inhabitants of
one of the Japanese islands. Dr. Legge, again, took
the view that Ch'ing Chou, one of the nine provinces
into which the Emperor Yu divided the Empire,
included the modern kingdom of Korea. As the Yu I
are always referred to as inhabiting the most easterly
portion of the Empire, Dr. Legge was obliged to
assign them to some part of the Korean peninsula ' ;
following certain Chinese writers, moreover, he took
Yu I to be a place-name, though this surely can only
have been by the transference of the name or nickname
of a people to their place of habitation. The whole
question is hardly worth discussing, for it is almost
impossible to disentangle fact from myth in respect of
any of the alleged events of that far-off age ; though,
' See Legge's Chinese Classics, vol. iii, pt, i, pp. 18 and 102-3.

40 HISTORY AND LEGEND

on the whole, it seems improbable that Yu's Empire —
presuming that Yii was an historical personage — ever
extended as far as some patriotic Chinese commentators
would like to make out, or ever included any portion
of either Korea or Japan. The great K'ang Hsi
dictionary definitely states that the Yii I country " is
the present Teng-chou," which includes the north-
eastern section of Shantung all the way to the
Promontory. The dictionary also describes it as
" the place where the sun rises." An interesting
point in connection with the Yii I is that it was to
their country that the Emperor Yao (2357 ^.c.) is said
to have sent one of the Imperial Astronomers to
" observe the heavens." The heavens of those days
must have been well worth observing, for Chinese
legends say there were then ten suns,^ which all rose
out of a prodigious abyss of hot water. At one time,
it was said, nine of the suns sat every day in the lower
branches of a great tree that grew in the land of
Fu-sang, and one sat on the topmost branch ; but
in the time of Yao all the suns climbed up together to
the top of the tree and made everything so uncomfort-
ably hot that the Emperor shot at them and succeeded
in destroying nine. Since then the world has had to
content itself with a single sun.'

Assuming that the ordinary interpretations of the
Shu Cliing are correct, it appears that in the Golden
Age of Yao the office of Astronomer-Royal, as we
should say, was an exclusive perquisite of two families
surnamed Hsi and Ho. Four members of these

' Ten was a sort of mystic number with the ancient Chinese. Lao
Tzii, the " Old Philosopher," for instance, is supposed to have had ten
lines on each hand and ten toes on each foot.

' These superstitions, which are treated seriously in the Shan Hat
Chingy are referred to in the Lun Hcng of W^ang Ch'ung, a writer of
the first century a.d. Wang Ch'ung decided that the ten suns could
not have been real suns, for if they had been in a Hot Water Abyss
they would have been extinguished, because water puts out fire ; and
if they had climbed a tree their heat would have scorched the branches !
(See Forke's transl. of Lun Heng, Luzac & Co: 1907, pp. 271 seq.)

ASTRONOMY 41

privileged families were sent to establish observatories
in the four quarters of the Empire, east, west, south,
and north, in order that they might " deliver respect-
fully the seasons to the people." The passage of the
Sim Ching in which this matter is mentioned ^ is of
great scientific interest on account of its astronomical
details, and of great importance as establishing the
reliability of early Chinese records. The only point
that concerns us here is that one of the astronomers —
namely, the second of three of the privileged Ho
brothers — was sent to a tract of country called Yang
Ku — " the Valley of Sunlight " — in the territory of the
Yii I. His special duty it was to " receive as a guest
the rising sun, and to adjust and arrange the labours
of the Spring." Monopoly and absence of competition
seem to have had their inevitable result ; the privi-
leged families of Hsi and Ho fell into utter disgrace,
and were charged with having " neglected the ordering
of the seasons and allowed the days to get into
confusion," — and all this because they gave themselves
up to the pleasures of wine and female society instead
of keeping a careful watch on the movements of the
heavenly bodies. The Hsi and Ho had evidently
become magnates of no small importance, for it was
necessary to send an army to punish them. Their
main offence, as we gather from the Shu Ching^ was
that they made some sad blunder in connection with
an eclipse, and the penalty attached to an offence
of this nature was death. The only point with
reference to all this that bears upon our subject is
that the eastern observatory, presided over by one
of the Ho family, was probably situated somewhere
in the extreme eastern part of the Shantung peninsula :
and though it is open to sceptics to declare that the
astronomer, the observatory, and the Emperor himself
were all figments of the Chinese imagination, it is
equally open to any one to hold, though quite im-

' See Legge's Chinese Classics, vol. iii, pt. I, pp. 18-23,
* Ibid., vol. iii. pt. i, pp. 162 seq.

42 HISTORY AND LEGEND

possible for him to prove, tiiat the Yang Ku — the
Vale of Sunlight — was no other than the sandy strip
of sun-bleached territory that lies between the sombre
rocks of the Shantung Promontory and the most
easterly hills of Weihaiwei.^

Whether the people of this district were or were
not called the Barbarians of the Hill Regions at the
dawn of Chinese history, or whether in their territory
there was or was not a place called the Vale of Sun-
light, does not affect the undoubted truth of the state-
ment that the Shantung peninsula was up to historic
times inhabited by a race, or the remnants of a race,
that was not Chinese, We may be sure, from what
we know of the boundaries and inter-relations of the
various Chinese states in the Confucian epoch (that is,
the sixth century B.C.), that if Confucius himself had
travelled from his native state of Lu through that of
Ch'i and so on in a north-easterly direction until he
reached the sea, he would have been obliged to engage
an interpreter to enable him to communicate with the
inhabitants of the district we now know as Weihaiwei.

We may presume without rashness that as time
went on these Eastern barbarians gradually assimi-
lated themselves with, or were assimilated by, their
civilised Chinese neighbours. The process was pro-
bably a long one, for we do not hear of the establish-
ment of ordinary Chinese civil government until the
epoch of the Han dynasty, about 200 b.c. Perhaps
the legendary journeys of Ch'in Shih Huang-ti, the
" First Emperor," which, as we have seen, are
supposed to have taken place a few years earlier,
really represent some great military achievement
whereby the far-eastern barbarians were for the first
time brought under the Chinese yoke. The local

' The Shan Hai Ching mentions an island in the Wen-teng district,
off the south-east coast, called Su-men-tao, which still bears that name ;
and describes it as jih yileh so chHt — "the place where the sun and
moon rise." This part of the ocean, though not the island itself, is
visible from the sandy strip mentioned in the text

ADMINISTRATIVE DIVISIONS 43

annals mention the fact that durhig the Chou dynasty,
which preceded that of Ch'in Shih Huang-ti and held
the throne of China from 1122 b.c. to 255 b.c, the
present district of Wen-teng (including Weihaiwei)
formed part of the Mou-tzu country ; but it must have
been an independent or semi-independent state, for
no Chinese administrators are mentioned. Later on
there was an hereditary marquisate of Mou-p'ing,
which extended over much of the country we are
considering.

The dynasty founded by the " First Emperor "
divided the whole Empire as it then was into thirty-
six chiin or provinces, and Wen-teng formed part of
the Ch'i province. At last, in the sixth year of Kao
Tsu of the Han dynasty (201 b.c), a Chinese magisterial
district was founded in the eastern peninsula for the
first time, though the city chosen as the centre of
government was not Wen-teng but a place called
Pu-yeh-ch'eng, and the listen or magisterial district
was accordingly known as Pu-yeh-Hsien. This city,
which is said ^ to have been founded by one Lai-tzu
in the " Spring and Autumn " period twenty-five
centuries ago, is now a small village in the modern
Jung-ch'eng district, a short distance from the British
frontier on the Chinese side, and whatever glory it
may once have possessed has totally departed. The
origin of the name, which means ** Nightless," is
unknown, though naturally one would like to connect
it in some way with the Sunlit Vale of the astronomer
Ho. The new hsien city was assigned to the prefecture
of Tung-lai, then the most easterly prefecture in the
province.

From this time onward all the north-eastern part of
Shantung, including the districts with which we are
speciall}^ concerned, remained under the civil adminis-
tration of China. From time to time various changes
were made in the seat of district-government and in
the boundaries of the prefectures, but these it would
' See the T'ai Ping Huan Yil Chi {chilan 20),

44 HISTORY AND LEGEND

be superfluous to follow in detail. In the fourth year
of T'ien T'ung (568 of our era), Wen-teng city became
the magistrate's headquarters, and the district was
placed in the Ch'ang-kuang prefecture under the name
of Wen-teng-shan Hsien. Early in the period K'ai
Huang (581-600), the abolished Ch'ang-kuang pre-
fecture gave place to Mou Chou, and Wen-teng was
placed in the Tung-lai prefecture, to which Pu-yeh
had formerly been assigned. Passing over many
similar administrative changes of no special signifi-
cance we come to the Ming dynasty, which began to
reign in 1368, In the ninth year of Hung Wu (1376)
the present prefecture of Teng-chou was created.
Both Wen-teng and Ning-hai districts were assigned
to the new prefecture and have remained under its
jurisdiction ever since.

Before Jung-ch'eng (in the neighbourhood of the
Shantung Promontory) was made a separate magistracy,
which was not till 1735, the position of Wen-teng was
most responsible and often perilous, for it faced the
sea on three sides — north, east, and south. The
chronic danger that menaced these shores came from
the restless Japanese. From the time of the Northern
Wei dynasty (401 of our era) onwards, the Chinese
Government found it necessary to take special measures
for the protection of the Shantung coasts from Japanese
pirates. Elaborate military precautions, say the
records, were taken in 742, during the epoch of the
mighty T'ang dynasty, and again in 1040 (Sung
dynasty) and in 1341 (Yuan dynasty). The failure
of the warlike Mongols (who founded the last-named
dynasty) when they took to over-sea expeditions, is
no less remarkable than their wonderful successes
on land. The armadas despatched in 1274 and in 1281
by the great Kublai Khan for the purpose of reducing
to obedience the refractory Japanese has been spoken
of as an unwarranted attack on the liberty of a free
and gallant people, which met with well-deserved
failure ; but when we know how the pirates of Japan

WARS WITH JAPAN 45

had repeatedly harassed the coasts of China and, more
particularly, had made innumerable murderous attacks
on the helpless farmers and fishermen of the eastern
coasts of Shantung, an entirely new light is thrown
upon Kublai's Japanese policy.

The whole history of Asia and of the world might
have been changed (perhaps for the worse, but not
necessarily so) if the mighty Mongol fleet that set
sail for Japan in 1281 had not been scattered by hostile
winds and waves and defeated by its brave human
adversaries. This was the only serious attempt ever
made by China to conquer Japan, and though the
Chinese dynasty of that day had carried its victorious
arms through a great part of the Euro-Asiatic continent
it utterly failed in its efforts to reduce to vassalage
the island Empire of the East. Yet it was not always
Japan that represented enlightenment and civilisation:
it was not always China that stood for stagnation and
barbarism. When Kublai sent envoys to Japan in
1275 and in 1279 they were not treated with the
courtesy that the world has in more recent years
learned to expect from the natives of Japan : they
were simply deprived of their heads.

The disasters to their fleets appear to have dis-
couraged the Chinese from again trying their fortunes
on the ocean ; while the Japanese, always intrepid
sailors and fighters, re-entered with zest into the profit-
able occupation of raiding the coasts of China and
robbing her of her sea-borne merchandise. *' The
spacious days of great Elizabeth," made glorious for
England by knightly freebooters and gentleman
pirates, were to some extent anticipated in the north-
western Pacific during the twelfth and succeeding
centuries of our era. Japan took more than ample
revenge for the insult offered her by the great Kublai.
The whole coast-line of China lay open to her attacks
and she utilised the situation to the utmost, but it was
north-eastern Shantung that suffered most of all. For
a long time the people of Wen-teng and neighbouring

46 HISTORY AND LEGEND

districts, who were only poor fisher-folk and farmers,
sparse in numbers, vainly implored the Government
to save them from their miseries and protect them
from the sea-rovers. The measures hitherto fitfully
employed to safeguard the coast had been repeatedly
shown to be inadequate. Soon after the commence-
ment of the Ming period (1368) the Imperial Govern-
ment at last began to make a serious effort to keep
inviolate the shores of the Empire and to succour the
people who " had in the past suffered grievous hurt,"
so runs a Chinese account of the matter, " from the
pestilent outrages committed by the rascally Dwarfs."

It may be mentioned that in the Chronicles of
Wen-teng and Weihaiwei the Japanese are never
referred to except as IVo or Wo-jm, which literally
means Dwarfs. This term was not current only
among the unlettered classes : it was regularly em-
ployed in official documents and memorials intended
for the inspection of the Shantung Provincial Govern-
ment.^ A great Chinese geographical work published
in the tenth century of our era is even more un-
complimentary, for it states ^ that " since the later
Han dynasty [which reigned from 25 to 220 a.d.] the
country [Japan] has been known as that of the Dwarf-
slave country," and it gives details as to the tribute
said to have been paid by Japan to China for a period
of many centuries.

The new defensive measures taken by the Govern-
ment consisted in the establishment of Military Districts
{Wei)^ at various strategic points round the coast of
Shantung. Of these Districts Weihaiwei was one and
Ch'eng Shan was another. These two Wei were

' The offensive appellation is preserved to this day in the name of a
small island 120 //south-west of the Shantung Promontory, known as
Dwarfs' Island. The term is still frequently used by the people, and
it often occurred in formal petitions addressed to my own Court until
I expressly forbade, under penalty, its further use.

* T'ai P'ing Huaii Yu Chi, 174th chiian, pp. -^seq

* See pp. 12 seq.

PART OF WEIHAIWEI CITY WALL (scu p. 4;

Photo by I- iti! >iii i^coii t. M. liraiiiuii, A'..V.

the'author and tommie on the quork's peak (see p. 397)-

(vSunitnit of INIount llacdoiiald.)
p. 4 61

MILITARY COLONIES 47

created in 1398, thirty years after the establishment
of the Ming dynasty. The carrying out of the project
was entrusted to two high officials, one of whom took
up his temporary residence on Liukungtao. A wall
was built a few years later (1403) round the village
of Weihai, the modern Weihaiwei '* city," and the
headquarters of Ch'eng-shan-wei, known to us as the
town of Jung-ch'eng, was similarly raised to the dignity
of a walled city. Military colonies — that is, bands of
soldiers who were allowed to take up agricultural land
and to found families — were brought into every Wei
under the command of various leaders, the chief of
whom were known as chih-hui. This title, generally
applied to the chiefs of certain non-Chinese tribes,
was in many cases hereditary. Even in Weihai,
Ning-hai and Ch'eng-shan the chih-hui were petty
military chieftains rather than regular military officers.
There were other commanders known as // ssu, chHen-
hu and pai-hn^ all of which titles — being generally
applied to petty tribal chiefs — were probably selected
in order to emphasise the two facts that the Wei
system was extraneous to the general scheme of
Chinese civil and military administration and that
the officers of a Wei were not only soldiers but also
exercised a general jurisdiction, civil as well as
military, over the aff'airs of the Wei and its soldier-
colonists.

The Chinese Government has always done its best,
in the interests of peace and harmony and general
good order, to inculcate in the minds of its subjects
a reverence for civil authority. Hence, besides ap-
pointing a number of military officials whose enthu-
siasm for their profession might lead them to an
exaggerated notion of the dignity of the arts of war,
the Government also appointed 3.Jh Hsiieh, or Director
of Confucian studies, such as existed in every civil

' For notices concerning the ch'iefi-hti and pai-hu of the tribes of far-
western China at the present day, see the author's Frotn Pekjtig to
Mandalay (John Murray : 1908), pp. 172, 176, 190, 425-7, 429.

48 HISTORY AND LEGEND

magistracy. To render the ultimate civil control more
effective the Wei were at first regarded as nominally
under the civil jurisdiction of the appropriate magis-
tracies : Weihaiwei thus remained an integral part
of Wen-teng Hsien. A change was made apparently
on the recommendation of the magistrate of Wen-teng
himself, who pointed out the failure of the joint-
administration of Hsien and Wei and said that " the
existing system whereby the Magistracy controls the
Wei is much less convenient than a system whereby
each Wei would look after itself" — subject of course
to the ultimate control of the higher civil authorities.
From the year 1659, then, that is sixty-one years after
the first establishment of the Wei system, Hsien and
Wei were treated as two entirely separate jurisdictions,
neither having any authority over the other. This
was the system that remained in force from that time
onward until the final abolition of the Wei in 1735.

The main object in establishing these Wei was,
as we have seen, to provide some eflfective means of
repelling the persistent attacks of Japanese raiders.
In this object the authorities appear to have been
only moderately successful. " When the sea-robbers
heard of what had been done," says one exultant
writer, " they betook themselves a long way off and
dared not cast any more longing looks at our coast ;
and thus came peace to hundreds and thousands of
people. No more intermittent alarms and disorders,
no more panics and stampedes for the people of
Weihai ! " This view of the situation was .unduly
rosy, for in the fourth year of the reign Ming Yung
Lo (1406) — only eight years after the creation of the
several Wei — the Japanese (M^o k'ovi, " Dwarf-pirates ")
effected a landing at Liukungtao, and additional troops
had to be summoned from long distances before they
could be expelled. Two years later — as if to show
their contempt for one Wei after another — they landed
in force at Ch'eng-shan, and though they did not
succeed in capturing the new walled city of Ch'eng-

DWARF-CATCHERS 49

shan-wei they overwhelmed the garrisons of two
neighbouring forts. These daring raids resulted in
an increase and reorganisation of the troops attached
to each Wei, and in the appointment of an officer with
the quaint title of" Captain charged with the duty of
making preparations against the Dwarfs." Hence-
forward the forts under each Wei were known as
•' Dwarf-catching Stations," while the soldiers were
" Dwarf-catchers." It is not explained what happened
to the Dwarfs when caught, but there is no reason to
suppose they were treated with undue leniency. It
is perhaps well for the self-respect of the Chinese
that the Wei establishments had been abolished long
before the capture of Weihai by the Japanese in 1895,
otherwise the Catchers would have found themselves
in the ignoble position of the Caught.

We have seen that the city wall of Weihaiwei was
first built in 1403. The troops were stationed within
the city and also in barracks erected at the various
beacon-posts and forts which lined the coast to east
and west, but considerable numbers in times of peace
lived on their farms in the neighbourhood and only
took up arms when specially summoned. The official
quarters of the commandant of the Wei — the prin-
cipal chih-hni — were in the yamen which is now the
residence of the Chinese deputy-magistrate. The num-
ber of troops under his charge seems to have varied
according to the exigencies of the moment, but it is
recorded that Weihaiwei was at first (at the end of
the fourteenth century) provided with a garrison of
two thousand soldiers, which number was gradually
increased. The area of the Wei — including the lands
devoted to direct military uses and those farmed by
the military colonists — was probably considerably
less than one hundred square miles in extent, and
embraced a part of the most northerly (peninsular)
portion of the territory now administered by Great
Britain.

It was not only from foreign " barbarians " that the

4

50 HISTORY AND LEGEND

inhabitants of Wen-teng had to fear attack. Their
own lawless countrymen were sometimes no less
daring and ruthless than the Japanese. Those that
came by sea were, indeed, foreigners in the eyes of
the people of Shantung, for most of them came from
the provinces south of the Yangtse and spoke dialects
quite incomprehensible in the north. During the
Chia-ching period (1522-66) a Chinese pirate named
Wang Hsien-wu seized the island of Liukung, within
full view of the soldiers of the Wei, and maintained
himself there with such ease and comfort that he built
fifty-three houses for his pirate band and took toll of
all junks that passed in and out of the harbour. He
was finally dislodged by a warlike Imperial Censor,
who after his main work was accomplished made a
careful survey of the arable land of the island and
had it put under cultivation by soldier-farmers. This
useful work was again pursued with energy rather
more than half a century later, when in 1619 the
prefect T'ao Lang-hsien admitted a few immigrants
to the island and enrolled them as payers of land-tax.
With a view to their better protection against further
sudden attacks from pirates he established on the
island a system of signal-beacons.

The last year or two of the Ming dynasty (1642-3)
was a troublous and anxious time for all peace-loving
Chinese. The events that led to the expulsion of the
Mings and the establishment of the present (Manchu)
dynasty on the Chinese throne are too well known to
need detailed mention. A great part of the Empire
was the prey of roving bands of rebels and brigands,
one of whom — a remarkable adventurer named Li
Tzu-ch'eng — after repeatedly defeating the imperial
troops finally made himself master of the city of
Peking. The last Emperor of the Ming dynasty,
overwhelmed with shame and grief, hanged himself
within the palace grounds. The triumph of Li was
short-lived, for the warlike tribes of Manchuria, readily
accepting an invitation from the Chinese imperialist

END OF THE MING DYNASTY 51

commander-in-chief to cross the frontier and drive
out the presumptuous rebels, soon made themselves
supreme in the capital and in the Empire. The con-
dition of the bulk of the Chinese people during this
time of political ferment was pitiable in the extreme.
Military leaders, unable to find money to pay their
troops, neither could nor would prevent them from
committing acts of pillage and murder. Bands of
armed robbers, many of them ex-soldiers, roamed
over the land unchecked, leaving behind them a trail
of fire and blood.

Confining our attention to the districts with which
we are specially concerned, we find that a band of
brigands took by assault the walled city of Ch'eng-
shan, while at Weihaiwei the conduct of the local
troops was so disorderly that civilians with their
wives and families had to abandon their fields and
homes and flee for refuge to the tops of hills.^ The
chih-hni in command of the local Wei at this mo-
mentous time, coming to the conclusion that the
dynasty was tottering and that the seals of office
issued by the Ming Emperors would shortly bring
disaster on their possessors, deserted his post and
sought a dishonoured refuge at home. It was not
for several years afterwards that the distracted people
of Weihaiwei, or such of them as had survived the
miseries of those terrible days, once more found them-
selves in possession of their ancestral farms and
reasonably secure from rapine and outrage.

The strong rule of the early Ta Ch'ing Emperors
(the Manchu dynasty) had its natural eff'ect throughout
the whole country. Law-abiding folk enjoyed the
fruits of their industry without molestation, while
robbers and pirates found their trade both more
dangerous and less profitable than in the good old
days of political disorder. Yet it was not to be sup-
posed that even the great days of K'ang Hsi and his
two remarkable successors were totally unmarked by

'See p. 31.

52 HISTORY AND LEGEND

occasional troubles for the people of so remote and
exposed a section of the Empire as north-eastern
Shantung. The year 1703, say the local annals, was
a disastrous one, for floods in spring and a drought
in summer were followed in autumn by the arrival at
Weihaiwei of shiploads of Chinese pirates. Soldiers
from the neighbouring camps of Ning-hai, Fu-shan
(Chefoo) and Wen-teng had to be sent for to assist
the local garrison in beating them off. Nine years
later, on the seventeenth day of the tenth month,
pirates arrived at the island of Chi-ming,^ whereupon
a great fight ensued in which a brave and distinguished
Chinese commander lost his life.

An important year for the districts we are con-
sidering was 1735. For some years previous to this
the question of the abolition of the various Wei and
amalgamating them with the appropriate Hsien had
been eagerly discussed in civil and military circles.
The question was not, indeed, one of dismantling
fortifications or denuding the place of troops : these,
it was reluctantly recognised, were a permanent
necessity. The disputed point was merely one of
jurisdiction and organisation. As we have seen, the
Wei were something quite exceptional in the Chinese
administrative system ; the creation of districts under
direct military control, free from any interference on
the part of the civil magistrates, had been in Chinese
eyes a dangerous departure from the traditional ad-
ministrative practice of past ages and could not be
justified except as a temporary measure, which, being
bad in principle, should only be resorted to under
pressure of abnormal conditions. Several of the
memorials and despatches written for and against the
retention of the Wei are preserved in the printed
Annals of the districts concerned. The matter was
considered of such grave importance that a provincial
governor and a governor-general were separately sent
by the central Government to inquire into local con-

' See p. 25.

ABOLITION OF THE WEI 53

ditions at the north-eastern peninsula and to prepare
detailed reports on the problems of administration
and defence. The end of it all was that in 1735 the
several Wei were abolished : Weihaiwei resumed its
old place within the magistracy of Wen-teng, while the
Promontory Wei of Ch'eng-shan was converted into
a new magisterial district under the name of Jung-
ch'eng Hsien. Similar fates befell the other Wei
of eastern Shantung, such as Ching-hai, Ta-sung
and Ning-hai. The boundary of Jung-ch'eng was
placed as far west as the villages of Sheng-tzu and
Ch'iao-t'ou,^ and therefore, as we have seen, the
territory temporarily administered by Great Britain
contains portions of both Wen-teng and Jung-ch'eng
districts.

In most magisterial districts which include sea-
ports or large market-centres there are certain small
officials styled hsi'm-chien who reside at such places
and carry on the routine and minor duties of civil
government and police administration on behalf and
under the authority of the district-magistrates. A
hsi'm-chien in fact presides over what may be called
a sub-district and acts as the magistrate's deputy.
Before Weihai ceased to be a Wei an official of this
class resided near what was then the northern
boundary of the Wen-teng magistrate's jurisdiction,
namely at a place called Wen-ch'iian-chai. When the
Wei was absorbed in the Wen-teng district in 1735
and the boundaries of that district were thus made to
include all the land that lay to the north, the sub-
district of Wen-ch'iian-chai was abolished, and a new
sub-district created at Weihai with headquarters at
Weihai city. The last hsiln-chien of Wen-ch'iian-chai
became the first hsun-chien of Weihai, and the former
place sank at once into the position of an ordinary
country village. Wen-ch'iian-chai must not be con-
fused with Wen-ch'uan-t'ang, the headquarters of the
South Division of the territory under British rule ; '
' See pp. 14, 98. ' See p. 98.

54 HISTORY AND LEGEND

the two places are several miles apart, though both at
present fall within the magisterial jurisdiction of the
British District Officer, It is interesting to note that
Wen-ch'iian-t'ang itself was long ago — probably be-
fore the days of the Ming dynasty — the seat of a
military official, the site of whose yamen is still
pointed out by the people of the locality. The last
hsmi-chien of Wen-ch'uan-chai, who was transferred
to Weihai city, was a man of such excellent reputation
that his name is remembered with respect to this day.
The people of the neighbourhood still repeat a well-
known old rhyme which he was fond of impressing
upon their ancestors' minds :

" Shan yu shan pao
O yu 0 pao
Jo shih pu pao
Shih-ch^en wei tao."

This being translated means :

" Happiness is the reward of virtue ; misery is the
reward of wickedness. If virtue and wickedness have
not brought their due recompense it is only because
the time has not yet come."

This man, whose name was Yang, is said to have
been so upright and clean-handed an official that
when he was relieved of office he found himself with-
out funds sufficient to take him home to his native
place, which was a long way off. However, being
connected by marriage with the Li family of Ai-shan-
ch'ien,^ he took up his residence with them and there
spent the remainder of his life. He was buried in the
graveyard of the Li family, where his tomb is still
to be seen.

The abolition of the Wei necessitated military
changes of some importance, but the descendants of
the old military colonists remained where they were
and kept possession of their lands. The only differ-

' This is a village in British territory near Ai-shan Miao, a temple
described on pp. 385-6.

ROBBERS, PESTILENCE AND FAMINE 55

ence to them was that their names as land-holders
were now enrolled in the ordinary civil registers
instead of in separate military registers. The chiin ti
(military lands) became min ti (civilian lands) and the
payment of land-tax was substituted for military
service.

The country appears to have remained unmolested
by external foes until 1798, when a fleet of pirate-junks
made its appearance with the usual disagreeable
results. The years 1810-11 were also bad years for
the people, as the eastern part of the province was
infested with bands of roving brigands — probably
poor peasants who, having been starved out of house
and home by floods and droughts and having sold
all their property, were asserting their last inalienable
right, that of living. Whatever their provocation may
have been, it appears from the local records that during
the two years just mentioned their daring robberies
caused the temporary closing of some of the country-
markets. The robbers went about in armed bands,
each consisting of seventy or eighty men, and com-
plaints were openly made that the officials would take
no active steps to check these disorderly proceedings
because the yamen-runners — the ill-paid or unpaid
rabble of official underlings by whom Chinese yamens
are infested — were in league with the robbers and
received a percentage of the booty as " hush-money."
The usual method of attack adopted by the miscreants
was to lurk in the graveyards — where in this region
there is always good cover — and lie in wait for un-
protected travellers. Unlike the Robin Hoods and
Dick Turpins of England they shrank not from
robbing the poor, and they spared neither old woman
nor young child.

Human enemies were not the only adverse forces
with which the much-harried peasant of Weihaiwei
had to contend. Famine, -drought, earthquake, pes-
tilence, all had their share in adding to his sorrows.
Sometimes his crops . were destroyed by locusts;

56 HISTORY AND LEGEND

sometimes his domestic animals became the prey of
wild beasts. We find from the Annals that the first
visit of British war-vessels to Weihaiwei, which
occurred in 1816/ synchronised with a period of great
misery: famines and epidemics in 181 1 and 1812 had
been followed by several years of agricultural dis-
tress; and during the years from 18 13 to 1818 a new
scourge visited the people in the shape of packs of
ravenous wolves. The officers and men of the Alceste
and Lyra might have had the pleasure, had they only
known it, of joining in the wolf-hunts organised by
the local officials.

The published chronicles do not carry us further
than the middle of the nineteenth century, though
the yamens of Wen-teng and Jung-ch'eng possess all
the information necessary for the production of new
up-to-date editions of their local histories as soon
as the higher provincial authorities issue the neces-
sary orders. A new edition of the Vung Chih, the
general Annals and Topography of the whole Province
of Shantung, is at present in course of preparation at
the capital ; and to this work each of the magistracies
will be required to contribute its quota of information.
If the work is brought up to recent times it will be
interesting to read its account of the war with Japan
in 1894-5, and of the capture of Weihaiwei. Before
the outbreak of that war the fortifications of Wei-
haiwei had been entirely reconstructed under the
direction of European engineers. It was not, how-
ever, so strong a fortress as Port Arthur, upon which
six millions sterling had been spent by the Govern-
ment, and which was regarded by the Chinese as
impregnable. Yet Port Arthur fell to the victorious
Japanese after a single day's fighting, whereas Wei-
haiwei, vigorously attacked by land and sea, did not
capitulate till three weeks after the Japanese troops
had landed (on January 20, 1895) at the Shantung
Promontory.

• See p. I,

CHAPTER IV

CHINESE CHRONICLES AND LOCAL CELEBRITIES

Since February 1895 Weihaiwei has never been out
of the hands of a foreign Power. At the conclusion
of the war the place was retained in the hands of
the Japanese as security for the due fulfilment of the
conditions of peace. Then followed the concerted
action of the three States of Germany, Russia and
France to rob Japan of some of the fruits of her
victory. The moving spirit in this coalition was
Russia, who ousted Japan from Port Arthur and took
possession of it herself. As a result of this manoeuvre
Great Britain demanded that Weihaiwei should be
" leased " to her " for as long a period as Port Arthur
remains in the occupation of Russia." It may be
noted that the original "lease" of Port Arthur by
China to Russia was for twenty-five years, which
period will not elapse till 1923. Another almost
simultaneous attack on Chinese integrity was made
by Germany, whose long-sought opportunity of es-
tablishing herself on the coast of China was thrust
in her way by the murder of two of her missionaries
in Shantung. (Is it to be wondered at that the Chinese
have at times regarded European missionaries as the
forerunners of foreign armies and warships, in spite
of the missionary's assertion that he is the apostle
of universal love and has come to preach the Golden
Rule ?)

?7

S8 CHINESE CHRONICLES AND LOCAL CELEBRITIES

The Chinese in Shantung have a strange tale
to tell of the murder of those German missionaries.
They say the outrage had its origin in the kid-
napping of a woman by an employee in a certain
Chinese yamen. She had influential connexions, who
promptly demanded her restitution. The kidnapper
had the ear of the magistrate, who, turning a deaf
ear to his petitioners, or professing to know nothing
about the matter, took no action. The woman's
relations then devoted their energy to bringing ruin
upon the magistrate ; and after long consultations
decided that the surest and quickest method of doing
so would be by killing the two local missionaries.
This, they knew, would infallibly be followed by a
demand from the foreign Government concerned for
the magistrate's degradation and punishment. They
had no grudge whatever against the missionaries, and
merely regarded their slaughter as a simple means
to a much-desired end. They carried out their plan
with complete success, and the magistrate's ruin was
the immediate result ; but a further consequence,
unforeseen by the murderers, was that " His Majesty
the Emperor of China, being desirous of promoting
an increase of German power and influence in the
Far East," leased to His Majesty the German Emperor
the territory of Kiaochou. Needless to say, an in-
crease of the power and influence of any great
European Power in the eastern hemisphere was, very
naturally, the last thing to be desired by the Chinese
Emperor and his people. It seems a pity that modern
civilised States have not yet devised some means of
putting an end to the ignoble warfare that is con-
tinually waged by the language of diplomacy against
the language of simple truth.

The reader may be interested in some illustrations
of the manner in which the Chinese official chronicler
arranges, in chronological order, his statements of
conspicuous local events. The following lists of
occurrences with their dates (which are merely selec-

CHINESE CHRONICLES 59

tions from the available material) are translated direct
from the Chinese ; Annals of Weihaiwei, Wen-teng,
Jung-ch'eng, and Ning-hai, A few of the meteoro-
logical and astronomical details are of some interest,
if their meaning is not always obvious. With regard
to the comets, I have made no attempt at exact veri-
fication, though the comet of 1682 was evidently
Halley's, which is occupying a good deal of public
and scientific attention at the present time. That of
1741 may have been either Olbers's or Pons's, and
that of 1801 was perhaps Stephan's. But these are
points which are best left to the man of science. The
Chinese dates are in all cases converted into the
corresponding dates of the Christian era.

Han Dynasty.

40 B.C. A singularly successful year in the wild-
silk industry, owing to the abundance of silk
produced by the silkworms at Mou-p'ing
Shan.

Chin Dynasty.

353 A.D. (about January). The planet Venus crossed
the orbit (?) of the planet Mars and passed
over to the west. [This appears to be un-
intelligible,]

386 (about July). The planet Jupiter was seen in
the daytime in the west.

T'ang Dynasty.

841. In the autumn, hailstorms destroyed houses and
ruined crops.

Sung Dynasty,
990. Great famine.

Yuan Dynasty.
1295-6. Floods.

1297. Seventh moon. Great famine. [The Chinese
year begins a month or more later than the

6o CHINESE CHRONICLES AND LOCAL CELEBRITIES

European year. The word " moon " is used
as an indication that the month is the lunar
month, which alone is recognised in China.]

1330. Great famine.

1355. Locusts destroyed crops.

Ming Dynasty.

1408. Earthquake, with a noise like thunder.

1506. Seventh moon, sixth day. Great floods, both

from sky and ocean. Crops destroyed and soil

impregnated with salt.

1511. Wandering brigands entered the district. Hear-

ing the sound of artillery, they fled.

15 12. Third moon, thirteenth day. The bell and the

drum in the temple of Ch'in Shih Huang-ti on
Ch'eng-shan ^ sounded of their own accord.
Immediately afterwards, the temple was de-
stroyed by fire, but the images remained intact.
On the same day a band of roving robbers
entered Wen-teng city.

1513. A flight of locusts darkened the sun.
1 5 16. Drought and floods. No harvest.

1 5 18. Famine and starvation.

1546. Floods. Ninth moon, second day: a hailstorm
and an earthquake, with a noise like thunder.

1548. Great earthquake. Countless dwelling-houses
overthrown.

1556, Between five and six in the morning of the
twenty-ninth day of the twelfth moon (early in
1556) the sun produced four parhelia (mock-
suns) of great brilliance. The northern one
was especially dazzling. [The appearance of
four parhelia was regarded as unusual enough
to merit special mention, but old inhabitants
of Weihaiwei say that two "sun's ears," as
they are called, are comparatively often seen
at sunrise. According to the local folk-lore,
a single "ear" on the left side of the sun

' See p. 23.

EARTHQUAKES AND FAMINES 6i

betokens high winds, while a single " ear " on

the right foretells rain. If " ears " appear on

both left and right, splendid weather for the

farmers is to be expected,]
1570. Floods. All crops destroyed and houses flooded.
1576. Third moon, twenty-seventh day. Tremendous

storm of wind and rain, and ruin of young

crops.
1580. Landslips on the hills.
1585. Great famine.
1597. Earthquake and rumbling noise. From this year

to 1609 there were no good harvests.
161 3. Seventh moon, seventh day. At noon a black

vapour came up from the north-east. There

was a fierce wind and a great fall of rain. In

the autumn there was a drought.

161 5. A plague of locusts, resulting in the destruction

of the crops.

1616. In spring, a great famine. Men ate human

tlesh. Free breakfasts were provided by the
district-magistrate of Wen-teng, Chang Chiu-
ching, and by the chih-hiii of Weihaiwei, T'ao
Chi-tsu, whereby thousands of lives were
saved.

1620. Seventh moon, eighth day. A great storm, which

tore up trees and destroyed houses. Many
people crushed to death. Ninety-six junks
wrecked on the coast and over one hundred
men drowned.

1621. Fourth moon, eighteenth day. A rumour was

spread that pirates had landed on the coast.
Many people were so terrified that they fled
to a distance of 800 //, and trampled each
other under foot in their eff"orts to escape.
It was a false rumour. In the autumn there
was an earthquake.

1622. Locusts.

1623-5. Three years of excellent harvests.

1626. Fifth moon : storm with hailstones as big as

62 CHINESE CHRONICLES AND LOCAL CELEBRITIES

hens* eggs. Intercalary sixth moon: floods and
destruction of crops. Seventh moon : great
storm that uprooted trees.

1639. Locusts darkened the sky. Famine.

1640. Drought. Famine.

164 1. Great famine. More than half the people

perished. Men ate human flesh. Six hundred
taels of money were given by the officials of
Ning-hai to relieve the people of that district.
1642-3. No harvests. Country pillaged by robbers.

Ch'ing Dynasty.

1650. Spring and summer : drought. Autumn : floods
and crops inundated.

1656. Great harvest.

1659. Comet in the Northern Dipper [the stars a jS j 8
in Ursa Major].

1662. At Weihaiwei the tide threw up a monstrous fish
which was five chang high [over fifty-eight
English feet], several tens of chang long [at
least three hundred and sixty feet], with a
black body and white flesh. The people of
the place all went down and spent a couple
of months or so in cutting up the great beast
but did not come to the end of it. Those of
the people who liked a bit of fun cut out its
bones and piled them into a mound ; the large
bones were about twelve feet in circumference,
the small ones about six feet. The small ones
were his tail bones. [Stories of monstrous
fishes are not rare along the Shantung coast,
and — allowing for exaggerations with refer-
ence to dimensions — they are based on a
substratum of fact. We have seen (see p. 27)
that the bones of a vast fish were presented to
the Kuan Ti temple in Weihaiwei city, where
they may still be seen ; and another set of
fish-bones adorn the canopy of a theatrical

MOCK-SUNS AND COMETS 63

stage in the same city. For other references
to great fishes, see pp. 24 and 26.]

1664. Drought. Seventh moon : a comet with a tail

twelve feet in length.

1665. Earthquake. Great drought. Land taxes re-

mitted. A comet.
1668. First moon. The sun produced four parhelia. On
the twenty-fifth day a white vapour came from
the south-west. On the seventeenth day of the
sixth moon there was a great earthquake,
and there were three noises like thunder.
Parts of the city walls of Ch'eng-shan-wei and
Wen-teng collapsed, and many houses. A de-
vastating wind for three days spoiled the crops.

1670. Great snowstorm. Snow lay twelve feet deep.

Intensely cold weather. Men were frozen to
death on the roads and even inside their own
houses.

1671. Great landslips on the hills. Sixth moon, rain

and floods for three days, followed by ruin of
crops and partial remission of land-tax.

1679. First moon : four halos appeared round the sun.
Sixth moon, first day, and seventh moon,
twenty-eighth day : earthquakes.

1682. Fifth moon, sixth day : earthquake destroyed two
portions of the yamen of the district-magistrate,
Wen-teng. Eighth moon, first day : a comet
[Halley's ?] was seen in daytime, and did not
pass away till the eleventh day. In the same
moon a violent storm occurred in one locality,
spoiling the crops.

1685. Third moon, twelfth day. A violent wind.

1686. Earthquake. Sixth moon, twenty-eighth day, a

comet came from the south-east as big as a
peck-measure and as bright as the sun. It
threaded the Southern Dipper and entered the
Milky Way, where it became invisible. The
sound of " heaven's drum " was heard four or
five times.

64 CHINESE CHRONICLES AND LOCAL CELEBRITIES

1688. Twelfth moon, seventh day. Earthquake.

1689. Spring : famine. Sixth moon, first day : earth-

quake.
1691. Seventh moon, tenth day. Locusts.

1696. Floods and famine. In winter the district-

magistrate provided free breakfasts.

1697. Government grain issued to save the people

from starvation. Some however died of
hunger.

1703. Floods and drought and a great famine in 1703
were followed in 1704 by deadly epidemics.
More than half the population perished. The
condition of the survivors was pitiful. They
lived by eating the thatch that roofed their
houses and they also ate human flesh. Land-
tax remitted for three years.

1706. Great harvest.

1709. Rains injured crops. Famine.

17 1 7. A great snowstorm at Weihaiwei on the twenty-
sixth day of the first moon. People frozen to
death. Eighth moon, rain and hail.

1719. Seventh moon. Great floods. Houses destroyed
and crops ruined ; the district-magistrate gave
free breakfasts and issued grain for planting.

1723. Great harvest.

1724. Remission of three-tenths of land-tax for three

years. Great snowfall in winter.

1725. In the second moon (about March) occurred the

phenomenon of the coalescence of sun and
moon and the junction of the jewels of the five
planets.^ [This has nothing to do with an
eclipse. It is a phenomenon which is believed
to indicate great happiness and prosperity, and
good harvests. It is said to consist in the
apparent simultaneous rising of sun and moon
accompanied by peculiar atmospheric con-
ditions. Some of the planets are supposed
to go through a similar process.]
' Jih yileh ?io pi, wu hsing lien chu.

CLOUDS AND FISHES 65

1730. Twelfth moon, twenty-eighth day (about January
or February 1730), at nine in the evening, some
beautiful parti-coloured clouds appeared in the
north. They were resplendent with many
tints intricately interwoven, and several hours
passed before they faded away. Every one
declared that the phenomenon betokened un-
exampled prosperity.

1736. First year of the reign of Ch'ien Lung. Three-
tenths of the land-tax remitted. Eleventh
moon, twenty-fourth and twenty-sixth days,
earthquakes.

1739. Drought and floods.

1740. Land-tax remitted and public granaries opened.

1 741. Seventh moon. A comet came from the west

and did not fade till the twelfth moon. Great
harvests.
1743. On the festival of the Ninth of the Ninth Moon
a strange fish came ashore near Weihaiwei.
Its head was like a dog's, its belly like a sea-
turtle's. Its tail was six chHIi long [say seven
English feet] and at the end were three pointed
prongs. On its back was a smaller fish, about
ten inches long, which seemed to be made of
nothing but spikes and bones. No one knew
the name of either fish. It was suggested that
perhaps the smaller one had fastened itself to
the big one, and that the latter, unable to bear
the pain of the small one's spikes, had dashed
for the shore.

1747. Seventh moon, fifteenth day. Great storm :

crops ruined.

1748. Locusts hid the sun and demolished the crops.

1749. Tenth moon, twenty-second day. Great storm

and many drowned.
1751-2. Floods. Crops damaged by water and a hail-
storm. Many died of starvation. Assistance
given by Government, by the importation of
grain from Manchuria.

5

66 CHINESE CHRONICLES AND LOCAL CELEBRITIES

1753- Good harvests.

1 761. Great snowfall. Many geese and ducks frozen
to death.

1765. Second moon, eleventh day: earthquake. Sixth

moon : great floods, land flooded, houses de-
stroyed, people injured.

1766. Great drought.

1767. Third moon, twenty-first day : great storm,

trees uprooted and houses destroyed. Sixth
moon, twentieth day : earthquake.

1769. Autumn, a comet.

1770. Seventh moon, twenty-ninth day. In the evening

the north quarter of the sky became red as if
on fire.

1 77 1. Sixth moon. Continuous rain from second to

ninth days. Crops ruined ; famine.

1774. Second moon, second day: great storm which

made the sands fly and the rocks roll, burst
open houses and uprooted trees. Heaven
and earth became black. Eighth moon :
locusts.

1775. Summer, great drought. Eighth moon, sev^en-

teenth day : earthquake.

1783. From first to sixth moon, no rain; food ex-
cessively dear.

1785. Eighth moon, tenth day. Earthquake.

1790. Tenth moon, sixth day. Earthquake.

1 79 1. Tenth moon, ninth day. Earthquake.

1796. First moon, second day. A sound like thunder

rolled from north-east to south-west.

1797. Eleventh moon, second day. "Heaven's drum"

was heard.

1801. Fourth moon. A star was seen in the north, of

fiery red colour ; it went westward, and was
like a dragon. Summer and autumn, great
drought : all grass and trees withered. Famine
in winter.

1802. Tenth moon. Wheat eaten by locusts.

1803. Great snowfall.

EARTHQUAKES 67

1807, Seventh moon. Comet seen in the west, dying
away in the tenth moon. Good harvests.

1810. Floods. In spring, devastation was caused by

wolves.

181 1. Eighth moon. A comet was seen, more than forty

feet long. There was a great famine. During
this year there were seventeen earthquakes,
the first occurring on the ninth day of the
fourth moon, the last on the sixteenth day of
the ninth moon.^

1812. Famine in spring. The people lived on willow-

leaves and the bark of trees. Multitudes died
of disease. The district-magistrate opened the
public granaries. The famine continued till
the wheat was ripe.

1813. Wolves caused devastation from this year on-

wards until 1818. The year 1816 was the
worst, and the officials organised expeditions
to hunt the wolves with dogs.
1 81 5. A comet was seen in the west.

1817. Fourth moon, eighth day. Earthquake and loud

noise.

1818. Sixth moon, floods. People drowned. A kind

of temporary lifeboat service was organised

by the officials.
1821. Famine. Locusts. A deadly pestilence in

autumn. Fourth moon, a repetition of the

celestial phenomenon mentioned under the

date 1725.
1823. Earthquake.

' The large number of earthquakes recorded in the Annals of tliis
region is remarkable. Only slight earth-tremors have been noticed
since the beginning of the British occupation, but the experience
of former days should prevent us from feeling too sanguine as to
the future. A recent writer has pointed out that though violent
earthquakes are not to be expected on " a gently sloping surface
such as the ocean-bed from which the British Isles arise," they
may be expected on "the steeply shelving margins of the Pacific
Ocean." (Charles Davison in the Quarterly Review, April 1909,
p. 496.)

68 CHINESE CHRONICLES AND LOCAL CELEBRITIES

1835. Sixth and seventh moons. More than forty

days of rain. Government help given to the
people.

1836. Famine. Food and seed provided by the

officials. Abnormally high tides this year.

1838. Fourth moon. A plague of locusts. The district-

magistrate collected the people of the country,
and went out at their head to catch and slay
the insects. After a few days they utterly
vanished. Excellent harvest thereafter.

1839. From fourth to seventh moon, crops spoiled by

excessive rain. Tenth moon, twelfth day, a
noisy earthquake. From the sixteenth to the
twenty-third of the same month rain fell un-
ceasingly.

1840. Eclipse of the sun.

1842. Sixth moon, first day, an eclipse of the sun,
during which the stars were visible.

1844. Eighth moon, twenty-fifth day, at midnight, a
great earthquake.

1846. Sixth moon, thirteenth day, at night, a great

earthquake.

1847. Seventh moon. The planet Venus was seen in

daytime.

1848. Drought and locusts.

1850. First day of the New Year, an eclipse of the

sun.
1852. Eleventh moon, first day, an eclipse of the sun.
1856. Seventh moon, locusts. Great pestilence. On the

first of the ninth moon, an eclipse of the sun.

1 861. Eighth moon, first day, same phenomenon as

witnessed in 1725 and 1821.

1862. Seventh and eighth moons, great pestilence.

These extracts from the local chronicles are perhaps
enough to prove that the Weihaiwei peasant has not
always lain on a bed of roses. When we know him
in his native village, and have learned to appreciate
his powers of endurance, his patience, courage,

LOCAL HEROES 69

physical strength and manly independence, and re-
member at the same time how toilfully and amid what
perils his ancestors have waged the battle of life, we
shall probably feel inclined either to dissociate our-
selves forthwith from the biological theory that denies
the inheritance of acquired qualities or to recognise
that the principle of natural selection has been at work
here with conspicuous success.

The chief boast of the Promontory district, includ-
ing Weihaiwei, is or should be its sturdy peasantry,
yet it is not without its little list, also, of wise men
and heroes. Weihaiwei, like other places, has its
local shrine for the reverential commemoration of
those of its men and women who have distinguished
themselves for hsien, chieJi, hsiao — virtue, wifely de-
votion and filial piety ; and the accounts given us
in the official annals of the lives and meritorious
actions of these persons are not without interest as
showing the nature of the deeds that the Chinese
consider worthy of special honour and official re-
cognition.^

On the northern slope of Wen-teng Shan, near the
city of that name, is the tomb of Hsien Hsien Sheit
Tzu — the Ancient Worthy Shen. He was a noted
scholar of the Chou dynasty (1122-293 b.c). The
T'ang dynasty honoured him (about one thousand
years or more after his death) with the posthumous
title of Earl of Lu (Lu Pai). The Sung dynasty about
the year 1012 a.d. created the deceased philosopher
Marquess of Wen-teng (Wen-teng Hou). His de-
scendants— no longer of noble rank — are said to be
still living in the ancestral village of Shen-chia-chuang
(the village of the Shen family), his native place. In
1723 a new monument was erected at his grave by
the district-magistrate of that time, and the custom
was established for the local officials to offer sacrifices

' In another chapter mention will be made of the Virtuous Widows
and other women of exemplary conduct whom the Chinese delight
to honour.

70 CHINESE CHRONICLES AND LOCAL CELEBRITIES

at the marquess's tomb three days before the Ch'ing-
ming festival.^

Close to Wen-ch'iian-t'ang (the headquarters of the
South Division of Weihaiwei under British rule) is
to be seen the grave of one Yii P'eng-lun, who during
the terrible period 1639-43 honourably distinguished
himself by opening soup-kitchens along the roadsides.
He also presented a free burial-ground for the re-
ception of the bones of the unknown or destitute poor
who had starved to death. Free schools, moreover,
and village granaries were founded by this enlight-
ened philanthropist. After his death the Board of
Rites in 1681 sanctioned his admission into the Temple
of Local Worthies.

In 1446 were buried close to Weihaiwei the remains
of a great general named Wei (IVct chiang-chiui) who
had done good service against the Japanese.

Ch'i Ch'ung-chin, a native of Weihaiwei, is stated
in the Chronicle to have been by nature sincere and
filial, and a good friend. He was also zealously
devoted to study. In 1648 he became an official and
occupied many posts in Yiinnan and other distant
provinces. He governed the people virtuously, and
conferred a great benefit on them during an inunda-
tion by constructing dykes. He died at his post
through overwork.

Pi Kao was a chih-hid of Weihaiwei, and first took
office in 1543. He was afterwards promoted to a
higher military post in Fuhkien, and in 1547 died
fighting against the " Dwarfs " who had landed on
the coast of that province. He was canonised as
one of the Patriot-servants of the Empire {chnng-
ch^en).

Ku Sheng-yen from his earliest j^'ears showed ex-
ceptional zeal in the study of military tactics, and
accustomed himself to horseback-riding and archery.
In 1757 he became a military chin sliih (graduate of
high rank) and was selected for a post in Ssuch'uan.

» See pp. 186-7.

CHINESE SOLDIERS AND TRAVELLERS 71

Subsequently in Yunnan he took part in fourteen
actions against the Burmese. At Man-hua during
SL siege he was wounded in the head and had a severe
fall, from which he nearly died. He took part in the
operations against the Sung-p'an principality (in
Ssuch'uan), and in 1773 the general commanding the
imperial troops against the Chin-ch'uan rebels in the
west of Ssuch'uan ordered him to lead the attack.
This he did with conspicuous success, capturing
numerous strongholds, bridges and outposts, and
slaughtering enormous numbers of the enemy. He was
honoured by the Emperor with the Peacock Feather
and the Bat'uru.^ Later on he received a wound from
which he died. Further marks of imperial favour were
bestowed upon him on the occasion of his funeral.

Wang Yiieh of the Ming dynasty passed a very
good examination and was appointed a district-
magistrate. For nine years he received no promotion,
so he threw up his official post and came home
whistling and singing with delight at having got his
freedom. Among his writings are " Records of
Southern Travel " and a description of Weihaiwei.
The latter takes the form of an imaginary dialogue
between a stranger from Honan and a Weihaiwei
native.* It is too long to translate in full, but it begins
thus : " From the far west came a stranger. Here
at Weihai he rested awhile, and as he gazed at the
limitless expanse of hills and ocean his feelings ex-
pressed themselves now in deep sighs, now in smiles
of happiness. Summoning to his side a native of
Weihai he introduced himself thus : * I come from the
province of Honan. Nq rich man am I, yet I love
to wander hither and hither, wherever there are
wonderful places or beautiful scenery to be visited.
I have seen the sacred hills of Heng, Sung, Hua and
T'ai ; ' the famous rivers and lakes of the Empire, the

' A kind of Manclni D.S.O.

' Quoted in Weihaiwei Chih (9th chilan, p. 69).

* See pp. 74, 391 seq., 396.

72 CHINESE CHRONICLES AND LOCAL CELEBRITIES

Yangtse and the Han, the Tung-t'ing lake, the Hsiang
river, have all been visited by me, all their points of
interest examined and all their beauties seized. But
methought that the great ocean I had not yet seen,
for it lay far to the east.' " He goes on to describe
by what route and under what difficulties he travelled,
and " I don't know how many thousand // I haven't
come," he said plaintively; "my horse is weary and
his hoofs are worn, my servant is in pain with
swollen ankles, and just see what a pitiable sight I
am with my tortured bones and muscles ! However,
here we are at last, and all I want to do is to gain
new experiences and behold new scenes, and so re-
move all cause of future regret for things not seen."

The Weihai man points out to the stranger the
various features of interest of the place and gives
a sketch of its history, and the narration ends up
with his loyal wishes for the eternal preservation of
his country and the long life of the Emperor.

Yiian Shu-fang took his degree in 1648 and received
an appointment in Yang-chou,' where he fulfilled his
official functions with wisdom and single-mindedness.
He was fond of travelling about in the south-eastern
provinces and attracted round him numbers of people
of artistic temperament. After many years, continues
his biographer, he retired from the civil service and
went home to Weihaiwei. There he gave himself up
with the greatest enthusiasm to the luxury of poetic
composition. Among his poems are " Songs of the
South." He edited and annotated the Kan Ying P'ien
[the Taoist " Book of Rewards and Punishments "]
and other works of that nature. A little poem of his
on the view of Liukungtao from the city wall is given
a place in the Weihaiwei Chili.

The number of Chinese officials who, like Wang
Yiieh or Yuan Shu-fang, have been glad to divest
themselves of the cares and honours of office under

* A city on the Grand Canal in Kiangsu, well known on account of
its association with the name of Marco Polo.

SCHOLARLY RECLUSES 73

Government is surprisingly large. Disappointed am-
bition ; constitutional dislike of routine employment,
official conventionalities and "red tape"; a passion
for the tranquil life of a student ; a love of beauty in
art or nature : these, or some of them, are the causes
that have impelled multitudes of Chinese officials to
resign office, often early in their careers, and seek a
quiet life of scholarly seclusion either in their own
homes or in some lonely hermitage or some mountain
retreat. Even at the present day retired magistrates
may be met with in the most unexpected places. I
found one in 1908 living in a little temple at the
edge of the stupendous precipice of Hua Shan in
Shensi, eight thousand feet above the sea-level. He
was a lover of poetry and a worshipper of Nature.

Ting Pai-yiin was for some time a resident in but
not a native of Weihaiwei. His personal name and
native place are unknown. It is said that he obtained
the doctorate of letters towards the end of the Ming
period. His first official post was at Wei Hsien
in Shantung. Subsequently he took to a roving life
and travelled far and wide. When he came to Li
Shan near Weihaiwei he was glad to find a kindred
spirit in one Tung Tso-ch'ang, with whom he ex-
changed poems and essays. He devoted himself with
the utmost persistence to the occult arts, and succeeded
in foretelling the date of his own death. He practised
his wizardry in the Lao mountains,^ and people called
him Mr. White-clouds.

Wang Ching, Ting Shih-chu, Kuo Heng, Pi Ch'ing
and some others receive honourable mention among
the Weihaiwei worthies for their kindness and benevo-
lence towards the poor during various periods of
famine. Some writers are apt to assume that pity
and charity are only to be met with among Christian
peoples. The mistake is serious, but perhaps it is not
an unnatural one, for we do not in Oriental countries
see anything comparable with the vast charitable
' Close to the present German colony of Kiaochou.

74 CHINESE CHRONICLES AND LOCAL CELEBRITIES

organisations, the " missions " to the poor and vicious,
the free hospitals, infirmaries and ahnshouses, that
we see in Western countries. As a partial explanation
of this we should remember that in countries where
individualism is supreme there are more people who
" fall by the wayside," lonely and helpless, than there
are in countries where the family ties are indissoluble.
The people of Weihaiwei consist of peasant-farmers —
very poor from the Western point of view : yet there
is not a beggar in the Territory, and if an almshouse
or an infirmary were established there to-morrow
it would probably remain untenanted.

Ch'i Yen-yiin was a graduate and a devoted student
of the art of poetry. He put his books in a bundle
and trudged away to look for a Master. He wandered
great distances, and made a pilgrimage to the Five
Sacred Mountains. He was joined by a number of
disciples, who came from all directions and travelled
about with him. A pilgrimage to the Wu Yiieh or Five
Sacred Mountains,^ it ma}^ be mentioned, is regarded
as a performance of no mean merit, through which
the pilgrim will infallibly evolve mystical or spiritual
powers of marvellous efficacy. These valuable powers
have not yet shown themselves in a foreigner from
distant Europe who performed this little feat in
1908-9.

Wang Ch'i-jui was famous among all the literates of
the district for his exemplary character. When he
was only thirteen he and his whole family were
bought by a certain official as domestic servants.
Wang paid the greatest attention to his studies, and
his master, seeing this, put out his tongue in astonish-
ment and said, " this boy is much too good to be
wasted." So he cancelled the deed of purchase and
set the boy free. In after-years he distinguished
himself as a friend of the downtrodden and oppressed,
and during the troublous times that marked the end
of the Ming and the rise of the Ch'ing dynasty he

' See pp. 71 and 391 seq.

A PATRIOT 75

strenuously advocated the cause of the poor. Once
he passed a certain ruffian who was waiting by the
roadside to waylay travellers. This man was the
most truculent swashbuckler in the whole country-
side ; but when he saw Wang Ch'i-jui, and recognised
him, he lowered his sword. Subsequently through
Wang's clemency this robber received a pardon for
his crimes.

The name of the patriot Huang Ch'eng-tsung of the
Ming dynasty is enrolled among both the Hsiaug Hsicn
(Local Worthies) and the Chung Cli'en (Loyal Officials).
The records say that though he came of a poor family
in Weihaiwei he showed a zealous and ambitious
temperament even from the days of childhood. Having
taken his degree, he was appointed to a post at
Ch'ing-tu, where he distinguished himself as an able
official. In 1638, when rebel troops were approaching
the city, he placed himself at the head of the local
troops and fought with great heroism for ten days.
Unfortunately a certain military graduate entered into
traitorous communication with the enemy and let
them into the city. When Huang was told the bad
news he decided that, though defeat and death were
now certain, he was bound in honour to fight to the
last. He had a brave young son of eighteen years of
age, named Huang Chao-hsiian, who, learning what
had happened, addressed his father thus: "An official
can prove his lo3^alty by dying for his sovereign,
a son his filial devotion by dying with his father."
The two went out to meet the enemy together. Huang
Ch'eng-tsung was shot dead by an arrow while he
was fighting in the streets, and the son was slain
at his father's side.

This was not the end of the tragedy. Of Huang's
wife, Liu Shih, the story is told that as soon as
news was brought her of her husband's death she
immediately turned towards the north and made an
obeisance in the direction of the Emperor. Then
she took her little daughter and strangled her, and

76 CHINESE CHRONICLES AND LOCAL CELEBRITIES

immediately afterwards died by her own hand.^ Her
dying wish was that her little girl should be placed be-
side her in her coffin. Finally, a faithful servant of
the family, named Huang Lu, seized a dagger and
killed himself. And so, says the local chronicle, were
brought about the pitiful deaths of a patriotic official,
a filial son, a devoted wife, a loyal servant.* No
one who heard the story but shed tears. The dead
bodies were brought back to Weihaiwei and buried
at Nai-ku Shan, to the north of Weihai City.

' A motive for this was doubtless the knowledge that the rebel
soldiers would soon be turned loose in the captured city.

' Apparently the poor daughter did not count, either because she was
a. mere soulless infant or because her part in the proceedings was a
passive one.

CHAPTER V

BRITISH RULE

When negotiations were being carried on seventy
years ago for the cession of Hongkong to the British
Crown the only interests that were properly consulted
were those of commerce. Military and naval require-
ments were so far overlooked that one side of the
harbour, with its dominating range of mountains, was
allowed to remain in the hands of China, the small
island of Hongkong alone passing into the hands of
Great Britain. The strategic weakness of the position
was soon recognised ; it was obvious that the Chinese,
or any hostile Power allied with China, could hold the
island and the harbour, with its immense shipping,
entirely at its mercy by the simple expedient of
mounting guns on the Kowloon hills. The first
favourable opportunity was taken by the British
Government to obtain a cession of a few square miles
of the Kowloon peninsula, but from the strategic point
of view this step was of very little use ; and it was not
till 1898 that the Hongkong " New Territory " — a
patch of country which, including the mountain ranges
and some considerable islands, has an area of several
hundred square miles — was " leased " to Great Britain
** for a period of ninety-nine years."

When, in the same year, arrangements were being
made for the " lease " of Weihaiwei, no decision had
been come to as to whether the place was to be made

77

78 BRITISH RULE

into a fortress, like Hongkong, or merely retained as
a flying base for the fleet or as a depot of commerce :
but to make quite sure that there would be enough
territory for all possible or probable purposes the
British Government asked for and obtained a lease
not only of the island of Liukung but also of a strip
of land measuring ten miles round the entire bay.
The bay itself, with its various inlets, is so extensive
that this strip of land comprises an area of nearly
three hundred square miles, with a coast-line of over
seventy miles ; while the bee-line frontier from the
village of Ta-lan-t'ou in the extreme east to Hai
Chuang in the extreme west measures about forty
miles.

This land-frontier is purely artificial : in one or two
cases, while it includes one portion of a village it
leaves the rest in Chinese territory. This considerable
area is under direct British rule, and within it no
Chinese official has any jurisdiction whatever except,
as we have seen,^ within the walls of the little city
from which the Territory derives its name. Beyond
the British frontier lies a country in which the British
Government may, if it sees fit, " erect fortifications,
station troops, or take any other measures necessary
for defensive purposes at any points on or near the
coast of the region east of the meridian 121° 40' E.
of Greenwich." The British " sphere of influence "
may thus be said to extend from about half-way to
Chefoo on the west to the Shantung Promontory on
the east : but Great Britain has had no necessity for
the practical exercise of her rights in that wide region.

Of the general appearance of the Territory and its
neighbourhood something has been said in the second
chapter. Hills are very numerous though not of great
altitude, the loftiest being only about 1,700 feet high.
A short distance be3^ond the frontier one or two
of the mountains are more imposing, especially the
temple-crowned Ku-yii hills to the south-west, which

' See p. 2g.

THE LEASE OF WEIHAIWEI 79

are over 3,000 feet in height.^ There are about
three hundred and fifteen villages in the leased
Territory under direct British rule ; of these none
would be described as a large village in England, and
many are mere hamlets, but they have been estimated
to contain an aggregate population of 150,000. Con-
sidering that agriculture is the occupation of all but
a small portion of the people, and that large areas in
the Territory are wholly unfit for cultivation, this
population must be regarded as very large, and its
size can only be explained by the extreme frugality
of the people and the almost total absence of a leisured
or parasitic class.

The Weihaiwei Convention was signed in July 1898.
For the first few years the place was controlled by
various naval and military authorities, of whom one
was Major-General Sir A. Dorward, K.C.B., but it
can hardly be said to have been administered during
that time, for the whole Territory beyond Liukungtao
and the little mainland settlement of Ma-t'ou (now
Port Edward) was almost entirely left to its own
devices. The temporary appointment of civil officers
lent by the Foreign and Colonial Offices led to the
gradual extension and consolidation of civil govern-
ment throughout the Territory. One of these officers
was the late Mr. G. T. Hare of the Straits Settlements
Government, and another — whose excellent work is
still held in remembrance by the people — was Mr. S.
Barton, of the British Consular Service in China.
The appointment of Mr. R. Walter' as Secretary to
Government shortly preceded that of Mr. (now Sir)
J. H. Stewart Lockhart, Colonial Secretary of Hong-
kong, as first civil Commissioner.

' Ku-yii Shan is the northern peak of the Ta K'un-yu hills, 40 li
south-east of Ning-hai city. The highest peak is Ta Pei Ting (the
" Great Pity Peak ") or Ta Pai Ting (the " Great White Peak "). There
are many temples and hermitages, some of unknown antiquity, others
dating from the last decade of the ninth century a.d. There are also
tablets and inscriptions of the Han dynasty (ending 220 a.d.).

* Formerly of the Federated Malay States Civil Service.

8o BRITISH RULE

By this year (1902) Weihaiwei had been placed under
the direct control of the Colonial Office, since which
time it has occupied a position practically identical
with that of a British Crown Colony, though (owing to
technical considerations) its official designation is not
Colony but Territor}^ The Commissioner is the head
of the Local Government, and is therefore subject only
to the control of His Majesty exercised through the
Secretary of State for the Colonies. His official rank
corresponds with that of a Lieutenant-Governor : that
rs to say, he receives (while in office at Weihaiwei) a
salute of fifteen guns as compared with the seventeen
of a first-class Crown-colony Governor (such as the
Governors of Hongkong, the Straits Settlements,
Ceylon and Jamaica), or the nine accorded to a British
Consul in office. His actual powers, though exercised
in a more limited sphere, are greater than those of
most Crown-colony Governors, for he is not con-
trolled by a Council.

As in Gibraltar and St. Helena, laws in Weihaiwei
are enacted by the head of the executive alone, not
— as the phrase usually runs elsewhere — " with the
advice and consent of the Legislative Council." The
Order-in-Council indicates, of course, on what lines
legislation may take place, and all laws (called Or-
dinances) must receive the Royal assent, or rather,
to put it more accurately, His Majesty is advised by
the Secretary of State " not to exercise his powers of
disallowance." This is in accordance with the usual
Colonial procedure. In practice, as we saw in the
first chapter, it has been found unnecessary to enact
more than a very small number of Ordinances for
Weihaiwei. The people are governed in accordance
with their own immemorial customs, and it is only
when the fact of British occupation introduces some
new set of conditions for which local custom does not
provide, that legislation becomes necessary. The
legal adviser to the local Government is ^.v officio the
Crown Advocate at Shanghai, and he it is who, when

CLIMATE OF WEIHAIWEI 8i

necessary, drafts the legal measures to be promulgated
in the name of the Commissioner. Such measures
are generally copied from or closely modelled on laws
already in force in England or in the Colony of
Hongkong.

The China Squadron of the British Fleet visits the
port every summer. The fact that Weihaivvei is under
British rule gives the Naval commander-in-chief
perfect freedom to carry out target-practice or other
exercises ashore and afloat under highly favourable
conditions. But the greatest advantage that Weihaiwei
possesses — from the naval as from the civilian point
of view — is its good climate. It is perhaps not so
superlatively excellent as some writers, official and
other, have made out : but none will deny that the
climate is " a white man's," and most will agree that
it is, on the whole, the finest on the coast of China.

The rainfall is not, on the average, much greater
or much less than that of England, though it is much
less evenly distributed than in our own country.
This is perhaps an advantage; there is no doubt that
the average year in Weihaiwei contains a greater
number of " fine days " — that is, days when the sun
shines and no rain falls — than the average year in
England. The other side of the shield shows us
droughts and floods ; how frequent and how destruc-
tive are these calamities may have been gathered
from statements made in the last chapter. The winter
is much colder and the summer much warmer than is
usually the case in England : in addition to which
both cold and heat are more steady and continuous.
But there are not the same extremes that are met with
in Peking and other inland places. The temperature
in winter has been known to fall to zero, but the
average minimum may be put at about 6° (F.). The
snowfall is not great and the roads are rarely blocked.
Skating, owing to the lack of rivers and lakes, can
only be indulged in to a minute extent.

The winter north winds are intensely cold : even

6

82 BRITISH RULE

the Chinese go about muffled up to the ears in furs.
The autumn months — September to November — are
the most delightful of the year. The heat and rains
of summer have passed away and the weather at
this period is equal to that of a superb English
summer and early autumn. The spring months are
often delightful : but this is the season of those almost
incessant high winds that constitute one of the chief
blemishes of the Weihaiwei climate. Yet they are
as nothing compared with the terrible dust-storms
of the Chihli plains, such as make the European resi-
dent in Peking wish himself anywhere else. July
and August are the months of rain, damp, and heat :
yet the temperature rarely goes higher than 94" (F.),
and the summer climate is much less trying than that
of Hongkong or of Shanghai. It is during those two
months, indeed, that Weihaiwei receives most of its
European summer visitors from the southern ports.

When the British Squadron and the European visitors
leave Weihaiwei in or about the month of September,
the place is left to its own resources until the month
of May or June in the following year. From the
social point of view Weihaiwei suffered severel}^ from
the disbandment of the well-known Chinese Regiment,
the British officers of which did much to cheer the
monotony of the winter months. A pack of harriers
was kept by the Regiment, and hunting was indulged
in two days a week during that period. From
November, when the last crops were taken off the
fields, and cross-country riding became possible, until
the end of March, when the new crops began to come
up and confined equestrians to the roads, hunting the
hare was the favourite recreation of the British com-
munity. The Regiment itself, after undergoing many
vicissitudes, was disbanded in 1906. During its short
career of about seven years it proved — if indeed a
proof were needed, after the achievements of General
Gordon — that the Chinese, properly treated and well
trained and led, could make first-rate soldiers.

THE CHINESE REGIMENT 83

The appearance of the rank and file of the Chinese
Regiment on parade was exceptionally good, and
never failed to excite admiration on the part of
European visitors ; but their soldierly qualities were
not tested only in the piping times of peace. They
did good service in promptly suppressing an at-
tempted rising in the leased Territory, and on being
sent to the front to take part in the operations against
the Boxers in 1900 they behaved exceedingly well
both during the attack on Tientsin, and on the march
to Peking. Among the officers who led them on
those occasions were Colonel Bower, Major Bruce,
Captain Watson and Captain Barnes.^

At its greatest strength the Regiment numbered
thirteen hundred officers and men, but before the
order for disbandment went forth the numbers had
been reduced to about six hundred. With the Chinese
Regiment disappeared Weihaiwei's only garrison.
A few picked men were retained as a permanent
police force, and three European non-commissioned
officers were provided with appointments on the
civil establishment as police inspectors. These men,
in addition to an already-existing body of eight
Chinese on Liukungtao and twelve in the European
settlement at Port Edward, constitute the present
(1910) Police Force of the Territory, which now
numbers altogether fifty-five Chinese constables and
three inspectors.

Weihaiwei, then, is entirely destitute of troops and
of fortifications, and in the long months of winter —
when there is not so much as a torpedo-boat in the
harbour — the place is practically at the mercy of any
band of robbers that happened to regard it with a
covetous eye. This state of things cannot be regarded
as ideally good: yet — to touch upon a matter that might
once have been regarded as bearing on politics, but is

' Captain (now Lieut. -Col.) Barnes has written a book entitled On
Active Service zvith the Chinese Regiment, which should be consulted
by those interested in the subject.

84 BRITISH RULE

now a mere matter of history — it may be admitted
that from the imperial point of view the aboHtion of
the Chinese Regiment was a wise step. This view is
not shared by most Englishmen in China : and as for
the British officers, who had given several of the best
years of their lives to the training of that regiment,
and had learned to take in it a most justifiable pride,
one can easily understand how bitter must have been
their feelings of dismay and disappointment when they
heard of the War Office's decision. Similar feelings,
perhaps, may have agitated the mind of the " First
Emperor" when the beautiful bridge to Fairyland, on
which he had spent so much time and energy, began
to crumble away before his sorrowing eyes. The
position of the Chinese Regiment was not analogous
to that of the native troops in India and in our other
large imperial possessions. Its very existence was
anomalous. The great majority of its men were
recruited not in British but in Chinese territory,^ and
as their employment against a European enemy of
Great Britain was scarcely conceivable, their only
function could have been to fight against their own
countrymen or other Orientals.

To persuade them to fight against China would
necessarily have become more and more difficult as
the Chinese Empire proceeded in the direction of
reform and enlightenment. The Boxers, indeed, were
theoretically regarded as rebels against China, so that
Chinese troops in British pay could fight them with a
clear conscience, believing or pretending to believe
that they were fighting for the cause of their own
Emperor as well as (incidentally) that of Great
Britain. But the Regiment outlived the Boxer move-
ment by several years, and the maintenance of a
considerable body of troops (at an annual cost to the
British taxpayer of something like ^30,000) with a
sole view to the possibility of a similar rising at some

' On the eve of disbandment, when the Regiment was some six
hundred strong, only forty men were natives of the leased Territory.

A DILEMMA IN LOYALTY 85

uncertain date in the future was hardly consistent
with British common sense. Moreover, its position in
the event of an outbreak of regular warfare between
England and China would have been peculiar in the
extreme, inasmuch as the men had never been re-
quired, under the recruiting system, to abjure their
allegiance to the Chinese Emperor, They were, in
fact, Chinese subjects, not British. Even over the
inhabitants of Weihaiwei, from whom a small pro-
portion of the men was drawn, the Emperor of China
retains theoretical sovereignty. This has been ex-
pressly admitted by the British Government, which
has declared that as Weihaiwei is only a " leased
territory," its people, though under direct British rule,
are not in the strictly legal sense " British subjects."^

The officers of the Regiment would no doubt have
denied that the loyalty of the men to their British
leaders was ever likely to fall under suspicion, but
the fact remains that in the event of an outbreak of
regular warfare between China and Great Britain the
Chinese authorities might, and probably would, have
done their utmost to induce the men of the Regiment
to desert their colours and take service with their own
countrymen. Many methods of inducement could have
been employed, over and above the obvious one of
bribery. It is only necessary to mention one that would
have been terribly forcible — the imprisonment of the
fathers or other senior relatives of the men who refused
to leave the British service, and the confiscation of
their ancestral lands. The men who deserted, in these
circumstances, would not, perhaps, feel that they had
much to reproach themselves vv'ith. They had taken
service under the British flag : but did that entitle
them to become traitors to their own country, and to
violate the sacred bonds of filial piety ? Even if the
Chinese soldier in British employment had been

' It follows tliat when they go abroad they have no right to the
support of British consuls, though they have often claimed it and have
soinetiraes been granted it through the courtesy of the consul concerned.

86 BRITISH RULE

formally absolved from all allegiance to his own
sovereign it would have been unreasonable to expect
him to evolve a spirit of loyalty to a European monarch
of whose existence he had but the vaguest idea, and
to whom he was bound by no ties of sentiment.

But it may be urged that new conditions of service
might have been devised, under which the men of the
Chinese Regiment would have been exempted from
the obligation of fighting against their own country-
men. Against whom, then, could they have fought ?
They might possibly have been led against the
Japanese, but no one ever supposed for a moment
that they were being trained with a view to action
against a Power with whom Great Britain will probably
be the last to quarrel: and in any case they would have
been too few in number to be of effective service on the
field, and by their inability to take an appropriate place
among the other units they might even have been a
source of embarrassment. As for the assistance they
might have rendered in the event of an attack on
Weihaiwei by any European Power, it is only
necessary to point out that an infantry regiment
would have been totally pov^'erless to prevent the
shelling of Weihaiwei by a naval force, and that if the
British fleet had lost command of the sea, not only
the entire Chinese regiment (or what remained of it
after desertions had taken place), but Weihaiwei itself
and all that it contained would have speedily become
prizes of war to the first hostile cruiser that entered
the harbour.

It may be said, in conclusion of this topic, that if the
British Government had taken the cynical view that
China was doomed to remain in a chronic state of
administrative inefficiency and national helplessness,
it would no doubt have been fully justified, from its
own standpoint, in maintaining the Regiment. That it
decided on disbandment may be regarded as welcome
evidence that Great Britain did not, in 1906, take an
entirely pessimistic view of China's future.

WITHDRAWAL OF TROOPS 87

That the complete withdrawal of all troops was
followed by no shadow of disorder among the people
and no increase of crime, strikingly refutes the argu-
ment, sometimes advanced, that the real justification
of the existence of the Regiment was the necessity of
relying on a local armed force for the maintenance
of British rule and prestige, which would otherwise
have been outraged or treated with open contempt.
No doubt the Regiment fulfilled a most useful function
in suppressing or preventing disorder and in helping
to consolidate British rule during the eventful year
of 1900 : and it may very well be that the people of
the Territory then learned the futility of resistance to
the British occupation. But it may be stated with
emphasis that since the disbandment of the Regiment
the people — perhaps from a knowledge of the fact
that British troops and warships though not stationed
at Weihaiwei are never very far away — have given no
sign whatever of insubordination or restlessness/

So far from crime and lawlessness having increased
since that time, they have shown a distinct tendency
to diminish, while no trouble whatever has arisen
with the Chinese beyond our frontier. The signifi-
cance of this will be realised by those who know how
easily the official classes in China can, by secret and
powerful means, foster or stir up a general feeling
of antagonism to foreigners.

Perhaps it ma}^ not be out of place to mention here
that the relations between the British officials of
Weihaiwei and the Chinese officials of the neighbour-
hood have always been intimate and friendly : much
more intimate, indeed, than those normally existing
between the Government of Hongkong and the
magistrates and prefects of the neighbouring regions
of Kuangtung. The result is that through the medium

• As one reason for this it should be noted that the people still hold
in vivid remembrance the Japanese march through their villages and
fields in 1895. They have had some practical experience of modern
warfare, and they are not anxious for more.

88 BRITISH RULE

of informal or semi-official correspondence, and by
personal visits, a great deal of business is satisfactorily
carried through without " fuss " or waste of time, and
that frontier-matters which might conceivably grow
into difficult international questions requiring diplo-
matic intervention, are quickly and easily settled on
the spot.

But it must be remembered that these friendly
relations might at any time be interrupted by the
Chinese officials if they were to receive a hint from
the provincial capital or from Peking that the position
of Great Britain was to be made difficult and un-
pleasant. One important reason why the people of
Weihaiwei acquiesce with a good grace in British rule
is their vague belief that we are in Weihaiwei at the
request and with the thorough goodv/ill of the Chinese
Government, and are in some way carrying out the
august wishes of the Emperor. They still speak of us
as the foreigners or *' ocean men," and of China as
Ta Kuo, the Great Country. When they erect stone
monuments, after the well-known Chinese practice,
to the memory of virtuous widows and other good
women, they still surmount the tablet with the words
Sheiig Chilly " By decree of the Emperor." There
is not the faintest vestige of a feeling of loyalty to
the British sovereign, even among those who would
be sorry to see us go away. Most of the people
have but the haziest idea of where England is; some
think it is " in Shanghai " or " somewhere near
Hongkong " ; others, perhaps from some confused
recollection of the dark-skinned British troops who
took part in the operations of 1900, suppose that
Great Britain and India are interchangeable terms.

I have been asked by one of our village headmen
(in perfect good faith) whether England were governed
by a tsung-tu (governor-general) or by a kuo-ivang
(king of a minor state) — the implication in either
case being that England was far inferior in status
to China. Thus arises among the people the notion

CHINESE VIEW OF BRITISH RULE 89

that their own Emperor has for some mysterious
reason, best known to himself, temporarily entrusted
the administration of Weihaiwei to some English
officials, and will doubtless decide in his own good
time when this arrangement is to be rescinded.
The notion does not, indeed, attain this definiteness,
and the majority of the people well know from actual
experience that no Chinese official, however exalted,
has a shadow of direct authority in Weihaiwei at the
present time ; but any attempt to persuade them that
the Emperor could not, if he willed, cause the im-
mediate departure of the foreigners would probably
be a miserable failure. The long and short of the
matter is that the Chinese of Weihaiwei acquiesce
in British rule because their sovereign, as represented
by the Governor of Shantung, shows them the ex-
ample of acquiescence ; but if diplomatic troubles
were to arise between Great Britain and China, and
the command, direct or indirect, were to go forth from
the Governor that the British in Weihaiwei were no
longer to be treated with respect, a few days or weeks
would be sufficient to bring about a startling change
in the direction of anti-foreign feeling among the
inhabitants of the leased Territory.

Incessant troubles, also, would suddenly and mys-
teriously arise on the frontier ; the magistrates of the
neighbouring districts, notwithstanding all their past
friendliness, would become distant and unsympathetic ;
difficulties internal and external would become so
serious and incessant that it would be no longer
possible to administer the Territory without the
presence of an armed force. In the absence of a local
garrison the Government would be compelled to re-
quisition the services of the ever-ready British
marines and bluejackets ; and His Excellency the
Vice-Admiral, obliged to detach some of the vessels
of his squadron for special service at Weihaiwei,
might begin ruefully to wonder whether, after all,
Weihaiwei was worth the trouble of maintenance.

90 BRITISH RULE

This is a picture of gloomy possibilities which, it is
to be hoped, will never be realised so long as the
British occupation of Weihaiwei subsists. Unfor-
tunately, diplomatic difficulties are not the only pos-
sible causes of trouble. If eastern Shantung were
afflicted with long-continued drought and consequent
famine — not an uncommon event — or if it were visited
by some of those lawless bands of ruffians, too
numerous in China, who combine the business of
robbery and murder with that of preaching the gospel
of revolution, the position of Weihaiwei would not
be enviable. And parts of China, be it remembered,
are in such a condition at present that almost any
day may witness the outbreak of violent disorder.
A small band of hungry and desperate armed men
with a daring leader, a carefully-prepared plan and
a good sj^stem of espionage — were it not for
the Boy Scouts of the Weihaiwei School, who
are fortunately still with us ! — descend upon Port
Edward, glut themselves with booty, and be in a safe
hiding-place beyond the British frontier before noon
the next day. Much more easily could any village
or group of villages be ransacked and looted, and its
inhabitants killed or dispersed : and the local Govern-
ment, except by summoning extra assistance, would
be powerless under present conditions to take any
vigorous action.

Trouble of this kind is much more likely to come
from the Chinese of some distant locality than from
the people of the Territory itself. In one very
important respect the British have been highly
favoured by fortune. It happens that harvests in
Weihaiwei for several years past have been on the
whole very good, and the people are correspondingly
prosperous. There has not been a really bad year
since British rule began ; moreover certain agricul-
tural developments (especially the cultivation on a
large scale of ground-nuts intended for export) have
been beneficial to the soil itself, and are a steadily-

BRITISH "LUCK" 91

increasing source of wealth to the farmers. With the
loose conceptions of cause and effect common to most
peasant-folk, many of the villagers believe that the
good harvests and general prosperity are somehow
due to the "luck" of their alien rulers, of which they
derive the benefit. The gods and spirits of the land,
they imagine, must be satisfied with the presence of
the British : is it not obvious that they would other-
wise show their discontent by bringing a blight on
the fields or sending a plague of insects?

Such is the popular argument, indefinitely felt rather
than definitely expressed ; and there is no doubt that it
has had some effect in inducing a feeling of content-
ment with British rule. I have also heard it remarked
by the people that since the coming of the English
the villages have ceased to be decimated by the
deadly epidemics that once visited them. A sage old
farmer whom I asked for an explanation of the recent
remarkable increase in the value of agricultural land
explained it as due to the fact that the British Govern-
ment had vaccinated all the children. This prevented
half the members of each family from dying of small-
pox, as had formerly been the case, and there was
naturally an increased demand for land to supply food
for a greater number of mouths ! The medical work
carried out by Government is doubtless of great
value ; but the reduced mortality among the people
is probably chiefly due to the succession of good
harvests, the increased facilities for trade, and the
consequent improvement in the general conditions
of life. A few successive years of bad crops may,
it is to be feared, not only reduce the people to
extreme poverty — for as a rule the land represents
their only capital — but will also produce the epi-
demics that inevitably follow in the wake of famine.
That such disasters may be expected from time to
time in the natural course of events the reader will
have gathered from the lists of notable local events
given in the last chapter. When they come, the

92 BRITISH RULE

people's faith in the fortune-controlling capacities of
the foreigners may then sufifer a painful shock, and
the results may not be unattended by something like
disaffection towards their alien rulers.

At the beginning of British rule in Weihaiwei many
wild rumours passed current among certain sections
of the people with reference to the intentions and
practices of the foreigners. One such rumour was to
the effect that the English wanted all the land for
settlers of their own race and were going to remove
the existing population by the simple expedient of
poisoning all the village wells. In a few cases it was
believed that the Government had actually succeeded in
hiring natives to carry out this systematic murder ;
whereupon the villagers principally affected, growing
wild with panic, seized and tortured the unhappy men
whom they suspected of having taken British pay for
this nefarious purpose. One man at least was buried
alive and another was drowned. These cases did not
come to the knowledge of the British authorities for
some years afterwards, long after the well-poisoning
story had ceased to be credited even by the most
ignorant. One of them I discovered by chance as
lately as the summer of 1909, though the incident
occurred nine years earlier. An unlucky man who
for some unknown reason was understood to be a
secret emissary of the foreigners was seized by the
infuriated villagers and drowned in the well which he
was said to have poisoned. The well was then filled
up with earth and stones and abandoned. The poor
man's wife was sold by the ringleaders to some one
who wanted a concubine, for a sum equivalent to
about ten pounds.

No doubt the many horrible stories that were
circulated about the foreigners were deliberately in-
vented by people who, whether from some feeling
akin to patriotism or from more selfish motives, were
intensely anxious to arouse popular feeling against
their alien rulers. Their plan failed, for popular

TAXATION UNDER BRITISH RULE 93

fury was directed less against the English than against
those of their own countrymen whom the English were
supposed to have bribed.

It may be said that on the whole the chief fear of
the people in the early da3^s of British administration
was not that they or their families would be slaughtered
or dispossessed of their property, or personally ill-
treated, but that they would be overtaxed ; and the
disturbances which arose at the time of the delimita-
tion of the frontier in 1899 and 1900 were in part
traceable to wild rumours as to the means to be
adopted by the foreigners for the raising of revenue.
It was thought, for example, that taxes were to be
imposed on farmyard fowls. Taxation has been
increased, as a matter of fact, under British rule.
The land-tax (the principal source of revenue) has
been doubled, and licence-fees and dues of various
kinds have had the natural result of raising the price
of certain commodities. But these unattractive features
of British rule are on the whole counterbalanced, in the
opinion of the majority of the people, by comparative
(though by no means absolute) freedom from the petty
extortions practised by official underlings in China,
by the gradual development of a fairly brisk local
trade, by the influx of money spent in the port by
British sailors, by the facilities given by British mer-
chant ships for the cheap and safe export of local
produce, and by the useful public works undertaken
by Government for direct public benefit.

The amount spent on public improvements is indeed
minute compared with the enormous sums devoted to
these purposes in Hongkong, Singapore, and Kiao-
chou, yet it forms a respectable proportion of the
small local revenue. That the construction of metalled
roads, in particular, is heartily welcomed throughout
the Territory is proved by three significant facts : in
the first place the owners of arable land through
which the new roads pass hardly ever make any
demand for pecuniary compensation, unless they

94 BRITISH RULE

happen to be almost desperately poor ; in the second
place, wheeled traffic, which a few years ago would
have been a ludicrous impossibility in any part of the
Territory, is rapidly becoming common ; and in the
third place the people, on their own initiative, are ex-
tending the road-system in various localities at their
own expense. It may seem almost incredible that,
in one case at least, certain houses that obstructed
traffic in a new village road were voluntarily pulled
down by their owners and built further back : yet not
only did they receive no compensation from Govern-
ment, but they did not even trouble to report what
they had done. Very recently a petition was received
praying the Weihaiwei Government to urge the
Government of Shantung to extend the Weihaiwei
road-system into Chinese territory, especially to the
extent of enabling cart traffic to be opened up between
the port of Weihaiwei and the neighbouring district-
cities of jung-ch'eng, Wen-teng and Ning-hai. The
Shantung Government has been addressed on the
subject by the Commissioner of Weihaiwei, and the
Governor has smiled upon the project ; though as he
has since been transferred to another province it is
doubtful whether anything will be done in the matter
at present. So long as Weihaiwei remains in British
hands the Provincial Government, naturally enough,
has no desire to extend the trade facilities of that
port to the possible disadvantage of the Chinese port
of Chefoo.

On the whole, the more intelligent members of the
native community in Weihaiwei may be said to be fully
conscious of the advantages directly and indirectly
conferred upon them by British rule, though this is
far from implying that they wish that rule to be
continued indefinitely. Some of them are even aware
of the fact that they owe many of those advantages
to a philanthropist whom they have never seen — the
uncomplaining (or complaining) British taxpayer.
The Territory is, in fact, so far from being self-

CIVIL ESTABLISHMENT 95

supporting that a subsidy of several thousands of
pounds from the British Exchequer is required to
meet the annual deficit in the local budget.^ The
Government is conducted on extremely economical
lines, indeed expenditure has been cut down to the
point of parsimony, yet it is as well to remember
that from the point of view of local resources the
administration is costly in the extreme. A large
increase of trade would no do-ubt soon enable the local
Government to balance its books without assistance
from England, but there are no indications at present
that such an expansion is likely to take place.

British colonial methods do not, as a rule, tolerate
a lavish expenditure on salaries or on needless
multiplication of official posts. In these respects
Weihaiwei is not exceptional. There are less than
a dozen Europeans of all grades on the civil establish-
ment, and of these only four exercise executive or
magisterial authority. Since 1906 the whole Territory
has been divided for administrative purposes into
twenty-six districts : over each district, which con-
tains on the average about a dozen villages, presides
a native District Headman {Tsuug-ttDig) whose chief
duties are to supervise the collection of the land-tax,
to distribute to the separate Village Headmen copies
of all notices and proclamations issued by Govern-
ment, to distribute deed-forms to purchasers and
sellers of real property, and to use his influence
generally in the interests of peace and good order
and in the discouragement of litigation. For these
services he is granted only five (Mexican) dollars a
month from Government, but he is also allowed
a small percentage on the sale of Government deed-
forms (for which a fee is charged) and receives in

' For details of revenue and expenditure, as well as trade returns
and other statistics, the reader is referred to the Colonial Office List
(published yearly by authority) and to the local Government's Re-
ports which are printed annually and presented to both Houses of
Parliament.

96 BRITISH RULE

less regular ways occasional presents, consisting
chiefly of food-stuffs, of which the Government takes
no notice unless it appears that he is using his
position as a means of livelihood or for purposes of
extortion.

The land-tax is based on the old land-registers
handed over by the Chinese magistrates of Wen-teng
and Jung-ch'eng, and as they had been badly kept up,
or rather not kept up at all, for some scores of years
previously, the present relations between the land
under cultivation and the land subject to taxation
are extremely indefinite. It is but very rarely that
a man can point to his land-tax receipts as proof
that he owns or has long cultivated any disputed
area. Only by making a cadastral survey of the
whole Territory would it be possible to place the
land-tax sj^stem on a proper basis. At present the tax
is in practice (with certain exceptions) levied on each
village as a whole rather than on individual families.
For many years past every village has paid through
its headman or committee of headmen a certain sum
of money which by courtesy is called land-tax. How
that amount is assessed among the various families
is a matter which the people decide for themselves,
on the general understanding that no one should
be called upon to pay more than his ancestors paid
before him unless the family property has been
considerably increased.

The Chinese Government did not and the British
Government does not make any close enquiries as to
whether each cultivator pays his proper proportion or
whether a certain man is paying too much or is paying
nothing at all. It is undoubtedly true that a great
deal of new land has been brought under cultivation
since the Chinese land-tax registers were last revised,
and that the cultivators are guilty of technical offences
in not reporting such land to Government and getting
it duly measured and valued for the assessment of
land-tax : but these are offences which have been

COLLECTION OF LAND-TAX 97

condoned by the Chinese authorities in this part of
China for many years past, and it would be unjust or
at least inexpedient for the British Government to
show greater severity in such matters than is shown
on the Chinese side of the frontier. The British
Government has, indeed, by a stroke of the pen
doubled the land-tax, that is, it takes twice as much
from each village as it did six years ago, so it may at
least congratulate itself on deriving a larger revenue
from this source than used to come to the net of
Chinese officialdom. The total amount of the doubled
tax only amounts to about $24,000 (Mex.) a year,
which is equivalent to not much more than ^2,000
sterling. The whole of this is brought to the coffers
of the Government without the aid of a single tax-
collector and without the expenditure of a dollar. In
the autumn of each year proclamations are issued
stating the current rate of exchange as between the
local currency and the Mexican dollar and announcing
that the land-tax will be received, calculated according
to that rate, upon certain specified days. The money
is brought to the Government offices at Port Edward
by the headmen, receipts are issued, and the matter
is at an end until the following year. Litigation
regarding land-tax payments is exceedingly rare and
the whole system works without a hitch.

For administrative and magisterial purposes the
Territory is divided into two Divisions, a North and
a South. The North Division contains only nine of
the twenty-six Districts, and is much smaller in both
area and population than the South, but it includes
the island of Liukung and the settlement of Port
Edward. Its southern limits^ extend from a point
south of the village of Shuang-tao on the west to a
short distance south of Ch'ang-feng on the east. A
glance at the map will shov/ that it comprises the
narrower or peninsular portion of the Territory. The
headquarters of this Division are at Port Edward,

* See the blue line in map.

7

98 BRITISH RULE

where is also situated the office of the Commissioner,
The North Division is under the charge of the North
Division Magistrate, who is also Secretary to Govern-
ment and holds a dormant commission to administer
the government of the Territory in the Commissioner's
absence. The South Division comprises all the rest
of the leased Territory, including seventeen out of the
twenty-six Districts, and is presided over by the South
Division Magistrate, who is also District Officer. His
headquarters are at Wen-ch'uan-t'ang^ or Hot Springs,
a picturesque locality near the old boundary-line
between the Jung-ch'eng and Wen-teng districts and
centrally situated with regard to the southern portion
of the leased Territory. Separate courts, independent
of one another and co-ordinate in powers, are held by
the North and South Division Magistrates at their
respective headquarters.

The District Officer controls a diminutive police
force of a sergeant and seven men, all Chinese. His
clerks, detectives and other persons connected with
his staff, are also Chinese. Besides the District
Officer himself there is no European Government ser-
vant resident in the South Division, which contains 231
out of the 3 1 5 villages of the Territory and a population
estimated at 100,000. The whole of the land frontier,
nearly forty miles long, lies within this Division.

Under the Commissioner, the Secretary to Govern-
ment and Magistrate (North Division), and the District
Officer and Magistrate (South Division), are the exe-
cutive and judicial officers of the Government. There
is also an Assistant Magistrate, who has temporarily
acted as District Officer, and who, besides discharging
magisterial work from time to time, carries out various
departmental duties in the North Division. The
functions of the North and South Division Magistrates
are quite as miscellaneous as are those of the prefects
and district-magistrates — the " father-and-mother "
officials — of China. There are no posts in the civil

» See pp. 53, 54, 70, 400.

COURTS OF LAW 99

services of the sister-colonies of Hongkong and Singa-
pore wliich are in all respects analogous to those
held by these officers ; but on the whole a Weihaiwei
magistrate may be regarded as combining the duties
of Registrar-General (Protector of Chinese), Puisne
Judge, Police Magistrate and Captain-Superintendent
of Police. Most of the time of the Magistrates is,
unfortunately, spent in the courts. Serious crime,
indeed, is rare in Weihaiwei. There has not been a
single case of murder in the Territory for seven years
or more, and most of the piracies and burglaries
have been committed by unwelcome visitors from the
Chinese side of the frontier. But the Weihaiwei
magistrates do not deal merely with criminal and
police cases. They also exercise unlimited civil
jurisdiction ; and as litigation in Weihaiwei has shown
a steady increase with every year of British adminis-
tration, their duties in this respect are by no means
light.

Beyond the Magisterial courts there are no other
courts regularly sitting. There is indeed a nebulous
body named in the Order-in-Council " His Majesty's
High Court of Weihaiwei," but this Court very rarely
sits. It consists of the Commissioner and a Judge,
or of either Commissioner or Judge sitting separately.
The Assistant Judge of the British Supreme Court
at Shanghai is ex ojficio Judge of the High Court of
W^eihaiwei ; but the total number of occasions on
which his services have been requisitioned in con-
nection with both civil and criminal cases during the
last five or six years — that is, since his appointment —
is less than ten. The Commissioner, sitting alone as
High Court, has in a few instances imposed sentences
in the case of offences " punishable with penal servi-
tude for seven years or upwards,"^ and the Judge has
on three or four occasions visited Weihaiwei for the
purpose of trying cases of manslaughter. The civil
cases tried by the High Court — whether represented

* See Weihaiwei Order-in-Cotmcil, Clause 2 1 (3).

loo BRITISH RULE

by Commissioner or by Judge — number only two,
though the civil cases on which judgment is given
in Weihaiwei (by the magistrates acting judicially)
number from one thousand upwards in a year.

This curious state of things is primarily due to the
fact that Weihaiwei, with its slender resources, cannot
afford to support a resident judge, and has therefore
to content itself with the help, in very exceptional
circumstances, of one of the judges of a court situated
hundreds of miles away ; but the existing conditions,
whereby the magistrates perform the work of judges,
are legally sanctioned by a clause in the Order-in-
Council, which lays it down that " the whole or any
part of the jurisdiction and authority of the High
Court for or in respect of any district may, subject
to the provisions of this Order, and of any Ordinance
made thereunder, be exercised by the magistrate (if
any) appointed to act for that district and being
therein."^ The rights of the High Court are safe-
guarded by the declaration that it ** shall have con-
current jurisdiction in every such district, and may
order any case, civil or criminal, pending before a
magistrate, to be removed into the High Court." ^ In
practice, it may be said, all criminal cases except the
most serious, and all civil cases of any and every kind,
are tried in Weihaiwei by the magistrates of the North
and South Divisions, acting either as magistrates
merel}^ or as judges with the delegated powers of
the High Court.

The Court of Appeal from the High Court of Wei-
haiwei (and therefore from the magistrates acting as
High Court) is the Supreme Court of Hongkong. This
arrangement has been in force since the promulgation
of the Weihaiwei Order-in-Council in July 1901 ; yet
during nine subsequent years not a single appeal has
been made. This is due to three main causes : firstly,
there are in Weihaiwei neither barristers nor solicitors

' See Weihaiwei Order-in-Coiincil, Clause 18.
3 Ibid., Clause 18(1).

"'^^^g^stsi^

'■■'^Miis^^Spssa

DISTRICT officer's QUARTERS (sCC p. lOO).

p. lOo]

THE COURT-HOUSE, WEN-CH'u AN-T'ANG (seC p. 98).

u

WEIHAIWEI CIVIL SERVICE loi

by whom litigants might be advised to appeal. Every
party to a suit appears in court in his own person,
and states his case either orally or by means of
written pleadings called Petitions. If he loses his
case the matter is at an end unless he can show just
cause why a re-hearing should be granted. Secondly,
the legal costs of an appeal to a Hongkong court
would be prohibitive for all but a minute fraction of
the people of Weihaiwei. It is questionable whether,
outside Liukungtao and Port Edward, there are more
than a dozen families that would not be totally ruined
if called upon to pay the costs of such an appeal.
Thirdly, there are probably not twenty Chinese in the
Territory who are aware that an appeal is possible.

Apart from the magistrates, there are very few
Europeans employed under the Government of Wei-
haiwei. There is a Financial Assistant, who also
(somewhat incongruousl}^ supervises the construction
of roads and other public works and the planting of
trees ; and there are, as already mentioned, three
Inspectors of Police. These officers (with the excep-
tion of one Inspector stationed at Liukungtao) all
reside at Port Edward. Finally there are two Medical
Officers, of whom one resides on the Island, the other
on the Mainland. Such is the European section of
the Civil Service of Weihaiwei, — a little body of sober
and industrious persons who, like the members of
similar services elsewhere, are frequent grumblers,
who always consider themselves ill-used and their
services under-estimated, but who will generally admit,
if pressed, that the British flag floats over many
corners of the earth less attractive and less desirable
than Weihaiwei.

CHAPTER VI

LITIGATION

The entire absence of both branches of the legal
profession is perhaps (be it said without disrespect
to the majesty of the law) a matter on which the
people of Weihaiwei are to be congratulated, for it
enables them to enjoy their favourite pastime of
litigation at a minimum of cost. The cheapness of
litigation in Weihaiwei is indeed in the eyes of many
of the people one of the most attractive features of
British rule: though, if only they could be brought
to realise the fact, it is also one of the most dangerous,
for it tends to diminish the authority of village elders
and clan-patriarchs and so to weaken the whole social
structure upon which village life in China is based.
The people have discovered that even their most
trifling disputes are more easily, quickly and cheaply
settled by going to law than by resorting to the
traditional Chinese plan of invoking the assistance
of " peace-talkers " ; for these peace-talkers are usually
elderly relatives, village headmen or friendly neigh-
bours, who must at least be hospitably entertained,
during their lengthy deliberations, with pork and
vegetables and sundry pots of wine, whereas the
British magistrate is understood to hanker after no
such delicacies. Thus while the people recognise,
with more or less gratitude, the purity of the British
courts and the readiness of the officials to listen to all

I02

PETITION-WRITERS 103

complaints, some of the wiser among them contem-
plate with some anxiety a system which is almost
necessarily productive of excessive litigation and of
protracted family feuds. There can be no part of the
British Empire where litigation costs less than it does
here, and indeed there is probably no part where
it costs so little. There are no court fees, and the
magistrate himself not only takes the place of counsel
for both plaintiff and defendant, thereby saving the
parties all legal costs, but also assumes the troublesome
burden of the collection and investigation of evidence.
Until recently there existed a class of licensed
petition-writers who charged litigants a small fee for
drawing up petitions addressed to the court. After
several of these petition-writers had been convicted
of bribery and extortion and other malpractices, it
was found necessary to withdraw all their licences
and abolish the system. At present every litigant
who cannot write and has no literary relative who
will oblige him by drawing up a petition for him,
simply comes into the court when and how he
likes and makes his statement by word of mouth.
Unlettered peasant-folk are garrulous and incon-
sequential all the world over, and those of Weihaiwei
are not exceptional : so it may be easily understood
that the necessity of taking down long rambling
statements made in rustic Chinese by deaf old men
and noisy and unreasonable women adds no slight
burden to the labours of an English magistrate. Un-
necessary litigation is indeed becoming so common
a feature of daily life that the Government is at
present contemplating the introduction of a system of
court fees which, while not preventing the people
from making just complaints before the magistrates,
will tend to discourage them from running to the
courts before they have made the least attempt to
settle their quarrels in a manner more consistent with
the traditional usages of their country. That some-
thing of this kind must be done to check the present

104 LITIGATION

rush of litigants to the courts is daily becoming more
apparent.

In the South Division court ^ the proceedings are
carried on entirely in the Chinese language. The
speech of the people, it may be said, is a form of
Mandarin (so called) which after a little practice is
easily intelligible to a speaker of Pekingese. Collo-
quialisms are naturally numerous among so remote
and isolated a community as the inhabitants of north-
eastern Shantung, and in some respects the dialect
approximates to that of Nanking rather than to the
soft speech of the northern capital.

The absence of Counsel is no hardship to the
people, for in China professional lawyers— as we
understand the term — are unknown. "A man who
attempted to appear for another in a Court of Justice,"
as Sir Robert Douglas sa3's, " would probably render
himself liable to a penalty under the clause in the
Penal Code which orders a flogging for any person
who excites or promotes litigation."- In Weihaiwei
only once has a native — in this case a Christian
convert — made the least attempt to conduct a case
for and on behalf of another individual, and he, though
it was impossible under British methods to have him
flogged, was duly punished for this as well as for
other offences. In the courts of Weihaiwei, then, as
in those of China, each of the parties to a suit argues
out his own case in his own way, though it is upon
the magistrate himself that the duty devolves of
separating the wheat from the chaff and selecting such
parts of the litigant's argument as appear to have a
real bearing on the points at issue. In all essentials,
therefore, cases are heard and dealt with in Weihaiwei
very much as they are heard and dealt with in China ;
thus a man from the Chinese side of the frontier who
comes into court as plaintiff in Weihaiwei finds him-
self— especially if he is used to litigation in his own
country — quite at home. As may be easily imagined,
' See p. 98. ' Society in China, p. 107.

LAWSUITS 105

lawsuits are not conducted with the frigid decorum
that usually marks the hearing of a civil case in
England ; the facts that plaintiff and defendant appear
in person, each to conduct his own case, and that each
enjoys practically unlimited freedom to say what
he likes about his opponent and about things in
general, introduce a dramatic element which is lacking
in the more stately procedure of Western law-courts.
Instead of the patient discussion of minute points of
law and the careful citation of precedents and authori-
ties, there are clamorous recitals of real or imaginary
woes, bitter denunciations, passionate appeals for
justice. A rather remarkable feature of all this, how-
ever, is the absence of gesturing. Hands are not
clasped or raised to heaven, the movements of the
body show no signs of deep feeling, even the features
— though their owner is inwardly seething with
emotion — seem to remain almost passive. Is this a
sign of remoteness from savagery ? The people of
England have been singled out as examples of those
who make a minimum use of gesture: but Englishmen
cannot be compared in this respect with the Chinese.

The side-lights that legal proceedings throw upon
the moral and intellectual qualities of the people are
inexhaustible in their variety. Under the stress of
a burning sense of wrong or dread of disaster, or in
the intensity of his anxiety to win a lawsuit on which
he has staked his happiness, the Chinese, though he
still refrains from what he considers the vulgarity of
gesturing, casts to the winds the reserve and cere-
monious decorum of speech that on more placid
occasions often seem to be part of his personality.
He can tell lies with audacity, though his lies indeed
are not always rightly so called, and he has the most
extraordinary aptitude for simulating strong emotions
with the object of enlisting judicial sympathy; but, in
spite of these drawbacks, it is during the prosecution
of a lawsuit that the strong and weak elements in his
character stand out in strongest relief.

io6 LITIGATION

If the litigant can write (though comparatively few
of the people of Weihaiwei can do so) he is allowed
to state his case in the form of a written petition. A
typical Chinese petition may be said to be divided
into three parts : firstly, the " case " of the petitioner is
stated in full, strong emphasis being laid on his innate
love of right and his horror of people who disobey
the law ; secondly, his opponent, the defendant, is held
up to obloquy as a rogue and a hatcher of villainies ;
thirdly, the magistrate himself, to whom the petition
is addressed, is cunningly described as having a mar-
vellous faculty for separating right from wrong, a
highly developed sense of justice, and a peculiarly
strong love for law-abiding people. The defendant,
when summoned, will of course adopt similar tactics.
If his case is weak and he has nothing very definite
to urge in his own favour, he will try to prejudice the
magistrate against the plaintiff by describing him as
quarrelsome and fond of law-suits — no small offence
in China. His petition may then run somewhat in
these words, which I translate from a petition recently
received : " Plaintiff is an audacious fellow and cares
not how often he goes to law. He is not afraid of
officials and loves litigation. When he comes home
from the courts he uses boastful words and says,
'What fun it is to go to law.'"'

Both plaintiff and defendant consider it a good plan
to assume an attitude of weakness, docilit}^, and a
constitutional inability to contend with the woes thrust
upon them by a wicked world. ** For several 3'ears,"
says one, " I bore my miseries in silence and dared
not take action, but now things are different, for I
have heard the glad news that the Great Man' settles

• Kuei chia shih shih yang yen i ta kudh ssii wet lo shih.

* Ta-jhi. The term Ta Lao-yeh (see p. 15) is more correct for a
"father-and-mother" official, but Ta-jcn implies higher rank, and the
Chinese finding from experience that nearly all European officials are
foolish enough to prefer the loftier form of address, wisely make use of
it in addressing a foreigner whom they desire to propitiate.

HUMOURS OF LAWSUITS 107

cases as if he were a Spirit."' One of the commonest
expressions in a Chinese petition has an odd look
when it is literally translated : " I the Little Man am
the Great Man's baby."

When a lawsuit arises out of complicated family
disputes, such as those concerned with inheritance
and adoption, there are sometimes representatives of
four generations in the court at the same time. Babes
and small children, if their rights or interests are in
any way involved, are brought into court by their
mothers, not with any idea that the evidence of infants
would be accepted, even if it could be intelligibly given,
but merely in order that the magistrate may see that
the children really exist and have not been invented
for the occasion. Sometimes they appear in the court
for the practical reason that all the adults of the family
have come to prosecute their lawsuit and that no one
is left at home to take care of them. The presence of
young boys of twelve or fourteen is very useful, as
they are often able to express themselves and even to
state the material points of a case far more briefly and
intelligibly than their garrulous elders. If the case is
an important one the court is often filled by cousins
and aunts and interested neighbours of the litigants,
and these people are all ready to swear that plaintiff
or defendant, as the case may be, is a man of pre-
eminent virtue who has never committed a wrong
action or entertained an unrighteous thought in his
life, while his opponent is a noted scoundrel who is
the terror and bully of the whole countryside. These
exaggerations are merely resorted to as a method of
emphasising one view of the matter in dispute, and
are not, as a rule, seriously intended to mislead the
magistrate so much as to give a gentle bias to his
mind. If, as very frequently happens, the magistrate
has occasion to ask a witness why he has made a
number of obvious and unnecessary misstatements,
he merely replies with childlike blandness : Ta

' Ta-jen tuan shih ju shen.

io8 LITIGATION

jcn micn-cWien hsiao-ti pu kan sa huang — " In the
Great Man's presence the Little One would not
dare to tell a lie."

When arguing out their cases in court litigants
seldom lose their temper — alwa3^s a sign of very " bad
form " in China — but they often assail each other in
very vigorous language. Men of some education often
make a show of leaving it to the magistrate to unmask
the evil nature of their opponent. " If the magistrate
will only look at that man's face," they say, "he will
see that the fellow is a rogue." The remark of course
implies, and is intended to imply, that the magistrate
is a man of consummate perspicacity who cannot be
deceived.

What constitutes one of the gravest difficulties from
a European point of view in settling civil disputes
between Chinese is that the plain unvarnished truth
is seldom presented, even when a recital of the bare
facts would be strong enough to ensure a favourable
judgment. Yet I am far from wishing to imply that
the Chinese are naturally liars. An inaccurate state-
ment unaccompanied by an intention to deceive does
not constitute a lie; and many such statements
habitually made by Chinese do not and are not
intended to deceive other Chinese to whom they are
addressed. That they often deceive a European is
no doubt a fact ; but the fault lies with the European's
want of knowledge and experience of the Chinese
character, not with the Chinese, who are merely using
forms of speech customary in their country. Why
should a Chinese be expected to alter his traditional
way of saying things merely because it differs from
the foreign wa}^ ? I am not convinced that a Chinese
intentionally deceives or tries to deceive his own
countrymen — that is, lies to them — much oftener than
the average European deceives or tells a lie to his
neighbour. Before we say of a Chinese, "This man
has told me a lie," it would perhaps be well to ask
ourselves, " Is the statement made by this man in-

CHINESE AS LITIGANTS 109

tended to deceive me ? Is it such that it would deceive
one of his own people?"

Perhaps it should not be necessary to labour this
point, but there is no doubt that missionaries and
others who feel irresistibly impelled to emphasise the
darker sides of the Chinese character are apt to make
the most of the supposed national predisposition to
falsehood. For instance, the Rev. J. Macgowan in Suk-
liglits on Chinese Life^ says, much too strongly, " It may
be laid down as a general and axiomatic truth, that
it is impossible from hearing what a Chinaman sa^'s
to be quite certain of what he actually means." On
the other hand, I have known missionaries accept the
word of their ov/n Chinese converts, as against that of
non-Christians, with a most astonishing and sometimes
unjustifiable readiness. Some go so far as to imply
that a non-Christian Chinese who speaks the truth is a
person to be marvelled at. " Albeit he is a Confucian ist,"
wrote a missionary to me, " this man may be relied on
to speak the truth."

The foreigner who wished to prove that the Chinese
are liars might find abundant proof ready to his hand
in the false evidence that is given every day in the
Weihaiwei courts. Yet the longer and oftener he
watched and listened to Chinese litigants and wit-
nesses, the less satisfied would he become as to the
reliability of his '* proof." The English magistrate
finds that as time goes on he becomes less and less
likely to be deceived or led astray about any material
point owing to the direct misstatements of witnesses.
It is not so much that he " sees through " them as that
he understands their points of view. To say that in
due time he will be totally free from any liability to be
misled would, of course, be to claim for him infallibility
or omniscience ; but there is no doubt that as his
knowledge and experience of Chinese character grows,
the less ready will he be to label the Chinese crudely as
"liars." For the native magistrate, who knows without

• See p 2,

no LITIGATION

special training his countrymen's character and their
pecuHarities of thought and speech, it is, of course,
much easier than it is for the European to detect the
element of truth that lies embedded in the absurd and
inaccurate statements made before him in court. To
say that even a Chinese magistrate can always be sure
when a man is speaking the truth would certainly be
ridiculous ; there are accomplished liars in China as in
Europe, just as there are forgers so skilful that they
can deceive experts in handwriting ; but he is at least
able to make allowances for inaccuracy and hyperbole
which, though they may deceive the foreigner, will not
deceive the native, and should not therefore be con-
demned as deliberate falsehood.

Instances of these exaggerations and misstatements
occur every day throughout China and in Weihaiwei.
If A wants redress against B, who has removed a
landmark and encroached upon his land, he will pro-
bably add, in his petition, that B is the author of deep
villainies, a truculent and masterful dare-devil, and a
plotter of conspiracies against the public welfare. One
such petition contained remarks which I translate
almost word for word. " After I had discovered that
he had stolen some of my land I went to his house
and tried to reason with him in a persuasive manner.
He refused to listen, and reviled me in the most shock-
ing terms. He then seized my mother and my children
and beat them too. They are covered with wounds
and unable to stand ; in fact, they are barely alive.
So I had no resort but to approach the magistrate
and ask him to enquire into the matter so that the
water may fall and the rocks appear (that is, the truth
will be made manifest), justice will be done to the
afflicted and the cause of the humble vindicated, and
the gratitude of your petitioner and his descendants
will be without limit." The real point at issue was
the disputed ownership of the land. No physical
wounds had been inflicted upon any member of the
family, and no fighting had taken place; but hard

CHINESE EXAGGERATIONS iii

words had been freely bandied about, and the female
members of the family, as so very frequently occurs
in China, had shrieked themselves into a paroxysm of
rage which had left them exhausted and voiceless. To
have taken the good man at his word with regard to
the assault, and to have called upon him to produce
evidence thereof, would have caused him pain and
astonishment. All he wanted to do was to make out
that his opponent was a rascal, and was therefore the
kind of person who might naturally be expected to
filch people's land.

But how, it may be asked, is the magistrate to know
which is the true accusation and which is the false
one ? There are many indications to guide him,
and a short cross-examination should elicit the true
facts very quickl}^ even if the wording of the petition
itself were not sufficient. In this particular instance
it need only be pointed out that had a murderous
assault really taken place, the victims would certainly
have been brought to the court for a magisterial
inspection of their wounds. Had they been unable
to move they would have been carried in litters. That
the wounds in an assault case should be shown to the
magistrate as soon as possible after the occurrence is
regarded as very necessary — and naturally so, con-
sidering how little value could be attached, in the
present state of medical and surgical knowledge in
China, to the evidence of a native doctor. Sometimes
the court is invaded by a wild-looking creature with
torn clothes and matted hair, who, judging from the
blood on his face and head, must be covered with
hideous gashes and gaping wounds. He begins to
blurt out accusations of brutal assault against his
neighbour ; but before allowing him to pour forth
his tale of woe, a wise magistrate will require him to
be removed and well combed and washed. In all pro-
bability he will come back a new man, the picture of
good health, and free from stain or bruise ; and if he
is asked to show his wounds, he will point to a long-

112 LITIGATION

healed scar, or a birth-mark, or some sHght scratch
that might have been, and quite possibly was, inflicted
by his neighbour's wife's finger-nails. Then, not in
the least degree abashed, he will proceed to tell the
tale of his real woes, and will make no further
reference to the little matter of his physical ill-
treatment.

The causes of litigation in Weihaiwei are endless,
but a large proportion of the cases are the results of
more or less trivial family quarrels. When a father has
resigned the family property into his sons' hands and
becomes dependent on them for support, he ceases to be
the active head of the family. He must of course con-
tinue to be treated with obedience and respect, and very
few fathers in China have any real cause to accuse a son
of unfilial behaviour. But very old men, in China and
elsewhere, often become petulant and hard to please,
and it is they who, perhaps in a fit of temper, are the
most likely to bring actions against their sons and
daughters-in-law. An apparently crazy old man came
to me with this story. " I am ninety-two years old. My
son Li Kuei is undutiful. He won't feed me. I have
no teeth, and therefore have to eat soft things, and his
wife won't cook them for me." The facts (easily ascer-
tained by the court) were that the old man's digestive
powers were failing, and that being unable to assimi-
late even the softest of food, he erroneously fancied
himself to be ill-treated. Having discovered that he
had several nephews who were ready to protect him
in the case of any real grievance, I informed him that
out of consideration for extreme old age the court
could not allow people of over ninety years old to
prosecute their suits in person when they had relatives
to do it for them. But if the poor man had lost
his teeth, it was clear that the court had erred in
supposing that he had also lost his wits; for after
acquiescing in the ninety-year rule and going away
without a murmur, he reappeared two days later and
explained that he had made a stupid mistake about

FAMILY QUARRELS 113

his age : he was not ninety-two, but only eight}?--
eight.

The next case chosen as typical of Weihaiwei deals
with a quarrel between a woman and her male cousin.
'* I have two houses," said the man. " I mortgaged
one of them to my cousin (a woman), but subsequently
redeemed it. Then I went to sea for several years.
On coming home this year I found that she had
treated the house as if it were her own, though I
had long since redeemed it. She had also annexed
some of my furniture. I told the headman. The
headman said I had better let my cousin have her
own way for the sake of keeping the peace. I agreed.
But I have a nephew to whom I want to give the
house. My cousin refuses to let him take possession."
The difficulty about the house was duly settled by the
court, but a few days later the plaintiff returned with
further complaints. " I have now nothing to say
against my cousin," he said, " except that she has
stolen some more of my furniture — my cooking-pot,
to be precise — and has torn down some of the thatch
of my roof to light her fire with. She also reviles
me in public and in private. I do not want her to
be severely punished, but I should like her to be
admonished by the magistrate."

Serious cases very frequently arise out of the most
trumpery quarrels and differences of opinion between
one villager and another. If men only are concerned
in such a quarrel their own good sense, or that of
their neighbours, usually prevents the matter from
going to extremes, but if women are concerned, cases
of homicide or suicide are sometimes the outcome.
The question of the ownership of a few blocks of
stone was the origin of a quarrel that might easily
have had a tragic ending. The plaintiffs statement
in court was as follows : " I accuse Chiang Te-jang
of beating my wife and myself. At sunset I went
home and found that defendant had beaten my wife.
I went to his house, and he met me at the door. I

8

114 LITIGATION

reasoned with him, and said that if my wife had given
any cause of complaint he should have told me about
it. He replied that my wife deserved a beating. I
asked him why he didn't beat me instead, whereupon
he at once took me at my word and thrashed me
soundly." In reply to questions he went on : "I did
not strike him back, as I would not be guilty of a
breach of the peace, and thereby appear to be hold-
ing the law in contempt. After I had been beaten
I went home. My wife told me the defendant had
beaten her because she refused to let him take
away some stone from our backyard. The stone
belonged to me." In answer to this the defendant
stated : " I never struck plaintiff or his wife. The
stone is my own. Plaintiffs wife was fighting with
my mother, and my mother scratched her face. My
mother got the worst of the fight. She is lying in
a basket outside the court, as she is unable to move.
I brought her here to have her wounds inspected
by the magistrate."

The more intelligent members of the Chinese com-
munity of Weihaiwei soon discovered, after the arrival
of the foreigners, that the British system of adminis-
tration and of dealing with civil suits in the Courts
differed from that of China in nothing so conspicuously
as in the absence of " squeezes " and the ease with
which the magistrate could be directly approached
by the poorest litigant. There are always large
numbers, however, who are afraid to bring their plaints
direct to the court, either from a fear that they will
be prevented by the police or other native employees
of the Government from gaining the foreign magis-
trate's ear, or because they dare not openly bring a
lawsuit or make accusations against some influential
person or family in their own village. For the benefit
of such timid individuals I long ago set up, on the
roadside in the neighbourhood of the South Division
court, a locked letter-box for the reception of any and I
every description of petition or memorial which the !

PETITION-BOX 115

writers for some reason or other preferred not to
bring openly to the court. Into this box, the contents
of which are examined by myself alone, petitions of
various kinds are dropped almost daily : and though
a large majority are anonymous denunciations of the
private enemies of the writers, and are immediately
destroyed, a considerable number have led to some
discoveries of great value from the administrative
point of view, and have sometimes greatly facilitated
the labours of the court in ascertaining the rights
and wrongs of pending cases.

If the petition-box served no other good purpose it
would still be useful as throwing interesting lights on
certain aspects of the character of the people. The
petitions received through this medium are so hetero-
geneous that it is difficult to select a typical specimen
for purposes of illustration ; but the following trans-
lation of a document recently found in the petition-
box may give some idea of the characteristic features
of a large class.

** Your Honour's nameless petitioner humbly ex-
poses the evil deeds of a brutal robber who is

neadman of the village of . He and his son

ill-treat the people shamelessly. At ploughing time
he continually encroaches upon his neighbours' lands,
and if they question him on the matter his mouth
pours forth a torrent of evil words and he reviles
them without ceasing. He says, ' 1 am the headman
of this village and a person of importance. As for
this trifling matter of your boundaries, I will treat you
exactly as I please, for you are all my inferiors.' On
other occasions he says, * My family is wealthy ; I
have one hundred and thirty odd uiu of land. In
my house 1 have silver heaped up like a mountain.'
In our village there is a right-of-way to the well,
which is situated on a slope at the edge of his land ;
but he has forbidden us to use this path any longer.
In our village there is also an old temple called the
T'ai-p'ing An, and there is an ancient right-of-way
to it for the use of people who wish to burn incense

ii6 LITIGATION

at the shrines. This path also he has blocked up.
He declares that the spirits of the dead may use this
road, but he will not allow living men to use it.
Further, he says, ' If any one in the village refuses
to obey me, let him beware ! 1 am headman and have
great influence, and if I were to fall upon you it would
be as though the sacred mountain of T'ai were to fall
and crush you.'

*' Sometimes, also, he tells us that he will have us
taken to the Magistrate's yamen for punishment. Thus
we poor petitioners are afraid to put our names to
this memorial. But we earnestly beg the Clear-as-
Heaven Magistrate to enquire into this man's conduct
and have him severely punished. Degrade him from
the position of headman ; lock him up in gaol for
several years ; inflict a fine of several thousand dollars
upon him — he has plenty of money in his house.
Thus will the people be made happy at last, and
your petitioners gratitude will endure through all
ages to come. We implore the Clear-as-Heaven
venerable Magistrate quickly to make investigations
and to inflict punishment, and thus save the people
and release them from their woes. Then not only
through Weihaiwei will his fame roll like thunder,
but the people who live in Chinese territory will all
come to know how god-like are his judgments, and his
reputation will shine with the combined brilliance of
sun, moon and stars."

The magistrate is supposed to be a kind of living
embodiment of all the Confucian virtues, and therefore
to look with extreme favour on any one whose words
or conduct show him to be dutiful to his father,
punctilious in serving the spirits of the dead, respect-
ful to old age, a wise and good parent, industrious,
honest in his dealings with his neighbours, and law-
abiding. No litigant neglects an opportunity of show-
ing that he possesses each and all of these qualities;
and sometimes it is done cleverly and with an appear-
ance of artlessness. A man brought an action against
another for debt. In the course of his statement he
said : " Whenever I demand the money from him he

SUPERSTITIONS 117

reviles me. (Cross-examined). I never reviled him
in return. I didn't dare to do so because he had a
beard and I had none. How could I dare to revile
a man with a beard? " This of course means in plain
language, " He was my elder, and therefore I with my
well-known regard for the proprieties could not pre-
sume to answer him back." It is not usual in China
for a man to grow a beard or moustache until he has
reached middle age.

A litigant also tries to ingratiate himself with the
magistrate by an affectation of extreme humility. A
villager is asked if he can write. He says no. When
it is subsequently discovered that he can read and
write with fluency and he is taxed with his falsehood,
he merely explains that he did not dare to boast of
his accomplishments in the presence of the magistrate.
The meaning is that the magistrate's scholarly attain-
ments are (theoreticall}^ so overwhelmingly brilliant
that the litigant's own poor scraps of learning sink
into utter nothingness by comparison. In other words,
it is politeness and humility that impel the man to say
he cannot write.

Among the cases that cause the greatest difficulty
and sometimes embarrassment to an English magistrate
are those that turn on some foolish old custom or
deeply-rooted superstition. Sometimes it happens
that by deciding the case one way the magistrate may
be upholding a popular view at the cost of doing
violence to his own feelings of what is right and
proper; by deciding it in another way he may pro-
voke a strong local feeling of resentment against the
ignorant judgments of foreigners who do not under-
stand the ways of the people. As a rule it is best
to ascertain the views of the oldest and most respect-
able members of the village or district concerned, and
give judgment accordingly. It is interesting to observe
that the old folks v/ill not in all cases give their vote
for the pro-superstition view. A lawsuit of the kind
referred to arose recently out of a dispute in a village

ii8 LITIGATION

as to the digging of a well. The plaintiffs petition
ran as follows :

** Near our village there is a well which supplies
good water. As it was a long way to this well from
the further end of the village it was decided some years
ago to sink a new well opposite the house of Wang
Lien-tseng. This was done, and unfortunately soon
afterwards a man was drowned in the new well. Then
the elders discussed the matter and agreed that as the
spot was evidently an unpropitious one for a well it
must be abandoned. A new well was sunk near my
house. Soon after this well was opened for public
use my eldest boy took ill. He spat blood for seven
months and then died. This was not the only piece
of bad luck that befell me : I got into trouble somehow
and was sent to gaol. This second well was then also
filled up and abandoned. No more well-boring was
undertaken for a long time, but recently there has
been a fresh agitation among some of the villagers
who say they must have a second well. I and the best
people in the village think matters had much better
be left as they are, as well-boring has been proved to
be highly dangerous in our village. Wang Ming-hu
is the principal agitator, and he declares that the well
which started my misfortunes may be safely reopened,
as three years have passed since the last time it caused
death."

In this case the agitator — perhaps a trifle less super-
stitious than his neighbours — got his way, and the
results do not seem to have caused any rise in the
local death-rate.

No one who has lived in China requires to be re-
minded of the strange pseudo-science of feng-slnd,
which includes among its various branches and sub-
divisions a method of divination whereby lucky sites
are chosen for buildings of all kinds and especially
for graves. A master-in-feng-shui, as one might
render the term fcng-shid hsien-sheug, is one who
gives his services, not gratuitously, to persons who
wish to find a propitious spot for the erection of

f£:ng-shui 119

a new dwelling-house or (as in the case just quoted)
the boring of a well or the burial of a deceased relative.
The richer and more patient the client, the longer,
as a rule, will the /isieji-sheiig take to complete his
calculations, and the larger will be his fee.

A very important point to remember with regard
to the selection of lucky sites for graves is that the
solicitude is not only for the deceased but for the
present generation and its descendants as well.' A
carefully-selected burial-ground brings, it is believed,
peace to the ancestors down in the Yellow Springs
of the Underworld and also ensures an endless pro-
geny of descendants who will enjoy wealth, distinction
and longevity. The two words ferig-shtn mean nothing
more than " wind and water," but their esoteric conno-
tation, if we were to do it justice, could hardly be
elucidated in a whole chapter. Feng-shui that was
originally good may be ruined through a change in
the course of a river, the erection of new buildings
in the immediate neighbourhood, the opening-up ol
virgin soil, and through an endless variety of other
causes.

The well-known Chinese dragon often pla3^s a con-
spicuous part in matters relating to feng-shui. To
the true believer, indeed, the hills and rocks are not
dead things, but animated with a mysterious kind of
life which is apart from and yet has strange influences
over the lives of men. Threatened disturbances of
feng-shui have frequently been the real or pretended
cause of Chinese opposition to the opening of mines
and the building of railways : and the popular feelings
in the matter are so strong (though they are gradually
weakening) that the official classes are obliged to treat
the superstition with an outward respect which it is
fair to say is on their part generally simulated. Yet
it is by no means ignored by the highest in the land :
the tombs of the Chinese imperial family are always
selected after a most careful scrutiny of the spots

' See below, pp. 264 scg.

I20 LITIGATION

favoured by the best feng-shui. The case to which
I am about to allude arose out of a quarrel concerning
the proposed opening of a stone-quarry in the vicinity
of an ancestral graveyard. The dialogue that took
place in court proceeded somewhat as follows, though
the speeches are much abbreviated.

Plaintiffs. — We object to the quarry. The land is
defendants' own and we do not claim any rights over
it, but it is close to our ancestors' graves, and is
certain to injure the feng-shui. We should not object
to a quarry on the far side of the hill, which cannot
be seen from the graveyard. Our ancestors left word
that if a quarry were opened on the far side it would
not matter. Why don't the defendants go to that
side?

Defendants. — The land belongs to us and our deeds
are in order. We assert that plaintiffs have no right
to interfere with our quarry, and we do not see how
the feng-shui of their graves can be affected. We
don't go to the other side of the hill because there is
no stone there.

Plaintiffs. — There is a dragon in the hill and it lives
under the graveyard, and it extends to the place where
the defendants have wickedly started to quarry. If
the hill is cut into, the dragon will be hurt.

The Magistrate.~\ do not think the dragon would
raise any objections to the quarry. In fact he would
no doubt feel much more comfortable if the stone
were moved away. He probably finds it very heavy.
In that case your feng-shui would be immensely im-
proved by the opening of the quarry.

Plaintiffs (ivitli perhaps the least suspicion of scorn at
the foreign magistrate's ignorance). — The stones in the
quarry are the dragon's bones.

Hardly less important than the choice of a well-
situated grave is the ante-niorteni provision for a
becoming funeral. It is well known that among the
poorest classes the most acceptable present a dutiful
son can give his father is a handsome coffin ; and it is
a real satisfaction to a humble labourer or farmer to

COFFINS 121

know that, however poor he and his family may be,
there will be no doubt about his being laid to rest in a
thoroughly respectable manner. The coffin — a large
and most cumbersome article — is sometimes deposited
during the owner's lifetime in a Buddhist temple, but
this costs money; so it is frequently allowed to occupy
an honourable corner in the family living-room, where
it becomes the pride of the household and the envy
of less fortunate neighbours. The presentation of a
coffin to the head of a family by his dutiful and affec-
tionate sons is sometimes made the occasion of an
"At Home," to which are invited all relatives and
friends who live in the neighbourhood. The visitors
are expected to congratulate the proud father on his
new piece of furniture and on his good fortune in
possessing exemplary sons, to express unbounded
admiration for the coffin, and to compliment the sons
on the filial devotion of which they have just given
so admirable a proof.

In Weihaiwei, litigation arising directly or indirectly
out of disputes concerning coffins is fairly common,
owing to the fact that timber is scarce and good
coffins correspondingly expensive. The rights of
ownership over a single tree or a group of trees are
for this reason hotly contested, though the intention
of using the timber for coffin-making is not always
mentioned in the pleadings. One T'sung P'ei-yu
made his complaint thus : " I was one of three sons.
When the family property was divided between the
three of us by our father's instructions, my eldest
brother was given the house in which we had been
brought up. But in the garden there was a fir-tree,
and our father, before he died, specially declared that
this tree was to be regarded as mine, in order that I
might make myself a coffin out of it. The village
headman can bear witness to this, and all the neigh-
bours know that what 1 say is true. This happened
seven years ago, and no one contested my claim to
the tree until the tenth day of this moon, when I went

122 LITIGATION

to the garden to cut it down. To my surprise I was
stopped by my elder brother's wife, Ts'ung Liu Shih,
who refused to let me touch it. I am a man of peace
and dared not take the law into my own hands, so I
appeal to the court for help." The end of the case was
that some of the neighbours— doubtless sympathising
with the plaintiff in his laudable and natural longing
for a good coffin — offered to " talk peace," and there
was an amicable settlement out of court. The plaintiff
got his tree but had to spend the amount that a good
coffin would have cost in entertaining his genial
neighbours at a feast. What became of the elder
brother's wife did not transpire.

From coffins to ancestral worship the transition is
easy. Very numerous cases might be cited in which
the magistrate is called upon to decide subtle questions
— such as could seldom arise outside China— connected
with adoption, inheritance, the guardianship of lands
devoted to sacrificial purposes, and the custody of
ancestral tablets. During a journey in western China
I had some conversation with a missionary on this
and allied topics. When I mentioned that the an-
cestral tablets were frequently produced in court as
part of the evidence in a lawsuit and sometimes re-
mained in the magistrate's custody for several days,
the missionary remarked that he presumed I took
advantage of such occasions to talk seriously to the
" heathen " on the wickedness and folly of " idolatry."
The fact that the people of Weihaiwei are still in the
habit of appealing to the British courts for judgments
in cases of this kind, is sufficient to show that the
missionary's assumption was incorrect.

The Chinese magistrate being in theory the father
of his district, he must not merely hold the balance
between his people when they come to him with their
quarrels ; he must not merely punish the offender and
vindicate the cause of the oppressed : he must also
instil into the minds of his " children," by word and
example, a submissive reverence for the doctrines of

THE SACRED EDICT 123

the ancient sages, which include proper respect for
tradition, a dutiful obedience to all properly-con-
stituted authority, whether in family or in State, and
the practice of courtesy and forbearance in all dealings
with neighbours and strangers. Some of the most
valuable of the Confucian maxims are summed up in
the " Sacred Edict," which, though it only dates from
the time of K'ang Hsi (seventeenth century), is entirely
based on the Confucian teachings and is very well
known — by name if not by its contents — to the vast
majority of the Chinese people. Whether Chinese
magistrates always fulfil their functions either as
models or as teachers of virtue is a matter which does
not concern us.

In Weihaiwei, where the King's Order-in-Council
justifies a magistrate in giving effect to Chinese cus-
toms and practices, I have frequently, in delivering
judgments in both civil and criminal cases, used
appropriate texts taken either from the Confucian
classics themselves or from the Sacred Edict, for the
purpose of giving my hearers little moral discourses
on points suggested by the cases before me. If, for
example, two neighbours have quarrelled over some
trifling matter I tell them of the wise words used by
K'ang Hsi and his commentators with reference to
the observance of harmonious relations among people
who inhabit the same village. I remind them,
perhaps, that " if fellow-villagers quarrel with one
another and neither is willing to forgive, then the
result will be a state of enmity which may not only
last all their own lives, but may embitter the lives of
their sons and grandsons, and even then peace may
not ensue."

On one occasion on which I had quoted a passage
from the Sacred Edict a local missionary pointed out
to me that I could have found a far more appropriate
text for my purpose by turning to a certain passage
in the Bible to which he referred me. He was very
probably quite right, though I did not verify his

124 LITIGATION

Biblical reference : but it would no more occur to me,
in addressing a crowd of Chinese from the magisterial
bench in Weihaiwei, to read them passages from the
Bible than it would occur to a judge in England to
entertain the jury or the prisoner at the bar with
quotations from the Zend Avesta or the Institutes
of Vishnu. Is it not probable that an ordinary
Chinese peasant will think more of his magistrate's
ethical views and be more likely to profit by them
if the magistrate bases his discourses on teachings
which the Chinese and his ancestors have always
been taught to hold sacred, rather than on strange-
sounding quotations from a book he has never
heard of?

From the examples given of some of the questions
that come up for decision in the courts of Weihaiwei
it may be seen that in this outlying part of the British
Empire, no less than in India and the rest of our
Asiatic possessions, the chief qualifications necessary
for a judge or magistrate are not so much a knowledge
of law and legal procedure as a ready acquaintance
with the language, customs, religious ideas and
ordinary mode of life of the people and an ability to
sympathise with or at least to understand their pre-
judices and points of view. Perhaps no Englishman,
no European or American, can hope to administer
justice or exercise executive functions among Asiatics
in a manner that will win universal approval. If he
becomes too fond of the natives he runs the risk of
becoming de-occidentalised. Morally and intellectually
he becomes a Eurasian. He is distrusted by his own
countrymen, he is not respected — perhaps regarded
as rather a bore — by the natives over whom he is
placed. But let the European who applies to another
the epithet of " pro-native " enquire rigorously of him-
self whether his real ground of complaint is not this :
that the person whom he criticises does not in all
cases support the European against the Asiatic when
the interests of the two are at variance, that he does

THE FUTURE OF CHINA 125

not necessarily accept the European point of view as
the only possible or the only just one.

" How is it that you Government officials, as soon
as you have learned the language and studied the
customs of the country, become either mad or hope-
lessly pro-Chinese?" This is a question which in
one form or another is frequently asked by unofficial
European residents in China. It may be that there
is something in the nature of Chinese studies that
makes men mad, and indeed I have heard this soberly
maintained by persons who themselves are careful to
avoid all risk of contagion. But it never seems to
occur to such questioners that there may be some
solid reasons for the apparently pro-Chinese ten-
dencies (they are generally only apparent) of their
official friends : reasons based on the fad that the
latter have discovered — perhaps much to their own
astonishment — how much there is truly admirable and
worthy of preservation not only in Chinese art and
literature and even religion, but also in the social
organisation of the Chinese people. If there is one
statement about China that can be made with perfect
assurance it is this : that if in the long process of
reform she learns to despise and throw aside all the
supports she has leaned upon for thousands of years,
if she exchanges for Western substitutes all her ideals,
her philosophy of life, her ethics, her social system,
she may indeed become rich, progressive, powerful
in peace and war, perhaps a terror to the nations, but
she will have left behind her very much that was good
and great, she will have parted with much that was
essential to her happiness and even to her self-respect,
she will be a stranger to herself. And what will be
the outward aspect of the China of those days?
Great industrial cities there may be ; harbours thronged
with ocean-liners and with great battleships flying
the Dragon flag ; miles of factories, barracks, arsenals
and shipping-yards ; railway trains, motor-cars and
airships coming and going incessantly from province

126 LITIGATION

to province ; warehouses, banks and stock-exchanges
full of myriads of buyers and sellers, each straining
every nerve to excel his neighbour in the race for
wealth. And where, in this picture of China's possible
future, are the thousands of ancestral temples where
to-day the members of every family meet to do homage
to their honoured dead and to renew the bonds of
kinship one with another ? They are to be seen no
more. In their place stand thousands of village
police-stations.

CHAPTER VII

VILLAGE LIFE AND LAND TENURE

To enter into a detailed description of Chinese village
life would take us far astray from the immediate
purpose of this book, which is to place before the
reader a picture of Weihaiwei and the manners and
customs of its people. Many such manners and
customs are indeed common to the whole Empire,
and in describing them we describe China ; others
are, or may be, peculiar to eastern Shantung or to
the districts in proximity to the Promontory. Indeed,
the student of sociological conditions in various parts
of Asia will perhaps observe how much there is in
common, with respect to village organisation, between
the people of Weihaiwei and those — for example — of
many parts of the Indian Empire. Far apart as the
races concerned are in origin, traditions, and geographi-
cal and climatic conditions, it is yet a fact that the
village communities of Weihaiwei at the present day
are, in some important respects, identical in structure
with those of Burma, especially of Upper Burma as
it was before the annexation to the British Empire.

In outward appearance, it must be confessed, a
Weihaiwei village is a poor thing compared with
a village on the banks of the Irrawaddy. At close
quarters it is often offensive both to the eye and to
the nostrils — for the peasantry of China are not a
cleanly people. Seen from a distance, the village that

127

128 VILLAGE LIFE AND LAND TENURE

gives the greatest pleasure to a European observer
is the village that is almost entirely hidden in a grove
of trees. Not infrequently the villages have an almost
north-country English appearance. The houses are
built of roughly-hewn grey stone, of which there is
abundance in the hills ; the roofs are usually of thatch,
though the temples and some of the better-class
dwelling-houses are roofed with bluish-grey tiles.
All buildings — even temples — have very plain ex-
teriors, and were evidently constructed for use and
not for outward show. There are no pagodas, and
not much, except a few twisted gables, that reminds
one of southern China. Apart from an occasional
Chinese inscription cut on a block of stone (such as
" May a lucky star look down on us ") or a crude
representation of the well-known figure of the Yin
and Yang (according to Chinese philosophy the com-
plementary forces and qualities of nature),^ there is
little to suggest Oriental surroundings. In the larger
villages may be seen theatrical pavilions in front of
some of the local temples, and these pavilions are
often the most elaborate buildings, as regards
architectural structure and ornament, in their re-
spective neighbourhoods.

The Weihaiwei Territory contains, as already
stated, about three hundred and fifteen villages and
hamlets. Estimating the total area of the Territory
at three hundred square miles, and allowing for a
large hill-area of uncultivated barren land, we find
that there are probably about three villages, on an
average, to every two square miles of territory. No
census has yet been taken, but the population was
long ago estimated by the military authorities (when
they surveyed the territory) at 500 to the square
mile, which would give a total of close on 150,000.
I am inclined to think this estimate was too high
at the time it was made, though the present population,
which has been steadily increasing during the last

' See pp. 262 seg.

CO
CI

o
in

irt

I

O

o

o

w
o

0

MARKET VILLAGES 129

decade, may not be far from that figure. Continuing
this rough estimate, it may be said that the North
Division ^ of the Territory contains 100 square miles
with 84 villages, and a population of 50,000 ; the
South Division 200 square miles with 231 villages and
a population of 100,000. There are no walled towns
or villages with the exception of the so-called city of
Weihaiwei, which is nominally under Chinese juris-
diction. There are six market centres, all of which
are situated in the South Division with the exception
of the first named : they are Weihaiwei city, Feng-lin,
Ku-shan-hou, Ch'iao-t'ou, Ts'ao-miao-tzu and Yang-
t'ing. Market is held at each of these places on every
fifth day.

All these markets are of old standing with the
exception of that of Ku-shan-hou, which was estab-
lished, or rather revived, in 1907. The most important
of the markets are those at Weihaiwei, Ch'iao-t'ou,
and Yang-t'ing. The merchandise sold includes all
kinds of agricultural produce in addition to material
for clothing, cooking utensils, and other household
gear. Foreign cloth and fancy goods of a cheap kind
have a small sale. Beasts of burden are bought and
sold as occasion demands, but it is at the great annual
fairs that they change hands in largest numbers.
These fairs were originally held in connection with
religious festivals, and, indeed, they are still semi-
religious in character. Men and women, especially
the latter, flock to the temples, which at other seasons
are rarely visited, and burn incense before the image
of their favourite saint or deity ; religious processions
are held — a great source of delight to the children,
who are given an opportunity of " dressing up "; and
thousands of fire-crackers are exploded in the temple
courtyards. But it is the business aspect of the fairs
that appeals most strongly to the male adults who
attend them, for it is on these occasions that they hope
to drive the best bargains in the buying and selling of

^ See pp. 97-8.

ixo VILLAGE LIFE AND LAND TENURE

oxen, mules, ponies, donkeys and pigs. A fair or
hiii^ is held annually at most of the market centres
and at a few other places. One of the largest is held
every spring at T'ang-ho-hsi, close to the District
Officer's headquarters, and another at Pei-k'ou, where
there is a temple in a picturesque defile. Theatrical
performances are always held on such occasions, in
fact they constitute part of the religious element of
the hiti. Though the performances are secular in
character thc}^ are known as s/ien hsi, which might be
translated " divine " or " religious drama."

The drama (such as it is) provides the most popular
of all forms of amusement among the agricultural
classes. The actors are professionals, who wander
from place to place seeking engagements. Contracts
are drawn up by middlemen called Jisieli-hsi-ti, and
contain a concise statement of how many days the
performances are to be given (generally three or
four), how many actors are to take part in them, and
what the payment is to be. The actors carry with
them their own garments, false beards, masks and
other " properties," while the stage is supplied by the
village. The stone-built theatrical pavilions usually
face northwards, towards the gateway of the temple
with which they are connected. Temples, and the
images in them, face the south : thus the gods, for
whose benefit and in whose honour the plays are
theoretically given, have a full view of the entertain-
ment. The spectators stand between the temple and i
the stage. The performances (usually consisting of
short separate plays) take place at intervals through-
out the whole of each day.

There is very little originality in the plots of the
pieces presented ; they are all taken from or founded
on well-known Chinese legendary episodes or on
events described in famous historical novels. If this
were not the case, the dramatic methods in vogue in

' The word may be translated as "a coming together." It is the
usual word lor a "society" or "club."

"IS

a.
S
w

H

O

<

K
H

P.

CHINESE DKAMA 131

agricultural China would have to be modified ; for the
dialogue cannot under present conditions be heard
distinctly except by a limited number of the audience.
Not to mention the gongs and cymbals of the
orchestra, which frequently come into action at what
appears to foreigners to be the wrong moment, the
open air soon dissipates the players' voices, and the
great body of spectators (" audience " is hardly an
appropriate word) is apt to be somewhat restless, if
not noisy. Female parts are generally taken by
specially trained boys or young men, though actresses
are no longer unknown in China. The acting is rarely
good from a European point of view ; on the contrary,
it is very stiff and full of what seem to us ridiculous
mannerisms. But it is unfair to judge of the histrionic
art of China from what one sees at a country fair.

The frequent association of the drama with religion
in China will naturally recall to the minds of students
of English literature the miracle-plays and mysteries
of the Middle Ages in Europe. But the analogy is
not a very close one. The English drama, regarded
historically, may be said to be English through and
through. The changes it underwent were almost, if
not quite, independent of the history of the drama on
the Continent. The evolution of the drama can be
traced step by step from its origin to its culmination
in the hands of the great Elizabethans. In China the
origin of the drama is doubtful ; it is not (in its
present or any similar form) of great antiquity, and
dramatic writing has never taken rank as a very high
form of art. Some of the elements of drama may
probably be traced in the stately gesture-dances, com-
bined with music, of which we read in some of the
oldest Chinese books. Dances which are probably
very similar to those performed at the courts of the
ruling dukes in Confucius's time may be witnessed at
the present day in parts of Further India. In the old
Indo-Chinese capital of Vientian on the Mekong (now
the capital of French Laos) I witnessed, in 1902, a

132 VILLAGE LIFE AND LAND TENURE

dance of this kind. By a stretch of the imagination
it might have been styled a drama in dumb show,
but with more dumb show than drama : a dance that
aimed at expressing not so much the poetry of
graceful movement as the poetry of successive states
of more or less dignified repose.

The Chinese drama of to-day is still a drama of
posturing and gesture : the player is for ever aiming
at " striking an attitude." This is all the more re-
markable among a people who in ordinary life consider
gesture undignified and indicative of a lack of self-
control. It can, I think, be explained only as a
survival from the days when the Chinese drama
consisted mainly of dance and music. The literary
developments of the drama— if indeed they may
correctly be described as developments — date only
from the time of the Yiian d3'nasty (i 280-1 367), and
the popularity of the drama among the people seems
to have been only of gradual growth since that date.
It was apparently an importation from Central Asia,
and came to China with the Mongol conquerors.
For some time this novel form of art was confined to
Peking and the other great centres of Mongol power,
and to this day the influence of Peking is shown in
the very frequent employment of the Peking dialect
even in provinces where that form of speech is un-
intelligible to the mass of the people.

A theatrical company may be engaged by any !
person or group of persons willing to pay the required
expenses. A theatrical entertainment is not therefore ji
necessarily connected with religion, though in Wei-
haiwei it is generally so— at least in name. Occa-
sionally a villager who has acquired wealth in j,
Manchuria or elsewhere makes a bid for local popu-
larity by paying the whole expenses out of his own
pocket ; but as a rule the cost is met out of the
common purse. This leads us to a consideration of
the internal polity and fiscal arrangements of a Wei-
haiwei village, which must be clearly understood in ji

NAMES OF VILLAGES 133

their main outlines if we are to arrive at any adequate
conception of the manner in which the peasants of this
district, as of nearl}^ the whole of China, regulate their
lives and allocate their rights and responsibilities.

Certainly the main interest of the Territory, espe-
cially for those interested in sociological questions,
lies in the quiet and apparently humdrum life of the
village communities. As that life is now, so it has
been for unnumbered centuries. There is no manorial
system, no " villeinage," no landlordism, no rack-
renting. The people of Weihaiwei are practically a
population of peasant proprietors, though proprietor-
ship is vested rather in the family (using the word in
an extended sense) than in the individual. Villages
still bear, in very many cases, the name of the family
that lived in them as far back as their history can
be traced. Chang-chia-shan is the Hill of the Chang
family; Wang-chia-k'uang is the Defile of the Wang
family ; Chiang-chia-k'ou is the Pass of the Chiang
family ; Yii-chia-chuang is the village of the Yii family.

There is an old story of a weary traveller in Scot-
land who, having arrived at a certain country town
in the Border district late at night, and finding closed
doors everywhere, called out, "Are there no Chris-
tians in this town ? " — whereat an old woman
popped her head out of an upper window and replied,
"Nae, nae, we're a' Johnstones and Jardines here."
The Scottish town at least had its two surnames ;
more often than not a Weihaiwei village has only
one. There may be Chinese Johnstones or Chinese
Jardines ; but it is improbable that they will be found
together in the same village in such an old-fashioned
district as Weihaiwei. This is not, of course, uni-
versally the case. When a clan is starved out of
existence or has emigrated in a body, or, owing to its
paucity of numbers, has admitted immigrants, the
village may gradually become the property of several
unrelated families. It is then known as a tsa ftsinp-
village, or village of miscellaneous surnames. Its old

134 VILLAGE LIFE AND LAND TENURE

name may or may not be perpetuated. Meng-chia-
chuang, which ought to be the village of the Meng
famil}^, is now the property of a well-to-do family or
clan named Liang, and the Mengs have disappeared.

As a rule we find in Weihaiwei either that each
village is exclusively inhabited by the people of one
name, who are all inter-related and address each
other as brothers and uncles and nephews, or that
one "surname" is in numbers, wealth and social
influence greatly predominant over the others. Title-
deeds and tombstones testify to the antiquity of many
of the existing Weihaiwei families; many of the
peasant-proprietors who share the land among them
to-day are the direct or collateral descendants of the
people who tilled the same fields in the da3^s of the
Sung, Yiian and Ming d3^nasties.

There are considerable numbers, however, whose
ancestors were immigrants from other parts of China ;
some of these were military colonists, some were
transferred by Government from other provinces as
a result of political or social troubles connected with
rebellions or famines. There are many well-known
residents who themselves have never travelled beyond
the boundaries of the Wen-teng and Jung-ch'eng
districts, but who are well aware, from their carefully-
preserved pedigree-scrolls, that their ancestors were
brought hither by Government hundreds of years
ago from provinces as far distant as Yunnan. The
Roman Emperors, we know, frequently adopted a
similar method of dealing with certain political exi-
gencies, for they transferred whole bodies of people
from one province of the Empire to another ; but the
fate of the transferred Chinese was better than that j
of many of the Roman provincials, for they retained
their independence and did not become the serfs of
overlords. j

A typical village of Weihaiwei may be defined as
consisting of a group of families all bearing the same
surname and all tracing their descent from a single

SOCIAL ORGANISATION 135

ancestor or a single ancestral stock, each family in
the group constituting a semi-independent unit,
owning its own lands, possessing certain rights over
a common tract of pasture-land and sharing in the
rights and responsibilities connected with the upkeep
of the Ancestral Temple^ and its tablets,^ the family
burial-ground,^ and any land or property that may
have been specially set apart to provide for the
expenses of religious ceremonies and sacrifices.* The
more mixed a village becomes, that is, the greater the
number of " surnames " that it contains, the more
widely does it depart from the uniformity implied by
this description. There ma}^, for example, be several
ancestral temples, several burial-grounds, many dif-
ferent patches of sacrificial land ; though if the
immigrants came from a village in the vicinity, and
have left there the main body of their clan, it some-
times happens that they will still associate themselves
with the parent-village rather than with that in which
they live, and will therefore refrain from establishing
new centres of ancestral worship.

The units of the village community are not indi-
viduals but families. Nothing is more important for
an understanding of the wonderfully stable and long-
lived social system of China than this fact : that the
social and the political unit are one and the same,
and that this unit is not the individual but the family.'

' Chta miao. ' Shcn chit. ' Huo Ying-ti. * Cht-t'ien.

* As an indication of how widely sundered are the theory and
practice of East and West in the matter of social organisation, D. G.
Ritchie's Natural. Rights (1903 ed.), pp. 259-60, may be consulted.
" No real or positive equality in social conditions,'' says that writer,
"can be secured so long as individuals are looked at in any respect
as members of families, and not in every respect as members of the
State alone.'' Yet in China, where individuals are in almost every
respect regarded as members of families, and never dream of claiming
to be members of the State alone, there is far greater equality in social
conditions than there is in the individualistic States of the West! Let
us hope for China's sake that this fact will not be overlooked by
those young patriot-reformers who are casting about for ways and
means of raising their country in the scale of nations.

136 VILLAGE LIFE AND LAND TENURE

It is well known that this family-system exists, or till
recently existed, in nearly every Asiatic country; and
that only within the present generation the advance
of European influence and legal notions has in some
parts of the Continent brought about a gradual ten-
dency to Western individualism,'

But the European must not too hastily assume,
when he sees individualism largely replacing the old
family-system in such countries as Japan, that the
wiser heads in those countries regard the change as
being in all respects beneficial. Some of them are
inclined to fear that the new system — though its
adoption may possibly be necessary in order to
supply their country with a certain brute strength
which the old system lacked, and so to enable it to
cope with European aggression — tends to the grievous
injury of much that they believe to be essential to true
civilisation. They do not welcome with enthusiasm
the emergence above the social and political horizon
of that strange new star — the self-contained individual.
They contemplate with something like dismay the
weakening or breaking of the old family bonds, which
if they were sometimes a hindrance to personal ad-

• The family-system has of course existed in regions other than
Asia. " In most of the Greek states and in Rome," says Sir Henry
Maine {^Ancintt Law, 4th ed., p. 128), "there long remained the vestiges
of an ascending series of groups out of which the State was at first
constituted. . . . The elementary group is the Family, connected by
common subjection to the highest male ascendant. The aggregation
of Families forms the Gens or House. The aggregation of Houses
makes the Tribe. The aggregation of Tribes constitutes the common-
wealth." In another place (p. 126) lie speaks of "the clearest indi-
cations that society in primitive times was not what it is assumed to
be at present, a collection of individuals. In fact, and in the view
of the men who composed it, it was an aggregation of families. The
contrast may be most forcibly expressed by saying that the unit of
an ancient society was the Family, of a modern society the individual."
Had Maine been acquainted with the details of the social organisation
of the Chinese he would have found a copious source from which to
draw illustrations of his thesis, and would have perceived that the
family-unit system is not yet to be spoken of as a vanished phase of
social development.

THE FAMILY SYSTEM VERSUS INDIVIDUALISM 137

vancement and had a cramping influence on the
individual Hfe, at least did much to keep within
bounds the primitive instincts of selfishness and
greed.

Even in Europe there are thinkers who have ex-
pressed doubts as to whether our Western individ-
ualism is not a terribly fragile and unstable foundation
on which to build a vast social system ; whether there
are not already signs of decay in the very bases of
our civilisation. The truth of the matter is that there
are certain profound social problems which have
never yet been solved either by the East or by the
West. We are all yet in various experimental stages
of social progress. It may be that if Western theories
and ideals have soared to greater heights, Eastern
theories and ideals have aimed at producing a greater
fundamental solidity;* and that, the essential differ-
ences being so great, it is inadvisable for either
hemisphere to press its ideals too persistently on the
other, and dangerous for either to abandon its own
ideals too hastily in deference to the other's teaching
or example.

Most people have heard a great deal of the high
standard of commercial honour that prevails among
the Chinese. Testimony to this characteristic has
been given so often by English merchants and others
that it seems unnecessary to insist upon it. I will
only say, in passing, that nearly all business transac-

' "The whole Chinese administrative system is based on the doctrine
of filial piety, in its most extended signification of duty to natural
parents and also to political parents, as the Emperors magistrates are
to this day familiarly called. China is thus one vast republic of in-
numerable private families, or petty iviperia, within one public family,
or general imperium ; the organisation consists of a number of self-
producing and ever-multiplying independent cells, each maintaining a
complete administrative existence apart from the central power. Doubt-
less, it is this fact which in a large measure accounts for China's
indestructibility in the face of so many conquests and revolutions." —
Prof. E. H. Parker in iht Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society {China
Branch), vol. xl. (1909), p. 14.

1^8 VILLAGE LIFE AND LAND TENURE

tions between Chinese and Chinese, even those in-
volving considerable sums of money, are in Weihaiwei
still carried out by word of mouth. The point to be
emphasised here is that the commercial honesty of
the Chinese is to a great extent dependent on and the
result of their theory of the relationship between the
individual and the family, v/hich theory is in turn
based on the social doctrines (such as filial piety)
which Confucius taught or sanctioned.

The Western individual who owes money and cannot
or will not pay can always shoot himself or abscond
or go bankrupt. He may leave a stigma on his family
if it is known who his family are, but the debts were
his own and his relations cannot be held responsible.
But the identification of the interests and obligations
of an individual with those of his family have in agri-
cultural China this peculiar and socially beneficial
result, that a man cannot dissolve his liabilities by
such a simple process as going bankrupt or dying.'
His rights are inherited by his sons : so are his liabili-
ties. The law, it is true, limits a man's liability for an
ancestor's debts to the extent of his own inheritance :
but the rule of custom is sterner than the rule of law.
In 1907 a man whom we will call Ku brought me a
petition in which he stated that in the seventh year
of Chia Ch'ing (one hundred and five years earlier)
an ancestor of his had contracted a debt of three tiao
(a sum which at the present day is worth five or six

' It must be understood that what is referred to is "custom" rather
than law, and that these remarks are not always applicable to the
business relations between Chinese and foreigners at the treaty-ports,
where commercial intercourse is to a great extent conducted on Western
lines. When an English banker declares (as he has declared) that the
word of a Chinese is as good as his bond, he is paying a compliment
not so much to the character of the Chinese people (who as individuals
are no more thoiigli perhaps no less trustworthy than average English-
men), as to the fundamental soundness of the Chinese social system.
If that system is subverted, through the efforts either of foreign advisers
or of Chinese reformers, the moral results may be disastrous beyond
conception. Let there be evolution by all means : not revolution.

ANCESTRAL DEBTS 139

shillings) to a man Liu. Liu's descendant, rummaging
among the family archives, had recently chanced to
come across documentary evidence of this debt (the
grimy little scrap of paper was produced in court)
and he forthwith brought it to Ku, who had never
heard of the transaction, with the suggestion that final
settlement of this long-standing little bill was now
eminently desirable. Principal and interest together
then amounted to something like twenty times the
original amount.

The reason wh}^ Ku brought his case to my court
was not that he objected to this unexpected call upon
his slender purse, for as it happened he had already
paid the whole amount without a murmur ; he merely
came to suggest that as the original debtor had two
direct living descendants besides himself, those two
persons should be required to pay their fair shares
of the ancestral debt. He wished to know the views
of the court on the point before he demanded pay-
ment from them. The man might in law have re-
pudiated this debt altogether : Chinese law does not
and could not go as far as local custom in settling
questions that directly or indirectly concern the
honour of a family. Repudiation of an ancestor's debt
is, however, as rare in a Weihaiwei village as is bank-
ruptcy. Debts may go unpaid, but only at the risk
of a " loss of face" that would in most cases cause the
debtor much greater inconvenience and discomfort
than the monetary loss.

Weihaiwei has as yet shown but little tendency to
modif}^ its semi-patriarchal social system as a conse-
quence of its fifteen years of continuous contact with
Western civilisation. The individual is still sunk in
the family. He cannot divest himself of the rights
any more than of the responsibilities that belong to
him through his family membership. The Weihaiwei
farmer has indeed so limited a conception of his own
existence as a separate and distinct personality that
in ordinary speech he continually confuses himself

I40 VILLAGE LIFE AND LAND TENURE

with his ancestors or with living members of his
family. Examples of this are of repeated occurrence
in the law-courts. ** I bought this land and now the
Tung family is trying to steal it from me," complains
a petitioner. "When did you buy it?" asks the
magistrate. "Two hundred years ago," promptly
replies the oppressed one. Says another, " My rights
to the property of Sung Lien-teng are being contested
by my distant cousin. I am the rightful owner. I
buried Sung Lien-teng and have charge of his soul-
tablet and carry out the ancestral ceremonies." " When
did Sung Lien-teng die ? " questions the magistrate.
" In the fortieth year of K'ang Hsi " is the reply.
This means that the deceased whose property is in
dispute died childless in 1701, that plaintiffs ancestor
in that year defra^'ed the funeral expenses and acted
as chief mourner, that by family agreement he was
installed as adopted son to the deceased and heir to
his property, and that plaintiff claims to be the
adopted son's descendant and heir. Looking upon
his famil}', dead and alive, as one and indivisible, he
could not see an}' practical difference between the
statement that certain funeral rites had been carried
out by himself and the statement that they had been
carried out by a direct ancestor.

Another litigant, whose long residence abroad had
had no apparent effect on his general outlook on life,
came to me very recently with the complaint that on
his return from Manchuria he had found his land in
the possession of a neighbour. " I went to Manchuria
as my family had not enough to eat," he said. " I came
home this year and wished to redeem the land I had
mortgaged before I went away. But I found it had
been already redeemed by my neighbour, a cousin,
and he refuses to let me redeem it from him." On
being asked when he had mortgaged his land and
emigrated, he replied : " In Chia Ch'ing 3 " — that is, in
1798. He was merely identifying himself with his
own great-grandfather.

VILLAGE COMMUNITIES 141

In another case a man whom I will call A brought
a plaint to the effect that he wished to adopt B, and
that C for various reasons refused to allow this
adoption to take place. On investigation it turns
out that B is dead and that it is his infant son D
whom A really wishes to adopt. B and D — father
and son — seem to A merely different expressions, as
it were, of the same entity. This does not mean, of
course, that supposing B were still alive it would not
matter whether B or D actually became A's adopted
son. The rules of adoption in China are strictly
regulated. A man cannot adopt any one he likes.
Not to mention other necessary conditions, the person
adopted must belong to the appropriate generation,
that is, to the generation immediately junior to that
of the adopter. In the case before us the infant D
belonged to the proper generation, and his father
B could not have been adopted. To our notions it
seems all the stranger that A, knowing this, should
have spoken of B when he meant D : yet this manner
of speech is exceedingly common.

But after all, if we wish to assure ourselves that the
individual is not regarded as an independent unit we
must rely on stronger evidence than strange verbal
inaccuracies. Perhaps the best and most convincing
proofs will be found in the restrictions placed on
the powers of the individual to dispose of real
property.

It is necessary at the outset to lay stress on the
fact that there is no evidence, so far as I am aware,
of the former existence, in Weihaiwei or elsewhere
in China, of agrarian communism. A village com-
munity may indeed possess a common tract of pasture-
land, or common pasture or " fuel " rights over private
hill-lands at certain seasons of the 3'ear,' or some
arable fields may under certain conditions be cultivated
by different persons or different families in turn : but

' As, for instance, after the silk worms have been taken off the scrub-
oak buslies.

142 VILLAGE LIFE AND LAND TENURE

if we were to assume from this tliat all arable land
was once owned in common and that individual or
family proprietorship has only gradually superseded
an old communistic system, we should be entirely
wrong. Students of the laws and customs relating to
land must be careful, as Fustel de Coulanges has
clearly warned them, ** not to confuse agrarian com-
munism with family ownership, which may in time
become village ownership without ceasing to be a
real proprietorship." '

In China all land theoretically belongs to the
Emperor and the land-tax paid by cultivators may
be regarded, from one point of view, as rent payable
by tenant to proprietor. The Emperor is the Son
of Heaven (T'ien Tzu) and owns the whole Empire
(literally ** v/hat is under Heaven " — T''icn Jisia) : a
fortiori he is owner of every separate patch of tilled
land that the Empire contains. But for the people
of China the ultimate rights of the Emperor are a
matter of legal theory only. In practice, land is
privately owned in China just as it is privately owned
in England ; but whereas in England a land-owner
may (if his land is not " tied up ") exercise all the rights
of absolute ownership quite regardless of the wishes
of his nearest relations, not to mention his distant
cousins, in China the individual land-owner cannot
disregard the inextinguishable rights of his family.-

Be it remembered, moreover, that " family " does not
imply merely a father and a mother with their children.
It includes also nephews, grand-nephews, cousins of

' The Origin of Property in Land, transl. by M. Ashley, p. 151.

* Perhaps it is hardly necessary to explain that a Chinese who cuts
himself adrift from his family, or emigrates, or sets up in business in
some distant town or in a foreign Settlement such as Shanghai, may
and often does acquire real property under conditions that render him
absolutely independent of his family or clan. The family-rights are
not, indeed, extinguished : they are merely in abeyance owing to the
difficulty or impossibility of enforcing them. Yet the theory of family-
ownership is often — thanks to Chinese conservatism and clan-loyalty —
fully recognised even in such cases as these.

DISPOSAL OF REAL PROPERTY 145

several degrees, and in fact all who come within the
description of ton fn, or persons on whose decease
one must assume one of the five degrees of "mourn-
ing." In England, if a man's title-deeds are in order,
and the land is free from encumbrances, no one will
question his perfect right, as an independent individual,
to sell his land how and to whom he chooses. It is
unnecessary for him to consult relations, neighbours
or friends. Now in Weihaiwei, which is a typical
Chinese agricultural district, the man who tried to
dispose of his landed property without fully discuss-
ing the whole matter with all the prominent members
and " elders " of his village — or rather with those
among them who are of the same surname and come
within the wu fit — would find himself foiled at the
outset, for no one would venture to run the risk of
buying land that was being offered for sale in so
peculiar and irregular a manner. Even if the pur-
chaser, being a man of wealth and influence, were
prepared to run all possible risks, who would be
found to draw up the deed of sale? Who would take
the place of the numerous relatives who always
append their signatures to such documents as proof
that all is in order? The would-be seller's title-deeds
may be in perfect order ; the land may have come
down to him from his direct ancestors and his right
to sell may be apparently incontestable. But he is
not the less bound to satisfy his uncles and brothers
and cousins, as well as his own sons, as to the reason
for his desire to sell, and even if they agree that a
sale is necessary (owing perhaps to the seller's debts)
he is by no means permitted to dispose of the property
by public auction or offer it to the highest bidder.

All his relatives, more or less in the order of their
seniority or proximity, must be given the option of
purchase, and if the price offered by an influential
relative is considered fair by the general voice of
the village or the clan, he must perforce accept it
and be thankful or refrain from selling his land. The

144 VILLAGE LIFE AND LAND TENURE

theory that seems to lie at the root of this custom
is not that the land is the common property of the
clan but that the individual per se is only the limb
of a body, and cannot therefore act except in accord-
ance with the will of the organism to which he belongs ;
and that it is contrary to the interests of the family
that a portion of the real property belonging to any
of its members should pass into alien hands.

Absolute sales of land are, indeed, not regarded
with favour even if conducted according to the
•' rules." They have grown common in Weihaivvei
during the past few years, partly because the great
increase in the value of agricultural land has tempted
many to take advantage of a condition of the real-
estate market which they think may only be temporary;
partly because foreign occupation and other recent
events have opened out new avenues of employment
to large numbers of the people who are willing, there-
fore, to dispose of the little plots of land that are
no longer their all-in-all ; partly because many of the
smaller land-holders are engaging in commerce or
emigrating to Chihli and to Manchuria. For these
and other reasons a good deal of land has changed
and is changing hands, but the old custom whereby
real property can be transferred only from relative to
relative is still observed with very slight if any relaxa-
tion of its former strictness.

A Chinese deed of sale, carefully examined, throws
an interesting light on the systems of land-tenure and
the conditions under which transfer is permissible.
Without going into technical details, which would
be of small interest to the general reader, attention
may be drawn to the fact that the reason why the
seller is disposing of his land must always be stated.
The theory seems to be that he should not want
to sell his land, and that his desire to do so is highly
regrettable if not reprehensible. The document there-
fore sets forth in detail that (for example) " Ch'i
Te-jang of Ch'i-chia-chuang, being altogether without

TITLE-DEEDS 14S

money or means of subsistence^ is obliged to sell that
piece of land measuring . . . mn in extent, bounded
as follows: . . . . , to his younger "brother" of the
same generation [really a cousin] named Ch'i Shuan,
to be held by him as his absolute property for
ever."

To these clauses are appended any reservations
or special provisions by which the purchaser is to be
bound, and the deed closes with the statement that
it is drawn up " in case hereafter there should be
no proof of the transaction." Then follow the names
and crosses of the witnesses, all of whom are members
of the ** family," * the name of the writer of the deed,
who is often a schoolmaster, and the name of the village
headman, who is generally himself a relative. The
witnesses, it will now be understood, are very far from
being merely persons invited to testify to the execu-
tion of a deed. They have themselves been consulted
at every step of the negotiations, it is they by whom
the purchase price has probably been fixed, and their
consent has been necessary before the deed could be
drawn up or the land sold.

Mortgages in Weihaiwei, as probably in the rest
of China, are much commoner than sales. A farmer
will generally sell his land only because he must ; he
will mortgage it on very slender provocation. As
a mortgage does not definitely alienate the land from
the family, the customary rules regulating this trans-
action are much more flexible than those relating to
sales. Sometimes a piece of land is merely mortgaged
as security for a temporary loan, in which case the
mortgagor remains on the land ; ^ in other cases it
is mortgaged because the owner is going abroad or
because the opposition on the part of the family to
a definite sale is too strong to be overcome. In such
cases the rights of cultivation are transferred to the

• The Ciiinese word for " Family '' {chia) is often more suitably
rendered with the word " Clan."

* This is a customary, not a legal, arrangement.

10

146 VILLAGE LIFE AND LAND TENURE

mortgagee. In the great majority of cases mortgaged
lands are subsequently redeemed.^

Some of the customs regarding redemption are
rather curious, and strongly emphasise the theory
that redemption is a duty which must be undertaken
by another member of the family if the original mort-
gagor will not or cannot do it himself For example,
A and B are two brothers. They fen chia^ that is
to say they set up separate establishments, each taking
his own share of the family property. A remains at
home, quietly cultivating his farm, while B decides
to emigrate to Manchuria. In order to raise some
necessar}'' capital he decides to mortgage his share
of the family land ; but as neither A nor any other
relative can provide the amount of money he requires,
he is obliged to mortgage his property to an outsider
C — a man of different surname who lives in a neigh-
bouring village. This man C takes possession of the
land as mortgagee and cultivates it for some years.
B meanwhile is in Manchuria, and no one knows how
he is faring, or whether he is alive or dead. A now
goes to C and tells him that he wishes to redeem
the land mortgaged to B. It is obvious that according
to strict legality the land should only be redeemed
by the original mortgagor. B's name alone is on
the deed : A had nothing whatever to do with the
transaction. Yet, by custom, C must resign the land
to A ; not merely because A produces the mortgage-
price, but because he is one of B's family.

Perhaps several years later B returns from Man-
churia. He has money and wishes to redeem his
land. He soon discovers that it has been redeemed
by his brother A. His own rights of redemption,
however, are still valid ; he applies to A for the re-
turn of the land for the same price at which it was
originally mortgaged to C. A must comply. If B has
been absent many years and meanwhile the land has

' In VVeihaiwei a mortgage is regarded as an out-and-out sale if the
right of redemption is not exercised after a definite number of years.

MORTGAGES OF LAND 147

greatly risen in value, A will probably give it up
with a very bad grace. If the original mortgage-deed
was badly drawn up or there are some doubts about
what actually took place, A will perhaps refuse to
surrender the land at all unless or until he is ordered
to do so by the court. Litigation concerning trans-
actions of this kind has been common in Weihaiwei
of recent years. A man who mortgaged his land
many years ago, perhaps at a time of famine and
scarcity, for a ridiculously small sum, returns from
abroad to find his land worth five or more times
what it was worth then. He is naturally eager to
redeem it, while the person in whose hands it now is
— whether the original mortgagee or one of the mort-
gagor's family — is equally eager to retain it. The
court in such cases naturally supports local custom,
though there are sometimes bewildering complica-
tions which render it no easy matter to give a rigidly
just decision. Deeds of sale and mortgage of real
property used to be drawn up in an excessively vague
and slipshod manner — the very boundaries of the
land being either not mentioned at all or inaccurately ;
moreover nearly all such deeds were " white " deeds —
that is to say they had not been put through the
formal process of registration which would turn them
into legal documents. To remedy this state of things
(which was not to be wondered at in a district where
ignorant peasants do their own conveyancing without
legal assistance) certain recommendations were made
some years ago which resulted in the adoption of a
new system whereby all intending sellers and mortga-
gors of land are obliged to use an officially-stamped
deed-form, on which spaces are provided for the
proper description of land-areas and other necessary
particulars. The forms are numbered and kept in
counterfoil-books, and no deed can evade registration
except through the negligence of Government clerks.
Government has in this simple procedure a small but
unfailing source of revenue, the magistrates find their

148 VILLAGE LIFE AND LAND TENURE

labours in the court simplified, and the people are
greatly benefited by having more satisfactory title-
deeds to their lands (or rather proofs of legal purchase
and mortgage) than they ever had before.

If the Chinese restrictions on a man's freedom to
dispose of his own property are regarded from the
Western point of view as an intolerable and unjustifi-
able interference with the rights of the individual, let
it be remembered that the Chinese system is expressly
intended to protect the family rather than the in-
dividual. But even so, does it not safeguard the
rights of the individual as well ? If A has complete
control over his land and can bequeath it or sell
it to whom he chooses, what about his son B ? The
average Chinese villager is at birth a potential landed
proprietor.^ His share in the family inheritance ma}'
be small, but his wants, too, are small. One often
hears of an Englishman's desire to " found a family,"
by which is generally meant that he aspires to a
position " in the county." The " family " of a Chinese
never requires to be founded : it is there already. He
does not require to engage a searcher of records to
find out who his ancestors were so that he may be
provided with a pedigree : he will find all the neces-
sary information in the Ancestral Temple of his clan.

Whatever the faults of the Chinese social system
may be there is no doubt that in Weihaiwei it very
largely accounts for the complete absence of pauperism
(though no one is rich), for the orderliness of the
people (nearly every one has a stake in the land and
has nothing to gain and everything to lose from dis-
order), for the uninterrupted succession of father and

* This may be compared with Hindu custom. " The instant a child
is born he acquires a vested right in his father's property, wliich
cannot be sold without recognition of his joint ownership " (Maine's
Ancient Law, p. 228). Cf. also Plato, Laws, xi, : "You cannot leave
your property to whomsoever you please, because your property
belongs to your family, that is, to your ancestors and your descend-
ants." This is the Chinese theory precisely.

FAMILY SUBDIVISION 149

son in the homesteads, and for the long pedigrees
attested by family graveyards and ancestral tablets.
Certainly the family trees of many of the British
Peerage or even of the English squirearchy and the
chieftains of Scottish clans, would make a poor forest
compared with those of the majority of the farmer-
folk of Weihaiwei.

As a father cannot, except in exceptional circum-
stances, deprive his son of the family inheritance,
it follows that a man's power of making a will is
severely limited. The division of property between
brothers may take place either after their father's
death or while he is still living. The process is
called fen cJiia, — Division of the Family. When
hroiher's, fen-chia it means in general terms that each
takes his share of the family inheritance and leaves
the paternal roof: and the document which is drawn
up to define and give effect to the agreement is known
as a fen-shu or written statement of the details of
division.^ The share of each participating member of
the family is clearly stated in the fen-shu., and each
is given a copy of the document to hold henceforth as
his title-deed. A feii-sim is in Weihaiwei generally
drawn up by mutual agreement between brothers
after their father's death. If the arrangement is made
during the father's (or mother's) lifetime, a portion
of the property usually remains in the parent's hands
as yang-lao-ti — " Nourish-old-age land." After his or
her death the yang-lao-ti is made to bear the cost
of the funeral, and what remains is divided up among
the heirs. A portion of the property is sometimes
set aside as chi t'ien (sacrificial land) to be cultivated
in turn by all the brothers participating in the
division. Sometimes the father keeps no yang-lao-ti
for himself but merely stipulates either that he shall

' The fcn-shu being " neither secret, deferred, nor revocable," may
be compared with the early Roman " Will," which was not a Will at
all in the modern sense of the word. See Lord Avebury's Origin of
Civilisation (6th ed.), pp. 486-7.

I50 VILLAGE LIFE AND LAND TENURE

be supported by all his sons in turn or shall receive
from them a fixed proportion of the produce of their
several shares. The former of these arrangements
works very well when the members of the family are
in complete harmony with one another ; but some-
times a discordant note is struck either by an unfilial
son or (much more often) by one of the sons' wives,
who perhaps fails to treat her husband's father with
proper respect.^ A woman in China, be it remem-
bered, practically severs her connection with her own
family when she marries ; her husband's parents are
henceforth regarded as her own, and she owes them
just the same obedience and filial respect that are
owed them by her husband. The pcitria potcsfas, in
fact, is exerted not only over sons and grandsons but
also over their wives. But in practice we find that
sons' wives do not always, to put it mildly, show the
meek and reverential obedience to their kitng-tieh, or
father-in-law, that Chinese law enjoins and public
opinion considers desirable.

As the mother, no less than the father of a famil}^ is
made the object of ancestral " worship," it follows that
she succeeds, nominally if not always actuall}^, to her
deceased husband's control over the family property,
A widow is regarded as possessing a life-interest in her
husband's lands, subject of course to the rights, actual
or potential, of her sons. If the /cii-c/iia has already
taken place, all she can personally control is her
yatig-lao-ti. If, however, she enters into a second
marriage, she must relinquish all her rights in her
first husband's property. The reason of this is obvious'
If widows were allowed to endow their second
husbands with the property of the first, there would
be a gradual disintegration of the S3''stem of family-
ownership. There would no longer be an}^ guarantee
that the land would follow the " name."

If the " family-division " or fen-chia does not take
place till after the father's death but during the life-

' Cf. p. 199.

DIVISION OF FAMILY PROPERTY 151

time of the mother, the deed of division or fen-sIm
must make reference to the fact that the transaction
has received the mother's authorisation. The follow-
ing may be taken as a very ordinary type oi feii-shu
in Weihaiwei :

" This /('/?-5//// is made under the authority of Yii
Ts'ung Shih.' There are three sons, of whom the
second, Shu-yen, has been 'adopted out' to another
branch of the family.^ The following division of
property is made between the eldest son Shu-tung
and the third son Shu-shan. The division is neces-
sary because the families of Shu-tung and Shu-shan
have become so large that it is no longer con-
venient for them all to live together. With the
knowledge and assent of their relatives they have
drawn lots for the division of the property, and the
result is as follows : Shu-tung's share is the plot of
land . . . ; Shu-shan's share is the family house, con-
sisting of the three-roomed central building and two
side-buildings of two rooms each, together with the
garden and fields bounded. . . . This deed is made
out in duplicate, in order that Shu-tung and Shu-shan
may each possess an original and hold it as his just
title to the property allotted to him. This deed is
drawn up and attested by the clan-members so that
none of the parties concerned may hereafter go back
on the division of property herein described. If
any one raises any complaint hereafter, let him be
sent to the magistrate in order that he may receive
punishment for the crime of want of filial piety (pu
hsiao)."

Then follow the names of a number of attesting and
assenting relatives, the name of the writer of the deed,
and the date. Simultaneously a second deed, called
a c/i'h tan or Reservation of Yang-lao-ti^ is very often
drawn up in such terms as these :

" This cli'ii tan is executed by Yu T'sung Shih. In-

' That is, Mrs. Yii ncc Ts'ung.
* Cf. pp. 205, 284 sc(i.

IS2 VILLAGE LIFE AND LAND TENURE

asmuch as her three sons have set up separate estab-
lishments, and one of them, namely her second son
Shu-yen, has been adopted by another branch of the
family, Yii Ts'ungShih, with the knowledge and assent
of the elders and relatives of the family, reserves to
her own use that house situated . . . and that piece of
land measuring . . . , for the purpose of proviaing for
her support during life and for her burial expenses
after death.' All that remains of this property after
these charges have been met is to be equally divided
between the first and third sons T'sung Shu-tung
and Ts'ung Shu-shan. The second son, Ts'ung Shu-
3'en, has no share in or right to any portion of this
property, as he cannot carry the family property away
with him when he is * adopted out' ^ Lest there
should be no proof of this transaction hereafter, this
deed is drawn up and attested, and is to be preserved
for future reference."

It will be seen from the first of these two documents
that a method of dividing real property among brothers
is the drawing of lots {nieii cliu or chin fen). There is
no system of primogeniture : all the brothers receive
share and share alike. The process of lot-drawing is
a very simple one. The family-in-council begins by
dividing the property into a number of shares corre-
sponding with the number of the beneficiaries. The
shares are approximately equal in value : one may
include the family dwelling-house and a small area
of arable land ; another share, containing no house,
will comprise a larger area of land; and so forth.
Descriptions of all the shares are written on separate
pieces of paper, which are folded up or twisted into
little bundles and thrown together in a heap. The
second, third and fourth brothers, and so on down
to the youngest, draw lots, each in the order of
seniority ; the sole remaining lot is thus left to the
eldest brother. Each must be content with the piece

' Sheng yang ssfi tsang.

2 Pu neng tai ch'an cli'u chi.

SUBDIVISIONS OF PROPERTY 153

of land, or the house, or the vegetable garden, as the
case may be, which is inscribed on his lot, though
friendly exchanges are of course permissible. The
eldest brother is so far from having a claim to a larger
or better share than the rest that, as we see, he is not
even entitled to draw the first lot : probably, indeed,
it is to emphasise the principle of share and share
alike that custom requires him to take the lot that
is left to the last. The drawing of lots is not resorted
to in cases where the shares are all equal and there
are no preferences.

If as a result of repeated subdivisions the family
property has become so small that there is not enough
to "go round," or the family is so large that an equal
division would leave each with too little for his
support, the usual arrangement is for the entire
property to be mortgaged or sold to the nearest
relatives who are willing to buy. The cash proceeds
are then divided equally among the brothers, who
separate to seek their fortunes, each according to his
bent. One may emigrate to Manchuria, or join his
numerous fellow-provincials in the capital, another
may set up a shop in the neighbouring market-village,
a third may wander off to one of the great com-
mercial ports on the coast, and seek employment
under foreigners. The unsuccessful ones may possi-
bly never be heard of again ; the successful ones
will probably return after many days to their native
village and re-purchase or redeem the old family
property.

The remarkable increase in the value of agricultural
land that has taken place in the Weihaiwei Territory
during the past few years is a pleasant symptom of
the advancing prosperity of the people. The fact
must be admitted, however, that the increase is to a
considerable extent due to their economic backward-
ness. There is a serious want of local means for the
satisfactory investment of capital. To purchase land
is to the great mass of the population the only safe

154 VILLAGE LIFE AND LAND TENURE

way in which savings or profits can be employed.
The consequence is that the land has now acquired a
somewhat fictitious value, a fact which may come
prominently into view if the people should be
visited by some calamity such as a succession of
bad harvests.

CHAPTER VIII

VILLAGE CUSTOMS, FESTIVALS AND FOLK-LORE

The villages of Weihaiwei, so far as their domestic
affairs are concerned, are somewhat like so many little
self-contained republics, each with its own ancestral
temple, its t^u-ti mt'ao^ or temple of the local tutelary
spirit, its theatre, its pasture-lands, its by-laws, its
graveyard, and its little band of elders under the
leadership of the headman. There is no regular
village council. The " elders " are simply the most
influential or most respected of the inhabitants, and
their number is elastic. When important matters
arise, affecting the interests of the whole village, they
discuss them in the headman's house, or in a temple,
or in the village street under the shade of an old tree.
Nothing is discussed with closed doors. The whole
village, including the women and children, may as
a rule attend a meeting of elders, and any one who
wishes to air his views may do so, irrespective of his
age or position in the village. The elders have few
privileges that their fellow-villagers do not share, and
the headman himself is only primus infer pares. His
authority, like that of the elders, is chiefly derived
from his position as head of the family or clan.

When all the people are bound together by ties of
blood relationship, as is the case in a typical Weihai-
wei village, the bonds of family life and the bonds

' See pp. 336, 371-7, 382, 386 sg<7.
155

156 VILLAGE CUSTOMS, FESTIVALS, FOLK-LORE

of village life are one and the same. The senior
representative of the senior branch of the family holds
as a rule a double responsibility : as the head of the
family he is the natural arbitrator or judge in cases
of domestic strife or petty crime, and as headman of
the village he is held, to a limited extent, responsible
by Government for the good conduct of his fellow-
villagers. It is true that in practice the headman is
not always the senior representative of the senior
branch of the family. Under British rule, indeed,
every new headman is "confirmed" by Government
and receives a cJitJi-chao, or official certificate of
appointment. This applies both to the District head-
men ^ and to the headmen of villages. But in both
theory and practice the headman is the chosen of
the people. He may fall into the position with their
tacit consent by virtue of the patria potcstas, or in
consequence of his wealth, strong personality or social
prestige ; or he may be definitely elected after a
consultation among the heads of families.

The position of headman is not altogether enviable,
and there is little or no competition for the filling of a
vacancy. Sometimes, indeed, it is only after a village
has been threatened with a general fine that it will
make the necessary recommendation. This is es-
pecially the case since the establishment of British
rule, for Government shows — or did show — a tendency
in Weihaiwei to increase the headman's responsibilities
without giving him any compensating advantages.-
The headman, as such, has no very definite authority
over the individuals of his village, but every individual
is bound by rigid unwritten law to conform to the
will of the niaior et sanior pars, and to fulfil his duties
to the community even if they involve his own dis-
comfort.

It is true that the Chinese village cannot be said to

> See pp. 95, 2S9.

- The same tendencj', with the same result, showed itself in Burma
after the annexation to the Indian Empire.

UNITY OF CHINESE VILLAGES 157

possess corporate unity. Even in Europe the evolu-
tion of the "juristic person " was a slow process, and
it is not likely that we shall find the developed
principles of corporate existence amid the hetero-
geneous elements of village life in China, where there
are no professional lawyers to interpret indefinite
social facts by the light of definite legal fictions. Yet
the germs of the theory of a persona fida may perhaps
be found in several features of the village-system.
Most villages, for instance, possess funds which are
collected and disbursed for the benefit or amusement
of the inhabitants collectively ; and we usually find
in the typical village a strongly-developed sense of
mutuail responsibility and a general acceptance of the
obligation to co-operate for common ends. A man
was once accused before me of refusing to join his
fellow-villagers in subscribing towards the expenses
of the local ///// with its inevitable theatrical per-
formances. He admitted in court that he was in the
wrong and undertook to contribute his proper share
forthwith. Had this man been a Christian the matter
would not have been so easily disposed of. It is well
known that troubles have arisen in various parts of
China through the refusal of Christian converts to
subscribe towards their village entertainments on
the ground that such entertainments were idolatrous
or involved the performance of pagan ceremonies.
When one understands a little of the Chinese village
organisation one can see, perhaps, that there is some-
thing to be said on the side of the indignant " pagans,"
and that the trouble has not necessarily arisen from
their hostility to the religious views, as such, of their
converted fellow-villagers. It is obvious that the
solidarity of the village system would be severely
shaken if individuals were allowed to dissociate them-
selves at will from the actions of the village as a
whole.

As the Village does not possess a strictly corporate
character, it follows that though there may be pasture

158 VILLAGE CUSTOMS, FESTIVALS, FOLK-LORE

lands, wells, roads, and other property which belong
to all the inhabitants collectively, it would be in-
accurate to say that the Village as such is the ultimate
owner of, or has reversionary rights over any real
property. If such rights seem to be possessed by any
given village they will be found to rest on the fact
that the village comprises a single family or clan —
village and family being, in fact, almost interchange-
able terms ; but it is the family, not the village, that
owns the land. If a village has two " surnames,"
say Liu and Ch'i, it will never be found that arable
land is jointly owned by the Liu and the Ch'i families,
though both families may have equal customary rights
(not definable in law) over a tract of pasture-land.
Another indication that the real entity is the family
and not the village may be found in the fact that many
old and long-established families " overflow," as it
were, from their original villages into many neigh-
bouring villages, and still possess a kind of unity
entirely lacking to the villages as such. The Chiang
family, to take a specific example, is the sole or
principal family in the village of Chiang-chia-chai,
but it is also the sole or predominant partner in at
least five villages within a radius of as many miles.
One outward sign of its essential unity consists in
the old family burying-ground, in which all the
Chiangs in all these villages have equal rights of
sepulture.

The peace of an ordinary VVeihaiwei village is not
often seriously disturbed. The chief causes of trouble
are bad-tempered women, who form an appreciable
proportion of the population. Robbers and other
law-breakers are few in number ; not necessarily
because the Chinese are by nature more honest and
respectable than other people, but because the social
system to which they belong is singularly well adapted,
in normal times at least, to prevent the outbreak of
criminal propensities. No village possesses any body
of men whose special duty it is to act as a police force,

A DISTRICT HEADMAN AND HIS COMPLIMENTARY TABLET (seC p. 289).

p. 158]

THREE VILLAGE HEADMEN (sCC p. I5S).

VILLAGE CUSTOMS 159

yet it is hardly an exaggeration to say that every
village is policed by its entire adult male population.
The bonds of family and village life are such that every
male villager finds himself directly or indirectly re-
sponsible for the good behaviour of some one else. The
bad characters of every village soon become marked
men. B^or minor offences, evil-doers are punished by
their neighbours in accordance with long-standing
rules and by-laws; if they are regarded as incorrigible,
they are either expelled with ignominy from the family
and clan to which they belong' or they are handed
over for punishment to the nearest magistrate. Every
unknown stranger who arrives in a village is im-
mediately treated with a disquieting mixture of hos-
pitality and suspicion. He is not interfered with so
long as he encroaches on nobody's rights, but all
the villagers constitute an informal band of amateur
detectives for the purpose of keeping an eye on his
movements and ascertaining his intentions. He is
regarded, in fact, as a suspicious character until he
settles down and becomes a land-owner, and that—
for reasons already explained — he can hardly ever
hope to do.

There are curious old customs which seem to
indicate that even the native of a village who returns
home, after many years' residence abroad, must in
some places go through a kind of formal re-admission
before he is allowed to resume his position on the old
footing of equality. A man once came to me with a
complaint which, under cross-examination, he stated
somewhat as follows : " I was nine years absent
from my village. When I went home a few days ago,
I was ordered by the people of the village to give
a feast. I asked them to let me postpone it for a few
weeks. They did not say they were glad to see me
back. They insisted that the feast must be given at

' This process, whereby the expelled one ceases to enjoy the rights
to which his birth entitles him, is known ast//'« tsu^ — " expulsion from
the clan."

i6o VILLAGE CUSTOMS, FESTIVALS, FOLK-LORE

once. I am quite willing to give it later on. It is a
village custom. Any one who leaves the village and
stays away several years must provide a feast for
the heads of the village families when he returns.
1 have no fault to find with the custom, only I want
a few weeks* grace,"

Nearly all villages in Weihaiwei have certain police
regulations which are made and promulgated by the
local elders. They possess, of course, no legal sanc-
tion, though they are frequently brought to the British
magistrates for approval and to be stamped with an
official seal. They consist of lists of punishable
offences, and the penalties attached to them : the
money fines being imposed by the village or clan
elders, and applied by them to local uses. There is a
good deal of variety among these village regulations or
ts^un kuci in respect of penalties, though the punish-
able offences are everywhere much the same. They
always repay inspection, for they throw an interesting
light on the local morality and the views held by the
leaders of public opinion as to the relative seriousness
of different classes of misdemeanours. A written copy
of the ts'iin kiici is usually kept in the family Ancestral
Temple or in the headman's house. The follov/ing is
a translation of one of these documents :

*' I. Trampling on or desecrating graves or
allowing domestic animals to desecrate graves
in the ancestral burial-ground . . .10 tiao}

2. Usurping portions of the common pas-
ture land (jnii niii ch'ang) or ploughing up
portions thereof 5 tiao.

3. Removing fuel from private land without
permission, and cutting willows and uproot-
ing shrubs and trees 3 tiao,

4. Allowing mules, ponies, pigs, sheep, or
other animals to feed on private ground
without the owner's permission ... 3 tiao.

5. Stealing crops 5 tiao.

6. Stealing manure from private gardens . 3 tiao.

' A //ao is at present worth approximately eighteenpence.

VILLAGE BY-LAWS i6i

7. Moving boundary-stones ... 5 tiao.

8. Obstructing or blocking the right of way

to the common pasture land .... 5 tiao.

If any of the above offences are committed at night-
time, the punishment is Expulsion from the Village.

If any person having committed any of these offences
declares that he will die rather than pay his fine, let
him be conveyed to the magistrate.

The following are exempted from punishment as
being irresponsible for their actions and deserving of
compassion : children under twelve, dumb people, and
imbeciles."

Very serious offences, such as housebreaking, violent
assault, homicide, and offences against morality are
not mentioned in the ts'itii kitei, as neither Chinese
nor British law would recognise the power of the
villagers to take upon themselves the punishment of
such crimes. The very prevalent vice of gambling is
sometimes but not always punishable under the kiiei.
It occupies a conspicuous place in the knei published
by the East and West villages of Ch'u-chia-chuang, of
which the following is a translation :

" I. Gambling:

(a) The owner of the house where

gambling takes place to be fined 30 tiao.

{b) Each gambler to be fined . . 5 tiao.

{c) Persons of the village who gamble
outside the village, but within
the limits of the village lands, to
be fined 2 tiao.

{d) Gamblers under fifteen years of

age to be fined .... 2 tiao.

2. Any person who unlawfully digs up his
neighbours grass and shrubs, to be fined . 500 cash.^

3. Any person who steals manure from
private gardens, if the offence is committed

m daytime, to be fined 500 cash.

Half a tiao.

1 1

i62 VILLAGE CUSTOMS, FESTIVALS, FOLK-LORE

4. The perpetrator of the same offence, if
it is committed at night, to be fined . . 2 tiao.

S- Any person who steals crops from the
fields or vegetables or fruit from private
gardens, if he is adult, to be fined ... 3 tiao.

6. Any child who commits the same offence,
to be fined 200 cash.

The above Rules have been made by the whole
Village in council, and must be obeyed by every one,
irrespective of age and sex. If any offender refuses
to pay his fine the headman and elders will report
him to the magistrate, who will be asked to inflict
punishment."

The following is a translation of a similar document
in which the penalties imposed are somewhat light;
but in this case the kuci are of ancient date and the
tiao was worth a great deal more than at present.

" I. Gambling . Fine levied according

to circumstances.

2. Cutting trees and shrubs . . . i tiao.

3. Stealing crops ..... i tiao.

4. Gleaning in the harvest-fields without
permission i tiao.

5. Feeding cattle in a neighbour's field

after harvest ....... i tiao.

6. Uprooting grass and shrubs . . 500 cash.

7. Climbing over private walls and
stealing manure or removing soil.

8. Stealing fuel at night ....

500 cash.
5 tiao.
9. Stealing silk-worms or cocoons . Fine

levied according to circumstances.
10. Knocking down chestnuts with sticks. 500 cash.
I r. Allowing dogs to go on the ts'aii ch'aug
(silk-worm feeding-ground) and eat the
silk-worms ^ 500 cash.

Headmen and elders who are found guilty of any

' Silk-worms are fed on the leaves of the scrub-oak on the open hill-
sides.

NICKNAMES 163

of the above offences will incur double the specified
penalty.

If doubtfuP characters enter the village and create
a disturbance, the heads of all the families will hold a
meeting to decide what is to be done with them."

We have seen that a large number of the villages
of Weihaiwei are named after the families that in-
habit them. But when a single prosperous family
has " overflowed " into a number of other villages it
is necessary to differentiate between them, and the
names given have often some reference to the outward
aspect of the locality. For example, the name Sha-li-
Wang-chia means the village of the " Wang-family-
who-live-in-the-sand." As a matter of fact this village
is situated near the seashore amid rolling sandhills,
so the name is appropriate enough. Similarly the
name Sung-lin-Kuo-chia means " the Kuo family of
the Pine-grove." There are also such village names
as Willow-grove, Black Rock, Thatched Temple,
North-of-the-Ku-mountain, North-of-the-Pheasant-hill,
White-pony Village. Sometimes pieces of family-land
are given fancy names for the convenience of identifi-
cation. The Ssu-lao-p'o koii is " the ditch of the dead
woman," apparently because a female's corpse was
once found there : but as this name struck the owner
as being unlucky and likely to bring misfortune on
his family, he changed the " tone " of the first word,
which transformed the phrase into " the ditch of the
four old wives."

Men have their nicknames as well as places. Such
names generally emphasise the owner's moral or phy-
sical peculiarities, and are often highly appropriate.
The name Liu T'ieh-tsui, for instance, means Liu of
the Iron Mouth — an allusion to his argumentative
nature and love of brawling. Chou Lii, or Chou
the Donkey, implies just what it would imply in
JEngland. One man writhes under the name Yu

' Literally, "not clear" {fu nihtg).

i64 VILLAGE CUSTOMS, FESTIVALS, FOLK-LORE

Hsieh-tzu — Yu the Scorpion — because his neighbours
look upon him as a poisonous creature. Another is
known as W^ang Ko-p'i-tzu — Wang Gash-skin — because
he is possessed of a knife-like sharpness of tongue.
Yet another is spoken of as Chang T'ien Tzu — Chang
the Son of Heaven, or Chang the Emperor — because
he is the tyrant of his village.

The food of the people, as everywhere in China, is
largely vegetarian, but fish (dried and fresh) is naturally
eaten by all classes in Weihaiwei, and pork is con-
sumed by all except the very poorest. The Chinese,
it seems clear, would willingly endorse the judgment
given in the Anatomy of Melancholy, where we are told
that "pork of all meats is most nutritive in his own
nature." Rice — the staple food in south China — is
something of a luxury, as it has to be imported.
There is a kind of " dry-rice " ^ grown in Shantung,
but it is not a common crop in Weihaiwei. The
ordinary grain-crops are wheat, millet, maize, barley
and buckwheat. The wheat is harvested about the
end of June and early in July. Immediately after the
harvest the fields are ploughed up and sown with
beans. The land is cultivated to its utmost capacity,
and it need hardly be said that the farmer takes care
to waste no material that may be useful for manuring
purposes. Most fields are made to yield at least three
crops every two years, and as the rotation of crops is
well understood it is seldom that land is allowed to
lie fallow.

In recent years very large areas have been devoted
to pea-nuts, which are exported from Weihaiwei to
the southern parts in enormous quantities and have
become a source of considerable profit. Vegetables
are grown in large quantities and include asparagus,
onions, cabbage, garlic, celery, spinach, beans and
sweet potatoes. Fruit is not cultivated to any great
extent, though there are apples, peaches, apricots,
plums, pears, melons and some other varieties, most

' Han tao nii.

FRUIT CULTIVATION 165

of which are inferior to similar fruit grown in England.
The services of an English fruit-grower were obtained
by the British Government of Weihaiwei during the
years 1905-8 with the two chief objects of testing
the suitability of the district for fruit-cultivation and
inducing the people if possible to make fruit-grov^nng
an important local industry. Partly owing to lack
of enterprise and to a want of familiarity with the
conditions under which fruit could be exported or
profitably disposed of, the people have not responded
to the efforts of the Government with any enthusiasm ;
but that Weihaiwei is a suitable locality for fruit-
growing as well as for the cultivation of many kinds
of vegetables has been amply demonstrated. The
grape-vine flourishes provided reasonable precautions
are taken against insect-pests.^ Of English fruits
which do well in Weihaiwei are apples, pears, plums,
black-currants and strawberries. Of the last-named
fruit it has been reported that " English varieties
grow and crop splendidly, and the fruit is equal
in every way to first-class fruit of the same varieties
grown at home. All the varieties introduced proved
to be perfectly hardy without any protection what-
ever."

Weihaiwei is not without game of various kinds,
though the want of sufficient cover keeps down the
numbers of many game-birds that would otherwise
thrive. Woodcock are rare, and pheasants rarer still ;
but partridges are to be found in certain localities
such as the neighbourhood of Lin-chia-yiian, near
Wen-ch'iian-t'ang, and other hill-districts. The coasts
are visited by various kinds of duck and teal, wild
geese are common enough in winter, and the wild
swan has been shot occasionally ; but the best sport

* The Government fruit-grower has recommended the Black Ham-
burgh, Muscat of Alexandria and Malaya — which ripen in succession —
as the best varieties of table-grapes for Weihaiwei, while of wine-
grapes the most satisfactory are the Mataro, Alicante Bouschet, Black
Malvoise, Grenache, Zinfandel, Charbons and Johannesburg Riesling.

i66 VILLAGE CUSTOMS, FESTIVALS, FOLK-LORE

is provided in spring and autumn by the snipe. The
record "bag," so far as I am aware, is ninety-five and
a half couple of snipe in one day to tv/o guns. The
local Annals tell us that a small spotted deer, and
also wild boar, used to be common among the hills
of Weihaiwei, but they are now unknown. The
Manchurian Muntjak tiger (Felts brachyunis) has also
disappeared. Mount Macdonald and other wild parts
of the Territory harbour a few wolves which occa-
sionally raid the outskirts of a village and kill pigs
and other animals. In seasons of famine, as we have
seen,^ the wolves of Weihaiwei have been something
of a scourge, but they have greatly decreased in
numbers in recent years. Foxes are occasionally
seen, and there are said to be some wild cats. Hares
are numerous, and until the disbandment of the
Chinese Regiment they were regularly hunted with
a pack of harriers.

Agriculture, fishing and the manufacture of a rough
silk form the principal industries of the people. The
silk-worms are fed not on the mulberry but, as
already mentioned, on the leaves of the scrub-oak,
which now covers large areas of mountain land that
would otherwise be totally unproductive. One may
often notice, about the months of June and July,
small shreds of red cloth tied to the oak-shrubs on
which the silk-worms are feeding. Red is the colour
which betokens happiness and success, and rags of
that colour when tied to shrubs and fruit-trees are
supposed to act as charms, guaranteeing the success
of the fruit and silk crops, and keeping away injurious !'
insects. Men who are engaged in the work oi fang-
ts^an — putting out the worms on the oak-leaves —
make success surer by adorning the front of their
own coats with similar pieces of red cloth. They
also invoke the sympathy and help of the s/ian-s/ini,
or Spirit of the Mountain, by erecting miniature
shrines to that deit3^

' See pp. 56, 57.

FLOWERS AND TREES 167

If the Weihaiwei villages are not in themselves
objects of beauty they are often surrounded by groves
of trees which go far to conceal their less attractive
features ; and many of the cottages have little gardens
which if chiefly devoted to vegetables are seldom
quite destitute of flowers. The peony, chrysanthe-
mum, wild lilies and roses, spiraea, hibiscus, jasmine,
sunflower, campanula, iris and Michaelmas daisy are
all common, and a few experiments made since the
British occupation prove that numerous English
flowers such as the Canterbury Bell, mignonette,
carnation, aster, wall-flower, geranium and many
others, in spite of an uneven rainfall and extremes
of heat and cold seldom experienced in England, find
a congenial home in Weihaiwei. Many of the flower-
ing plants are prized for their medicinal qualities,
real or supposed. The sunflower-seed — as in India
and Russia — is used as a food for both men and
animals, and the leaves and stems are said to make
good fodder. A little purple wildflower named
cJiing tzu that grows on sandy soil near the seaside
is in some localities eaten by women on account of
its magical efficacy in giving strength to unborn
children : but this superstition seems to be dying out.

The trees in the neighbourhood of villages and in
graveyards are common property, and it is very
rarely, therefore, that they are cut down : elsewhere
trees are very few, and timber is so scarce that large
quantities are imported yearly from Manchuria.^
Some of the principal trees of the Territory are the
fir {Pinus T/iiinbi'rgii d.nd Finns Massojiiaiid), ailanthus,
ivu-t'iDig (Pauloiiia imperialis) and white poplar ; and
there are also cypress, walnut, ch'in iCaialpa), pome-
granate, wax-tree,- the beautiful maidenhair tree

' The local Government — not very wisely from the point of view of
sound economics — levies small " wharfage-dues " on imported timber.

■'' This is the pai-la sJiii so well known in Ssiich'uan in connection
with the insect-wax industry, which is also carried on to a small extent
in Shantung though not in Weihaiwei.

i68 VILLAGE CUSTOMS, FESTIVALS, FOLK-LORE

{Salisbiiria adiantifolid)'^ and the linai shu {Sophora
japonica).

Among the trees introduced since the British
occupation, the acacia, Lombardy poplar, laburnum,
yew and some others thrive in the Territory, but
the oak, sycamore, elm, birch, mountain-ash and
many other trees well known in England have hitherto
proved failures. From the present denuded condition
of the hills one would hardly suppose that the people
of Weihaiwei cared much for trees : yet as a matter
of fact they value them highly for their shade and
for their beauty. Public opinion is strongly averse
to the wanton destruction of all trees and herbage.
An illustration of this is given in the local records.
" It is a very evil thing," says the Wcihahvci Cliih^
"to set fire to the woods and shrubs, and pitifully
cruel to the living animals that are made to suffer
thereby. In the Shun Chih period [about 1650]
Chiang Ping and his sons used to behave in this
dreadful manner at Li Shan [a few miles from
Weihaiwei city]. They received numberless warn-
ings but never would they depart from their evil
courses. One day they were going home from market
and lit a fire on the hillside. Suddenly when the
fire had begun to blaze a fierce wind sprang up, and
Chiang Ping and his three sons were all burned
to death. This is a warning that men should take
to heart."

The compilers of the Jung-ch^eng Chih sum up the
character and manners of the people in a way that
hardly needs amplification and shows what are the
features that strike a Chinese observer as of special
interest. "They are very simple and somewhat
uncouth and unpolished," he says, " but they are

' Probably the finest specimen of the ginkgo or maidenhair tree in
the Territory is that in the grounds of Pei-k'ou Temple. Besides being
very tall, it measures fourteen and a half feet in circumference five
feet from the ground. See p. 381 for remarks on another of these
trees.

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE PEOPLE 169

honest. They have some good old customs and show
by their conduct that they are guided by the light
of nature more than by learning. The men are
independent and self-reliant ; the women are frugal,
modest, and are most careful of their chastity. If
they lose that they hold life as worthless. The men
till the land ; the women spin. The people are
stupid at business of a mercantile nature : mer-
chants therefore are few. Many strangers from other
districts live on the islands and in the market-centres.^
In bad years when the harvests are scanty and there
is a dearth of grain the hill-grasses and wild herbs
are used as food. Clansmen, relatives, and neighbours
take pity on each other's distress, hence one rarely
hears of the sale of boys and girls.- . . . Betrothals
are arranged when the principals are still in their
swaddling-clothes, and thus (owing to deaths and
other causes) marriages often fail to take place.
Babyhood is certainly too early a time for betrothals.^
There are too many betrothals between people of
different districts : hence one may find women over
thirty years of age still unmarried.' This tends to
the grave injury of morals. When betrothals are
discussed it is considered by all disgraceful to hold
mercenary views" or to aim at riches and honours.
It is also considered discreditable to give a girl to a
man as a concubine."^
The " uncouthness" of the people must be under-

' For temporary purposes of trade.

* Sale of children by starving parents is a painful feature of famines
in some parts of China.

* This criticism from a Chinese writer is interesting, when we re-
member that the practice is much the same throughout the greater part
of the Empire.

* This is exceptionally rare at the present time. The overwhelming
majority of women are married before the age of twenty-five.

•"• Mercenary views are held all the same.

* In proportion to the population there are very few concubines in
Weihaiwei, and most of them are imported from Peking and other
places.

I7C VILLAGE CUSTOMS, FESTIVALS, FOLK-LORE

Stood in a relative sense only. In spite of the fact that
the great majority are illiterate they possess in a
marked degree the natural courtesy that characterises
so many Oriental races. In considering this point
with reference to Chinese in general one must not
ignore the fact that they have been often guilty of
rudeness and even savage brutality in their inter-
course with Western foreigners ; but to regard
rudeness and brutality as permanent or prominent
elements in the Chinese character would be absurd,
for if such were the case every Chinese village
would be in a chronic state of social chaos. Out-
bursts against foreigners, however inexcusable from
a moral standpoint, are always traceable to some
misunderstanding, to foreign acts of aggression or
acts which the Chinese rightly or wrongly inter-
pret as acts of aggression, or to abnormal political
or social conditions for which foreigners are rightly
or Vk^rongly held responsible. Most unprejudiced
foreigners are willing to admit that in normal times
the Chinese are a singularly courteous people, ex-
cept when they have taken on a veneer of Western
civilisation in the treaty-ports' and have lost their
national graces. If the Chinese behave politely to
foreigners — whom they do not like — we may well
suppose that in social intercourse with one another
their manners are still more courteous • and this is
undoubtedly true. Their rules ot ceremony may

' It is a curious fact, and one never yet satisfactorily explained, that
people of non-European races all seem to lose their native grace of
manner after a period of contact with Europeans. This does not
apply to Asiatic peoples (Indian and Chinese) only : it is apparently
equally true with regard to certain African races. Miss Bleek, in a
recent work published by tlie Clarendon Press under the auspices of
the Royal Anthropological Institute, remarks that the Bushmen are by
nature truthful, clean, honest and courteous. " Once another Bush-
man visited ours for a few days. He was so much rougher than the
other that our man was asked why his friend was different. He said,
' Missis must excuse : this man lost his parents early and was brought
up bj' white people.' "

CHINESE ETIQUETTE 171

seem, from the foreigner's point of view, too stiff
and artificial, or exasperating in their pedantic minute-
ness. The European is incHned to laugh at social
laws which indicate with preciseness when and how
a mourner should wail at a funeral, what expressions
a man must use when paying visits of condolence
or congratulation, what clothes must be worn on
different occasions, how a visitor must be greeted,
how farewells are to be said, how modes of saluta-
tion are to be differentiated and how chairs are to be
sat upon. But, after all, every race has its own code
of polite manners, and rules that impress a foreigner
as intolerably formal or as ludicrous seem quite
natural to one who has been accustomed to them from
his earliest childhood. The rules of Chinese etiquette
may be stiff, but there is no stiffness about the Chinese
gentleman — or about the illiterate Chinese peasant —
when he is acting in accordance with those rules.

Gambling has been mentioned as one of the vices of
the people. That this should be a common failing
among the Chinese is not a matter of surprise, seeing
that there is probably no race among whom the
gambling instinct is not to be found. It is, perhaps,
specially likely to develop itself strongly among a
people who, through lack of general culture, are at
a loss to find suitable occupations for their leisure
hours. The Chinese, however, delight in games for
their own sake, as is evident from their fondness for
their own somewhat complicated forms of chess and
similar games. Serious cases of gambling are of
course punished by the law. A new penal offence is
opium-smoking, which now can be indulged in only
by persons who hold a medical certificate. According
to the official lists prepared by the local Government,
the number of people who may be regarded as in-
veterate smokers amounts to no more than (if as many
as) one per cent, of the population : but there is a
certain amount of secret smoking and doubtless a
good deal of smuggling.

172 VILLAGE CUSTOMS, FESTIVALS, FOLK-LORE

On the whole, it cannot be said that opium seems
to have done any very serious harm to the health
or morals of the people of this district, — not, at least,
as compared with the havoc wrought by alcohol in
England and Scotland, If the experience of Wei-
haiwei goes for anything, the view sometimes held
that opium-smokers must necessarily become slaves
to the drug is an erroneous one. Many persons who
were in the habit of indulging in an occasional pipe
of opium at festive gatherings have now abjured the
seductive drug without a sigh, and — ^^judging from
a few rather ominous indications — seem inclined to
take to the wine-pot as a substitute. It may be only
a curious coincidence that while I have been obliged
to punish only six Chinese for drunkenness during a
period of about five years, all six cases have occurred
since the establishment of the new anti-opium regula-
tions in 1909.

The Chinese have great reverence for book-learning,
but poverty and the necessity for hard work from an
early age have made it hopeless for the Weihaiwei
villager to aspire to erudition. Every large village
and every group of small villages have schools, but
they are attended only by a small though gradually
increasing proportion of the village children. The
schoolmasters, moreover, are neither a very zealous
nor a very learned body, — not a surprising fact
when it is remembered that they receive no more
than a bare living wage. At present the pro-
portion of villagers who can read and write is
very small — probably under ten per cent.— and even
the headmen are often unable to sign their own
names.

Not much progress in education has been made under
British rule, for the resources of the Government are
meagre in the extreme. A Government school at Port
Edward and one or two missionary schools provide
elementary education for a few dozen children, but
very little has been done to improve the village

EDUCATION 173

schools. It need hardly be said that except in the
Government and missionary schools the education,
such as it is, is confined to the orthodox curri-
culum of " Old China" : the flood of Western learning
has not yet affected the little backwater of Wei-
haiwei except to the extent of rousing a certain
limited interest in such subjects as geography and
arithmetic.

Writing of present-day conditions, a Chinese diplo-
matist in the United States has stated that "John
Stuart Mill, Huxley, Spencer, Darwin and Henry
George, just to mention a few of the leading scholars
of the modern age, are as well known in China as in
this country. The doctrine of the survival of the
fittest is on the lips of every thinking Chinese. . . .
Western knowledge is being absorbed by our young
men at home or abroad at a rapid rate, and the mental
power of a large part of four hundred millions of
people, formerly concentrated on the Confucian
classics, is being turned in a new direction — the study
of the civilisation of the West." ^ These remarks are
true enough of a large and rapidly growing number
of the Chinese people : but Weihaiwei and the
neighbouring regions have more in common with
the Old China that is passing away than with the
New China that is coming and to come.

The ignorance of the people of Weihaiwei is
naturally accompanied by many strange fancies and
crude superstitions. Some of these must be con-
sidered when we are dealing with the religious ideas
of the people ; here it will be sufficient to mention
a few of the miscellaneous notions that seem to be
connected with no definite religious faith. There are,
of course, ghosts and devils of many kinds and of
varying degrees of malevolence. One means of pro-
tecting oneself against these dreadful creatures is to
engage a fortune-teller or a Taoist priest to provide

' The United States and China, by VVei-ching W. Yen (American
Association for International Conciliation : New York).

174 VILLAGE CUSTOMS, FESTIVALS, FOLK-LORE

a charm {fu),^ the mere presence of which is supposed
to throw a whole army of demons into helpless con-
fusion. Children, it is thought, are specially liable
to injury from evil spirits, and many of them have
charms or talismans carefully sewn into their clothes.
A piece of red cloth or a few scarlet threads woven
into the queue are understood to answer the purpose
nearly as well. A disagreeable monster called the
Celestial Dog (Vien Kou) is supposed to be the cause
of ill-temper and petulance in small children ; but
even he can be got rid of by nailing a cunningly-
prepared charm above the afflicted child's bed. It is
curious that a dog (a black one) also plays an un-
dignified part in the nursery-mythology of our own
happy land. Whether the Western dog would yield
to the same treatment as the Eastern one is a question
that might easily be solved by any parent who is
prepared to make use of the charm here reproduced.-

Weihaiwei also has its witches {ivn p'o) and diviners
(often called siiaii kiia hsieji-sJiciig), who by acting as
trance-mediums between the living and the dead, or
by manipulating little wands of bamboo or peach-
wood,-^ or by the use of a kind of planchctte,, profess
to be able to foretell the future^ or to answer
questions regarding the present and past, or to disclose
where stolen property has been concealed and by
whom it has been taken. I have personally known
of a case in which a thief was captured by means of
the indications given by a fortune-teller. His method
was to take a small stick in each hand and point

' See illustration.

* See illustration. The T'icn Kou is the Japanese Tengu. See
Trans. As. Soc. Jap. Pt. ii ( 1 908).

^ For the magic uses of peach-wood see De Groot's Religions System
of China, vol. iv. pp. 304 seq.

* "I see no race of men, however polished and educated, however
brutal and barbarous, which does not believe that warnings of future
events are given, and may be understood and announced by certain
persons." Cicero's words, after the lapse of a couple of thousand
years, are still true. (See Cic. de Divi?iatione, i. i.)

PROTECTIVE CHARMS USED IN WEIHAIWEI,

P- 174]

CHINESE SPIRITUALISM 175

them both in front of him, keeping his clenched hands
close to his sides. He then moved slowly round, and
when the sticks were pointing in the direction the
thief had gone the points came together.^ No doubt
there is as much make-believe and quackery about
these mysterious doings as there is in the similar
practices of many so-called mediums in the West ;
but I am unwilling to believe that " there is nothing
in it." Some day, let us hope, the " spiritualism " of
China will be thoroughly studied by scientific inves-
tigators, and it will be surprising if the results do not
form a most valuable addition to the material collected
by the European and American societies for psychical
research.-

' A very similar method of divining is practised in the Malay States.
See Svvettenham's Malay Sketches^ pp. 201 -7, and Skeat's Malay
Magic, p. 542.

' The following remarks in Dennys's Folk-lore of Chum (pp. 56
seq}j will be of interest to those who are wise enough to regard this
subject with unorthodox seriousness: "Divination is in China as
popular as, and probably more respectable than, it was amongst the
Israelites in the days of the witch of Endor, and it is not perhaps
going too far to say that there is not a single means resorted to in the
West by waj' of lifting the impenetrable veil which hides the future
from curious mankind which is not known to and practised by the
Chinese. From 'Pinking the Bible' to using the Planchette, from
tossing for odd and even to invoking spirits to actually speak through
crafty media, the whole range of Western superstition in this regard
is as familiar to the average Chinaman as to the most enthusiastic
spiritualist at home. The coincidences of practice and belief are
indeed so startling that many will doubtless see in them a sort of
evidence either for their truthfulness, or for a common origin of evil.
... It is when we come to the consulting of media, the use of a forked
stick, writing on sand, and similar matters that the Chinese practice
becomes singular in its resemblance to superstitions openly avowed at
home. I would here remark that I am no spiritualist. But how,
without any apparent connection with each other, such beliefs should
at once be found in full force in the farthest East and the extreme
West is puzzling. Is our Western spiritualism derived from China ?"
It may be added that Japanese "occultism " — to use a disagreeable but
useful word — is very similar to Chinese, and offers equally striking
analogies with that of Europe. (See Percival Lowell's Occult
Japan.)

176 VILLAGE CUSTOMS, FESTIVALS, FOLK-LORE

Witches and mediums in Weihaiwei are often applied
to for remedies in cases of bodily sickness, for it is
supposed that what such persons do not know about
herbs and drugs is not worth knowing ; and the fact
that they are able to throw a little magic into their
brews naturally makes their concoctions much more
valuable than those provided by ordinary doctors.
Chinese medicines, as every one knows, often consist
of highly disagreeable ingredients,^ but some — even
when compounded by witches and other uncanny
healers — are comparatively harmless. Certain methods
of treatment for the bite of a mad dog may perhaps
be cited as t3^pical products of the combined arts of
medicine and witchcraft in Weihaiwei. The simplest
method is to boil the mad dog's liver, heart and lungs,
and make the patient eat them. Another is to make
a number of little wheat-cakes, moulded into a dog's
shape, and administer them to the patient one by one.
As he consumes them he should sit at the front door
of his house and repeatedly utter in a loud and deter-
mined voice the words, " I am not going to die ; I am
not going to die." This procedure is evidently a
curious blend of something like sympathetic magic
and cure by self-suggestion. Have the Chinese anti-
cipated the methods of the well-meaning persons who
call themselves Christian Scientists ? A third way of
providing against hydrophobia is to take some of the
hairs of the mad dog and burn them to ashes ; the
ashes are then mixed in a cup of rice-wine and imbibed
by the patient. The idea that the hair of a mad dog
will cure the person who has had the misfortune to
be bitten must be very widespread, for it existed in

' It is not so well known that almost equally disgusting medicines
used to be prescribed in England. One writer saj^s of some old
Lincolnshire remedies for ague that they "were so horribly hlthy that
I am inclined to think most people must have preferred the ague, or
the race could hardly have survived." One of these remedies consisted
of nine worms taken from a churchyard sod and chopped up small.
(See Cou7ity Folk-lofe, vol. v, p. 117. J

TREATMENT OF HYDROPHOBIA 177

the British Isles and there is a reference to it in the
Scandinavian Edda.^

Those who are famiHar with the mazes of folk-lore
will not be surprised to hear that the madness of a
person who suffers from hydrophobia is supposed by
many people in Weihaiwei to communicate itself to
the very clothes he wears. " If the clothes are put
aside in a heap," said one of my informants, "they
will be seen to quiver and tremble, and sometimes
they will leap about as if alive." Being a truthful
man, he added, " I have never actually seen this
happen myself." In the market-village of Feng-lin
there is a man of some local celebrity who is said to
have effected many remarkable cures of hydrophobia
by means of a recipe which he jealously guards as a
family secret.

If his prescription cannot be given here, another
(supposed to be equally efficacious) may take its
place. Cut the tips off a couple of chopsticks (the
Oriental substitute for knife and fork), pound them
into a pulp and stew them for an hour ; add an
ounce of hempen-fibre, burnt almost to ashes, and
some morsels of the herb known as cWiug-fcug-t^eng.
The chopsticks must be of wood, painted red, and
they must be old ones that have been often used.
The tips consist of the thin ends employed in pick-
ing up food. The whole mixture should be well
mixed together and boiled in water, and administered
to the patient as a liquid drug. The prescription
adds that while undergoing this treatment the patient
should beware of yielding himself to feelings of ner-
vousness ; that for three days he must shun cold or
uncooked food ; and that owing to the singular efficacy
of this medicine, he need not avoid crossing rivers.
The mention of the ends of chopsticks as an ingredient
in this preparation seems curious, and specially note-
worthy is the fact that the medicinal virtue resides

* Tylor, Pri?nitive Culture (4th ed.), vol. i. p. 84. On tliis subject
see also Dennys's Folk-lore of China, pp. 51-2.

12

178 VILLAGE CUSTOMS, FESTIVALS, FOLK-LORE

onl}^ in old chopsticks, not in new ones. As this
ingredient appears in other Chinese medicines besides
those intended for the cure of hydrophobia, it may
be conjectured that some health-giving quality is
supposed to pass into the tips of chopsticks from
the food which they manipulate, and that this quality
can be transferred from the chopsticks to a living
person by the simple process of conveying them in
a minced form into his physical system. The red
colour is merely intended to improve their efficacy,
for red is the hue of health and good luck. The
reference to crossing rivers is also worthy of notice.
The theory of the Chinese in Weihaiwei is that the
man who has been bitten by a rabid dog is liable to
be seized by paroxysms of madness if he crosses
flowing water. The word hydrophobia (dread of
water) is thus as applicable to the popular conception
of the disease in China as in Europe, though the belief
that the human patient or the mad dog will refuse
water as a beverage does not seem to be known in
Weihaiwei.

The lives of the Weihaiwei villagers are brightened
and diversified by a good number of festivals and
holidays. Most of these are observed all over China,
others are of local importance, while some of the
customs and ceremonies now to be described are
observed only in certain villages. The universal
holiday-season in China consists of course of the first
few days of the New Year, which falls about a month
— more or less— later than the corresponding festival
in the West. After the hour of zvu keng (3 a.m.) on
the first day of the year, torches are lighted and
certain religious or semi-religious observances take
place, consisting of the worship of Heaven and Earth
{T'ien Ti), the Hearth-god and the Ancestors of the
family, and the ceremonial salutation of father and
mother by their children, and of uncles and aunts
and elder brothers by their respective nephews and
younger brothers. Fire crackers are let off at intervals

NEW YEAR FESTIVAL 179

during the morning and tliroughout the day, and from
dawn onwards visits of ceremony are exchanged be-
tween relations and neighbours. The Ancestral Temple
is also visited, and incense burned before the spirit-
tablets and the pedigree-scrolls, which are unrolled
only on solemn occasions. In conversation all re-
ference to unhappy or unlucky subjects is tabooed,
as likely to bring misfortune on the family in whose
house such remarks are made.'

On going out of doors for the first time care should
be taken to choose a " lucky " spot for the first foot-
step. If a person slip or fall when going out to pay
ceremonial visits on New Year's Day, it is believed
that he will bring disaster on his own family as well
as on the families visited. For the first three days of
the year the floors of the house are left unswept. The
idea at the root of this custom apparently is that
anything thrown or swept out of the house will take
the " good luck " of the house with it ; even dirty
water and the refuse of food must remain indoors
until the critical three days are past. New Year
is the season of new clothes, and red is, of course,
the colour chiefly displayed. Special care is taken
to dress the children in the best and most brightl}^-
coloured garments obtainable, as evil spirits hate the
sight of such things, and will remain at a respectful
distance. At the eaves of the roof are often hung
hemp-stalks, which are said to bring perpetual
advancement and long life.- The observation of the
skies on New Year's Day is a matter of importance.
If the wind blows from the south-east the next harvest
will be a splendid one. If the clouds are tinged with
red and yellow it will be moderately good ; if they are
dark and gloomy it will be very poor.

' " If the first person who enters a house on New Year's morning
brings bad news, it is a sign of ill-luck for the whole of the year." —
County Folk-lore : Lincolnshire, p. 168.

* The knots or joints of the hemp-stalk are supposed to represent
successive stages of advancement.

I So VILLAGE CUSTOMS, FESTIVAl^, FOLK-LORE

"The Beginning of Spring" or Li ChHm is a
movable feast, falling usually in the first moon. The
ceremonies observed have reference to agriculture, and
though they are chiefly official in character they are
considered of great importance to the farming public.
Ages ago the essential part of the proceedings was
the slaughter of an ox, which was offered as a sacrifice
to the god of Agriculture — generally identified with
the legendary Emperor Shen Nung (b.c. 2838).
Nowadays the place of the ox is taken by a cheaper
substitute. On the eve of Li Ch'iin the local magistrate
and his attendants go in procession to the eastern
suburbs of the city for the purpose of ceremonially
*' meeting the Spring." ^ Theatrical performers, singing
as they go, and musicians with cymbals and flutes,
follow the sedan-chairs of the officials, and after them
are carried the Spring Ox - — not a real animal, but
a great effigy made of stiff" paper — and a similar paper
image of a man, known as Mang-Shcii^ who represents
either the typical ox-driver or ploughman or the god
of Agriculture.^ When the procession has " met the
Spring" outside the city walls it returns to the
magisterial yamen, and there the magistrate and his
principal colleagues, armed with wands decorated

• Yi/tg ch^un. The ceremonies differ from place to place in minor
details. Tiiose here described are observed (with variations) at the
district cities nearest to Weihaivvei — namely VVcn-teng, Jung ch'eng
and Ning-hai.

^ Ch^u?i Niu.

' In Shanghai, and probably elsewhere, a real ox is still sometimes
used, and he is led by a real child (T'at Stii) instead of a cardboard
Mang-Shen. See the Rev. A. Box's " Shanghai Folk-lore " in \.\\g Journal
of the Royal Asiatic Society (China Branch), vol. xxxiv. (i 901-2)
pp. 1 16-7, and vol. xxxvi. (1905) pp. 136-7. Needless to say, no blood
is shed nowadays, though it seems not unlikely that at one time a
livuig child and a living ox were both offered np in sacrifice to promote
the fertility of the crops. In Northumberland, England, it is or used
to be a custom to hold rustic masquerades at the New Year, tiie
players being clothed in the hides of o.ve?i (see County Folk-lore,
vol. iv.). It would be interesting to know whether the Northumbrian
custom was originally a ceremony to promote fertility.

SPRING FESTIVITIES i8i

with strips of coloured paper, go through the form
of prodding and beating the ox by way of " making
him work " and giving an official impetus to agri-
cultural labour. When this ceremony is over the
paper ox is solemnly " sacrificed" — that is, he is com-
mitted to the flames ; and a similar fate befalls the
Ma)ig-Shen. Besides the paper ox, a miniature ox
made of clay is also supposed to be provided. The
clay ox, so far as I can ascertain, dates from
a remote period when it was considered necessary
that the ox-effigy which was carried in procession and
sacrificed should for symbolical reasons be made of
earth or clay. When paper was substituted, con-
servatism demanded that oxen of clay should continue
to be made as before — for show if not for use.^

While the images of the ox and Maug-Sheu are
being prepared for the approaching festival, a careful
examination under official direction is made of the
newly-issued New Year's Almanac — the Chinese Zad-
kiel ; and the effigies are dressed up and decorated in
accordance with the prophecies and warnings of that
publication. Hence the crowds of people who go out
to watch the procession on its way to meet the Spring
do so not only as a holiday diversion but also for the
purpose of inspecting the colours and trappings of
the effigies and thereby informing themselves of agri-
cultural prospects for the ensuing year. The prog-
nostications are founded partly on astrology, partly
on the pa kita or mystic diagrams of the / Cliing
(Book of Changes), and partly on calculations con-
nected with fcng-shiii. The colours and apparel of the
effigies correspond on an arbitrary system with the
forecasts of the Almanac. Thus if the people see
that the head of the ox is painted yellow, they know
that great heat is foretold for the coming summer ; if
it is green, there will be much sickness in the spring;
if red, there will be a drought ; if black, there will be

' Probably the Spring Ox is still, in some parts of China, made of
clay only, not of paper.

i82 VILLAGE CUSTOMS, FESTIVALS, FOLK-LORE

much rain; if white, there will be high winds and
storms. The Maiig-Shai, also, is a silent prophet of
the seasons. If he wears a hat the year will be dry ;
if he wears no hat there will be rain ; shoes, similarl}^
indicate very heavy rain ; absence of shoes, drought ;
abundance of body-clothing, great heat ; lightness of
clothing, cold weather. Finally, a red belt on the
Mayig-SIicn indicates much sickness and many deaths ;
a white one, general good health.

It will be noticed that the MaHg-S/ien, being a spirit,
behaves in a precisely contrary manner to ordinary
mankind, and his garments indicate exactly the oppo-
site of what they would indicate if they were worn
by a living man. Thus he wears heavy clothes in hot
weather, light ones in cold weather; and as red is
among men the colour that denotes joy and prosperity
and white betokens grief and mourning, so the Mang-
Shen wears red to indicate death and white to indicate
life and health. Thus it is that naughty children who
take delight in doing the opposite of what they are
told to do are sometimes by their long-suffering parents
called " little Mang-Shen " or " Pai Sui."

The Lantern Festival ^ is assigned to the fifteenth
day of the first month. As the Chinese year is strictly
determined by lunations, this means of course that
the festival occurs at the time of the first full moon
of the year. Coloured-paper lanterns are hung at the
doors of houses and shops and are also carried in
procession. Above the doors of the houses are often
hung fir-branches, betokening prosperity and especi-
ally longevity.- The family eat little round cakes of
glutinous rice which, being supposed to represent the

' Shang Yiian Cht'cJi, Feast of the First Full Moon.

■^ Cf. pp. 262 seq. From Gibbon's Decline and Fall (vol. i. p. 344) we
know that long after the establishment of Christianity there was kept
up, in Europe, a pagan festival at which it was customary to decorate
the doors of houses with branches of laurel and to hang out lanterns.
The doors of Roman houses were regarded as being under the special
protection of the household gods.

FIRST-FULL-MOON STILT- WALKERS (see p. 183).

f/-

m

'\

-n^ I' " ^*

" WALKING BOATS " AT THE F IKST-I L'LL-MOON FESTIVAL (sCC p. 1S4).
p. 182]

THE LANTERN FESTIVAL 183

fall moon/' may be called moon-cakes. There is no
doubt that in remote times the fifteenth of the first
and the fifteenth of the eighth months were devoted to
moon-worship. A curious custom observed at the
Lantern Festival is called the fsoit pai piug — "the
expulsion of disease." In some localities this merely
consists in a procession of villagers across the neigh-
bouring bridges, the procession returning home by a
route other than that by which they set out. The
popular notion obviously is that sickness is caused
by invisible beings of a malignant nature who on the
occasion of this festival can be driven across the local
streams and so expelled from the village.^ In other
localities the expulsion of disease is on this occasion
performed only by women, who do not necessarily
cross bridges but simply walk out into the fields and
back by a different route. Male villagers perform a
similar ceremony on the ninth of the ninth month.

So far as Weihaiwei is concerned the Feast of
Lanterns may be regarded as pre-eminently the holi-
day season for children. During several days before
and after the fifteenth of the first, month bands of
young village boys dress up in strange garments and
go about by day and night acting queer little plays,
partly in dumb-show and partly in speech, dance and
song. Some of them wear the terrifying masks of wild
beasts, such as lions, a few assume the white beards
of old men, and many are attired in girls' clothing.
The children perform their parts with great vivacity,

' Yilan hsiao.

* For some interesting notes on the bridge-walking customs, see
Rev. E. Box's " Shanghai Folk-lore," in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic
Society {Chin?i Branch), vol. xxxvi. (1905) pp. 133-4. These practices
are not confined to China. In Korea, on the fourteenth and fifteenth
of the first month the men and boys of Seoul walk over three particular
bridges in succession, in order to safeguard themselves from pains
in the legs and feet throughout the ensuing year. (See article by
T. Walters in Folk-lore, March 1895.) For the beliefs of many races
on the subject of the expulsion of evils in general, see Frazer's Golden
Bough (2nd ed.), vol. iii. pp. 39 seq., 70 seq.

i84 VILLAGE CUSTOMS, FESTIVALS, FOLK-LORE

and go through their masquerades, dances and chorus-
singing in a manner that would do credit to the
juvenile performers at a provincial English pantomime.
They are, indeed, taught their parts and trained by
their elders for some weeks before the festival. Ev^ery
group of villages keeps a stock of masks, false beards,
clothes and other " properties," and there are always
adults who take pleasure in teaching the little ones
the songs and dances which they themselves learned
as children in bygone days. In daytime the dressed-
up children take a prominent part in processions to
the local temples. On such occasions many of them
are perched on high stilts, which they manage with
great skill. At night they carry large lighted Chinese
lanterns and march amid music and song through the
streets of their native village, or from one village to
another, stopping occasionally in front of a prominent
villager's house to act their little play or perform a
lantern-dance.^

No European who has seen a lantern-dance in a
Shantung village can fail to be delighted. The graceful
movements of the children, their young voices ringing
clear in the frosty air, the astonishing dexterity with
which they manipulate the swinging lanterns, the
weird effect of rapidly-interchanging light and shadow
as the gleaming paper moons thread the bewildering
mazes of a complicated country-dance, — all these things
combine to please the eye and charm the ear. Not
the least interesting part of the proceedings is the
obvious pleasure taken by the crowds of adult
spectators in the performances of their little ones :
for the Chinese are devoted to children.

The next notable festival of the year is a movable
feast known as the "Awakening of the Torpid In-
sects," generally held early in the second month. In

' This may be compared with the Scottish customs in connection
with the guisers or guisards. In Shetland a torchlight procession
sometimes formed part of the revelry. (See Folk-lore, vol. iii. [Orkney

and Shetland], pp. 203 seq)

MASOUERADERS AT FESTIVAL OF FIRST FULL MOON.

GROUP OF VILLAGERS WATCHING FIRST- FULL-MOON WASQUERADERS.

p. 184]

THE FESTIVAL OF COLD FOOD 1S5

many villages it is customary to rise before dawn and
cook a kind of dumpling, which as it " rises " is sup-
posed to assist Nature in her work of awakening the
sluggish or dormant vitality of animals and of vegeta-
tion. The presiding deity of this festival is, naturally
enough, the Sun, and it is to him that the dumplings
are offered. Similar offerings are made by the Em-
peror himself in his capacity of High Priest. It is
believed that if on the evening of this day children
wash their faces in a kind of soup made from a certain
shrub (Lycium chinenscY they will never be ill and
never grow old. This reminds us of the old English
belief that young people will preserve their youthful
beauty indefinitely by going into the fields before
breakfast on the first of May and washing their faces
in May dew.-

On the eighth of the second month it is thought
that by observing the direction of the wind it is
possible to foretell whether the ensuing weather will
be favourable or otherwise to the crops. If the wind
comes from the south-east there v/ill be a good rainfall ;
if it comes from the north-west there will be a drought.

The fifteenth of the second month is known as Hiia
CJiao, " the morning of flowers," — for it is supposed
to be the flowers' birthday.^

The festival of Cold Food {Han ShiJi) — so called
because it was once customary to partake of no hot
provisions on this day and to light no fire — occurs
on the eve of the Ch'ing-Ming festival. The Chinese
in Weihaiwei have no clear idea why cold food was

' For remarks on the supposed remarkable properties of this shrub,
see De Groot's Religious System of China, vol. iv. p. 320.

* See County Folk-lore, vol. iv. (Northumberland) p. 73.

* In different parts of the Empire the date is variously assigned to
the second, tenth, twelfth and fifteenth of the month. For Shanghai
customs in connection with this festival, see Rev. A. Box, Journal of
the R.A.S. (China), vol. xxxiv. p. 117 and vol. xxxvi. pp. 137-8. In
that part of China "the women and children adorn the flowering shrubs
with paper rosettes, and recite verses and prostrate themselves in token
of respect and in hope of a fruitful season."

i86 VILLAGE CUSTOiMS, FESTIVALS, FOLK-LORE

compulsory on this occasion, but the custom is un-
doubtedly connected with the ancient rite, once
prevalent in many parts of the world, of kindling
" new fire " once a year. The Chinese Han Shili would
thus represent an intervening day between the extinc-
tion of the old fire and the lighting of the new. The
custom seems to be connected with sun-worship.
" The solar rite of the New Fire," says Dr. Tylor,
" adopted by the Roman Church as a paschal cere-
mony, may still be witnessed in Europe, with its
solemn curfew on Easter Eve and the ceremonial
striking of the new holy fire." ' Another writer
observes that '* formerly throughout England the
house-fires were allowed to go out on Easter Sunday,
after which the chimney and fireplace were completely
cleaned and the fire once more lighted."^ It is curious
to note that similar observances took place even on
the American continent. " In Peru, as in Mexico,"
says a writer on the religious systems of ancient
America,^ " there was a solemn religious ceremony
of renewing at stated periods, by special generation,
the fire used in the temples and even in the house-
holds. ... It is one of the oldest rites of the human
race, and it has survived under all religions alike
down to the other day, when perhaps it received its
death-blow from the lucifer match."

The Ch'ing-Ming or " Pure and Bright " festival
is as carefully observed at Weihaiwei as elsewhere
throughout China. It is a movable feast generally
occurring early in the third Chinese month.* Edible
delicacies of various kinds are diligently prepared
in every household and taken to the family graveyard

' Tylor's Primitive Culture (4th ed.), vol. ii. pp. 277-8, 290 seq., 297
seq., and p. 432. See also Frazer's Golden Bough (2nd ed.), vol. iii.
p. 251.

* Gomme's Folk-lore Relics of Early Village Life, p. 97.

' J. M. Robertson in Religious Systems of the IVorld {8th ed.),p, 369.

* In 1910 it falls on April 6, which is the 27th of the second Chinese
month.

ANCESTOR-WORSHIP 187

to be sacrificially offered to the ancestral spirits. At
this season, and at the corresponding festival held
on the first day of the tenth month, all the members
of the family who can attend prostrate themselves on
the ground in front of their ancestors' graves.^ These
observances are known as slia}ig fen — " going up to
the tombs." '^ This is one of the occasions on which
family reunions take place. It is a holiday season
and there is plenty of jollity and feasting; but the
sacrifices and the " sweeping of tombs" are regarded
as sacred duties, the omission of which through
negligence would show a discreditable lack of filial
piety and might entail misfortune on the present and
future generations of the family. The virtues of
obedience and submission to authority are also em-
phasised at this season in the village schools, v/here
the pupils formally salute their teachers. An old
custom sometimes observed at this time is the wearing
of willow-leaves on the head. This is supposed to
produce good weather for agriculture. This practice is
not so common in Weihaiwei as in Shansi and some
parts of Chihli and Honan, where in seasons of
drought — only too common in those parts — men and
boys go about for many days wearing on their heads
wreaths made of fresh willow-branches. The willow
is a tree that loves water and the banks of rivers,
and willow-wreaths are therefore regarded as rain-
charms.^

In the third month comes the festival of Corn-rain
{Kii Yi'i). This is the appropriate time for obtaining
written charms as antidotes against snakes and grubs
and venomous or destructive reptiles and insects in
general.

The so-called Dragon Festival ^ is held on the fifth
day of the fifth month. This is the occasion on which

' See illustration. * See p 257.

' Instances of similar rain-charms may be found in Frazer's Golden
Bough (2nd ed.), vol. i. pp. 188-9.
* Tuan Wu or Tuan Va?ig.

i88 VILLAGE CUSTOMS, FESTIVALS, FOLK-LORE

the well-known dragon-boat races take place at Canton
and elsewhere in south China. According to tradition,
the festival was inaugurated in memory of a high-
minded statesman and poet named Ch'ii Yuan of the
Ch'u State (south of the Yangtse) who was driven to
commit suicide in the fourth century b.c. It is with
the simulated object of recovering his body that tiie
dragon-boats — so named from their length and peculiar
shape — annually dash through the waters of the
southern rivers. But there are no boat-races of this
kind at Weihaiwei. Little cakes called tsiuior-tzn —
made of rice or millet with a morsel of fruit or
sweetmeat inside — are eaten by the people ; but there
seems to be no local knowledge of the fact that these
cakes were originally intended as sacrifices to Ch'u
Yuan and ought to be thrown into flowing water as
offerings to his spirit.

The fifth month is regarded as the most *' poisonous "
of all the months in the year, and antidotes and charms
of all kinds are necessary to repel the deadly influences
that assail suffering humanity at this period. Children
are protected from the many dangers that surround
them by tying bands of parti-coloured silk threads
round their fore-arms. Among the most efficacious
family-charms is the mugwort plant {Artemisia nioxa),
which is hung over every doorway. Prof, Giles cites
an old saying to the effect that " if on the Tiian JVu
festival one does not hang up mugwort, one will not
eat any new wheat " ; and explains it by the comment
that a famous rebel named Huang Ch'ao gave orders
to his soldiers to spare any family that exhibited this
plant at its door. But the superstitious use of mug-
wort is far more ancient than an}^ such story would
imply. Its extreme antiquity is shown by the fact
that this plant has been similarly used as a valued
charm against evil in other parts of the world,
including France, Germany and Britain,' The custom

' See Frazer's Golden Bough (2nd ed.), vol. iii. pp. 268, 270, 274 and
especially pp. 337-8, See also Folk-lore Journal, vol. iii. p, 148.

CHARMS AND MEDICINAL HERBS 189

in such lands was to pluck the plant at the summer
solstice (Midsummer Day) and to wear it on the person
or (as in China) to hang it over the doorway. This
is only one of innumerable examples of the strange
unity that seems to underlie old popular customs and
superstitions all the world over.

In spite of the terrible potency of the evil things
rampant during the fifth month, it is supposed in
Weihaiwei that from sunrise to sunset on the fifth
of the month (the festival we are now considering)
all poisonous and destructive influences — material and
spiritual — totally disappear, perhaps owing to the
efficacy of the charms universally used against them
on that day. It is believed that even poisonous plants
are absolutely innocuous if plucked and eaten on the
fifth of the fifth moon, while medicinal herbs attain
their supreme degree of efficacy.

A well-known custom is to rise early and walk

exactly one hundred paces into a grass-field without

turning the head ; then to pluck one hundred blades

of grass, which must be carefully taken home. The

grass is put into a pot of water and thoroughly boiled.

The water — into which all the virtues of the grass

are now supposed to have passed — is poured through

a strainer into a second vessel, and the grass-blades

are thrown away. A second boiling now takes place,

and the liquid is poured into a bottle and kept for

use as required. It is believed to be a sovereign

remedy for headaches, small wounds and bruises, and

various nervous disorders. The Chinese know it as

pai ts'ao kao—^' hundred-grass lotion." The wise men

who hand down this valuable recipe from generation

to generation are careful to explain that the medicine

will be of no avail whatever if any of the prescribed

conditions have been neglected. It is absolutely

necessary to walk neither more nor less than one

hundred paces, to pluck neither more nor less than

one hundred blades of grass, and to boil and strain

the water in the manner laid down. Above all, every-

I90 VILLAGE CUSTOMS, FESTIVALS, FOLK-LORE

thing must be done on the fifth day of the fifth month,
as it is onl}'' on that day that ordinary grass possesses
ling — spiritual or health-giving properties!

The seventh day of the seventh month is celebrated
throughout China in connection with a love-story to
which allusion is constantly made in Chinese litera-
ture. It is said that the Herd-bo}^ (the star yQy
Aquila) and the Spinning Maiden (a Lyra), separated
throughout the rest of the year by the Milky Wa3^,
are allowed to cross a mystic bridge made by magpies,
and to meet and embrace each other on that night
only. In Weihaiwei, where there are large numbers of
magpies, it is said that not one of these birds will ever
be seen on this day until after the hour of noon : all
having gone up to the skies to perform the duty of
making a bridge for the celestial lovers. The day
is regarded as one of good omen and suitable for
fortune-telling and the drawing of lots.

On the preceding evening (the sixth of the month)
boys and girls put bowls of water on the window-sill
and leave them standing all night. In the morning
each child picks a bristle from an ordinary broom ' and
places it carefully on the surface of the water. The
shadow made in the water by the bristle is supposed
to indicate the child's future lot in life. If, for instance,
the shadow seems to take the shape of a Chinese
brush-pen, the boy will become a great scholar ; if it
is shaped like a plough he will remain in the condition
of a peasant or farmer. I have been told of a child
who saw in the water the form of a fish. This was
interpreted to be a niii yil or the " wooden fish " of
Buddhist temples — a queer hollow instrument of wood
that lies on every Buddhist altar in China and is
tapped by the monks while reciting their pra3^ers.
The wise men of the neighbourhood foretold, there-

' There is supposed to be some magic efficacy attached to brooms,
and evil spirits are believed to have a special dread of them. In
Europe, as every one knows, a witch must have her broomstick just as
she must have her black cat.

SUMMER AND AUTUMN FESTIVALS T91

fore, that the boy was destined to become a monk.
The prophecy was a true one, for subsequently of
his own accord he entered " the homeless state."

Another children's amusement on this occasion is
to catch a spider and put it under an inverted bowl.
If, when the bowl is turned up, the spider is found
to have spun a web, the child and his parents are
overjoyed : for it is supposed that good fortune will
adhere to him throughout the ensuing year just as
a captured fly adheres to a spider's web.

On the fifteenth of the seventh month sacrifices
are again offered to the dead. This is a " Festival
of Souls." 1

On the first of the eighth month it is customary to
collect some dew and use it for moistening a little
ink." This ink is devoted to the purpose of making
little dots or marks on children's foreheads, and this,
it is supposed, will preserve them from sickness.

On the mid-autumn festival ^ of the fifteenth of the
eighth month reverence is paid to the ruler of the
night. Offerings of cake, wine and fruit are made to
the full moon and then consumed by the worshippers.*
The occasion is one of family gatherings and festal
mirth.

On the Ch'ung Yang festival of the ninth day of
the ninth month it used to be the custom in many
parts of China to eat specially-prepared flour-cakes
called kao'" and to drink wine made of the chry-

' Kuei Cliie/i.

- The so-called Indian ink ordinarily used by Chinese.

' The ordinary Chinese name is Chmig Yuan, a reference being
understood to the Shanjr Yuan, or the fifteenth of the first month, and
the Hsia Yilan or the fifteenth of the tenth.

* Cf. the offerings to Ashtoreth the Moon-goddess of the Hittites.
For mention of similar offerings in England itself, see Dennys's Folk-
lore of China, p. 28.

" There is a play on this Chinese word, which has the same sound
as a different character meaning fo go up or to receive protnotion. He
who eats the cake is supposed to be securing his own advancement
in life. There is a similar double-meaning in the phrase feng kao.

192 VILLAGE CUSTOMS, FESTIVALS, FOLK-LORE

santhemum. The cakes are still made and eaten in
Weihaiwei, but the chrysanthemum wine appears to
be obsolete.' On this day it is customary for young
men (especially those of the lettered classes) to climb
to the top (fi'iin^ kao) of one of the hills of their
neighbourhood. The advantages are two in number :
it will lead to the promotion of those who are engaged
in climbing the steep slopes of an official career, and
it will free them for the ensuing year from all danger
of sickness. This is equivalent to the tsou pal ping
of the women on the fifteenth of the first month.

On the first day of the tenth month the family
tombs are visited, and the same ceremonies observed
as at the Ch'ing-Ming festival. This is one of the
three days in the year that are regarded as specially
sacred to the souls of the departed {Knci Cliicli or
Festivals of Souls or Spirits) : the Ch'ing-Ming (mov-
able) in or about the third month, and the fixed
festivals of the fifteenth of the seventh and the first
of the tenth months. Similarly there are three fes-
tivals specially provided for the living {Jen Chieh or
Festivals of Men), and these are marked by feasting
and merriment ; they are the New Year festival, the
fifth of the fifth and the fifteenth of the eighth months.
The former list does not, however, exhaust the oc-
casions on which reverence is paid to ancestors.
At the winter solstice,'^ for instance, ancestral sacri-
fices are offered in the family temples ; and at the
New Year, as we have seen, the living do not forget,
in the midst of their own pleasures, the sacred duties
owed to the souls of the dead.

On the eighth of the twelfth month it is customary
for matrons to regale their families with a concoction
made of grain, vegetables and water called La-pa-chou,
which means " gruel for the eighth of the sacrificial
month." Children are made to partake of an un-

'■ ' For remarks on the ancient custom of drinking this wine, see De
Groot, Religious Systc7>t of C/iitia, vol. iv. p. 322.
^ See p. 277.

THE HEARTH-GOD 193

savoury cake made of buckwheat, hare's blood, sul-
phur, cinnabar and tea-leaves. This, it is believed,
will protect young people from smallpox — a some-
what prevalent disease among the native children of
Weihaiwei.

In the evening of the twenty-third of the twelfth
month an important family ceremony takes place known
as tz*u tsao or siuig tsao — " Taking farewell of the
Hearth-god." The hearth-god or kitchen-god {tsao sJien)
is a Taoist divinity who is supposed to dwell near the
kitchen fireplace of every family,' and whose business
it is to watch the doings of every member of the
family from day to day with a view to reporting them
in detail at the close of the year to the Taoist Supreme
Deity. In order to make his annual report he is sup-
posed to leave the kitchen on the twenty-third of the
last month of the year, and ascend to heaven. Before
he goes, obeisance is made to him by the family, and
he is presented with small round sugared cakes called
i*ang kua and lumps of no nii^ a glutinous rice. The
object of providing the god with these dainties is to
make his lips stick together so that he will be unable
to open his mouth and make his report. The family
is thus saved from any inconvenient results arising
from an enumeration of its misdeeds. Needless to
say, the matter is not regarded very seriously in most
households, and the ceremonies are chiefly kept up
as a source of amusement for children, who receive
their full share of the sticky cakes. After a sojourn
of a week in heaven the hearth-god returns to his own
fireside on New Year's Eve.

On the twenty-fourth of the month every house is
thoroughly swept out in preparation for the New

' There is some reason to believe that the Hearth-god was once
regarded as an anonymous ancestor of the family, though nowadays
this relationship is ignored. The Chinese Tsao shcn may be compared
with the Japanese Kojin. For some valuable notes on Hearth-worship
in general, see Gomme's Folk-lore Relics of Early Village Life,
pp. Zyseq. The cult of a hearth-god has been known in western
Europe and also in New Zealand.

13

194 VILLAGE CUSTOMS, FESTIVALS, FOLK-LORE

Year's festivities. The object of this ceremony is not
merely the practical and necessary one of cleanliness :
the sweeping process will, it is believed, rid the house
of all malign influences that may have collected there
during the past year, and thereby render it fit for
the reception of every kind of joy and good luck.
This is an auspicious day for the celebration of
marriages.

New Year's Eve {Ch^u Jisi) marks the beginning of
the Chinese holiday season, and is a day of mirth and
feasting. In many families it is the custom to sit
up all night ; the phrase shou sin has practically the
same signification as our " seeing the Old Year out
and the New Year in." In the evening, new red
scrolls, such as adorn the outside and inside of nearly
every Chinese house, are pasted over the old ones that
have now become faded or illegible. The brilliant
colour of these scrolls and the felicitous phrases,
virtuous maxims and wise literary allusions with
which they abound are regarded by the common
people (who can rarely read them) as equivalent to
powerful charms that will bring happiness and good
fortune to all who dwell beneath the shadow of their
influence. Fire-crackers, the delight of old and young
in China, are let off* at every door-step, helping at
each explosion to dissipate any traces of bad luck
that may be lingering in the neighbourhood and to
frighten away the last malignant spirit who might
otherwise mar the happiness of the New Year.

CHAPTER IX

THE WOMEN OF WEIHAIWEI

The reader who has already learned from an earlier
chapter of this book how frequently women figure in
the law-courts, will perhaps be prepared for a not
too flattering description of Chinese womankind as
represented in the leased Territory. If the litigious
and quarrelsome females were typical specimens of
their sex it would indeed be difficult to utter a word
of truthful praise for the women of Weihaiwei. But
it is only fair to remember that it is just the turbulent
and masterful females that chiefly come within a
British magistrate's range of experience. Chaste and
filial daughters, gentle and companionable wives,
brave and devoted mothers, bring happiness to mul-
titudes of cottage homes and are to be found in every
village; but they seldom come under the official
notice of the authorities.

Women in Weihaiwei are, indeed, ignorant of
nearly everything that is generally implied by edu-
cation ; they are handicapped from childhood by
the thoroughly bad old custom of foot-binding ; they
know nothing of the world beyond the limits of
their own group of villages : yet the lives they lead
are probably, as a rule, happy, honourable and use-
ful. The Chinese suppose that a woman's proper
sphere is the management of the household affairs
and the upbringing of her children : and Chinese

'95

196 THE WOMEN OF WEIHAIWEI

women seem as a rule to acquiesce willingly and
cheerfully in their lot as thus defined.

The woman's position as wife and mother is a highly
honourable one : filial piety — the cardinal Chinese
virtue — is owed to the mother as much as to the
father, and the usual sacrificial rites are conducted
in honour of the maternal as well as the paternal
ancestors of the family. From prehistoric times the
dignity of the mother has been regarded in China
as hardly inferior to that of the father/ subject of
course to the father's headship of the family. It
would be a great mistake to suppose that Chinese
women are brutally or tyrannically treated by their
husbands. That cases of ill-treatment of women are
sometimes met with is undoubted, but as a rule the
tyrant is not the husband but some female member
of the husband's family. Mothers-in-law are the
domestic tyrants of rural China. Besides treating
the wife with severity they often place the husband
in a most unhappy dilemma.

If he wishes, as he often does, to protect his wife
from the elder lady's violence or bad temper he runs
the risk of being denounced to the neighbours — and
perhaps to the local magistrate — as an unfilial son ; if
he weakly and reluctantly takes his mother's side in a
domestic disagreement, or if — as is much more fre-
quently the case — he pretends to shut his eyes alto-
gether to the quarrels of his women-folk, the wife of
his bosom may in a moment of anger or despair run
away from him or commit suicide. The only source
of comfort to a young wife who is unfortunate enough
to displease her husband's mother is that some day,
in the course of nature, she herself will be in the proud
position of a mother-in-law. If she is of a cantanker-
ous or tyrannical disposition, or if her temper has
been soured by her own domestic troubles, she will
then doubtless treat her son's wife with just as little
kindness as she received in her own early days of

* Just the same was the theory of the old Sumerian law.

VILLAGE SHREWS 197

wifenood, and her daughter-in-law will fear and dislike
her just as she herself feared and disliked her own
husband's mother. Fortunately there are good and
benevolent mothers-in-law in Weihaiwei as well as
bad ones : and it is only fair to add that it is not
always the wife who is meek and submissive and the
mother-in-law who wields the iron rod. Sometimes a
high-spirited and obstinate young woman will become
absolute ruler of the household — including her husband
and his parents — before she has lived a month in her
new home, though her tenure of authority' will always
be somewhat precarious until she has given birth to
her first son. " Why do you run away from a
woman?" I once asked an unhappy husband whose
domestic troubles had driven him to the courts. " Is
she not your wife, and can you not make her obey
you ? " The young man's features broadened into a
somewhat mirthless smile as he replied, " I am afraid
of her. Eight men out of ten are afraid of their
wives."

Women, indeed, are at the root of a large pro-
portion of the cases heard in the courts. No insig-
nificant part of the dut}^ of a magistrate in Weihaiwei
consists in the taming of village shrews. The number
of such women in China is much larger than might
be supposed by many Europeans, who regard the
average Chinese wife as the patient slave of a
tyrannical master. The fact is that Chinese women,
in spite of their compressed feet and mincing gait,
rule their households quite as effectually as women
do in countries further west, and in the lower classes
they frequently extend the sphere of their masterful
activity to their neighbours' houses as well. The
result is not alwa37s conducive to harmony. " For
ther-as the womman hath the maistrie," wrote one
of the keenest students of human nature many cen-
turies ago, " she maketh to muche desray ; ther neden
none ensamples of this. The experience of day by
day oghte suffyse." This is a statement that multi-

198 THE WOMEN OF WEIHAIWEI

tudes of woebegone husbands in Weihaiwei, were
they readers of Chaucer, would readily endorse.

The abject terror with which an uncompromising
village shrew is regarded by her male relatives and
neighbours frequently creates situations which would
be somewhat ludicrous if they did not contain an
element of pathos. It is only when his women-folk
make life insupportable that an afflicted villager takes
the step of appealing for magisterial intervention : but
the fact that such cases frequently occur seems to
indicate that domestic infelicities of a minor order
must be very common. " Two months ago," wrote a
petitioner, " I bought a piece of land in a neighbour-
ing village, with the intention of building a house
on it. Unfortunately, after the purchase was com-
pleted I made the discovery that my immediate neigh-
bour was the most riotous female in the whole village.
This was a very annoying circumstance to me. How-
ever I proceeded to build my house in a lawful and
unostentatious manner and hoped I should have
no trouble. All went well until one day when the
female issued from her house and proceeded to pull
my new walls to pieces on the plea that they inter-
fered with the good luck {fc}ig-shni) of her own
habitation. I stood by and requested her in the
kindest manner to leave me and my house alone.
She repaid me with the most violent abuse. How
could I venture to hurl myself against the spears of
the enemy ? She is the terror of the whole village
and her husband dares not interfere with her. I am
sorry I ever bought the land, and I had no idea she
was to be my neighbour or I should not have done so.
I bought a charm to protect me against violent females,
and stuck it up on the doorway of my new house, but
it does not seem to have worked very well, and it has
not frightened her at all. Meanwhile my house is
standing in ruins, and I have no remedy unless the
Magistrate, who loves the people as if they were his
children, will come to the rescue,"

DOMESTIC FEUDS 199

This case was settled easily enough. Another bristled
with difficulties owing to the fact that the plaintiff,
in his petition, avoided any mention whatsoever of his
real ground of complaint. " I have fifty mu of land
[about eight acres]. I have two sons, the elder Ta-
chij, the younger Erh-chii. In the second moon of this
year they set up separate establishments^ and entered
upon possession of the ancestral lands. I was at that
time in mourning for my wife, and beyond my yang-
lao-ti^ had no means of support for my old age. After
they had left me, what with the expenses of my wife's
funeral and my own personal requirements I found m}''-
self in debt to the extent of sixty tiao [approximately
equivalent to six pounds sterling]. My two sons
would not pay my debts : on the contrary they drove
me out of my own house and refused to give me food.
I am hungry and in hardship. My elder son, Ta-chii,
at last relented and wanted to do something for me,
but he was knocked down by Erh-chu and is confined
to bed. I have reasoned with Erh-chii about his evil
courses, but every time I do so he only beats me.
The whole village is disgusted with his treatment of
me but dares not interfere. Now I get wet through
when it rains and I have to beg for a living. There is
no rest for me. My lot has fallen in hard places. This
son of mine is no better than a hsiao ching} Is this the
way to preserve the sacred human relationships ?"

In this circumstantial petition no word of complaint
is made against the real offender — the petitioner's
second son's wife, who, as I soon ascertained, was
a shrew of the worst order. To bring the action
nominally against his second son was a clever device
on the part of the petitioner, for no Chinese magistrate
dare — except in almost unheard-of circumstances —
take the word of a son against his own father, and
an unfilial son is one of the worst of criminals. The

' See pp. 149 seq. ' Ibid.

* A bird that pecks at its parent's eyes as goop 39 it i^ fledged and
so is an example of jjnfiJial conducj.

200 THE WOMEN OF WEIHAIWEI

old man presumed, therefore, that the case would be
at once decided in his favour, and that his son would
be imprisoned. His son's wife, the shrew, would
then have been compelled to make reparation for
her former misconduct and undertake to become a
reformed character. When she had done this the
old man would return to the magistrate and obtain
her husband's release. As it happened, the process
was not so circuitous as this, for the woman's mis-
deeds were discovered by the independent action ot
the court, and it was she, not her husband, who was
sent to gaol. She was released as soon as her own
father's family had come forward and entered — very
reluctantly — into a bond to guarantee her future good
conduct.

It must be remembered that as soon as a woman
has left her father's roof and passes under the care
of her husband — or rather of her husband's parents,
if they are still alive — her father's family have no
longer any legal control over her. Her husband's
father and brothers become to all intents and pur-
poses her own father and brothers : and to her father-
in-law she owes the complete obedience that before
marriage she owed to her father. She has in fact
changed her family. Yet if she prove "unfilial" —
that is, disobedient to her husband's family — a magis-
trate may call upon her father's family to go security
for her future good conduct, on the ground that her
unfilial behaviour must be due to her bad bringing-up,
for which her father's family is responsible.

An English historian once pointed out that when
two men sit on the same horse both of them cannot
ride in front at the same time. The reference was to
politics, the intimation being that there cannot be two
co-ordinate controlling powers in the active govern-
ment of the State : but the remark applies equally well
to family life. If Crown and Parliament (or two
separate Houses of Parliament) cannot have co-equal
powers in the body-politic, neither can a man and

CURSE-THE-STREET WOMEN 201

a woman have co-equal powers in the body-domestic :
as there must be a supreme authority in the State,
so there must be a supreme authority in the Family.
Such used to be the theory of Englishmen, and such
is still the theory of the Chinese. They have a proverb
which recalls Gardiner's criticism of Clarendon's con-
stitutional ideal. The Chinese say: "One horse cannot
carry two saddles ; the loyal servant cannot serve
two masters." ^ But though in China the husband is
legall}'- possessed of very extensive powers over his
wife and has every right to administer corporal
punishment if she disobeys him or fails to treat his
parents with proper respect, it is ver}'^ rarely indeed
that one hears of such powers being exercised in
Weihaiwei.' No Chinese husband within my ex-
perience at Weihaiwei has ever been convicted of
wife-beating : whereas the physical castigation of
husbands by wives is by no means unheard of.

The northern Chinese use a curious and highly
appropriate expression to describe a woman of the
shrew type. They call her a ma-chieh-ti or " Curse-
the-street woman." This is the kind of female who
by blows or threats drives her husband out of the
house, follows him into the road, and there — if he
has sought safety in flight — proceeds to pour torrents
of abuse at the top of her voice upon her male and
female neighbours and all and sundry passers-by.
If the village street happens to be entirely empty she
will address her remarks to the papered windows, on
the chance of there being listeners behind them. As a
rule the neighbours will come out to " see the fun."
The abused persons generally refrain from repartee,
and the men — taking care to keep out of reach of

' / ma pu pei shuang an ; Chtmg ch'cn pu shih erh chu,
' In some other parts of the Empire things are apparently verydifferent.
The Rev. J. Macgovvan writes very strongly on the subject in his Side-
lights on Chinese Life, pp. 32 seq. But I cannot believe that " sijcty per
cent, of the husbands throughout the Empire " practise wife-beating
'' habitually " (p. 35).

202 THE WOMEN OF WEIHAIWEI

the nails of the ma-chieh-ti — gaze at her pensively
and with impassive features until her spent voice
fades into a hoarse whisper or physical exhaustion
lays her helpless on the ground. But some quarrel-
some female neighbour — herself no mean mistress of
words — will often delight in advancing to a contest
which is almost sure to end in bleeding faces and
torn clothes. Then husbands and grandfathers are
reluctantly compelled to intervene, and "peace-talkers"
will help to coax the two infuriated combatants into
calmness. If their efforts are unavailing, the result
may be either a suicide or a lawsuit.

Women of this type feel themselves at home in the
courts, and a fit of anger will often send them hobbling
off to the magistrate with some trumpery and usually
false accusation against a relation or a neighbour.
Such was a case brought by one Liu Hsia Shih against
a harmless old man whose real offence was that he
had recommended her to look after her babies instead
of " cursing the street." I despatched a constable to
make enquiries into the matter, and she promptly
handed him the princely sum of one dollar with the
suggestion that he should give me a report favourable
to herself. In accordance with very strict regulations
relating to bribery, the constable paid the money into
court. I summoned the parties to the suit, rebuked
the female for attempted bribery, and in dismissing
her frivolous action adjudged the dollar to her adver-
sary. Probably the fact that he had got her money
was in her view even more exasperating than the
loss of her case.

Very frequently a ma-chieh-ti who brings her
imagined wrongs to court will point to wounds and
scratches on her face and body as evidence that she
has been assaulted : whereas the injuries have been
in all probability self-inflicted. One Liang Wang Shih
brought complaints of ill-treatment against her adopted
grandson and his wife. " They behave in a most cruel
manner/' she said. " He incites her to bite me. She

MARRIAGE CUSTOMS 203

bites my shoulder." She then proceeded partially to
disrobe herself in order that the supposed marks of
her grand-daughter's teeth might be inspected by the
court. Another querulous woman forcibly prevented
a neighbour from putting a wall round his own
vegetable-garden. " I recently built a new house/'
explained her unfortunate neighbour. " This woman's
grandson died soon afterwards, and she declares that
it was my new house that killed him, by spoiling the
/eug-s/i II i of her family. She says she will not let me
build my garden-wall until I restore her grandson to
life. "

The marriage customs of Weihaiwei being in principle
identical with those prevailing in other parts of China,
a detailed description of them would be out of place
here. It will be sufficient to say that nearly every one
gets married a few years after arrival at a marriageable
age, the bridegroom being as a rule rather older than
the bride. The majority of marriages are the outcome
of long-standing betrothals. A betrothal is in practice
as binding as a marriage ; indeed, a betrothal that took
place in the babyhood of both the principals may,
in certain circumstances, be regarded as an actual
marriage. If, for example, the youth dies when of
marriageable age but before the marriage has taken
place, and if he was at the same time an only son,
the betrothed girl (whom he may or may not have
seen) will often be recognised as his legal wife ; and
if she preserves her " widowhood " with fidelity her
name will appear beside his own on the tombstone
and in the family registers. If the girl declares at the
death of her betrothed that she is willing to be
regarded as his widow, it then becomes possible (in
accordance with an old and very curious custom) for
the dead youth and his living wife to be provided with
a *' son " by adoption, and this " son " — who will
probably be a young nephew — nominally acts as
principal mourner at the funeral, inherits the deceased's
share of the family property, and carries on the rjtes

ao4 THE WOMEN OF WEIHAIWEI

of ancestral worship. If the girl or her family decline
(as very naturally they usually do) to recognise the
betrothal contract as binding after the bridegroom's
death, the parents of the dead youth will proceed to
find him a bride in the person of a dead girl. This
girl must have died unmarried and should be of
suitable age and family : that is to say, a youth and
maiden who could not have been betrothed to each
other in life should not be joined in matrimon}'- after
death.*

The arrangements for a wedding of this extraordinary
nature are not carried out directly by the parents of the
dead boy and girl, but through middlemen appointed by
them (known as kuci nici or "ghostly go-betweens"), and
many of the other formalities which attend an ordinary
marriage are observed with scrupulous care. If the
girl has already been buried in the graveyard of her
own family her body is exhumed and reburied beside
that of the dead bridegroom : and on the tombstone
erected at the foot of the grave are duly carved their
two names as those of husband and wife. The custom
is extremely old : it is mentioned in the Clioii Li, a
book which deals with the laws and customs of China
from the twelfth century b.c. onwards. Its origin may
perhaps be traced to the same notions that lay at the
root of the widely-prevalent Oriental custom of widow
immolation or sati\ the theory being that the sacrifice
of widows and slaves at the tomb of a dead man
provided him in the comfortless world of shades with
the companionship to which he had been accustomed ,
in life. But this strange system of weddings between '
the dead is practised to-day in Weihaiwei only in -
order to secure the perpetuation of the sacrificial rites I
connected with the ancestral cult and to bring about
a suitable partition of the family property.

If a youth dies unmarried and is an only son, the
necessary consequence would appear to be the ex-

• Mere disparity of age, however, is not regarded as an insuperable
objection to a "dead marriage."

MARRIAGES OF THE DEAD 205

tinction of the family or the particular branch which
the deceased represented. To prevent the occurrence
of such a calamity it is necessary in China to provide
the deceased with a son by formal adoption. But the
matter-of-fact Chinese mind declines to contemplate
the possibility of adopting a son for one who, being
a bachelor, was not in a position to have a legitimate
heir in the ordinary process of nature. It is therefore
necessary to begin by providing him with a wife ;
and this is done by the peculiar arrangement just
described, known locally as ka (or cliieli) ssn cU'ln—
the " celebration of a dead marriage." As a rule it is
not difficult for parents to find a suitable wife for their
dead son, for the family of a girl who has died un-
married will always be glad to have their deceased
daughter raised to the honourable status of a married
woman. Sometimes, hov/ever, complicating circum-
stances arise. A man named Yu Huai-yueh died,
without children and unmarried, in the tenth year of
Kuang Hsu — corresponding to 1884. At that time he
had brothers living, and as the family was in no
danger of extinction it was not considered necessary
to take further action. During subsequent years the
brothers also died without issue, and the sorrowing
relatives of the family decided in 1897 that Yil Huai-
yiieh should at last be provided with a wife. In due
time it was reported by "ghostly go-betweens" that
a bride with a suitable horoscope was to be found
in the family of Hsia of the neighbouring village of
Chao Chia. This was a girl who had died as long ago
as 1876. In spite of the disparity of the dates of death
the ceremony was duly performed : thus a bride who
had been in her grave for more than a generation
was wedded to a bridegroom who died thirteen years
before his own marriage.

In ordinary cases the repudiation of a betrothal
contract while the principals are both living is by law
and custom visited by heavy penalties. Paradoxical
as the statement may appear, it is often easier in

2o6 THE WOMEN OF WEIHAIWEI

China to get rid of a wife after the marriage ceremony
has taken place than to jilt her during the period of
betrothal. There is little or no romance about a
Chinese engagement. The parents of bride and bride-
groom may or may not be known to each other ; as
a rule they are strangers, for a girl is rarely married
to a resident in her own village. The reasons for this
are not far to seek. As we have seen, a typical
Weihaiwei village is composed of persons of one
surname. The " prohibited degrees " in China are far
more comprehensive than those set forth in the
English Book of Common Prayer. All persons of the
same surname are regarded as blood relations, and as
such they cannot intermarry. The father of a family
must therefore find husbands and wives for his
children in some village other than his own. In
accordance with venerable custom, regular marriages
are negotiated neither by the parties chiefly con-
cerned nor by their parents. Betrothals are always
in practice arranged through go-betweens or middle-
men {»iei Jen) who are understood to be the dis-
interested friends of both the contracting parties. In
return for their services they receive various little
presents and welcome invitations to sundry little
feasts.*

It is often declared that in China the bridegroom
never has a chance of seeing his bride or making her
acquaintance until the fateful moment when she raises
her bridal veil : and many are the sad stories told of
the bitter disappointment of the girl who unexpectedly
finds that her husband is a decrepit old man, or the
ardent young bridegroom who suddenly realises that
he is lord of an ugly or sour-faced wife instead of the
dainty beauty described by the deceitful go-between.

' The custom of employing go-betweens is by no means exclusively
Chinese. It may be met with among races so far away as certain of
the tribes of British Columbia. (See Hill Tout's British North America,
p. i86.) For an ancient reference to the Chinese custom, see Shih
Ching, p. 157 (Legge).

o

o

u

s

Q
Z

O

CHINESE BRIDES 207

But such regrettable incidents are rare in rural China.
It is true that marriage is hardly ever preceded by
love-making, and that young people have as a rule
absolutely no say in the important matter of the
choice of a husband. Yet the women of the farm-
ing classes in a rural district such as Weihaiwei are
by no means concealed from public view ; if a young
man does not catch a sight of his betrothed at
some village festival or a theatrical performance he
is sure to have many opportunities of beholding her
at work in the fields at harvest time or washing
clothes at the side of the local brook. Sometimes,
indeed, the young couple grow up together in
the same household almost like brother and sister.
This happens when, after child-betrothal has taken
place, the girl's parents die or are too poor to keep
her. She then passes to the bridegroom's family and
is theoretically supposed to be brought up as a
daughter of the house, though sometimes she is
treated as a mere servant or drudge. Such a girl is
known as a fuan-yiian lisi-fu. As an orphan, or the
daughter of poor or helpless parents, she is expected
to cultivate a more than usually meek and respectful
demeanour towards the parents of her betrothed, and
to be " thankful for small mercies." When the boy's
parents (for the boy himself has no say in the matter)
decide that a fitting time for the marriage has arrived,
it is customary for the girl to be sent temporarily to
the care of some relative, where she remains until the
wedding-day. This is in order that in accordance with
the usual custom she may enjoy the privilege of being
carried to her husband's home in a red marriage-chair.
In such a case as this the bride and bridegroom are
of course well acquainted with each other's personal
appearance and disposition, and have good reason to
know, before the wedding takes place, whether their
married life is likely to be a happy one. If the
prospects are adverse, the bridegroom-elect can only
escape his doom by running away, for the betrothal

2o8 THE WOMEN OF WEIHAIWEI

cannot be repudiated. The bride, poor child, has no
choice in the matter one way or another.

Marriages in Weiheivvei — in spite of the optimistic
dictum of the Chinese chronicler already quoted — are
very often, like marriages elsewhere, negotiated in a
mercenary spirit and with a keen eye to " business."
The Roman cocnipiio was undoubtedly in origin a
system of marriage by purchase ; and perhaps the
practice if not the theory is in many Western countries
the same to-day. In rural China the average father
wants to procure for his son the best possible wife at
the lowest possible cost; the girl's father wants to
give his daughter to the family that will allow him the
largest compensation for his own outlay. The financial
part of the arrangements is so prominent in the minds
of the plain-speaking peasants of Weihaiwei that they
will talk of buying and selling their wives and
daughters in much the same way as they would talk
of dealing in farm produce at the neighbouring market.
The local practice (as apart from the law of China)
in matters concerning marriage is in some respects
curious. " My wife has run away from me," stated a
petitioner, " She lived with me nearly three years. I
know where she is, but I cannot make her come back
to me because I originally got her for nothing. She
left me because 1 was too poor. She took away with
her nothing that was not her own. I have no com-
plaint to make against her."

The people of Weihaiwei know nothing of regular
divorce proceedings. The man whose wife deserts
him or runs away with another man may proceed to
take unto himself a second wife without the least fear
of a Crown prosecution for bigamy. Under Chinese
law a man may, indeed, regularly divorce his wife for
a variety of offences — including rudeness to his parents
and talkativeness — but in Weihaiwei few husbands
avail themselves of their rights in this respect ; in the
first place the husband is reluctant — especially if he is
still childless — to lose the lady for whom he or his I

ILL-TREATMENT OF HUSBANDS 209

parents paid a good round sum in cash, and, secondly,
he is afraid of getting into trouble with her family,
who will quite probably drag him before the magis-
trate on a charge of brutal treatment of a gentle and
long-suffering wife— their object being to " save face "
and to extract from the husband substantial pecuniary
compensation. If his wife's family is numerous and
wealthy, the unhappy man who is wedded to an un-
tamable shrew is often driven to desperate expedients
to break his chains. He may, indeed, emigrate to
Peking or Manchuria — the usual resorts of persons
who find life unbearable in Weihaiwei — but this will
only result in shifting the trouble from his own
shoulders to those of his parents or brothers.

Only a few days before the penning of these lines
a man named Shih Kuan-yung came to report to me
the mysterious death of his younger brother. " His
wife treated him shamefully," was the story. " He
bore it for several years, but the breaking-point came
two days ago. He then went off to his father-in-law's
house, and yesterday he died there." On inquiry it
turned out that the wretched man, after an unusually
bitter passage of words with his wife, swallowed a
dose of poison and then went off to die in his wife's
father's house as a protest against his wife's bad
conduct and as a sure means of bringing trouble
upon her relations. His brother suggested to the
court that he, as the deceased's only surviving rela-
tive, should be empowered to sell the widow and
pocket the proceeds as a solace for his bereavement.
The court refused to act upon this suggestion, but
satisfied public opinion by imposing a moderate
punishment on the lady's family and compelling it
to defray all the expenses of the funeral.

The fact that the husband in this case could think
of no better means of punishing his wife than by
dying on her father's doorstep shows that though a
woman on marriage theoretically passes from one
patria potestas to another and thenceforward belongs

14

2IO THE WOMEN OF WEIHAIVVEI

solely to her husband's family or p^o chia, her father's
family or niaiig-chia may in certain circumstances
retain considerable influence over her destiny as a
married woman ; and if the family is rich and in-
fluential it may make matters intensely disagreeable
for the husband and his relations should the woman
find her new home less comfortable than the old one.
The woman whose niang-chia is poor and without
influence (as we have seen in the case of a tuan-yiian
hsi-fii) rarely dares to hold her head high or treat
her p'o cilia with contempt. She knows that hence-
forth it will be to her own interest to please her
husband and his parents as far as in her lies, for she
can look for no help from her father's family in the
event of trouble. It is a terrible grief to a young
married woman to know that her own family has
made up its mind to take no further interest in her,
A headman once reported to me that a woman in
his village, recently married, had committed suicide
simply because when the time came for her to pay the
first ceremonial visit to her father and mother after
her wedding, no one was sent (in accordance with the
usual custom) from her old home to escort her thither.
For several days she moped and moaned, her incessant
cry being, " I have no niang-cJiia, I have no niang-
chia " ; and one day her husband found her hanging
dead from a peg in the wall.

Sometimes a girl's family will evince no interest
whatever in her doings as a married woman until
her suicide gives them an opportunity of shov/ing that
** blood is thicker than water." If they do not demand
a magisterial enquiry into the cause of death they will
at least keep a careful eye on the funeral arrange-
ments and prevent the widower's family from carrying
hem out with insufficient splendour or too much re-
gard to economy. An expensive funeral on such an
occasion is satisfactory to the dead woman's relations
from two points of view : it reflects glory on them-
selves and gives them "face," and it serves as a costly

WIVES BY PURCHASE 211

punishment for the bereaved husband who has to pay
the bill.

Though nearly every one in Weihaiwei, as in the
rest of China, gets married sooner or later, it some-
times happens that through the early death of his
betrothed or some other unavoidable cause a man
finds himself still unmarried at an age when his
contemporaries are the proud parents of large families.
The older he is the harder will it be for him to
contract a marriage through the customary process
of a formal betrothal. He may indeed find a widow
who is open to receive an advantageous offer ; but
in China it is not considered creditable or fitting for
a widow to re-marry unless dire poverty compels her
to do so. The model Chinese widow is expected to
serve and cherish her late husband's parents as long
as they live, and to devote her spare time to the
careful upbringing of her own children. A woman's
second marriage is not attended by the pomp and
circumstance of the first. It is only once in her life
that a Chinese woman is entitled to sit in the red
chair of a bride. A common practice for an elderly
bachelor of Weihaiwei is to entrust a friend in Peking
or some other large centre of population with the
task of procuring a wife for him by the simple ex-
pedient of cash-purchase. The friend buys the woman
and brings her back to Weihaiwei on one of his return
visits ; and, as he will very likely have been entrusted
with several similar commissions, he will possibly
return with a bevy of damsels of varying charms and
widely different ages and degrees of comeliness. He
is not, of course, expected to go through his trouble
for nothing ; and indeed the business is regarded as
so lucrative that some men will secretly tout for com-
missions to buy wives, and will go from Weihaiwei to
Peking for that express purpose.

The practice is, of course, highly discreditable to
every one concerned. It is a punishable offence in
China, and is sternly reprobated and discouraged by

212 THE WOMEN OF WEIHAIWEI

the British Government. As far as the women them-
selves are concerned, however, the abuses that attend
the system are less serious than might be expected.
In most cases they are the daughters of extremely
poor parents who cannot afford to support them. By
becoming the wives of poor but honest and respectable
farmers in a district like Weihaiwei, their position
has certainly changed for the better. Most of them
are thoroughly cognisant of this fact ; indeed, it is
rarely that they express a desire to leave their new
homes even when the Government offers them a free
passage back to their native place. Their position,
be it remembered, is not a dishonourable one. Though
not always married according to the prescribed rites,
they are by general consent regarded as wives, and
their children inherit the family property as legitimate
heirs. Sometimes, indeed, a poor girl from Peking,
who has been led to expect that she is being taken
to a rich young husband, feels a pang of bitter dis-
appointment when she finds herself face to face with
a poor and elderly man whose entire savings have
been exhausted by the purchase of herself ; yet in nine
cases out of ten she accepts with resignation what
the gods have given her, and settles down to the quiet
life of a well-behaved matron. It is indeed to the
interest of the woman's purchaser that he should treat
her with kindness, for if she becomes seriously dis-
satisfied she may cause him endless discomfort.

Not long ago eight men came to the South Division
court at Weihaiwei v/ith a petition on behalf of one
of their relatives, Yii K'o-chih, who was married to
a woman named Chao Shih, imported from Peking.
She had been selected and purchased for him in
Peking by his brother, Yti K'o-shun. Now this
woman, explained the petitioners, was unfortunately
addicted to the luxurious habits and customs in vogue
at the capital, and took no pains to adapt herself to the
simple life of Weihaiwei. Chao Shih was, in fact, a
self-willed person who did exactly what she chose, and

A TRUANT WIFE 213

when any one remonstrated with her she threatened
to run away. Matters remained in this unsatisfactory
condition until she at last carried out her threat and
disappeared. She was traced to Weihaiwei city, a
distance of about twelve miles. Her husband's brother,
Yii K'o-shun/ accompanied by some of his relatives,
went in pursuit of the fugitive, tracked her to her
hiding-place, and hired a cart to convey her back to
her husband. She resolutely refused to get into the
cart and also declined to accept the alternative of
riding a mule. She was finally carried off by force
and the party set out on the homeward journey.
Unfortunately the woman kicked and screamed in-
cessantly, thereby making such a disturbance on the
highway that a detective who happened to meet the
noisy procession came to the conclusion that it was a
case of kidnapping, and promptly arrested the whole
party. The petitioners now requested that since the
matter had been clearly explained the magistrate
would issue an order for the release of the prisoners
and allow the troublesome Chao Shih to be returned
to the arms of her anxious husband. The magistrate's
difficulty in this case was unexpectedly solved by the
lady herself, who assured the court that she was
weary of a roving life and promised to be a good
and dutiful wife for the rest of her days.

Certainly the system of procuring wives from
Peking is liable to produce disappointments that
are not all on the side of the women. Listen to the
tale of woe of one Chung Yen-sheng, a Weihaiwei
resident who in an ill-starred hour had decided
to obtain for himself a wife from the capital. " I
have tried to make the best of her for over two
years," he said in court, " but it was no good. When
I bought her I didn't know she was an opium-smoker,

' It is worth noting that it was not the husband wlio took the next
step but the husband's brother, by whom the woman had been brought
from Peking and who was held responsible by his brother and the clan
generally for her "success '' as a faroily investment.

2 14 THE WOMEN OF WEIHAIWEI

but she was. I bought her for forty-eight taels
(between seven and eight pounds sterling). What
with travelling expenses and clothes she cost me
altogether seventy taels before she arrived in Weihai-
wei. She was a failure. She was very extravagant,
and 1 had to sell some of my land to satisfy her. She
suddenly left me of her own accord in the tenth moon
of last year. She went to K'ung Chia village. I was
glad to get rid of her. She went to the house of
K'ung Fu-hsiang. I met him afterwards and I told
him he might keep the woman for all I cared, but I
wanted some of my money back. Pie gave me forty-
five taels. I think I ought to get sixty, and I have
come to court to obtain a judgment against him for
the balance of fifteen taels. (Cross-examined) I would
not take the woman back on any account. I have no
children, but I shall not look for another wife. My
younger brother's branch can carry on the ancestral
worship of our family,"

The old belief, long held by Europeans, that the
Chinese habitually practise polygamy probably became
extinct some years ago. The fact is, of course, that a
Chinese has only one wife, though he may possess
legally recognised concubines. Among the agricultural
classes in China concubinage is not common, and in
Weihaiwei it is comparatively rare. The farmer who
takes unto himself a concubine does it not only with
the knowledge but usuall}^ with the full approval of
his wife, and as a duty which (if his wife is childless)
he owes to his ancestors. So far as British experience
goes in Weihaiwei the practice is not productive of
evil effects. If both a wife and a concubine become
mothers, the family propert}^, when the time for
partition arrives, is divided equally among all the sons
without any discrimination.* But it sometimes happens
that another child is born after the partition (/6'«-c/;/«')

' By a peculiar fiction the children of a concubine are regarded a§
the wife's children.
» See pp. 149 seq.

SLAVE-GIRLS 215

has already taken place. If the mother of such child
is the ch'i or wife, the whole of the family property
will again be put as it were into the melting-pot and
re-divided — the latest-born child being entitled to a
share equal to that of each of his brothers. But if
the child's mother is only a concubine there will be no
repartition, and either the child will be given a portion
of his parents' yang-lao-ii^ or his brothers will be
morally obliged to make suitable provision for him
out of their respective shares. Practically, therefore,
there is very little difference in position between a
wife's son and a concubine's son.

A modified form of domestic slavery is occasionally

found in Weihaiwei as elsewhere in China : though

slavery is indeed much too harsh a term to apply to a

form of service which is totally devoid of hardship or

degradation. The Chinese are as a rule indulgent

masters and are hardly ever (in the part of China with

which we are dealing) guilty of deliberate cruelty

towards the inferior members of their households.

The so-called slaves are generally bought as young

girls from poor parents or guardians for the purpose

of domestic service. They are treated as subordinate

members of the family, and as a rule partake of much

the same fare as their masters and mistresses. Their

owners are responsible for their good health and

moral character, and are expected to help them in

due time to obtain respectable husbands. The great

majority of the people of Weihaiwei, being only small

farmers, are compelled to do their own house-work

unaided : slave-girls are thus found only in a few of

the most prosperous households. An instance will

show that in spite of the indulgent treatment accorded

to them, slave-girls are regarded as the absolute

propert}^ of their purchasers.

A petitioner named Ch'u Wen-k'uei complained of
"the unlawful annexation of a female slave " of whom
he declared himself to be the rightful owner. "Five

1 See pp. 149 seq.

2i6 THE WOMEN OF WEIHAIWEI

years ago I became by formal adoption the son of my
father's elder brother, who died childless. His widow,
my adoptive mother, bought a slave-girl two years
ago for the sum of one hundred dollars. My aunt
and adoptive mother died two months ago and I have
inherited her property. The slave-girl is part of the
property and therefore by right belongs to me. Un-
fortunately a short time before her death my adoptive
mother lent the slave-girl to the Ts'ung family, and
the Ts'ung family now refuses to hand her over to me
on the plea that she has been betrothed to one of the
little Ts'ungs. As I gave no consent to her betrothal
I consider it null and void, and I petition for an order
of the court requiring the Ts'ung family to return
my slave-girl without further ado." To the surprise
of both parties the court allowed the question of
her disposal to be decided by the slave-girl herself,
and she elected to stay with the family of her
betrothed.

CHAPTER X

WIDOWS AND CHILDREN

The remarriage of a widow is, as we have seen, re-
garded in the best circles with disapproval. The
model wife — the wife to whom a commemorative arch
is erected on the roadside near her home and wHose
name is handed down to posterity in the official
chronicle of her district as a pattern of virtue — is
as scrupulously faithful to her husband after his death
as during his life. But very poor families — such as
are the majority of the families of Weihaiwei — cannot
afford to support widows for the mere joy of con-
templating their fidelity and chastity: hence we find
that in practice a young widow is often not only in-
duced by her late husband's family to enter into a
second marriage and so rid them of the necessity of
supporting her, but is practically compelled to get
married before the expiration of the period of deep
mourning, which lasts twenty-seven months. For a
widow to remarry while in mourning for her husband
is by Chinese law a penal offence : though when the
offence is committed on account of the straitened
circumstances of the widow and her first husband's
family it is generally allowed to pass without official
notice or censure.

If a young widow has presented her late husband
with children it is less likely that his family will
insist upon a second marriage than if she is childless :

217

2i8 WIDOWS AND CHILDREN

indeed, if the family is well-to-do, it will sometimes
take active preventive measures if she herself con-
templates such a step. When a widow with children
remarries, the children remain with the first husband's
family, or at any rate revert to that family after the
years of early childhood. It is when a childless
young widow, in spite of the solicitations of her
husband's family, obstinately refuses to take a second
husband that domestic troubles arise which are likely
to end in the law-courts. If the widow's father-in-law
finds it impossible to remove her aversion to a second
marriage he will probably come to the court with a
trumped-up charge against her of " unfilial " be-
haviour. One Chang Yun-sheng brought an action
in my court against his deceased son's wife, who
was a daughter of the Lin family, for cruelty and
want of respect. "She is disobedient," he said; " she
refuses to feed me, and she constantly assaults and
vilifies my wife and myself. In our old age we find
such conduct on the part of our daughter-in-law
intolerable, and I implore the court to devise
some means of recalling her to a sense of duty and
obedience."

The case soon wore a different aspect when the
woman's father, Lin Pa, put in an appearance and
explained that Chang's sole object in making a
series of false and unjust accusations against a blame-
less young woman was that he might be sure of
magisterial sympathy and help in the matter of com-
pelling her to accept a second marriage. This on
investigation was found to be the key to the situation.
Chang regarded the woman as a family asset which
he desired to realise in cash. Her remarriage would
have been negotiated purely as a mercantile trans-
action, the profits of which would have gone into
the money-bags of Chang. As the covetous old man
was well able to support his son's wife — indeed she
was living without expense to him on the property
which had come to her husband before his death as

THE MARRIAGE OF WIDOWS 219

a result oi fen-chia'^ — the court required him to find
substantial security that in no circumstances would
he attempt to dispose of the person of his daughter-
in-law against her will. The interference of the
woman's father in this case affords another proof that
a woman's own family does not necessarily abandon
her for ever to the caprice of the family into which
she has married.

Chinese local histories contain many accounts of
the various devices resorted to by devoted widows
for the purpose of avoiding the dishonour of a second
marriage. De Groot^ quotes the case of a child-
widow — she was only fifteen years of age — who, as
a reply to the demands made upon her to enter into
a second marriage, took a solemn oath of chastity
and confirmed it by cutting off her ears and placing
them on a dish. Thereupon, as the historian says,
her relatives " gave up their project," perhaps from
pity or admiration of the poor child's heroic conduct,
perhaps from the belief that no self-respecting man
would care for an earless bride. If the annals of
Weihaiwei show no cases quite identical with this,
they contain accounts of many a young widow who
has died to avoid remarriage.

But first let us consider a few typical cases of a
less tragic nature. Of Wang Shih, the wife of a
graduate named Ch'i, we are told that when her
husband died leaving her with an infant boy, she,
though still a very young woman, refrained from a
second marriage, lived an exemplary life, educated
her boy with exceptional care, and survived to the age
of ninety-five : living just long enough to witness the

' See p. 149. But it should be noted that if the old man had per-
suaded her to remarry, this property would have reverted to himself
or his family, and would perhaps have been added to his yang-lao-fi
(see pp. 149 seq.). A widow has only a life-interest in her husband's
real property, and even that life-interest is extinguished if she marries
into another family.

* Religious System of China^ vol. ii. bk. i , p. 466.

220 WIDOWS AND CHILDREN

marriage of her great-grandson. To live to a green
old age is regarded as one of the rewards of a virtuous
life. In China, those whom the gods love die old.
Ch'e Liu Shih, say the Annals of Ning-hai, was for
similar reasons rewarded by no less than one hundred
and two years of life. This was in the present
dynasty. Judging by length of life, still higher virtue
must have been shown in the Yiian dynasty (1280-
1367), for we read of Liu Shih, a lady who lived to
the age of one hundred and three, and was celebrated
as the happy mother of three noble sons. T'ang Chu
Shih, a Ning-hai widow of the Ming dynasty, became
so famous for her virtuous refusals of marriage that
she was honoured by the local magistrate with the
official presentation of a laudatory scroll bearing the
words " Pure and chaste as frozen snow." Wang
Sun Shih became a grass-widow about ten days after
her marriage, for her husband was obliged to go
abroad. After a short absence news was brought
her that her lord was dead. She was wretchedly
poor, but she maintained an honourable widowhood
to her death. Yiieh Ch'i Shih was left a widow soon
after marriage. The family was very poor. She
served her father-in-law and brought up her son
with the utmost zeal and care. She was most in-
dustrious (all this is carefully recorded in the Annals)
in looking after the household and in preparing the
morning and evening meals. She worked all her
ten fingers to the utmost without sparing herself.
She died when still young. Sun Liu Shih became
a widow at the age of nineteen. She strongly de-
sired to die with her husband, but her parents-in-law
pointed out that they were old and required her
services. She obeyed and remained with them, re-
fusing remarriage. She arranged to have a son
adopted for her husband, and educated him with the
utmost care and self-sacrifice. Wang Hsiieh Shih
was left a widow at the age of twenty-five. She had
a little son aged three. She brought him up to

SUICIDE 221

manhood and arranged a marriage for him. Both
her son and his bride died within a year. She then
urged her father-in-law to take a concubine in order
to carry on the family, for her late husband had been
an only son. Some years later the Literary Chan-
cellor of the Province presented an honorary tablet
in commemoration of her virtue.

Cases of this kind — where young v^^idows refuse re-
marriage and devote their lives to the service of their
parents-in-law and their own children — are so common
that in many parts of China they are the rule rather
than the exception, though it is not every such case, of
course, that comes before the notice of the authorities
and receives official recognition. The matter of
widows' suicides is one that perhaps deserves more
careful attention.

Sociological writers have pointed to the steady
increase in suicide as one of the most alarming
characteristics of modern civilised life, inasmuch as
it seems to indicate a biological deterioration of the
race. Probably this is so in Europe, where religious
and ethical teachings set so high a value on life that
the man who deprives himself of it of his own accord
is commonly regarded as either a criminal or a lunatic;
but we must beware of supposing that if suicide in-
dicates biological decay in England or Saxony it has
the same indication among the populations of the Far
East. The common view that Orientals despise life
and will throw it away on the slenderest provocation
is not, indeed, strictly accurate. Self-slaughter in
Weihaiwei and throughout China is probably far
commoner than anywhere in Europe, in spite of the
numerous European suicides traceable to the appalling
mental and moral degradation brought about by
alcoholism ; and there is no doubt that the Oriental
will hang or poison himself for reasons which would
be altogether insufficient to make the average Euro-
pean do so. But the Oriental will never take this
extreme step except from a motive which from his

222 WIDOWS AND CHILDREN

point of view is all-compelling : so that after all the
only difference between the Oriental and the European
in this respect seems to lie in the nature of the motive,
not in its intensity.

That the instinct of self-preservation is stronger
among Europeans than among Chinese is an unproved
and perhaps unprovable thesis : though it is true that
Chinese women seem to have a contempt for death
which possibly arises from a quiescent imagination.
One reason why suicides are less common among
Europeans is that the would-be suicide in a country
like England must not only face the natural fear of
death and (if he happens to believe in the teachings
of his Church) the probability or certainty of terrible
sufferings in another state of existence, but he is also
obliged to contemplate the dishonour that will be-
smirch his name and the consequent misery and
discomfort that will be brought upon his family.

These deterrent considerations can seldom affect the
would-be suicide in China. Both Confucianism and
Buddhism, indeed, forbid self-destruction : but Con-
fucianism is vague on the subject of life beyond the
grave, and Buddhism as taught in China lays no stress
on any terrors that may await the suicide. The
northern Chinese, including those of Weihaiwei, are
inclined to the belief that a suicide's only punishment
consists in being obliged as a lonely earth-bound spirit
to wander about in the neighbourhood of his old home
until he can persuade some living person to follow his
example. When his victim yields to his sinister sug-
gestions and commits suicide the first ghost is set free:
though what use he makes of his freedom seems to be
a doubtful point. It then becomes the second ghost's
turn to look for a victim. Thus all apparently motive-
less suicides are supposed to be caused by the ghostly
promptings of those who have taken their own lives in
the past. When a suicide of this kind takes place in a
Weihaiwei village it is believed that another suicide
will inevitably follow within an extreme limit of two

SUICIDE WITH HONOUR 223

years. Neither public opinion nor the law of the land
stigmatises suicide as a crime : persons who attempt
and fail to kill themselves are never prosecuted.

The attitude of the more philosophically-minded of
the Chinese towards the subject of suicide in general
is perhaps somewhat similar to that of the Stoic
Epictetus, who on the one hand forbids it and on
the other hand calls attention to the fact that the door
out of life is always open to those who feel that they
have good reason to use it. As for self-destruction
involving dishonour in the eyes of society, this is so
far from being the case in China that in certain circum-
stances the exact opposite is the result. Posthumous
honours have been showered upon suicides by imperial
edict, monuments have been erected to their memory,
they have been canonised and their tablets honoured
with official worship in the public temples, and they
have bequeathed to their relatives and descendants
a glory that shines undimmed for many successive
generations.

These distinguished suicides, it should be hardly
necessary to say, have generally been women, and the
glory of their deed has consisted in the fidelity and
heroism that have impelled them to follow their dead
husbands to the grave : but many of them are noble-
minded statesmen and patriots who have voluntarily
sealed with their own blood some protest against the
follies or mistakes of emperors or have taken their
own lives as a means of drawing public attention to
some grave danger that menaced the State.^

' While this chapter was being written the newspapers reported a
case of a patriot's suicide which may be cited as typical. " An Imperial
Edict issued on September 5," says The Times of September 21, 1909,
" bestowed posthumous honours upon the iVIetropoIitan official Yung
Lin, who recently ' sacrificed his life in order to display his patriotism.'
The Edict is in reply to a memorial from the supervising censor of tlie
Metropolitan circuit and others asking for the Imperial commendation
of an act which has attracted great attention in Peking. Yung Lin,
a Manchu of small official rank but high literary gifts, bemoaning the
fate of his country, recently presented a petition to the Regent ' dealing

224 WIDOWS AND CHILDREN

We are accustomed to " topsy-turvydom " in China,
and perhaps the suicide-statistics might be cited as an
example of this. " Suicide," says a recent writer on
sociology, " is a phenomenon of which the male sex
possesses almost the monopoly."* \{ female be sub-
stituted for male we have a fair statement of how
affairs stand in Weihaiwei. Over ninety per cent, of
the persons who make away with themselves belong
to the female sex, and the great majority of them are
young married women or young widows. Since 1729,
when it was proclaimed by imperial decree that official
honours were no longer to be conferred upon widows
who slew themselves on the occasion of their husbands'
death, it has become less common than formerly for
young widows to practise the Chinese equivalent of
sail, but the custom is far from extinct, and at any rate
it seems to have left among women a readiness to fling
away their lives for reasons which to us appear sin-
gularly inadequate. Imperial edicts did not and could
not stamp out a custom which was of great antiquity
and deeply rooted in popular esteem. The British
Government in India forbade the practice of sati long
ago, and it has therefore ceased to exist throughout

with the circumstances of the times, and then gave up his life.' Un-
able to present it in person, he sent his memorial to the Press. It is a
model of finished literary style. Imperial approval will certainly be
given to its official publication throughout the Empire." In the course
of his memorial, in which he alluded to and bewailed the misfortunes
of China and the crimes of those in high places, Yung Lin expressed
his belief that unless reforms speedily take place, the " foreigners
will seize the excuse of protection for chapels and Legations to in-
crease their garrisons, while secretly pursuing their scheme for convert-
ing their sojourn in the land into ownership." He also makes some
remarks which, though they would meet the hearty support of a
Ruskin, will not be relished by foreign traders. Writing of the waste
of the national resources, he says that "vast sums of money are
frittered away in the purchase of useless foreign goods." After sending
his memorial to the Press, Yung Lin cut his throat. The direct or
indirect results of this affair will perhaps be more far-reaching than
may at present be thought likely.

' G. Chattertou Hill, Heredity atid Selection in Sociology, p. 187.

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SUICIDE OF WIDOWS 225

the Indian Empire; but even now there is strong
reason to doubt whether popular opinion is on the
side of the Government in this matter, and whether
the custom would not immediately spring into vogue
again if the British raj were withdrawn/

There is no doubt that the suicide of widows in
China is a survival of the ancient custom (which
flourished in countries so far apart as India and
Peru, Africa and China) whereby wives and slaves
were as a matter of ordinary duty expected to follow
their husbands and masters to the grave ; and though
the day has probably long gone past when such
suicides were encouraged or actually enforced by the
deceased's relatives, it cannot be doubted that to this
day public opinion in China is strongly on the side
of the widow who chooses to follow her lord to the
world of ghosts.^

The present-day theory of the matter held by the
people of eastern Shantung, including Weihaiwei,
appears to be this. A woman undoubtedly performs
a meritorious act in following her husband to the
spirit-world, but her relations are fully justified in
preventing her, and indeed are obliged to prevent
her, from throwing away her life if they know of or
guess her intention. If her husband has died leaving
to her the care of his aged parents who have no other
daughters-in-law to look after them, or if she has
young children who require her care, she does wrong
to commit suicide, though the children are sometimes
ignored. The highest praise is reserved for a woman
who temporarily refrains from destroying herself in
order that she may devote herself to her husband's
parents and her own offspring, but who, when they
are dead or independent of her care, then fulfils her

• See Campbell Oman's Cults, Customs and Supostltions of India
(Fisher Unwin : 1908), p. 108.

* Cases in modern times where Chinese widows have actually been
compelled to commit suicide on their husbands' death are referred to
in Smith's Chhtese Characteristics (5th ed.), p. 215.

15

226 WIDOWS AND CHILDREN

original desire and sacrifices herself to the spirit of
her dead husband. The fact that in any case the
woman's relatives are considered bound to prevent,
if possible, the act of suicide from taking place, shows
the beginning of a realisation that self-destruction is
in itself an evil. Time was when they would not only
make no attempt to save the woman's life, but, as in
India, would incite her and even compel her to die.

Of the stories of widows' suicides which have taken
place during the past few centuries in Weihaiwei
and its neighbourhood, and which were considered
meritorious enough to deserve public honours and
special mention in the official Annals, a few examples
may be found of interest. The cases quoted are in
no way unique or unusual, and there is no reason to
doubt their absolute authenticity.

Tsou Chao-tuan being sick of a mortal disease, his
wife Ts'ung Shih and his concubine Sun Shih made
an agreement with one another that they would follow
him to death. As soon as he was dead the two women
hanged themselves. Members of the family quickly
came to the rescue and cut the ropes by which the
women were suspended. Sun Shih the concubine
was already dead, but Ts'ung Shih the wife revived.
A few days later she again hanged herself, this time
successfully. The wife was thirty years of age, the
concubine nineteen. The district-magistrate took
official notice of the matter, and caused a carved
memorial to be set up testifying to the two women's
exemplary virtue. " They had performed an act,"
he said, " which would cause their fragrant names
to be remembered for ever."

T'ao Liu Shih, daughter of Liu Fang-ch'ing, was
betrothed to one T'ao, but they were not married.
T'ao died. When the death was announced to her
she hanged herself. [To appreciate the significance
of this act it should be remembered that there was
no question of love-sickness : the young couple in all
probability had never spoken to or even sepn e^ch

VIRTUOUS WIDOWS 227

other. As will be understood from explanations
already given/ the girl would as a matter of course
be buried with her betrothed as his wife, and would
be given his name on the tombstone and the ancestral
tablets. Probably the youth's parents, in this as in
most similar cases, adopted a son for the dead couple ;
if so he would be brought up to regard them as his
father and mother, and would inherit their property.
Had the girl refrained from suicide and married some
one else, the family of the first betrothed might have
provided him with a dead wife, in accordance with
the practice already described.-]

Chang Sun Shih, aged twent3^-six, was the wife of
Chang Ch'ing-kuang. On the death of her husband
she took an oath to follow him. The family forcibly
prevented her from killing herself. She pretended
to submit to life and to the rearing of her young child,
so gradually the family forbore to watch her. She
then suddenly hanged herself.

Li Chu Shih, aged twenty-one, was the wife of
Li T'ing-lun. Her husband died, leaving her without
children. She killed herself by jumping into a well.
A stone memorial to her is extant.

Ch'en Yang Shih was the wife of Ch'en Yiian-fu.
On the death of her husband she starved herself to
death.

Pi Yii Shih, wife of Pi Ch'ang-jen, hanged herself
by the side of her husband's coffin. [Voluntary death
beside the coffin is exceedingly common and seems
to represent an ancient custom.]

Chang T'ang Shih was the wife of Chang Ching-
wen. On her husband's death she devoted herself to
bringing up a young daughter. She preserved a
chaste widowhood till the death of her daughter, and
then hanged herself.

Pi Chang Shih was the wife of Pi Hung-fan. Her
husband when dying gave instructions that as she

' See p, 203,

* See pp, 204 seq,

228 WIDOWS AND CHILDREN

was still young a second marriage was to be arranged
for her. To please him she said she would obey him.
They were childless. When he died her first action
was to see that her late husband was duly provided
with an heir and successor, and she did this by
bringing about the formal adoption of one of his
nephews. She then proceeded to arrange a marriage
for the nephew so that the eventual continuation of
the family might be properly provided for. " Now,"
she said, " my duty is done. What is a lonely widow
to go on living for ? " She then committed suicide.

Li Wang Shih was the wife of Li Yuan-po. When
her husband was ill she waited until he had only two
more days to live, and then hanged herself [The
question naturally arises, who tended the sick husband
during the last two days ? The woman's own view
might have been that by dying first she would be
ready to meet and help her husband's spirit when
it had crossed the dark flood, and would thus render
him greater service than by merely tending his last
hours on earth. But a better explanation of her action
is given by the details furnished by the chronicler in
connection with the next case.]

Sun Shih, a Weihaiwei woman, had a dying husband.
Fearing that his last moments might be embittered by
the thought that she would marr}'^ some one else after
his death she decided to hang herself before he passed
away, so that he would know she had remained true
till death. She therefore hanged herself, and a day
later her husband died. This happened in the Ming
period, and in 1585 a monument was erected to her
memory.

Liang Wang Shih, aged twenty-one, was the wife
of Liang K'o-jun. At the time of her husband's death
she was pregnant, so she did not destro}^ herself
immediately. In due time she gave birth to her child
—a daughter — who, however, soon died. She there-
upon committed suicide.

Liu Ch'en Shih, aged twenty-eight, was the wife of

FAITHFUL WIDOWS 229

Liu Sheng. On her husband's death the family feared
she would hang herself, so they watched her with
special care. She smilingly assured them that she
had no such intention, so they relaxed their watchful-
ness. She then hanged herself.

Hou Wang Shih tried to hang herself on the death
of her husband. Some female neighbours came in and
saved her life : but she awaited another opportunity
and died by her own hand.

Chiang Lin Shih was a young bride. Two months
after her marriage her husband had to go away on
business, and on the road he fell in with a band of
robbers and was killed by them. On hearing the
news she hanged herself.

Sung Wang Shih attempted to hang herself on the
death of her husband, but owing to the intervention of
friends she was restored to life. A second time she
tried to hang herself, but the rope broke and her
purpose remained unfulfilled. Then she took poison,
but the dose was insufficient and she revived. Then
the family tried to compel her to marry again ; but
she tore her face with her nails till it streamed with
blood and resolutely refused to entertain the suggestion
of a second marriage. Finally she retired to her
private apartment and succeeded in strangling her-
self.

Wang Chao Shih was the wife of an hereditary
chih-hui'^ of Ning-hai, in the Ming dynasty. Her
husband died a month after the wedding. She re-
mained faithful to him, and finally hanged herself
Two maid-servants followed her example.

Wang Sun Shih was the concubine of a chih-hui.
Her husband was killed in battle. On hearing the
news she hanged herself

Yu Lu Shih swore on the death of her husband that
she would not live alone. Her family wept bitterly
and begged her to give up her intention to die, but
she replied, *' I look upon death as a going home.

' See p. 47.

230 WIDOWS AND CHILDREN

The wise will understand me." Then in the night-
time she strangled herself.

Liu Shih, the daughter of Liu Fang-ch'ing of Ch'eng-
shan (the Shantung Promontory) was betrothed to a
Weihaiwei man named T'ao Tu-sheng. A " lucky
day" was chosen for the marriage, and the bride was
being escorted to her new home on that day when the
news was brought her of the bridegroom's sudden
death. She wished to follow him to the grave,^ but
her father and mother prevented her from carrying
out her wish. When they began to relax their watch-
fulness she hanged herself. The district-magistrate
presented an honorary scroll to the family to com-
memorate the girl's fidelity and chastity.

Chou Ch'i Shih was the wife of a literary student.
Her husband died, and she hanged herself on the
following New Year's Eve.

Tung Tu Shih was the second wife of a graduate.
On her husband's death she starved herself to death.
An edict was issued authorising the erection of an
honorific portal.

Chang Shih was betrothed in childhood to a man
named Yiian. He died before the marriage took
place, when the girl was only sixteen. She begged
to be allowed to carry out the full mourning rites
prescribed for a widow, but her family would not hear
of it.- She then hanged herself. In the Shun Chih
period (1644-61) a decree was received authorising
the erection of a commemorative portal. She and
her betrothed were buried together as man and wife.
The portal was erected at the side of the tomb.
Elegies, funeral odes, essays, scrolls containing lau-
datory couplets, were composed by many of the

' The technical term almost invariably used for this action is hsiln,
which is the word used for the old practice of burying alive with the
dead. In modern times, as in all these stories, the word signifies
the death of a widow who commits suicide to prove her wifely
fidelity.

* Obviously because they wished to arrange a new betrothal for her.

WEIHAIWEI WIDOWS 231

local poets and scholars in honour of this virtuous
woman.

Liu Yii Shih was the wife of a man who died when
he was away from home. She wailed for him bitterly,
and said, " My husband is dead and it is my duty to
go down to the grave with him : but he has left no
son to carry on the ancestral sacrifices. Therefore
my heart is ill at ease." She then sold her jewellery
in order to provide money enough to enable her
husband's younger brother to get married at once,
A bride was selected and the marriage took place.
In a year a boy was born, and Liu Yu Shih said,
•* Now my husband is no longer childless and I can
close my eyes in death." That night she hanged
herself. [It should be noted that in such a case as
this it would be the duty of the younger brother to
surrender one of his own sons in order that he might
become the son and heir of the deceased. If the
younger brother had only one son and there was no
other relative of the appropriate generation available
to become adopted son to the elder, the son would be
allowed to inherit the property of his uncle and father
and to carry on the ancestral rites for both. This
is known as shuaiig fiao.']

Yang Wang Shih was the wife of Yang Shih-ch'in.
Twenty-seven days after the death of her husband she
gave birth to a boy, who died within a year. She then
devoted herself to the care of her (husband's) parents.
A year or two later her father-in-law died, and the
year after that her mother-in-law died too. The
young widow mourned unceasingly, saying, " My
husband and son are dead, my parents too have gone
to their long home, how dare I continue to exist
between earth and sky ? " Then she begged the
elders of the family to arrange the matter of adopting
a son for her late husband, and then she hanged
herself.

Ch'ang Li Shih was married to a man who died in
the reign of K'ang Hsi (1662-1722). She wished to

232 WIDOWS AND CHILDREN

die with him, but she was with child and therefore
forbore to carry out her wish. Shortly afterwards
a child was born. It was a boy, who only lived seven
days. Looking up to heaven she sighed bitterly,
saying, " When my husband died I refrained from
dying with him, for I hoped to become the mother
of his child. Now the child, too, is gone. It is as
though my husband had twice died. Can I bear to
survive him all alone ? " She then impressively urged
her sisters-in-law (wives of her late husband's brothers)
to serve their mother-in-law dutifully, and then took
an oath to follow her lord to the lower world. Her
first resolution was to hang herself. Her sisters-in-
law kept watch on her so that she could not do this.
Then she tried to take poison, but the family, full of
pity and affection, kept her from this too. Full of
vexation she cried out, " Am I to be the only one
under all heaven who longs for death yet cannot
die?" Then she resolutely set herself to starve to
death. For many days she refused nourishment of
any kind, and on the sixteenth day of her fast she
died. Many were the funeral odes composed by
noted poets in her honour, and in the reign of
Ch'ien Lung (1736-95) an honorary archway was
erected to her memory and her tablet was given a
place in the local Shrine of Chastity and Filial Piety.

The last story of this kind to be quoted has not
been extracted from the local Annals nor does it refer
to events which actually took place in Weihaiwei ; it
was told me, however, by a Weihaiwei resident con-
cerning a girl with whose family his own was distantly
connected, and as it throws some light on certain
Chinese customs and possesses a pathetic interest of
its own though it is not essentially different from
many other such stories, a little space may be found
for it here.

A girl of eighteen years of age, named Chang Shih,
had been betrothed since early childhood to a youth
who lived in a neighbouring village, and the bridal

<^-

STORY OF A CHINESE WIDOW 233

day was drawing near. It was going to be a great
occasion for every one concerned, for both families
were well-to-do and popular and the girl was known
by all her friends to be as tender and lovable as she
was graceful and beautiful. But over the family hung
a cloud that burst as suddenly as a thunderstorm : for
one day, when the family were eagerly looking forward
to the great event of the marriage, the black news
came of the illness and death of the bridegroom.

The parents of Chang Shih consulted together as to
how they should break the news to their daughter,
who though she had never seen or spoken to her
betrothed had been brought up in full knowledge of
the fact that some day she would be his wife. She
heard their whispers, and with quick intuition felt
certain that their conversation had some reference to
herself. Going to her mother, she questioned her.
" What bad news have you, mother ? " she said.
" Whatever it may be you must tell your daughter."
For a moment or two the elder woman was afraid to
speak plainly and showed embarrassment, but at last,
breaking into sobs and tears, she told the dismal story.
" My daughter's wedding-day was fixed and a happy
marriage had been foretold. But now all our hopes
are ruined, for my daughter's betrothed has closed his
eyes." The girl's face showed no sign of emotion.
Her mother wondered at this, for she knew that her
daughter was highly strung and was not one who
could readily dissemble her feelings. Without a word
Chang Shih turned away and retired to her own room.
At this time she was gaily and carefully dressed like
most young Chinese ladies of good family : her pretty
face was powdered and rouged, and sweet-scented
flowers and two little gold ornaments adorned her
shining hair. When an hour later she appeared
before her mother again she was almost unrecog-
nisable. All trace of powder and rouge was washed
from her face, so that she had become — as a European
observer would have said — more beautiful than ever ;

/

234 WIDOWS AND CHILDREN

her long black hair, devoid of a single flower or
ornament, was uncoiled and hung loosely over her
shoulders ; her handsome embroidered dress had
been thrown off, and her lithe form was disfigured by
a gown of coarse sackcloth.

" My poor child," exclaimed her mother in amaze-
ment, " how is it that you, who are still a maiden,
have attired yourself like a widow ? Are you not still
a member of your father's house ? Are we of such
poor report that our daughter will be shunned by
every family that has a son still unbetrothed ? Take
off those ill-omened clothes that speak to us only of
death, and become again our gay little daughter who
has yet before her many years of happy life. It will
not be long before the go-betweens come knocking at
our door with eager proposals of marriage for the
fairest little lady in the whole prefecture."

The girl listened, but never a smile appeared on
her face. " It is my mother's voice that speaks but
the thoughts are not my mother's. Can I, your
daughter, ever give myself to another man v/hile my
husband has gone all lonely down to the Yellow
Springs?^ I beseech you, my mother, grant your
daughter's last request. In seven days' time my be-
trothed was to come to escort me to his home and I
was to sit in the red marriage-chair and to be carried
away to be his bride. I pray you, my mother, that my
wedding-day may not be cancelled. When the spirit
of my husband comes for me on that day I shall
be ready." The girl's mother did her utmost to shake
her daughter's resolution, for she loved her dearly,
and feared the girl was concealing some dreadful in-
tention in this strange request. But her words were
quite without avail, and she soon left her daughter to
talk matters over with her husband. It was not with-
out some justifiable pride that they finally decided to
humour her; for in China the girl who on the death
of her betrothed renounces all thought of marriage

' The Under-world of disembodied souls.

MARRIAGE BETWEEN LIVING AND DEAD 235

with a living man and, by remaining faithful to the
dead, embraces at the same instant wifehood and
widowhood, brings glory and honour to her father's
family and also to the family of the dead bridegroom.
The emperor's representative — the head of the local
civil government — will himself do homage to her stead-
fast virtue, and will doubtless convey to her parents
some mark of imperial approval ; while her native
village will derive widespread fame from the fact that
it had once been her home.

The bridegroom's parents, in the case before us,
received with appreciative gladness the announce-
ment of the girl's fixed determination to remain
faithful to their son, and they readily agreed to
fall in with her wish for the formality of a marriage
between the living and the dead. Preparations
for the strange wedding went on apace, and though
there was no merriment and very little feasting,
strangers who suddenly arrived on the scene would
never have guessed that the bridegroom was lying
stiff and cold with never a thought for the beauti-
ful bride that was to be his.

Though marriages of this kind — so strange and
perhaps shocking to Western notions — were by no
means unknown, several years had elapsed since
such a ceremony had taken place in the district,
and the local interest shown in it was very great.
On the day of the wedding two large palanquins
— one red, the other green — were carried on stal-
wart shoulders from the bridegroom's house to that
of the bride. At ordinary marriages in Shantung
the bridegroom usually goes in the red chair to
meet his bride while the green chair follows be-
hind, generally empty.^ On arrival at the bride's
house the bridegroom is received with much cere-
mony and introduced to every one except his bride,

' In Peking and many other places the bridegroom does not ying
ch'in or " go to meet the bride." He stays at home and awaits her
arrival.

236 WIDOWS AND CHILDREN

whom he is not allowed to see. Most of the intro-
ductions take place in a guest-room, where he is
regaled with light refreshments. Meanwhile the red
chair in which he arrived is taken into the inner
courtyard to await the bride. As soon as it is an-
nounced that she is ready to start, the bridegroom
takes ceremonious leave of the family and prepares
for departure. The bride in her red chair goes in
front, he — in the green chair this time — follows be-
hind. Thus bride and bridegroom, who have not yet
exchanged a word, set out for the bridegroom's home.
There they are received by his relatives, and the other
nuptial ceremonies follow in due course.

To outward appearance there was little to suggest
any unusual circumstances in the marriage of Chang
Shih. The red chair and green chair came to her house
in the usual way ; the only difference was that in the
red chair there was no living bridegroom, only his
p^ai-wei — a white strip of paper bearing his name and
age and the important words ling wei — " the seat of
the soul."i

On arrival at the home of Chang Shih, the p^ai-wei
was taken with the deepest marks of respect out of the
red chair and carried into the house. It was rever-
ently placed on a small shrine in the guest-chamber,
and in front of it were set a few small dishes of fruit
and sweetmeats and several sticks of burning incense.
Then every member of the family separately greeted
it with a silent obeisance. When the time came for
departure, the/>'rt/-rrt7 was carefully carried out of doors
again and placed in the green chair, the red one being
now occupied by Chang Shih ; and thus the strange
bridal procession started home again, the soul of the

* This is a temporary tablet in which the soul of the deceased
is supposed to reside till after the burial, when it is formally summoned
to take up its abode in the wooden tablet intended to remain per-
manently in the possession of the family. In the present case the
temporary tablet would be ceremonially destroyed by fire after it had
served its purpose.

THE BRIDEGROOM'S FUNERAL 237

dead bridegroom escorting the body of the living
bride. On arrival at the house the p'ai-zvei was again
taken out of its chair and set up in the large hall
where the dead man's family and their guests were
waiting to receive Chang Shih. For the time being
her widow's sackcloth had been cast aside, and she
was clad in the resplendent attire of a rich young
bride. If her face bore signs of inward emotion they
were totally concealed beneath powder and rouge, and
not even her own parents could have told what
thoughts or feelings were uppermost at that time in
their beautiful daughter's mind. She went through
the usual ceremonies that accompany a Chinese
wedding, so far as they could be carried out without
the living presence of the bridegroom.

Having paid the necessary reverence to Heaven and
Earth, to the souls of the ancestors of her new family,
and finally to the living members of that family in the
order of their seniority, she retired to the room that
would in happier circumstances have been the bridal
chamber, and there she quickly divested herself of
her gay wedding robes and reassumed the dress of a
widow in deepest mourning. Her betrothed — her
husband now — had already been laid in his coffin, but
in accordance with the usual Chinese custom many days
had to elapse between the coffining and the burial.
Those days were devoted to the elaborate rites always
observed at a well-conducted Chinese funeral, and the
young girl having taken her place as chief mourner
performed her painful duties in a manner that gained
her renewed respect and admiration. At last came
the day of the burial. From the home of the living
to the home of the dead marched a long procession of
wailing mourners robed in sackcloth ; several bands
of flute-players and other musicians went in front and
behind ; there were scatterers of paper money, coloured-
flag bearers and trumpeters, whose duty it was to
conciliate and keep at a distance evil spirits and ill-
omened influences ; there were lantern-bearers to

238 WIDOWS AND CHILDREN

pilot the dead man's soul ; there was a great paper
image of the Road-clearing Spirit, borne in a draped
and tasselled pavilion ; there was a dark tabernacle con-
taining the tablet to which the spirit of the deceased
himself would in due course be summoned ; there was
the long streamer, the ling ching or Banner of the
Soul ; and there was the coffin itself, almost entirely
concealed beneath its canopy, covered with richly
embroidered scarlet draperies.

It is not usual, nowadays, in eastern Shantung, for
the female mourners to accompany funeral processions
throughout the whole sad journey, but on this occasion
the widowed maiden acted in accordance with the
ceremonies sanctioned by the sages of old,' for she
followed the coffin all the way to the grave. Then at
last the attendant mourners — members of her father's
family and of the family of the dead — were for the
first time admitted to the secret of her intentions.
No sooner had the coffin been lowered than Chang
Shih threw herself into the grave and lay across the
coffin-lid face downwards, as if to embrace, for the
first and last time, the husband whose form she had
never seen in life nor in death. For a few moments
her fellow-mourners waited in decorous silence until
the violence of her passionate outburst should have
spent itself, but seeing that she did not stir one of
them at last begged her to leave the dead to the dead.
" My place is by my husband," was the girl's reply.
" If he is with the dead, then my place too is with the
dead. Fill up the grave." To obey her behest was
out of the question, and for some time no one stirred.
Knowing the nature of the girl, her relatives felt sure
that if they forcibly removed her from her present
position and compelled her to return home with them
she would seize the first opportunity of destroying
herself.

Some one at last suggested that if they humoured

* See the Chou Li. In Peking and many other places the women
still accompany the funeral party to the graveside.

DEATH OF THE BRIDE 239

her to the extent of sprinkling her with a light
covering of earth which she could easily throw off as
soon as the desire of life once more asserted itself,
she might be permanently restored to a normal con-
dition and all might be well. This suggestion was
acted upon. Some handfuls of earth were thrown
loosely over the living and the dead, each mourner,
in accordance with custom, contributing a portion.^
Having by this time concluded the sacrificial rites and
ceremonies, the mourners now withdrew from the
graveside. When some of the nearest relatives of
Chang Shih returned an hour later they found that
the light covering of earth had not been disturbed.
The desire of life had never asserted itself after all.
The girl was dead.

Carefully and tenderly she was taken up and brought
back to the sad bridal chamber that had witnessed no
bridal. Long before her beautiful body had been
prepared for burial and placed in its splendid coffin
her fame had already spread far through town and
countryside. Vast was the crowd of mourners who,
when her body was once more laid beside that of
her husband, never to be disturbed again, flocked
from distances of over a thousand li to show their
admiration of the bravest of women and most faithful
of wives.

With the exception of the last, all these little stories
have been translated almost word for word from the
official records of Weihaiwei and the three neigh-
bouring districts. Similar cases could be collected
by the thousand. Honorific portals and handsome
marble monuments stand by the roadside in every

' In China the belief that inspires this practice is that the greater the
number of mourners who throw handfuls of earth on the coffin, the
greater will be the prosperity of the family in future and the more
numerous its descendants. The custom is not, of course, confined to
China. It is mentioned by Sir Thomas Browne as a practice of the
Christians, " who thought it too little, if they threw not the earth thrice
upon the interred body " {Urn-Burial, ch, iv.).

240 WIDOWS AND CHILDREN

part of the Empire, silent witnesses to noble Chinese
womanhood. There is not a district in China that
does not possess its roll of women who have sacrificed
their lives in obedience to what they believed to be
the call of a sacred obligation. Probably none but
the most bigoted or the most ignorant will read of
these poor women — many of them hardly more than
children — with feelings of either contempt or abhor-
rence. They died no doubt from a mistaken sense of
duty : but to die for an idea that is based on error
surely requires as much courage and resolution as to
die for an idea that is radiant with truth, and — what
is perhaps of greater practical significance — the women
who go willingly to the grave for a cause that to us
seems a poor one may be counted on to suffer as cheer-
fully and die as bravely for a cause that is truly great.

Brave women do not give birth to ignoble sons;

and when we contemplate the present and speculate

as to the future condition of China we may do well to

remember that women like those of whom we have

just read are among the mothers of the great race that

constitutes perhaps more than a quarter of the world's

population. The woman who offers herself as a willing

sacrifice to-day on the altar of what may be called a

domestic ideal is the mother of a man who may,

to-morrow, offer himself with readiness and gladness

on the altar of a political or a national ideal. In the

marvellous evolution that has taken place during the

past half-century in the island Empire of Japan one

has hardly known which to admire most : the splendid

daring and patriotism shown by the Japanese soldier

and civilian or the patience and trustfulness shown in

times of trial and hardship by the Japanese woman.

China has surprises in store for us as startling as

those that were given us by Japan ; and not the least

of these surprises, to many Western minds, will perhaps

be the unfiinching steadiness of the Chinese soldier

on the field of battle when his regenerated country

calls upon him to defend her from the spoiler, and the

THE ETHICS OF SUICIDE 241

heroism and fidelity of the Chinese woman at home.
Europeans will doubtless wonder at what Ihey take
to be the sudden evolution of hitherto undreamed-of
features in the Chinese character; yet those supposed
new features will only be the ancestral qualities of
loyalty and devotion directed into new channels
broader and deeper than the old.

In spite of these considerations, most Western
readers, whatever may be their views on the ethics of
suicide, will probably confess themselves utterly unable
to understand how a young betrothed girl can work
herself into the state of intense emotional excitement
which the act of self-destruction implies, merely as the
result of the untimely death of the man to whom she
happened to be engaged. The suicide of real widows,
distracted with grief for the loss of a beloved husband,
they can understand : but it cannot be love, and it can
hardly be grief in the ordinary sense, that induces a
Chinese girl to throw away her life when she hears of
the decease of a young man with whom she has never
exchanged a word and whose face perhaps she has
never seen. It may be pointed out, in partial explana-
tion of a phenomenon so strange to Western notions,
that not only is a betrothal in China practically as
binding as a marriage, but that marriage, and there-
fore the betrothal that precedes it, are according to
Chinese belief founded on mysterious ante-natal
causes. When the sceptical Englishman says jestingly
that " marriages are made in heaven " he is giving
expression to a theory that in China is held to be
essentially true, though it is not expressed by the
Chinese in exactly the same terms. The theory is
independent of and perhaps older than Buddhism,
though no doubt popular Buddhism has done a great
deal to strengthen it ; and it has certainly helped to
keep the Chinese people satisfied with their traditional
marriage customs, which, as every one knows, are quite
independent of love-making. It is partly this theory
that makes a Chinese woman contented and even

16

242 WIDOWS AND CHILDREN

happy in the contemplation of her approaching
marriage to an unknown bridegroom, and often fixes
in a girl's mind the idea that to give herself to any
man other than her first betrothed, even if the latter
died during the betrothal, would be as shameful a
proceeding as to commit an act of unfaithfulness in
wedlock.

Probably it is only the fear of social disorder and
many other practical inconveniences that have pre-
vented the second betrothals and second marriages
of women from being more severely discouraged by
public opinion than is actually the case. The first
are in ordinary practice passed over without com-
ment, though the fact of the original betrothal
is "hushed up," or is at least not talked of; the
second are in many parts of China still regarded
with austere disfavour, though circumstances such
as extreme poverty may render them necessary. In
any case, the girl who refuses a second betrothal
is still honoured and respected just as if she were
a widow who had virtuously refused a second
marriage.

It should be noted that the discredit of a second
marriage or the lesser discredit of contracting a second
betrothal does not attach to the woman only. But
a man is in practice more at liberty than a woman to
consult his own inclinations. The 3^oung widower
who refrains from a second marriage after his wife's
death is regarded as deserving of the greatest praise
and respect, but if he is childless he is in the dilemma
of having to be either unfaithful to the memory of his
wife or undutiful towards his parents and ancestors ;
and as the parents "count" more than the wife in
China he must choose to be unfaithful rather than
undutiful. It is an important part of Chinese teaching
that the most unfilial of sons is he who has no children :
the reason being, of course, that childlessness means
the extinction of the family and the cessation of the
ancestral sacrifices. Thus a childless widower not

CHINESE MARRIAGES 243

only may, but must, seek a second marriage, especially
if he has no married brothers. A common way out
of the difficulty is for the widower to take a con-
cubine : for the concubine's position in China is a
perfectly legal one, and her children, as we have
seen, are legitimate.

After all, it is perhaps impossible for any European
mind to understand the real nature of the impulse
that occasionally drives a Chinese girl to kill herself
on the death of an unknown betrothed ; not indeed
because the occidental mind is essentially different
from the oriental, but because of the unbridged chasm
that lies between the social, religious and ethical
systems and traditions of East and West. Considera-
tions of this kind should perhaps teach us something
of the limitations of our minds and characters, by
showing how comparative a thing is our boasted
independence of thought, and with what humiliating
uniformity our ideals and impulses are conditioned
by the social and traditional surroundings in which
we live and move. However this may be, it will
perhaps be comforting to know that the Chinese,
unsentimental as they are in their methods of court-
ship, are no strangers to what in Europe we recognise
as the romance of love.

As we saw in the last chapter, Chinese marriages,
in spite of their supposed pre-natal origin, are not
always productive of lifelong happiness ; but as an
offset to the melancholy picture there drawn of many
domestic infelicities, it is only fair to emphasise the
unrufQed peace and contentment of very many Chinese
households. In numerous cases this happy condition
of affairs is the result of a real if somewhat undemon-
strative love between husband and wife — a love that
is perhaps all the more likely to be firm and lasting
because it only sprang into existence after marriage.
It is obviously difficult to cite instances of this. It
is the unhappy marriages, not the happy ones, that
in China — as everywhere else — engage the attention

244 WIDOWS AND CHILDREN

of an administrator or a judge. But sometimes a
suicide occurs in circumstances which indicate that
the moving impulse can only have been deep grief
for the death of a beloved wife or husband. I have
had cause to investigate officially no less than three
such cases within two months.

A man named Chang Chao-wan died after a short
illness, A few hours later, at midnight, his wife, who
had previously shown every sign of intense grief,
hanged herself. It was ascertained that the couple
had lived a happy married life for nearly forty years.
He was fifty-eight years of age, she was fifty-seven.
They had three sons, all grown-up. In a case like
this the action of the woman cannot be attributed to
a desire for notoriety or a hope of posthumous
honours, for it is only young widows who have any
reason to expect such rewards.

The second instance is perhaps of greater interest.
The story may be stated in the words of the man who
first reported it. " My second son, Ts'ung Chia-lan,
Went to Kuantung (Manchuria) a few months after his
marriage. This was eight years ago. He went abroad
because the family was poor and he wanted to make
some money. His wife was very miserable when he
went and begged him not to go, but he promised to
come back to her. He disappeared, and for years
we heard nothing of him. His wife made no com-
plaint, but she was unhappy. A few months ago a
returned emigrant told us that he had seen my son
in Manchuria. When I saw that this news made his
wife glad I sent my elder son, Chia-lin, to look for
him and bring him home. My elder son was away
for more than two months and never found him.
Then he returned by himself and told us there was
no hope of our ever seeing Chia-lan again. His wife
heard him say this. We tried to console her. She
said nothing at all, but two hours after my elder
son had come home she took a dose of arsenic
and died. She was a good woman, and no one ever

LOVE-MARRIAGES 245

had a complaint to make against her. She had no
child."

The last case to be mentioned shows that it is not
women only who can throw away their lives on the
death of their loved ones. A native of the village of
Hai-hsi-t'ou came to report the suicide of a nephew,
Tung Ch'i-tzu. " He was twenty years old," said my
informant. " He was deeply attached to his wife and
she to him. She died about six weeks ago. They
had been married less than two years and they had
no children. He was very unhappy after her death,
and would not let any one console him. He was
left alone, and yesterday when his father had gone
to market he hanged himself from a beam with his
own girdle. There was no other motive for the
suicide. He died because he loved his wife too much,
and could not live without her."

Deaths and suicides have made a dismal chapter,
and perhaps no better way could be devised of
lightening the gloom than by turning to a source of
brightness that does more to make homes happy — •
Chinese homes and Western homes — than anything
else in the world. To say that the Chinese love
their children would be unnecessary : they would be
a unique race if they did not. But it may not be
accepted equally readily that Chinese girls and boys
are charming and lovable even when compared with
the modern children of western Europe and America,
who have all the resources of science and civilisation
lavished on their upbringing, and for whose benefit
has been founded something like a special branch of
psychology. Perhaps there has been no section of
the Chinese people more hopelessly misunderstood
by Western folk than the children. It is not un-
natural that such should be the case It is but rarely
that feelings of real sympathy and mutual apprecia-
tion can exist between Chinese children and adult
Europeans. It would be futile to deny the fact that
by the Chinese child we are almost sure to be re-

246 WIDOWS AND CHILDREN

garded as fearfully and wonderfully ugly — and all
good children have an instinctive dislike of the ugly.
Our clothing is ridiculous ; our eyes and noses are
deformed ; our hair (unless it is black) looks diseased ;
our language — even if we profess to speak Chinese
— is strangely uncouth ; and the particular blandish-
ments we attempt are not of the kind to which they
are accustomed, or to which they know how to re-
spond. There is no use in saying "goo-goo" to an
infant that expects to be addressed with a conciliating
" fo-fo " ; nor should we be surprised if we fail to
win the approval of a shy Chinese youngster by
talking to him on the topics that would rouse the
interest of the twentieth-century English schoolboy.
As likely as not he will remain stolidly indifferent,
and will stare at his well-meaning interlocutor with
a disconcerting lack — or apparent lack — of intelli-
gence. No wonder is it that the mortified foreigner
often goes away complaining that Chinese children
are ugly, stupid, horrid and ungracious little urchins
and that he will never try to make friends with
them again.

Even distance does not seem to lend much enchant-
ment to the Chinese child from the European point
of view. He is commonly caricatured somewhat after
this fashion : he never smiles ; he has hardly any
nose and possesses oblique eyes that are almost
invisible ; he wears too many clothes in winter, so
that he looks like an animated plum-pudding; he
wears too little in summer — his birthday dress, to be
explicit — and looks like a jointed wooden doll ; he has
a horror of "romping"; he is unwashed, deceitful
and cruel ; he cultivates a solemnity of demeanour
with the view of leading people to think he is pre-
cociously wise and preternaturally good ; and he is
always mouthing philosophic saws from Confucius
which he has learned by rote and of which he neither
knows nor wants to know the meaning. Of course
there is much in this description that is totally false j

CHINESE CHILDREN 247

and misleading, but it is not difficult to see the super-
ficial characteristics that may give such a caricature
a certain amount of plausibility.

To form a true idea of what Chinese children really
are we must take them unawares among their own
people, if we are fortunate enough to have oppor-
tunities of doing so. We must go into the country
fields and villages and see them at work and play ;
we must watch them at their daily round of duties
and pleasures, at school (one of the old-fashioned
schools if possible), in times of sickness and pain,
on occasions of festivals, family gatherings, weddings
and funerals. The more we see of them in their own
houses and surrounded by their own relatives the
better we shall understand them and the more we
shall like them. They are highly intelligent, quick
to see the merry side of things, brimful of healthy
animal spirits, and exceedingly companionable. This
applies not only to the boys but also in a smaller
degree to the girls, who, however, are much less
talkative than they come to be in later years and are
apt to be more timid and shy than their little brothers.
They are terribly handicapped by the cruel custom
of foot-binding, which it is earnestly to be hoped will
before long be utterly abolished throughout China.
It has undoubtedly caused a far greater aggregate
amount of pain and misery in China than has been
produced by opium-smoking. In spite of the cruelty
involved in foot-binding, the rather common impres-
sion that the Chinese have no affection for their
daughters or regard the birth of a girl as a domestic
calamity is very far from correct. That a son is
welcomed with greater joy than a daughter is true,
but that a daughter is not welcomed at all is a view
which is daily contradicted by experience. Mothers,
especially, are often as devoted to their girls as they
are to their boys. In the autumn of 1909 a headman
reported to me that a woman of his village had killed
herself because she was distracted with grief on

248 WIDOWS AND CHILDREN

account of the death of her child. The child in
question was a girl, fourteen years of age. " Her
mother," said the headman, " begged Heaven {Lao
T^ien-ycJi) to bring her daughter back to life, and
she declared that she would willingly give her life
in exchange for that of her daughter." It is erroneous
to suppose that the old loving relations between
mother and daughter are necessarily severed on the
daughter's marriage. It is often the case that a
young married woman's greatest happiness consists
in periodical visits to her old home.

On the whole it may be said that Chinese children
are neither better nor worse, neither more nor less
delightful, than the children of the West, and that
child-nature is much the same all the world over.
Among their most conspicuous qualities are their
good-humour and patience. Chinese children bear
illness and pain like little heroes. This need not
be ascribed entirely to the oft-asserted cause that
" Chinese have no nerves," though indeed there is
good reason to believe that the people of the West
(perhaps owing to the relaxing effects of a pampering
civilisation) are considerably more sensitive to physical
suffering than the people of the Orient. Another
interesting characteristic of Chinese children consists
in the fact that good manners very often appear,
at first sight, to be innate rather than acquired.
Even illiterate children, and the children of illiterate
parents, seem to behave with a politeness and grace
of manner towards their elders and superiors (more
particularly, of course, those of their own race) which
they certainly have not learned by direct teaching.
A well-bred European child sometimes gives one
the impression that he has learned his exemplary
"manners" as a lesson, just as he learns the tribu-
taries of the Ouse or the dates of the kings. The
most remarkable point about the Chinese child's
"manners" is the grace and ease with which he
displays them and the entire absence of mauvaise

MANNERS OF CHINESE CHILDREN 249

honte. No doubt the truth of the matter is that cour-
tesy is no more a natural quaHty in the Chinese than
in other races. The average peasant's child in north
China, who is always treated with what seems to us
excessive indulgence — being allowed to run wild and
hardly ever punished for his childish acts of " naughti-
ness" and disobedience — grows up a devoted and
obedient son and most courteous and conciliatory, as
a rule, in his dealings with the outside world ; but
these graces were not born in him except possibly
in the merely potential form of hereditary predisposi-
tion. He has acquired them unconsciously through
the medium of that "endless imitation" which, as
Wordsworth said, seems at times to be the "whole
vocation " of a healthy child. Doubtless he learns
the forms of politeness to some extent from his
schoolmaster — and indeed if ethical teaching can make
a good boy, then the educated Chinese boy should be
perfect ; but that school teaching is not everything
is proved by the fact that in a poor country-district
like Weihaiwei, where only a small proportion of the
children go to school, there is no essential difference
in "manners " between the lettered and the ignorant,
though the educated are of course quicker in intel-
ligence and more adaptable.

Perhaps the explanation of the matter is that in
China the adult's life and the child's life are not
kept too far apart from each other, so that the child
has endless opportunities of indulging his imitative
faculties to the utmost. Children live in the bosom
of the family, and it is very rarely indeed that their
natural high spirits are frowned down with the chill-
ing remark that " little boys should be seen and not
heard." Strange to say, the sparing of the rod does
not seem to have the effect of spoiling the Chinese
child, who is not more troublesome or unruly than
the average European child. The Chinese, indeed,
have a proverb which shows that they, too, under-
stand the value of occasional corporal punishment :

250 WIDOWS AND CHILDREN

" From the end of the rod pops forth a filial son."
But the rod is allowed to become very dusty in most
Chinese homes, and the filial son seems to come all
the same.

Female infanticide is not practised in Weihaiwei.
The only infants ever made away v/ith arc the off-
spring of illicit connections, and in such cases no
difference is made between male and female. A young
woman who has been seduced is — or was till recent
years — practically compelled to destroy her illegitimate
child ; her own life would become insupportable other-
wise, and she would probably be driven to suicide.
The voice of the people would be unanimous against
the Government if it caused the mother in such sl
case to be prosecuted on a charge of homicide,
although her own female relations and neighbours
often treat her so unmercifully as a result of her fall
that she sometimes chooses to die by her own hand
rather than submit to their ceaseless revilings.

Chinese law strongly supports the sanctity of the
home and is very severe on unfaithful wives, but it
regards the killing of an illegitimate child as a very
light offence, — indeed case-made law regards it as no
offence at all provided the killing be done at the
time of the child's birth or before it. Fortunately
cases of this kind in Weihaiv/ei are very rare. But
the poorest classes have one most objectionable
custom which seems to be strangely inconsistent with
the undoubted fondness of parents for their children.
This is the practice of throwing away or exposing the
bodies of children who have died in infancy or in very
early childhood. This seems to indicate an extra-
ordinary degree of callousness in the natures of the
people. How a mother can fondle her child lovingly
and watch over it with the utmost care and unselfish-
ness when it is sick, and yet can bear to see its little
body thrown into an open ditch or left on a hillside
to become the prey of w^olves or the village dogs, is
perhaps one of those mysterious anomalies in which

CHILDREN NOT SOULLESS 251

the Chinese character is said to abound. Even New
Guinea babies are treated after death with more
respect than is sometimes the case in China.' Need-
less to say the British Government has not remained
inactive in the matter, and the man who now refrains
from giving his infant child decent burial knows that
he runs a risk of punishment.

The only excuses that can be made for the people
in this respect are not based on their poverty (for
poverty does not prevent them from burying their
adult relatives with all proper decorum) but on their
theory that an infant " does not count " in the scheme
of family and ancestral relationships. No mourning
of any kind is worn for children who die under the
age of about eight, and only a minor degree of mourn-
ing for older children who die unmarried and un-
marriageable. Even when a young child's body is
given a place in the family burial-ground care is
always taken to choose a grave-site that is not likely
to be selected for the burial of any senior,'^ for it is
considered foolish and unnecessary to waste good
feng-shui on a mere child, who has left no descendants
whose fortunes it can influence.

Young children are not indeed regarded as soul-
less,^ for there are touching ceremonies whereby a
mother seeks to recall the soul of her child when it
seems likely to fly away for ever ; but child-spirits
are not supposed to exercise any control over the
welfare of the family. They never " grow up " in
the spirit-world, but merely remain infant ghosts,
powerful in nothing. The ancestral temples preserve
no records of dead children nor are their names
inscribed on spirit tablets. This is very different
from the state of things existing among a race that

* See Grant Allen's The Evolution of the Idea 0/ God, pp. 52 and 69.

* See p. 266.

' According to the Fijian Islanders the souls of the unmarried are
soon extinguished in the Under-world. See Tylor's Primitive Culture
(4th ed.), vol. ii. p, 23.

252 WIDOWS AND CHILDREN

is ethnically far inferior to the Chinese, namely the
Vaeddas of Ceylon, who pay special attention to " the
shades of departed children, the 'infant spirits,'"^ and
often call upon them for aid in times of unhappiness
or calamity.

Fortunately the average child in Weihaiwei is an
exceedingly healthy little piece of humanity and is
not in the habit of worrying about the ultimate fate
of either his body or his soul. He derives pleasure
from the knowledge that he is loved by his elders,
and in his rather undemonstrative way he loves them
in return. He lives on simple fare that European
children would scorn, but it is only the poorest of
the poor whose children cannot chUh pao (eat as much
as they like) at least once a day. A villager in
Weihaiwei who gave his children too little to eat
would probably hear highly unflattering opinions
about himself from his next-door neighbours, and to
''save his face" he would be obliged to show less
parsimony in matters of diet. That under-feeding
cannot be common in Weihaiwei except in times of
actual famine is proved not only by the excellent
health and spirits of the children but by the fine
physical development of the adults and the great age
often attained by them.

We are told by many observers that theory and
practice in China are often widely divergent, but in
one matter at least they absolutely coincide. The
Chinese hold that the greatest treasure their country
can possess consists not in gold and silver, mines
and railways, factories and shipping, but in an ever-
increasing army of healthy boys and girls — the future
fathers and mothers of the race. If the family decays
the State decays ; if the family prospers the State
prospers : for what is the State but a vast aggregate
of families ? What indeed is the Emperor himself but
the Father of the State and thus the Patriarch of
every family within it ? This is the Chinese theory,

' Tylor, oJ> cit , vol. ii. p. 1 17.

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THE BLESSING OF CHILDREN 253

and there is hardly a man in China who does not
do his best to prove by practical demonstration that
the theory is a correct one. " Lo, children are an
heritage of the Lord," sings the Psalmist ; " Happy is
the man that hath his quiver full of them." The
average Chinese peasant must be a very happy man.

CHAPTER XI

FAMILY GRAVEYARDS

Not the most unobservant visitor to China can fail
to notice the ubiquity of graveyards. In Western
countries one is usually obliged to ask the way to a
cemetery; in China one finds the way by merely walking
in any direction one pleases. Nowhere so vividly as in
China does one realise that not only the path of glory
but every other kind of path leads but to a grave. The
sight is sometimes a melancholy one ; as dreary as
some of the city churchyards in England are the vast
cemeteries for the poor that cover the bare hillsides in
the neighbourhood of many great Chinese cities. The
omega-shaped tombs of south China are apt, moreover,
to appal one by their vastness and too often by the
barren cheerlessness of their surroundings. But there
is nothing dismal in the family graveyards that dot the
valleys of the country districts in the north. Indeed,
in a region like the north-eastern extremity of Shan-
tung, where there is of course no tropical vegetation
and where timber is scarce, the wooded graveyards
form one of the pleasantest features in every landscape.
If while walking across the fields of the Weihaiwei
Territory one comes across a thick plantation of trees —
such as the fir and the Chinese oak, which is never
leafless — one is sure to find that it marks the last
resting-place of a family or a clan that inhabits or once

inhabited some village not far away. The plantation is

254

GRAVEYARDS IN WEIHAIWEI 255

surrounded by no wall or fence of any kind ; such would
be a useless precaution, for no one — except an occa-
sional rascal who " fears neither God nor man " — will
knowingly injure a funereal tree or otherwise violate the
sanctity of the home of the dead. At the first glance
the tombs may not be visible, for the tree branches are
almost interlaced, and in summer-time nearly every
grave has its own canopy of foliage ; moreover, instead
of the omega or horse-shoe tombs of the south we find
only little hillocks and unpretentious gravestones.

A Chinese grave in Weihaiwei is not indeed very
different in appearance — looked at from afar — from a
grave in Europe ; though instead of the long mound
in front of an inscribed stone we find in Weihaiwei a
circular or sometimes oval-shaped mound behind the
stone, which is an upright whitish block with very
little ornamentation. The inscription usually contains
nothing more (in modern times) than names and dates
and position in the family. The names of husband
and wife are inscribed on the same stone — for the two
are always buried in the same grave, the wife's coffin
being placed on the right of the husband's.^ On the
stone are frequently carved the names of the surviving
members of the family by whom it has been erected.
These are always persons in the direct line of descent ;
or, if the deceased left no heirs of his body, his
adopted son. The translation of a typical inscription
will be found on the next page.

It is not customary to erect a tombstone soon after
a burial; the mound is sufficient to indicate to the
family the exact position of the grave, and all necessary
dates and names are carefully entered on the pedigree-
scroll or inscribed on the ancestral tablets. In front
of each grave will often be seen a small stone altar or
pedestal or a stone incense-jar. Here are offered up
the ancestral sacrifices at the festivals of Ch'ing-Ming

' That is to say, the wife's body lies at the right side of the husband's ;
thus the husband, as head of the family, is given the left side — the
place of honour.

256

FAMILY GRAVEYARDS

and the first of the tenth moon.^ At one extremity of
the graveyard will often be found a large upright stone
slab on which is engraved in deep bold characters the
name of the family to which all the tombs belong.
The inscription is as simple as possible, usually con-

THE IMPERIAL CH'ING DYNASTY

THE TOMB

OF

A MEMBER OF THE YAO FAMILY, AN ELDEST

SON, WHOSE PERSONAL NAME WAS

SHIH-JUN
AND OF

HIS WIFE

A DAUGHTER OF THE WANG FAMILY

This Stone is erected on the twelfth day of the second
month of the first year of Hsiian T'ung (March
3, 1909) by Yao Feng-lai, a son, Yao Yiieh-i, a
grandson, and Yao Wan-nien, a great-grandson

J

sisting of four Chinese characters. Chon SJiih Tsu
Ying^ — to take an example — may be rendered

THE ANCESTRAL GRAVEYARD OF THE CHOU FAMILY

Most of the graveyards (ying ti) are very old, and as
the centuries pass, the inscriptions on the oldest monu-
ments naturally tend to become illegible or the stones
themselves are displaced and broken by the roots of

' See pp. 186-7, 192.
* See illustration.

THE ANCESTRAL GRAVEYARD OF THE CHOU FAMILY,
p. 256.]

SACRIFICIAL RITES 257

trees or other natural causes. At the periodical sacri-
fices, however, care is taken to neglect no grave that is
recognisable as such. In order to make sure that none
of the ancestral spirits will be left uncared for, sacri-
ficial offerings are made to the souls of the ancestors in
general as well as to the immediate predecessors of the
sacrificers. The usual expression used in Weihaiwei
for a ceremonial visit to the family grave is shang fen,
" to go up to the tombs." ^

A graveyard is very often completely surrounded by
cultivated fields. As a general rule these fields are the
property of a branch of the family that owns the
graveyard, but sometimes the family has emigrated to
another part of the country or has had to part with
this portion of its arable acres, so that it has passed
into the hands of strangers. But the graveyard itself
is never forgotten and never alienated. No matter to
what distance the family may have moved, it will never
lose touch with the spot where lie the bones of its
ancestors — the spot to which its members all expect
that their bodies will some day be carried. Year by
year one or more members of the family will be sent
to carry out the traditional sacrificial ceremonies, to
"sweep" the tombs and to see that the ploughs of
strangers have not encroached upon the sacred
boundaries.

The most interesting tombs in Weihaiwei, from the
visitor's point of view, are those known to the English
as Beehive graves.- All or nearly all those on which
the inscriptions are legible show that they were
erected in the Yiian dynasty (1280- 1367) or the early
Ming dynasty, which came to the throne in 1368.
None are of modern date, though in many cases the

' Expressions such as pat sao (the extended meaning of which is "to
make obeisance to the ancestral spirits and to sweep the tombs ") are
also well known. In southern China {e.g. at Canton) perhaps the
commonest term is /rt/j/z^zw, "to worship (at) the hills" — where in that
part of the Empire the majority of the graves are situated.

* See illustration.

17

258 FAMILY GRAVEYARDS

places in which they are found are still the family
burial-grounds of the direct descendants of the people
to whose memory they were erected. This handsome
form of tombstone has fallen into complete disuse, and
the people account for its former use by the explana-
tion that in the old days the country w^as overrun
with wolves and other wild beasts and that it was
necessary to erect massive piles of masonry over the
graves to protect them from desecration. These tombs
somewhat resemble Buddhist stupas or Lamaist clwrten;
most of them have panels artistically carved with
figures of animals, human beings and conventional
plants and devices of various kinds. Very often the
carving on a panel represents the tomb itself in minia-
ture, with mourners or worshippers kneeling round it.
The whole structure is made of heavy blocks of stone,
the general design consisting of a large dome sur-
mounted by a Buddhistic lotus or a conventional spire
and superimposed upon a panelled pedestal.

Every graveyard is ** managed " by the elders of the
clan, who draw up rules for general upkeep and the
allotment of grave-sites. Sometimes the different
branches of the family are allowed to take turns in
keeping the graveyard in proper order and in super-
intending the sacrifices, in return for which services
the caretakers are allowed to derive a little profit
from a periodical grass-cutting and pruning of trees ;
sometimes, too, they are put in temporary and con-
ditional possession of an area of arable land out of
the proceeds of which they are often expected not
only to look after the graveyard but also to keep in
repair the chia miao or Family Temple. Acrimonious
disputes occasionally arise among relatives as to who
has the best right or whose turn has arrived to enjoy
the use of these " sacrificial " lands, and sometimes a
whole clan brings an action against one of its branches
for refusing to give them up when it has had its turn.
But after all, though such disputes provide trouble-
some work for the British magistrate whose duty it is

OFFENCES CONNECTED WITH GRAVEYARDS 259

to administer " local custom," the system as a general
rule works very smoothly.

In dealing with village life we saw that most villages
have their police regulations,^ in accordance with
which they impose fines on those who have been
guilty of misconduct. Special regulations are often
considered necessary for the adequate protection of
the family graveyards. One set of such is now before
me, and runs as follows :

" The following list of penalties for offences con-
nected with the ancestral graveyard is drawn up and
unanimously agreed upon by the entire village of the
Tsou family :

Cutting or mutilating trees without

authority 10 tiao.

Cutting grass or shrubs ... 5 tiao.

Pasturing cattle, donkeys or mules . 5 tiao.

** This list of penalties is to be preserved in the
Ancestral Temple of the Tsou family."

It will be observed that no penalty is assigned for
the offence of damaging the actual graves, this being
an offence which is almost unknown ; though a man
was once charged before me by the whole of his
fellow-villagers with the offence of digging up and
levelling an old grave {chilch p'ing kit fen). It was
admitted by the prosecutors that the grave in question
was very ancient and that the branch of the family to
which it belonged had long been extinct. The fact
that the whole village made a point of denouncing
their sacrilegious neighbour (who had hoped to extend
the boundaries of his arable land by encroaching on
a corner of the graveyard that no one seemed to want)
shows how heinous a crime it is in China to disturb the
resting-places even of the unknown dead. Sometimes
the regulations are cut on a great stone slab which

* See pp. 160 seq.

26o FAMILY GRAVEYARDS

is set up within the graveyard itself. If no definite
regulations have been agreed upon, the custom, when
the sanctity of a graveyard has been violated, is for the
elders of the clan to meet in council and decide the
case according to circumstances. If the convicted
man refuses to accept the punishment pronounced
upon him, or if he belongs to another village or clan,
the matter usually comes before the magistrate.

A case arising out of the theft of some graveyard
trees was lately submitted to my decision owing to
the truculent behaviour of the malefactor, who refused
to submit to the headmen's judgment. After inves-
tigating the circumstances I sentenced him to pay a
fine of ten dollars, which was to be applied to the
upkeep of the ancestral temple ; to plant three times
the number of trees that he had cut down ; and to
erect a stone tablet within the graveyard at his own
expense setting forth the offence of which he had
been guilty and enlarging upon the severe punish-
ments that would befall others who attempted in future
to commit like misdeeds.

Another case was brought before me by a man who
accused a stranger of cutting up a dead donkey within
his family graveyard. The defendant's excuse was
that while passing the graveyard his donkey had
suddenly taken ill and died, and that he dragged it
in among the trees in order to avoid incommoding
the public by skinning and slicing the animal on the
roadside. Donkeys, it may be mentioned, are not
ordinary articles of diet, but few Chinese can bring
themselves to throw awa}'' flesh that by any stretch of
the imagination can be regarded as edible ; hence it is
quite usual to eat the remains of cattle and donkeys
that die of old age or even of disease. The plaintiff^'s
plea in this suit was not that the defendant was pre-
paring for human consumption food that was unfit to
eat, but that the defendant had selected his graveyard
for use as a butcher's shop. He objected, reasonably
enough, to having his ancestors' tombs bespattered

OFFERINGS TO THE DEAD 261

with the blood of a dead donkey. The defendant was
required to offer a public apology to the plaintiff and
to pay him a moderate sum as compensation ; and the
plaintiff left the court a contented man.

The mode of punishment often chosen by the elders
for offences connected with graveyards is to compel
the accused to make an expiatory offering to the dead
whose spirits he is supposed to have offended. A
man who " cut branches from the family graveyard
for his own use " was recently sentenced by his clan
to present himself at the graveyard in an attitude of
humility and to offer up a sacrifice of pork and vege-
tables. The custom in such cases is that after the
dead have consumed their part of the sacrifice (that is
to say, the spiritual or immaterial and invisible part)
the remainder is divided up among, the chief families
concerned or eaten at a clan feast.

A curious custom analogous to this of serving up
hog-flesh as an expiatory offering to the spirits to
whom the graveyard and its trees are sacred is to
be found in Roman literature. " Cato," as Dr. Tylor
reminds us/ "instructs the woodman how to gain
indemnity for thinning a holy grove ; he must offer
a hog in sacrifice with this prayer, ' Be thou god or
goddess to whom this grove is sacred, permit me, by
the expiation of this pig, and in order to restrain the
overgrowth of this wood, etc., etc'' The two customs
are not true parallels, however, for the Chinese offers
his sacrifice to the spirits of his ancestors as an atone-
ment for the offence of cutting trees which he normally
regards as the inviolable property of the dead or as
associated with them in some mysterious way ; whereas
the Roman offered his sacrifice to a grove which was
in itself sacred as being the abode of gods or dryads.
We shall see later on^ that tree-worship still finds
a place in the Chinese religious system and is not

* Primitive Culture (4th ed.), vol. ii. p. 227. Dr. Tylor quotes from
Cato, De Re Rustica, 139 ; Pliny, .wii. 47.

* See pp. 382 seq.

262 FAMILY GRAVEYARDS

extinct even in Weihaiwei, but it would be a mistake
to regard the veneration shown for the trees of
a family graveyard as evidence of such worship.
Even if the custom of planting a graveyard with
trees had in remote times a common origin with
tree-worship (which is at least doubtful) there is
no evidence whatever to support the view that
graveyard trees are regarded as sacred in them-
selves at the present time. An obvious reason for
planting trees in a graveyard would seem to be
that it facilitated the protection of the graves from
the encroachments of the plough ; but the custom is
more probably derived from the ancient superstition
that certain trees communicate their preservative
qualities to the human remains that lie below them
or impart a kind of vitality or vigour to the spirits
of the dead.

This matter has been ably and thoroughly discussed
by Dr. De Groot/ who shows convincingly that " since
very ancient times pines and cypresses have played
a prominent part as producers of timber for coffins,
and that this was the case because these trees, being
believed to be imbued with great vitality, might
counteract the putrefaction of the mortal remains."
The same cause that made such timber valuable for
coffins made it valuable for graveyards. The super-
stition is connected with the ancient Chinese philo-
sophic doctrine of the Yaug and the Yin — the
complementary forces and qualities which pervade
all nature, such as male and female, light and dark,
warmth and cold, activity and passivity, positive and
negative, life and death. It was supposed that all

1 The Religious System of China, vol. ii. pp. 462 seq. See also vol. i.
pp. 294 seq., and p. 348, where Dr. De Groot mentions " the conception
that if a body is properly circuravested by objects and wood imbued
with Yang matter, or, in other words, with the same sheft afflatus of
which the soul is composed, it will be a seat for the manes even after
death, a support to which the manes may firmly adhere and thus pre-
vent their nebulous, shadowy being from evaporating and suffering
annihilation."

THE YANG AND YIN 263

evergreens must have a greater store of the yang
element (life, vitality) than other trees, because they
retain their foliage through the winter ; and of ever-
green trees those prized most by the Chinese for their
life-giving qualities were and are the fir and the
cypress.^ Therefore by planting these trees in their
graveyards and in the courtyards of their ancestral
temples the Chinese supposed they would endow their
ancestors (apparently both their dead bodies and their
living spirits) with a never-failing preservative against
decay and dissolution. The result of this on them-
selves— the living descendants of the dead — must be,
it was thought, a constant flow of happiness and good
fortune.

It will be remembered that ancestor-worship is not
merely regarded as a method of showing love and
reverence for the dead but is believed to induce the
ancestral spirits to protect and watch over the family
and to bestow on its members long life, many children
and general prosperity. The more abundant the
vitality (if one may speak of the vitality of a ghost)
that can be imparted to the ancestral spirits, the better
able will they be (so goes the theory) to exert them-
selves on behalf of the fortunes of their posterity ; and
the best way to impart vitality (that is, the yang
element) to the spirits is to surround their coffins
and their ancestral tablets with as many ji'(7;/§--supply-
ing agencies as possible. The original theory of
the matter is probably extinct at Weihaiwei if not
everywhere else ; trees are planted and protected
in the family temples and graveyards for no known
reason except that it is the traditional custom to do

^ "The ancient Chinese, as well as Pliny, must have observed that
pinus et cupressus adversiini cariem tineasqiie firniissimae. (Hist.
Nat. xvi.) These trees being in fact more proof against the ravages
of air, weather and insects than perhaps any other growing on the soil
of the Empire, it is natural enough that the inhabitants thereof ascribed
their strong constitution to the large amount of vital power in their
wood." — De Groot, Religious Systetn of China, vol. i. p. 295.

264 FAMILY GRAVEYARDS

so^: yet it is noteworthy that the cypress is still
the favourite tree in the grounds of the ancestral
temples, that the fir is still considered one of the best
trees to plant in a graveyard, and that the pedigree-
scrolls preserved among the archives of every family
are often decorated with the painting of an ever-
green tree.^

There are still persons in the Territory of Wei-
haiwei and its neighbourhood who call themselves
yin-yang hsien-sheng, that is, professors of the
principles of yin and yciug. Their functions are
much the same as those of the feng-shui hsien-sheng
or Masters in Geomancy.^ As professional attendants
at funerals their business is to see that all the arrange-
ments are so carried out as to give every chance for
the "vital essences" (y(ing) to assert themselves and
to keep the dark and languid essences (yin) in their

■ In ancient Egypt the cemeteries were overshadowed by thick
sycamores ; and probably in nearly every country the planting of trees
and shrubs (or flowering plants) on the graves of the dead is or has
been a common practice. There is no necessity to ascribe the custom
to a single origin. The mere desire to differentiate the grave from the
surrounding tract of land is sufficient to explain the planting of a tree
or a grove of trees on or near the funeral mound. The cypress, as
every one knows, was and is a funereal tree in Europe as well as in
China. That this was so in Roman times we know from classical
literature. For some remarks on the cypress in connection with Euro-
pean folk-lore, see the Folk-loi'e Journal, vol. iii. (1885) p. 144. See
also Sir Thomas Browne's Ur?i-Burial, ch. iv. para. 3, where it is
remarked " that, in strewing their tombs, the Romans affected the rose ;
the Greeks, amaranthus and myrtle : that the funeral pyre consisted of
sweet fuel, cypress, fir, larix, yew and trees perpetually verdant." He
adds that these flowers and trees were intended to be silent expressions
of the hopes of the survivors ; and that " Christians, who deck their
coffins with bays, have found a more elegant emblem ; for that tree,
seeming dead, will restore itself from the root, and its dry and exsuccous
leaves resume their verdure again ; which, if we mistake not, we have
also observed in furze. Whether the planting of yew in churcliyards
hold not its original from ancient funeral rites, or as an emblem of
resurrection, from its perpetual verdure, may also admit conjecture."

^ See illustration.

^ See pp. 118 seq.

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p. 264]

FENG-SHUI 265

proper position of subordination. They select the
propitious moment for starting the procession, for
lowering the coffin into the grave and for every other
act of importance in connection with the funeral ; to
them also is left — within limits — the selection of a
favourable position for the grave.' The rules oi feng-
shui are complicated in the extreme ; an error of a few
feet in judging of the precisely favourable spot may
completely shut off all the yang influences and let in
all the yin influences with a rush, in which case— so
it is supposed by believers — the family is doomed
to misfortune and will probably before long become
extinct.

A southern aspect is supposed to be generally the
most favourable for a graveyard, for the south is
yang whereas the north is yin ; but other influences
and conditions have to be taken into account as well —
such as the contour of the neighbouring hills, the
direction of valleys and streams, the proximity of
human habitations, and many other things : so that
a graveyard that has a northern aspect but possesses
first-rate geomantic conditions in other respects is
often far superior from the point of view of the pro-
fessors of yin-yang and feng-shui to a graveyard
that has a southern aspect but happens to be over-
looked by a badly-shaped hill or is near a river that
has too many bends or flows the wrong way. Within
the graveyard itself the good influences are not
supposed to concentrate themselves solely and per-
manently on one spot ; if that were so, the first
people to die after the selection of the graveyard
would obviously get all the best positions.

The date and hour of death, the date of intended
burial, the age and sex and star-influences of the
deceased, and many variable local and temporary
circumstances all have to be taken into consideration

' The services of these persons is by no means always considered
necessary in W^eihaiwei. Faith in the " science " of fettg-shui is much
less strong here than in many other parts of the Empire,

266 FAMILY GRAVEYARDS

before the hsien-sheng can advise his client as to the
best possible site for any required grave. Certain
parts of the graveyard are always more " honourable"
(in the heraldic sense) than others from the point
of view of family precedence and seniority. The
back, centre and front portions of the ground are
reserved for married couples who have left children
and therefore take an honoured place in the family
pedigree, whereas members of the family who have
died unmarried or in childhood are either not ac-
commodated in the family graveyard at all, or, if
admitted, they are buried close to the right or the left
boundary. A villager was once brought before me
on the charge of having buried his dead infant, a child
of two years old, in a part of the graveyard that was
reserved for its dignified elders. As it is advisable
in such matters to uphold local custom I felt re-
luctantly obliged to order the man to remove his
child's body to that part of the graveyard which is
regarded as appropriate for those who have died in
infancy.

If a family has had a long run of misfortune or
misery and sees no way of extricating itself from its
difficulties, it will sometimes try to throw the blame
on its graveyard : not, of course, on the spirits of
its ancestors but merely on the unpropitious influences
that hang round the sites of the family tombs. The
only possible remedy in such a case is to employ
a lisicn-shcng to study the geomantic conditions of the
locality and advise as to what can be done to improve
them. He is almost sure to agree with his employers
that their surmise is correct and that the badly-situated
graveyard is the cause of all their woes, for he will
then be able to proceed to the lucrative task of
selecting a new graveyard-site and superintending
the removal of the graves. The only case of this i
nature that has come within my personal experience
is interesting as throwing a light on the Jisicii-shcngs ,
method of work. It is probable that many other cases !

A PROBLEM IN F^NG-SHUI 267

have occurred even in Weihaiwei, but as geomantic
superstitions are frowned upon by Chinese law, and
the unnecessary removal of graves on the plea of
finding better feng-slmi is a penal offence, yin-yang
professors naturally ply their trade with as little
ostentation as possible.

A man whom we will call Chang Ying-mu brought
an action against some of his neighbours for denying
him the right to move certain of his ancestors' graves
from their present unlucky site to one that had been
specially selected for him after deep consideration by
a professor of yinyang and fcng-shiii. " I have
been very unfortunate in business," he said; "I dealt
in opium at Chefoo and used to get on very well ;
but this new anti-opium fad has ruined me. I came
home recently and brought with me a hsien-sheng who
is a native of Fu-shan Hsien [the magisterial district
in which Chefoo is situated] in order to consult him
about my ancestral graves, as 1 had suspicions that
it was due to the bad feng-sJini of the graveyard
that I had been landed in so many difficulties. The
hsien-sheng saw at once that the present site was very
bad. He said that nothing could be done to improve
the feng-shui and that I must move all the graves
to another place. The spot he has chosen happens
to be not far from the houses of Tsou Heng-li and
Tsou Yii-ch'eng and many other villagers ; and they
at once raised objections to the proposed site on the
ground that they would see the graves on coming
out of their houses, which they said would be unlucky.
1 suggested planting a row of trees between their
houses and my graves, but they refused to accept
this arrangement. I then offered to build a stone wall
as a screen, and to write * Happiness ' and * Long
Life ' in large characters on the side of it that would
face the defendants' houses, but the hsien-sheng objects
to this as the wall would obstruct the free circulation
of good feng-shui round my new graves. 1 have
already acquired the new site by exchanging another

268 FAMILY GRAVEYARDS

piece of land for it, and now that I have got it my
neighbours prevent me from using it."

The defendants Tsou Heng-li and others presented
a counter-petition to the following effect. " The hsien-
sheiig^ whose name is said to be Hsiao, is a stranger
to our village and he is quite evidently a rascal. He
falsely pretended to be skilled in feng-shui in order to
swindle Chang Ying-mu out of his money. He told
Chang that if he moved his ancestral graves to the
new site indicated he would guarantee that Chang
would acquire wealth and honours within the space
of three years. We all raised the strongest objections
to the proposal, partly because Hsiao was a rogue
and partly because the new site was practically in
the middle of the village, which is quite an improper
place for graves. The luck of our village would
certainly be damaged if part of it were turned into
a graveyard, Hsiao's only reply to us was that he
was learned in the P'ing-yang books of Chiang-nan
and that we were children in such deep matters.
We fail to see why the customs of the Chiang-nan
provinces should be made applicable to our province
of Shantung. We appeal to the Magistrate to rid us
of this pestilent fellow and so allow our village to
resume its normal life."

Hisiao himself, who was duly summoned to explain
his own view of the situation, stated that he had
selected the site because he saw from the situation
that it would be productive of long life and honours
and that if the coffins remained where they were
Chang Ying-mu's family would in future have bad
luck, no honours and short lives. *' My knowledge,"
he added on cross-examination, " is not derived from
books but from the traditions of Chiang-nan." As I
was anxious to obtain for my own information some
clue to his methods and theories I called upon him to
produce a clear statement on the subject in writing ;
and having had him conveyed from the court in
charge of the police, I reprimanded Chang Ying-mu

A PROFESSOR OF F^NG-SHUI 269

for allowing himself to be deceived by a swindler and
recommended him to leave his ancestors' graves where
they were. I explained to him that the anti-opium
regulations had been put in force in both British and
Chinese territory quite irrespectively of his family
concerns or his trading enterprises, and that they
would unquestionably remain in force even if he
moved his ancestral coffins a dozen times. The de-
fendants were assured that in view of their very
reasonable objections the court would certainly not
allow their village to be turned into a graveyard.

As far as plaintiff" and defendant were concerned the
case was now at an end, but I had still to receive the
professor's written statement. In a couple of days
the document was duly presented, and may be
translated thus :

'* Statement showing cause why Chang Ying-mu's
graveyard is unpropitiously situated and will cause
misfortunes and early deaths ; and why the site now
selected will be the source of a constant flow of happi-
ness. As regards the present site : firstly, all along
the front of the graveyard there is a gully as deep as
the height of two men. This is unlucky. The deep
gully presses against the tombs like a wall, obstruct-
ing the passage of benign influences. This has a
disastrous effect on the women of the family, who will
have excessive difficulty in childbirth. Secondly, a
small stream of water trickles from the graveyard and
after flowing a distance of half a li it vanishes in the
sand. The result of this on the family is that children
are born as weaklings and die in infancy. Thirdl}^
another stream of water flows away to the north-east.
This carries off" all the wealth-making capabilities of
the family and the good qualities of sons and grand-
sons. As regards the proposed new site : firstly,
there are hills on the south-west, their direction being
from east to west. Their formation so controls the
courses of four streams that they all unite at the
eastern corner of this site. Just as these streams of
water come together and cannot again separate, so
will riches and honours flow from various quarters

270 FAMILY GRAVEYARDS

and finally unite in the hands of the family that has its
graveyard in this fortunate locality. Secondly, the
ceaseless flow of water has formed a long sandbank,
four feet high, on the southern and south-eastern sides
of the site. Just as the water brings down innumer-
able grains of sand and piles them up near the point
where the waters meet, so will the family that buries
its dead here be blessed with countless male de-
scendants."

Feng-shui is not a branch of knowledge that deserves
encouragement, so I informed the professor that the
explanations given in this illuminating document were
interesting but unconvincing, and that if he did not
withdraw from British territory within three days he
would be sent to gaol as a rogue and vagabond. He
forthwith returned to his native district and the grave-
yard of the Chang family remained undisturbed.

An incident of this kind affords proof, if such were
necessary, that in keeping up the cult of ancestors and
in devoting care and expense to the maintenance of
the family tombs the Chinese are not actuated solely
by feelings of filial piety and reverence for the dead.
On the other hand it is equally clear from abundant
evidence that self-interest and a desire for material
prosperity are very far from being the sole source
of ancestral worship. Some foreign critics have tried
to show that it springs not from love and filial piety
but from a dread of the ancestral spirits and a desire
to propitiate them. This view, which has been con-
demned as erroneous by those who are themselves
ancestor-worshippers, is certainly a mistaken one.
If, indeed, the average ancestor-worshipping Chinese
did not suppose that some material benefit would
accrue to him from carrying out the prescribed rites
he would doubtless show a flagging zeal in their per-
petuation. Even the average European, perhaps, j
would grow a little weary of well-doing if he were
informed on unimpeachable authority that in future j
the promised rewards of virtuous conduct were to be

CULT OF ANCESTORS 271

withheld both on earth and in heaven and that a

crown of glory was not for him. The average man,

all the world over, is apt to show impatience if he is

asked to be virtuous for the sole sake of virtue. Had

the ancestral cult been founded on nothing but pure

love, reverence and altruism, it might have been kept

barely alive from generation to generation by a few

of those rare and exalted souls who seem incapable of

self-seeking, but it would never have attained universal

observance throughout China; had it, on the other

hand, been founded on nothing but fear, selfishness

and desire for material gain, it might have become

popular with the masses but it could never have

earned, as it has earned, the enthusiastic approval of

the noblest minds and loftiest characters that China

has produced. Probably it is the very mingling of

motives that has caused the cult of ancestors to take

such deep root in the hearts of the people that it is

to-day by far the most potent religious and social force

to be found in the Empire.

At the present day and for very many centuries
past the cult of ancestors and the dutiful upkeep of
the ancestral tombs have been regarded as inseparably
combined : but it was not so always. If the ancient
Book of Rites {Li Chi) is to be trusted, Confucius for
many years of adult life did not know where his
father's grave was, and apparently it was only on his
mother's death that he took the trouble to find out.
The same book, which dates from the first and second
centuries b.c, also narrates a story of how Confucius's
disciples reported to him that the tumulus over his
mother's grave had collapsed owing to a heavy rain-
fall; yet he merely remarked, with emotion, that
" people did not repair tombs in the good old times,"
—an enigmatical remark that has been variously
interpreted.^

' See Legge's Li-ki, vol. i. p. 123 ; De Groot, Religious System of
China, vol. ii. pp. 663-4 and 689 ; and Wang Ch'ung's Lun Hhtg,
transl. by Prof. A. Forke, Part i. p. 197.

272 FAMILY GRAVEYARDS

These stories probably originated from the well-
ascertained fact that Confucius — like most of the
Chinese philosophers and sages — was very strongly
opposed to lavish expenditure on coffins, graves and
funerals. Confucius's teaching on the subject seems
to have been practical and reasonable. He taught
that the bodies of the dead should be treated with
every possible respect but that the material interests
of the living must not be sacrificed in order to confer
some unnecessary and doubtful boon upon the dead.
Needless to say he was strenuously opposed to the
barbarous customs of entombing the living with the
dead and of widow-immolation, customs which seem
to have been practised in China from the seventh
century b.c. if not from much earlier times and which
did not become altogether extinct till the seventeenth
century' of our era.^

But if Confucius did not lay overmuch stress on
funerals and the preservation of tombs, he was
emphatic on the subject of filial piety. The
connection between Confucianism and ancestral
worship must be dealt with when we are con-
sidering the subject of Religion : it is therefore
unnecessary to enlarge upon this important subject
at present, beyond pointing out that filial piety — on
which ancestral worship is based — was regarded
by Confucius and his school as "the fountain from
which all other virtues spring and the starting-point
of all education."^

There is a well-known Chinese tract called the
" Twenty-four Examples of Filial Piety " ^ which con-
sists of short anecdotes of sons who made themselves
illustrious by the exercise of this chief of virtues.
Some of the examples recorded are worthy of sincere
admiration, but many of the filial performances are

' See De Groot, op. cit. vol. ii. pp. 720 seq.
* The Hsiao Ching (Classic of Filial Piety), chap. i.
' A translation of it by Mr. Ivan Chen may be found in the
"Wisdom of the East" series (John Murray: 1908).

FILIAL PIETY 273

apt to strike an occidental reader as somewhat
ridiculous. There is the famous story of Lao Lai-tzu,
for instance, whose parents lived to such extreme old
age that he was himself a toothless old man while
they were both still alive. Conceiving it his duty to
divert their attention from their weight of years and
approaching end, he dressed himself up in the clothes
of a child and danced and played about in his parents'
presence with the object of making them think they
were still a young married couple contemplating the
innocent gambols of their infant son. Perhaps the
most touching of these stories is that of Wang P'ou,
whose mother happened to have an unconquerable
dread of thunder and lightning. When she died
she was buried in a mountain forest ; and thereafter,
when a violent thunderstorm occurred, Wang P'ou,
heedless of the wind and rain, would hurry to her
grave and throw himself to his knees. " I am here
to protect you, dear mother," he would say ; " do
not be afraid."

If the stories in this well-known collection strike
one as chiefly remarkable for their quaintness and
simplicity, it should be remembered that they were
primarily intended for the edification of the young,
who might fail to understand the nobler modes in
which filial piety can display itself. How numerous
are the recorded examples of this virtue in China and
how highly it is esteemed may be realised from the
fact that a special chapter in the official Annals of
every magisterial district is devoted to a summary of
the most conspicuous local instances of filial piety
that have come under the notice of the authorities.
The official accounts of Weihaiwei and the neigh-
bouring districts are not exceptional in this respect.
This corner of the Empire may have produced few
great scholars but it is certainly not without its roll of
filial sons. The finest example from an occidental
point of view is perhaps that of Huang Chao-hsiian,
the brave boy who went out willingly to die by his

18

274 FAMILY GRAVEYARDS

father's side. ^ Most of the other cases are of a type
that appeals but slightly to the Western mind.

Of Wang Yen-ming, a Weihaiwei man, we are told
that he lived in a hut beside his parents' grave for
three years. This was quite a common practice in the
old days ; ^ the most famous example in history is that
of Confucius's disciple Tzu Kung, who lived by the
side of the Master's grave at Ch'u Fou for no less than
six years. ^ But even this act of devotion was out-
done by a man named Tung Tao-ming of the Sung
dynasty, who is said to have caused himself to be
buried alive for three days in his mother's grave. The
story goes that when his family dug him out at the
end of that period they found him still alive and quite
well ; and he proceeded to build himself beside the
grave a mat-shed in which he spent the rest of his life. ^
To return to the Weihaiwei story about Wang Yen-
ming, it goes on to say that he mourned so much for
his parents that he wept himself blind. However, a
kind spirit visited him in a dream and rubbed his eyes
with the juice or resin of a fir-tree, and this immediately
restored his sight. It will be understood from what
has been said with regard to firs and other evergreens *
that owing to the abundance of the yaiig or vital
element which they contain they are supposed to have
marvellous healing as well as preservative qualities.
For this reason the resin of such trees was believed to
be one of the most valuable ingredients in the Taoists'
elixir of life.

The story of Wang concludes with the remark that
his descendants became highly successful and attained
exalted office : this, of course, as a result of his filial
piety, which is always supposed to bring its reward

' See p. 75.

* See De Groot's Religious System of China, vol. ii. pp. 794 seq.

^ A little shriue by the side of Confucius's grave now occupies the
site of Tzu Kung's hut.

•• De Groot, op. cit. vol. ii. p. 732.

* See pp. 262 seq.

A FILIAL SON 275

sooner or later. Of Ch'en Kuo-hsiang, another local
worthy, we are informed that he belonged to a family
that was poor in material wealth but rich in virtue.
His father when very old lost all his teeth and could
not eat bean-porridge ; moreover, as he had a chronic
cough he could not eat salt. For these reasons Ch'en
never allowed either beans or salt to appear on the
family dinner-table so long as his father lived. This
act of filial piety may have had two motives : in the
first place, if these delicacies were on the table the
old man might be tempted to taste them, and this
might result in his illness and death : in the second
place, if he were persuaded to refrain from eating
them his venerable heart might vex itself with the
reflection that he was getting old and feeble and could
not eat the same things as other people. Whatever
Ch'en's dominant motive may have been he duly
obtained his reward, for the local magistrate presented
him with a scroll to hang over his door, bearing the
words "A Filial Son."

CHAPTER XII

DEAD MEN AND GHOST-LORE

An essential point in the Chinese conception of Filial
Piety is that a father's death does not set the son free
from the obligations of duty and reverence : it merely
changes the outward form or expression of those
obligations. He can no longer watch over his father's
physical welfare and anticipate his material wants,
but he can still bring peace and happiness to his
father's spirit by living an upright life and bringing
glory and prosperity to the family. If his abilities
or opportunities are not such as to enable him to
earn for his father posthumous honours (such as the
Emperor confers upon the ancestors of those who
have deserved well of the State) it is probably within
his power to preserve intact the inherited property,
to keep the family temple and tombs in good repair,
to carry out with propriety and reverence the orthodox
ancestral rites during his own lifetime and to provide
for their continuance during future generations by
bringing up a family of his own.

The Chinese belief with regard to the souls of the
dead (or rather the ancient beliefs on which the
ancestral ceremonies are based) are rather compli-
cated. According to one doctrine every man has no
less than ten souls, of which three aveyaiig and seven
are yin •,'^ it is also said that what is called the hun-

* See pp. 262 seg.
276

SOUL-TABLETS 277

soul goes to heaven, while the p^o soul descends into
the earth. The most popular view appears to be that
every man has three souls allotted to him : of these
one remains in or around the tomb, another hovers
about the ancestral tablet, while the third wanders
away and, after amalgamating itself with other mys-
terious forces, is finally reincarnated in another mortal
body, which — unless the soul behaved very badly in
its last incarnation — will be a human one. For the
purpose of the ancestral cult the souls that are of
importance are the grave-soul and the tablet-soul.
The grave-soul receives its due share of "worship"
at the great annual tomb-festivals of spring and
autumn. The tablet-soul is supposed to take up its
abode, by ceremonious invitation, in the spirit-tablet
as soon as the body has been consigned to the grave.
" From this very moment," as Dr. De Groot says,
" the tablet is considered to be imbued with the afflatus
of the dead, and to have become his perpetual dupli-
cate, to serve as a patron divinity in the domestic
circle and there to receive the offspring's sacrifices
and worship."^

The soul-tablets {shen-chu) of father, grandfather
and great-grandfather are, in Weihaiwei, preserved
in every private house, while the tablets of the earlier
ancestors are deposited in the family temples. They
are not exposed, either in house or in temple, except
on ceremonial occasions, such as the first fifteen days
of the first month of the year and the festival of the
winter solstice {Tung Chili) at or about the time of
the European Christmas. The Chia Miao or Ancestral
Temple is usually the largest as well as the cleanest
building in the village. The front gate, abutting on
the main village street, leads into a small courtyard
in which there is generally at least one cypress

* 77^1? Religiotis System of China, vol. i. p. 212. For full details as
to the procedure at Chinese funerals and the religious ceremonies
connected therewith, the reader is referred to Dr. De Groot's monu-
mental work, which deals minutely with this and kindred subjects.

278 DEAD MEN AND GHOST-LORE

tree.^ The temple itself consists of a large room con-
taining little or nothing but a few carved chairs, a
table, and — last but not least — rows of boxes containing
ancestral tablets. Each tablet consists of an oblong
piece of hard wood {catalpa is chiefly used at Wei-
haiwei) about eight inches high and two inches broad,
fitting into a wooden stand three inches broad and
one inch high. The tablet has a recessed front, which
bears an inscription more or less similar to that
which appears on tombstones.^ Into the recess slips
a sliding front, on the outside of which the inscription
is repeated in a slightly altered form. The outside
of the tablet is often painted white, but the recessed
front is left plain. Both inscriptions are written in
black ink, but there is an important dot of red ink^
on the top of the important character chu^ which
comes last.

The process of " dotting the chu " {tien chu) with
red ink is an essential part of the ceremony whereby
the wooden tablet becomes the abode of an ancestral
soul. As a rule the tablet bears two names — those
of husband and wife — so that each human soul is not
necessarily supposed to have a tablet to itself. Just
as the bodies of husband and wife share a single
grave, so do their spirits (according to the theory
accepted in Weihaiwei) share a single tablet, and the
prayers and sacrifices that are offered to the one are
intended in equal measure for the other.

The inscription on a tablet now before me* may
be translated as follows. Outside. "The Spirit-tablet
of my deceased honoured father and mother. I their

1 See p. 263. Needless to say, the ancestral temples of great or
wealthy families are on a very much grander scale.

3 See p. 256.

^ Instead of red ink it is in some parts of China customary to use
blood extracted from a cock's comb. For an explanation of this, and
for a full description of the ceremony of dotting the tablet, see
De Groot, op. cit. vol. i. pp. 214-ig.

* See illustration.

o

o

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'^^

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<f,

H

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Pi

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PEDIGREE-SCROLLS 279

son Yiieh-hsiang reverentially make obeisance and
offer sacrifice." ^ Inside. " The Imperial Ch'ing
Dynasty. The Spirit-tablet of Yao Feng-chu, the
eldest son of his generation,^ and his wife Chang
Shih." Sometimes dates are added on the tablet but
these are not essential, as all such records are pre-
served in the genealogical table or pedigree-scroll.
On ceremonial occasions the tablets are set out in due
order, so that the spirits may be comforted by the
sacrificial offerings and by the sight of the many
prosperous-looking descendants who have assem-
bled to do them honour. In front of the tablets
are set up sticks of fragrant incense, and all the
members of the family present themselves in turn
and bow reverently towards the souls of their dead
forefathers.

The little ceremony is as simple and yet as im-
pressive as could well be imagined. For the first few
days of the New Year the pedigree-scroll {chia p^u\
which is carefully wrapped up and put away at
ordinary times, is unrolled and hung on the wall,
where it receives a share of the reverence paid to
the tablets. The scroll is often a beautiful work of
art, painted to represent a temple or a grand family
mansion,^ while the names of the past generations are
inscribed in successive rows so that the space devoted
to each name looks a spirit-tablet in miniature. In
some parts of China, but not in Weihaiwei, it is
customary to have family portraits painted for the
purpose of preserving the " shadow-semblances " {ying
hsiang) of ancestors as sacred heirlooms in the family
temples. Like the pedigree-scroll, such portraits are
exposed to view on solemn occasions only. They are
often painted while the subject is on his death-bed
or immediately after his death. De Groot * compares

' The terms used are honorific.

2 That is, the eldest son of his father.

' See illustration facing next page, and that facing p. 278.

* Op. cit. vol. i. p. 114.

28o DEAD MEN AND GHOST-LORE

these family portraits with the iniagiiies maiontm of
the ancient Romans.

A Chinese who emigrates to a foreign land rarely
fails to make an agreement, either with his employers
or with his compatriots, that if he dies while abroad
his body is to be taken back not only to China but to
his native town or village, wherever that may be.
This peculiarity on the part of the Chinese is so
well recognised by every one concerned that most
European shipping firms trading in the Eastern seas
are obliged to make special arrangements for con-
veying cargoes of coffins at moderate rates up and
down the coast of China and from the various
countries bordering on the Pacific where there are
Chinese merchants and labourers. Probably it is
generally supposed that the Chinese — like the people
of other countries, only more so — are so sentimentally
attached to their old homes that they will not venture
to go abroad unless they are sure of returning to it
some day as dead men if not as living ones. This is
true to a certain extent. The average Chinese dearly
loves his old home, and considering that it has been
the home of his ancestors for a length of time that
would make the oldest ancestral estate in England
ashamed of itself, it is no wonder that he should
regard it with affection.

But there is another reason why it is considered
important that every Chinese — at least every Chinese
who has sons of his own and has maintained con-
nection with the old stock from which he sprang —
should lay his bones beside those of his fathers. The
Chinese theory is that some mysterious sympathy
exists, even after death, between the soul and the
body, and that unless the body is brought to the place
where the ancestral sacra are carried out it will be
impossible to provide for the sacrificial rites that ought
to be rendered to the soul. The family at home will
thus lose one of its ancestral links, and the dead man's
spirit will wander homeless and lordless in the world

nm'.

,X4

ia?*v4..

Photo by Ah Foiig, Wi^ihahcei.

A PEDIGREE-SCROLL (CHIA P'u) (sce p. 2/9).
p. 2S0]

BODY AND SOUL 281

of shades : an ancestral ghost separated for ever from
communion with its fellows.

It is partly because of this supposed connection
between soul and body that the Chinese abhor the
idea of descending to their graves in a mutilated
condition. Thus in China decapitation is a more
serious punishment than strangulation, because it is
thought that the headless man may become a head-
less ghost. The danger of appearing in a mutilated
condition in the next world is, however, lessened or
averted if the severed members can be buried along
with the body to which they belonged. A Chinese
servant in Weihaiwei not long ago begged for an old
biscuit-tin from his foreign master in order that he
might give it to a friend who wished to use it as a
coffin for his amputated foot.^

It is the hope of every Chinese, then, that when he
dies he will be laid in his ancestral graveyard, and
that he will be laid there in a state of organic com-
pleteness. But there are occasions, of course, when
it has proved impossible to convey dead men's bones
from one end of China to another, or home from a
foreign land : sometimes the family cannot afford the
expense, sometimes there are overwhelming difficulties
with regard to transport. Chinese ingenuity long ago
set itself to devise a means whereby even such bad
cases as this might have a happy ending, and it
succeeded. The body itself, it was argued, is of no
real importance : for sentimental reasons it is satis-
factory to be able to bury the bodies of the dead in
their ancestral graveyards, but otherwise there is no
urgency in the matter provided only the dead man's

' We may smile at Chinese simplicity in such matters, but exactly
the same ideas have existed in the West. " A woman in our parish,"
writes a resident in Wiltshire, " had her leg amputated and got a little
coffin made for it. She caused it to be buried in the churchyard" —
with the view of joining it there at some future day. Many similar
cases have been observed in Ireland, and doubtless in many other
parts of western Europe. (See Folk-lore, March 1907, pp. 82-3, and
June 1907, p. 21 6.)

282 DEAD MEN AND GHOST-LORE

souls — in spite of the absence of the body with which
they were associated — can be persuaded or induced to
take up their respective abodes in the ancestral grave-
yard and in the spirit-tablet. The problem was solved
by calling in the aid of religion, and the ceremony
observed is in outline something like this.

The members of the deceased's family, clad of
course in funereal garb, call in a priest who, in ac-
cordance with the data provided by them, prepares a
scroll containing the dead man's name and age and the
date and place of his death. They then make a very
rough effigy of a man — a few twisted straws are quite
good enough — and on the effigy they pin the scroll.
The priest now performs the ceremony of " calling the
soul back " — that is to say, he recites certain charms
which are supposed to reach the wandering spirit,
wherever it may be, and to draw it to the place where
the ceremony is to take place. The utterance of a
few more charms is supposed to be sufficient to attach
the spirit to the effigy — or rather to the scroll— which
is then placed in a miniature coffin and buried with
the rites observed at ordinary funerals. The man
himself, to all intents and purposes, now lies buried
in the ancestral graveyard, and all that remains to be
done is to evoke the spiritual presence that will in
future inhabit the shen-chu or spirit-tablet. When this
has been done (just in the same way as when a real
corpse lies buried) the ceremony is at an end : the
soul, or rather the combination of souls, has been
saved from homelessness, and will in future assume
its proper position as an ancestral ghost both in the
family graveyard and in the ancestral temple.

This remarkable custom is obviously such a con-
venient means of avoiding the trouble and expense
of conveying dead bodies from distant places, that
its comparative rarity may well be a matter of some
surprise. Certainly, if the practice were to come into
common use it would indirectly give a great impulse
to emigration : for which reason it may perhaps be

CORPSELESS BURIALS 283

hoped by some Western peoples that it will for ever
remain unfashionable. The custom is, however, an
exceedingly old one, and was practised even at the
Imperial Court nearly nineteen centuries ago.^ There
seems to have always been a strong prejudice against
it, partly because it was a foolish superstition
and partl}^ because it would tempt the people to
cease troubling themselves about the burial of their
parents or bringing home their bodies from a distance,
and would thus tend to the degradation or weakening
of the ideals of filial piety. Hence we find that the
practice of burying souls without the bodies was in
318 A.D. condemned by Imperial Decree as heretical;^
yet this condemnation by no means brought about its
discontinuance, and the present legal position is that
the " violation of a grave in which an evoked soul is
interred shall be punished just as severely as the
violation of a grave occupied by a corpse," ^ that is
to say the offender may be sentenced to death.

In his interesting section on this strange custom
Dr. De Groot remarks that as it has been " of common
prevalence for at least eighteen centuries" its occur-
rence even nowadays can hardly be doubted. It
certainly exists at Weihaiwei, though it is not in
very common use. One reason for practising it in
this little corner of China is based on the very strong
belief that husband and wife should always be buried
in the same grave. If the husband dies while he is
abroad and the body is lost or cannot be brought
home, nothing is necessarily done until his widow
(who has remained at home) dies also. When she is
buried, her husband's soul is ceremonially summoned
to take up its residence in a paper scroll bearing the
pa ko tzu (" eight characters " naming the year, month,

' De Groot, op. cit. vol. iii. p. 848.

^ De Groot, loc. cit. p. 849.

^ De Groot, loc. cit. p. 854. The punishment under the Penal Code
for opening a grave and exposing the corpse is strangulation (subject to
confirmation).

284 DEAD MEN AND GHOST-LORE

day and hour of birth), and this, with or without a
straw effigy, is formally placed in the grave by the
widow's side.

A practical reason for this proceeding at once
suggests itself if it has happened that the couple were
childless and were the owners of property. It then
becomes necessary for the elders of the clan to select
an heir ; and as an adopted heir — who must be a
" spare " son of a relative — is obliged to separate
himself from his own branch of the clan and to
regard the dead man and his wife for the future as
his proper parents, matters must be so arranged that
he can become possessor of his adoptive father's spirit-
tablet. As the dead man's spirit is not supposed to
take up its abode in the tablet until he has been
interred with the proper rites in the family grave-
yard, it is necessary, if his body is missing, to evoke
and inter its spiritual representative. If this were
not done, the adopted heir would be unable to carry
on the ancestral rites except in an irregular way, and
this might lead to serious legal difficulties later on
in the event of another member of the clan disputing
the genuineness of the adoption and heirship.

A point worth noting in connection with ancestral
worship and adoption is that (in this part of China
at least) the mere fact of childlessness does not
necessarily lead a man to adopt a son : it is childless-
ness combined with the ownership of property that
induces him to do so. We will suppose that a man
has obtained his share of the family inheritance; that
it is too small to support him ; that he has sold it
to relatives and with the cash proceeds has gone
abroad to make a living; that he returns as "an old
man, childless and penniless : this man will in all
probability show no desire to adopt a son, nor indeed
is it likely that he could succeed in doing so if he
wished it. The ancestral worship will not suffer by
his childless death provided he has brothers and
nephews to perpetuate the family sacra. Even if it

ADOPTION OF HEIRS 285

happens that he is actually the last of his house and
that his death will bring the ancestral cult of his
line to an abrupt conclusion, it is not likely that, for
the sole purpose of carrying on the sacra, the last of
the line will bestir himself to go through the formalities
necessary for the adoption of a son. The fact is
that the possession of property — especially landed
property — is regarded in practice as an inseparable
condition of the continuation of the ancestral rites.
This theory is often expressed in the formula mei-yu
ch^an-yeh mei-yn shcn-chu — " no ancestral property, no
ancestral tablets." If the spirits of the deceased an-
cestors have been so regardless of the interests of
their descendants that they have allowed the family
property to pass into the hands of strangers, it is
thought that they have only themselves to blame if for
them the smoke of incense no longer curls heavenward
from the domestic altars. Indeed, there is a vague
idea that as the family line dwindles and finally be-
comes extinct on the material plane, so on the spiritual
plane the ancestral ghosts gradually fade away either
into non-existence or into a state of Nirvana-like
quiescence.

A childless old man who has property is in China,
as in the West, the object of the most tender solicitude
on the part of brothers and cousins with large
families. They are continually impressing upon him
the gravity of his offence in not providing for the
succession and for the suitable disposal of his
property, and unceasingly urge the claims of this
nephew or that to formal adoption. If the old man
has chosen a boy or young man for whom he happens
to have affection, and if the choice meets with general
approval, then every one is happy, and an adoption
deed is drawn up and attested by all the near relatives.
But if his choice falls on one who is considered to
be too distant a connection for adoption, or if the
elders of the clan for some other reason object to
the proposal, then the old man is in a difficulty, for

286 DEAD MEN AND GHOST-LORE

he is not entirely a free agent in the matter. He
might get an adoption deed drawn up without con-
sulting any one, but if it were not properly attested
by his relatives it would be treated by them as null
and void. Adoption, no less than the sale of land,
is an affair not of the individual but of the family.

Disputes of this kind are the not infrequent cause
of lawsuits. An old man once complained before
me that though the youth he wished to adopt belonged
to the proper generation (that is, the generation
immediately junior to that of -the adopter) and was
not an only son, and though both the youth and
his father had agreed to the adoption, yet the other
relatives had held aloof when they were invited to
sign the adoption deed, and had absolutely refused
to take any part in the proceedings. This implied,
of course, that when the time came they would refuse
to recognise the legality of the adoption. He there-
fore besought me to compel or persuade the obstinate
relatives to come to a more reasonable frame of mind.
** I am now eighty-one years old " — so ran the pre-
amble of his petition — "and I do not know how long
I have to live. When morning dawns I cannot be
sure that I shall see the evening ; in another day
my eyes may be closed for ever ; and if I die with
the bitter knowledge that for me there will be no
ancestral sacrifices, then, indeed, miserable shall I be
down in the Yellow Springs [of death]." It is of
course impossible to decide such cases without taking
into full account the nature of the objections raised
by the relatives : they are often selfish, but as a rule
they are not baseless or frivolous.

Ancestral spirits are regarded as beneficent beings
who never causelessly use their mysterious powers
to injure the living ; but if their descendants lea^
evil lives, or neglect the family sacrifices, or treat
the sacred rules of filial piety with contempt, then the
spirits will in all probability exercise the parental
prerogatives of punishment. The power of a father

CHINESE GHOSTS 287

in China to castigate his son is theoretically as absolute
in the case of a grown-up son as in the case of one
who is still a child : similarly it is supposed that the
father does not, by the mere accident of death, divest
himself of his patriarchal rights of administering
justice and inflicting punishment on his sons and
grandsons. Provided a man carefully observes the
traditional ceremonies and leads a good life accord-
ing to the accepted ethics of his race, he knows
that he has nothing to fear from the souls of his
ancestors.

But there are in China various classes of ghosts
who are supposed to be highly malevolent and to
constitute no small danger to the community. There
are, for example, the ghosts whose tempers have been
soured by calamity and misfortune; those whose
bodies have not been buried ; those who were drowned
at sea ; those who ended their mortal lives by un-
justifiable suicide and haunt the place where they
died until they can, by ghostly suggestions, prevail
on one of their earthly neighbours to follow their
example ; ^ those who died before accomplishing a
vow or completing an act of vengeance : these and
many others are ghosts or evil spirits which the wise
man who walks warily through life will do his best to
avoid.

...The curious and cruel superstition which sometimes
prevents a Chinese from helping a drowning comrade
even when he could save the man without danger
to himself has its origin in a fear that he will incur
the deadly hostility of a spirit that demands the toll
of a human life. It is even thought in some places
that by saving your friend you may be condemning
yourself to be his future substitute. This superstition
has existed in many parts of the world — from Ireland
to the Solomon Islands.- It need hardly be said that

' See p. 222.

^ See Grant Allen's Evolution of the Idea of God (pp. 265-7) ;
Tylor's Primitive Culture (4th ed.), vol. i. pp. Iu8-ii ; VV. G.

288 DEAD MEN AND GHOST-LORE

educated opinion in China is altogether opposed to
the heartless abandonment of drowning men : the
superstition is an active force only in a few localities,
and only to a minute extent, if at all, may it be said
to exist in Weihaiwei,

A vestige of it is possibly to be traced in the fact
that " wrecking " is not regarded as a very serious
breach of sound ethics. When British rule was
first established at Weihaiwei pitiful scenes were
to be witnessed during the tempests of winter, when
junk after junk was hurled against the rock-bound
coast. No great effort was made to save human
life ; indeed, there is reason to believe that men
were allowed to freeze to death on the shore or to
be battered to death by the merciless waves while
those who could and should have come to their
rescue actually stepped over their bodies while on
the eager search for remnants of wrecked cargo.
All this has been so greatly changed that storm-
driven junks in the Gulf of Chihli have been known
to make deliberately for the coasts of Weihaiwei, their
crews believing that if disaster must come there
would be a greater chance of safety for themselves
and less risk of having their cargoes looted on the
shores of British territory than anywhere else along
the coast of Shantung. Two or three of the village
headmen have shown great loyalty in accepting and
carrying out British policy in this matter, and have
been personally instrumental in saving numbers of
lives and in helping the crews of wrecked junks to
salve their cargoes and to repair the damage done

Black's Folk-Medicine^ p. 2g ; and Dennys's Folk-lore of China, p. 22.
The superstition sometimes takes the form of a belief that the rescued
man will some day do some terrible injury to his rescuer — perhaps at
the instigation of the evil spirit who was balked of his prey. It is
quite erroneous to suppose that this superstitious objection to saving
the drowning is prevalent throughout all China. De Groot {op. cit.
vol. V. p. 526) states that he never found a trace of it in the province of
Fuhkien ; " while, moreover, all the Chinese we interrogated on this
head protested against their humanity being thus called in question."

a
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VAMPIRES AND DEVIL-FOXES 289

to their vessels. The headman who has shown him-
self most energetic in this good work deserves special
mention. He is Ch'e Shuo-hsiieh, the district head-
man of Hai-hsi-t'ou. To him the Government of
Weihaiwei has presented a picn or carved com-
plimentary tablet.^ The inscription reads Cheng jen
yil wei — " Human lives rescued from peril." Tablets
of this kind when presented by the official authorities
are highly valued by the Chinese, and are preserved
as heirlooms.

But the spirits that drag men into the waters of a
river or down to Lung Wang's palace in the depths of
ocean at least make a practice of confining their
activity to their chosen element. Far more dangerous
are the gloomy homeless souls that stalk the country
fields and prowl round villages, always on the look-
out for victims and always ready to deceive the
ignorant. There are terrible vampires and devil-foxes
that throw mists over men's eyes and minds and make
them believe they see before them damsels of bewitch-
ing beauty. It is difficult indeed to save any one who
has once passed under the dominion of a fox-wife :
he is a doomed man. A prevalent belief on the
subject of ghosts and goblins and evil spirits is based
on a kind of theory of predestination. The man who is
fated not to be bothered by such beings will escape
them ; he who is fated to be their prey cannot by any
possibility avoid them. The Chinese popular saying
puts it more neatly : " He who is born lucky can laugh
at demons ; the unlucky wight becomes the demon's
plaything."

The Weihaiwei Annals tell a story of a man who
must have been born lucky. His name was Kuo and
he belonged to Ch'in Ts'un, a village that lies a few
miles from Port Edward. One evening he was return-
ing from the sea-side with a load of fish. On the way
he met a ghost, who pressed Kuo to allow him to
carry his load. Kuo, not in the least dismayed,

' For the headman in question and h.\s pie n, see illustration.

19

290 DEAD MEN AND GHOST-LORE

congratulated himself on a welcome relief and promptly
placed his burden on the ghost's shoulders. Man and
ghost trudged along contentedly side by side for some
distance, but on arriving at Ch'in Ts'un the dogs
began to bark, and the ghost, thinking this was no
place for him, suggested that he must say good-bye.
Kuo refused to hear of such a thing and insisted that
the ghost should accompany him home and share
his evening meal. On reaching home Kuo asked
his unearthly visitor to sit down, and ordered his
wife and child to set about getting supper ready.
When the water was boiling he furtively threw into
the cooking-pot some fragments of decayed wood
and an old nail. The whole party, including the
ghost, enjoyed a hearty meal, and when it was over
the ghost took his leave without having done the
least harm to any one.

" If men are not afraid of ghosts," adds the
Weihaiwei chronicler, " ghosts will not be able to do
them any injury. When this story is attentively
considered the truth of that statement will become
increasingly evident." But he tells the story with
perhaps the suggestion of a twinkle in his eye : for
in the course of the narrative he interjects the remark,
to which he adds no comment, that Kuo's besetting
weakness was strong drink. It is remarkable that he
offers no explanation of Kuo's action in throwing pieces
of decayed wood and a nail into the cooking-pot,
though this was just where Kuo showed his cunning.
To put rotten wood and old iron into one's porridge
will appear a meaningless rite to the uninstructed.
It is a practical illustration of a popular Chinese
belief that marvellous efficacy in destroying the evil
influences of ghosts and demons and other ill-omened
beings is inherent in rotten wood and nails taken from
old coffin-boards which have been actually used for j
the burial of a corpse. Kuo's rotten wood was —
though the chronicler leaves that important point to j
his reader's intelligence — wood that had once formed I

COFFINS IN FOLK-LORE 291

part of a coffin.^ This little story shows conclusively
that though in Europe if one sups with the devil one
must use a long spoon, in Weihaiwei one wants nothing
more than a piece of coffin-wood and an old nail.

As it is no one's special business to propitiate male-
volent spirits, the obligation is one that is understood

' For an account of the popular belief with regard to old coffin-
wood and nails, see De Groot, op. cif. vol. i. pp. 328-9. See also
Doolittle's Social Life of the Chinese, p. 561 ; and Dennys's Folk-lore
of Chifia (p. 48), where it is said that " a nail that has been used in
fastening up a coffin is a sovereign charm. This is sometimes beaten
out into a rod or wire and, encased in silver, worn as a ring round the
ankles or wrists." It is very curious that even in this matter of coffin-
nails we can trace a close connection between Chinese and Western
European folk-lore. In the Shetland Islands (which seem to possess
many remarkable parallels with Chinese folk-lore) it is said that tooth-
ache can be cured by picking the tooth " with the nail of an old
coffin." {Folk-lore Journal, vol. iii. p. 380.) In parts of Yorkshire it
was once the custom to take some coffin-lead or other coffin-metal from
a churchyard and have it made into a ring ; it then became a cure for
cramp. {County Folk-lore, vol. ii. [North Riding of Yorkshire] p. 171.)
Similar beliefs existed elsewhere in England — in Devonshire, for
example. (See W. G. Black's Folk-Medicitie, p. 175.) It may be
noted here that a thoroughly "orthodox" coffin in China is supposed
to have no nails at all, or as few as possible. The various planks are
fitted into grooves and notches with the deliberate intention of avoiding
the necessity of nails. This doctrine is well understood at Weihaiwei
and followed there as far as practicable. The explanation of the
nailless coffin given by De Groot is that it dates from a period in
extreme antiquity when iron was nnknowti. The form of coffin
that was adopted in a primitive age from necessity is used in modern
times from a spirit of conservatism, or from reverence for a custom
that time has sanctified. {See De Groot, op. cit. vol. i. pp. 95 and 286-7.)
In Weihaiwei and many other places a single nail which serves no
practical purpose is driven in (only far enough to make it immobile) on
one side of the coffin-lid, and this nail is decorated with parti-coloured
threads. The people of Weihaiwei seem to have no explanation of
this custom, but it is evidently a kind of charm to bring wealth, happiness
and an ample progeny to the family. The charm is based on a play
on the word ting, "nail," which also means a man, or male offspring.
As the nail {ting) is driven into the parent's coffin, so, it is thought,
will there always be males {ting) to carry on the family ; and as these
five-coloured threads are wound round the nail, so will wealth,
prosperity, honours, long life and many children be the portion of the
sons of the family for all time to come.

292 DEAD MEN AND GHOST-LORE

to rest with the Government. Among the numerous re-
ligious duties of the district-magistrates is that of quiet-
ing the evil propensities of all bad ghosts or spirits.
In the district-city of Jung-ch'eng, for instance, among
the altars at which official rites must periodically take
place is one called the Li T^an, a phrase which may be
translated as an Altar to Evil Spirits. Three times a
year — namely at the three great festivals of the Dead
or Souls' Days ^ — the district-magistrate and other
local officials attired in ceremonial robes proceed to
the Li T'an and there offer up sacrifices of propitiation
to all harmful spirits. The process consists in issuing
to all homeless and tablet-less ghosts a solemn in-
vitation to a banquet. The viands provided are
three sheep, three pigs, three measures of grain and
an indefinite quantity of paper-money. All this is
supposed to satiate or pacify the spirits so that they
cease to do harm to mankind at least until the arrival
of the next sacrificial festival.

In China, as in Europe, there are various strange
beliefs connected with the mysterious powers sup-
posed to be inherent in corpses. As soon as a man
or woman is dead the family take care that no dogs or
cats (especially cats) shall be allowed into the mortuary
chamber, as it is believed that so long as the coffin has
not been closed the approach of one of these animals
will cause the corpse to jump. This is a well-known
superstition in Weihaiwei ; and from De Groot's work,
which deals more particularly with a portion of the
southern province of Fuhkien, it may be gathered that
it exists in other parts of the Empire also.^ De Groot
(who mentions cats only, not dogs) accounts for the
idea by referring it to the domain of tiger-lore. Each
member of the feline race, he says, is supposed to have
on its tail a miraculous hair, which has the power of
bringing the soul back to any human body from which

' See p. 192.

2 De Groot, op. cit. vol. i. pp. 43-4 ; vol. v. p. 750. See also
Dennys's Folk-lot'e of China^ p. 20.

CAT SUPERSTITIONS 293

it had already departed. But why should this be
objected to, seeing that, as De Groot has himself
pointed out, the main object of the tearless howling at
Chinese funerals, which has so often rather unjustly
excited the ridicule of Europeans, is to call back the
soul of the departed ?

The explanation that has been given me in Wei-
haiwei, with regard to the cat and dog superstition,
is that the hair or fur of these animals (especially that
of the cat) contains so much " lightning" (electricity)
that the corpse is liable to be galvanised by it into an
uncanny though only temporary activity. Whatever
the true explanation may be, it is interesting to note
that here we have one more of those very numerous
fragments of folk-lore that connect the far East with
the far West. In the Orkneys and Shetlands, when a
death has taken place and the corpse has been laid out,
all cats are locked up} It would be interesting to know
what the local explanation of the custom is in that
corner of the British Isles. Similar beliefs as to the
malign influence of cats on corpses exist in the Border
country. On the Scottish side it is believed to be so
unlucky for a dog or cat to pass over a corpse that the
poor animal, if it has been seen doing so, is — or used
to be — killed without mercy.- Mr. G. L. Gomme, who
cites this Scottish superstition from Pennant, states
that the same belief is to be found in Northumberland.
" In one case," he says, "just as a funeral was about to
leave the house, the cat jumped over the coffin, and no
one would move till the cat was destroyed."^ A dog,
too, was killed on another occasion for a similar
reason. That there is a close connection between

' County Folk-lore, vol. iii. (Orkney and Shetland), p. 2i6.

' Pennant's Tour ifi Scotland. See also Brand's Antiquities, vol. ii.
P- 233.

' G. L. Gomme's Folklore Relics of Early Village Life, p. 116. I
cannot agree with Mr. Gomme's interpretation of the superstition.
He regards it as connected with the " primitive hearth sacrifice." The
Chinese parallels seem to have been unknown to him.

294 DEAD MEN AND GHOST-LORE

cats and evil spirits may be taken as one of the
elementary doctrines of " black magic," both in China
and in Europe ; ^ but popular antipathy to the un-
fortunate animal on this account has never become so
intense in China as at one time it became in Europe,
where— in Paris and other places — cats used to be
burned alive in bonfires.^

Among other superstitions connected with corpses
may be mentioned that relating to mirrors, though in
Weihaiwei it is very nearly extinct. In many parts
of China, when a death occurs all mirrors in the house
are immediately covered up. One explanation of the
custom is that if the dead man happens to notice a
reflection of himself in the glass he will be much
horrified to find that he has become a ghost, and much
disappointed with his own appearance as such.
Another explanation is that every mirror has a
mysterious faculty of invisibly retaining and storing
up everything that is reflected on its surface, and that
if anything so ill-omened as a corpse or a ghost were
to pass before it, the mirror would thenceforth become
a permanent radiator of bad luck. In some Chinese
households mirrors are covered up or turned upside-
down, not only when a corpse is in the house, but
after sundown every day : for it is thought that
evil spirits and other unlucky influences are free at
night to wander whither they will, and that if they
pass in front of a mirror that is not covered,
that mirror will become a source of danger and
unhappiness to the family that owns it. The
mirror superstition, like that of cats, is not confined
to China. In Orkney and Shetland, when a death
occurs, not only are all cats locked up, as already
mentioned, but covers are put over all looking-glasses.^
The same custom exists on the Scottish mainland*

' For China, see Dennys's Folk-lore of China, pp. 48, 90-91.

* See Frazer's Goldett Bough (2nd ed.), vol. iii. pp. 324 seq.
3 County Folk-lore, vol. iii. (Orkney and Shetland), p. 216.

* Folk-lore Journal, vol. ii. p. 281,

FEATHERED CORPSES 295

and also in many other parts of Europe, including
England, Belgium and Germany; and it is also to be
found in Madagascar and in India.^

But the cat and mirror notions sink into insignifi-
cance when we contemplate another corpse-superstition
to be found at Weihaiwei and in other parts of China :
a superstition of so extraordinary a nature that it is
almost certain to be received with incredulity by all
who are not in a position personally to verify the fact
of its existence. It is said that when a death has
occurred the face of the corpse and all other exposed
parts (such as the hands) should be carefully covered
with a cloth, in order to prevent the tears of the
mourners from coming in contact with the dead man's
flesh. To make doubly sure, it is considered advisable
for the mourners not to weep over the corpse, but at
some little distance from it. If these precautions are
neglected and tears do by some chance fall on the
corpse, and if this happens on an " unlucky " ^ day,
the results may be disastrous, not only to the family
chiefly concerned, but also to the whole population of
the district. The tears, it is said, find their way
through the dead man's skin into his heart, where
they are liable to create in him a kind of quasi-vitality
long after he has been consigned to his grave. On
his body will grow wings and white feathers, and
though he remain in his grave he is able to use these
feathers and wings with extraordinary effect. Just as
he absorbed the tear-drops of his weeping friends,
so he is supposed to attract to his own grave all the
moisture that should be distributed in the form of rain
over the whole country round, and by moving his
wings to and fro he so fans the clouds that no rain

* Frazer's Golden Bough (2nd ed.), vol. iii, pp. 294 seq.

^ Every day in the Chinese calendar is either lucky, unlucky, or
indifferent ; and very many people will undertake no duty or work
of importance until they have consulted the fortune-telling almanac
(a new one is issued for each year), or have at least consulted temple
oracles. The Jewish Sabbath is now believed to have originated in a
similar superstition.

296 DEAD MEN AND GHOST-LORE

descends except on his own grave. Some say that
the horrible feathered creature is able to leave his
grave at night and fly through the neighbourhood
in the terrible guise of a malevolent demon. If
he knocks at a door, it is believed that one of the
inmates of the house is doomed to a speedy death. ^
If the locality is visited by a prolonged drought
and the usual official prayers have been unavailing,
the people petition the magistrate to send out his
runners to inspect all the graveyards of the neigh-
bourhood.

As soon as they have found one on which the soil
is soft and moist while all the surrounding grass-
mounds are parched and brown, this is regarded as
a proof that a lian-pa (such is the technical name of
the feathered corpse) lies in that spot. The wet grave
has no sooner been discovered than the magistrate or
some person authorised by him leads thither a crowd
of the local people armed with brooms^ and hooks.
The coffin is exhumed and the lid opened. No sooner
is this done than all the bystanders rush forward
with their weapons to strike down the corpse or to
trip him up or hook him if he attempts to run or fly
away : for this, according to the story, is what the
han-pa always tries to do. As soon as he has been
carefully secured and recoffined, the dreaded han-pa
is placed on a heap of firewood and burned to ashes.
Copious rain is certain to fall the same evening or
the following day. Faith in this remarkable supersti-
tion seems to be well rooted in Weihaiwei. One of
my informants, himself a believer, expressed amaze-
ment at hearing that no such notions existed in
England. On being asked why it was considered
necessary to open the coffin-lid, he said it was to
enable the relatives of the dead man to see for
themselves that the corpse really was a han-pa, and

' Cf. the Irish and Scottish banshee.

^ All evil demons are supposed to be afraid of brooms, See p, 190
(note).

DEMON OF DROUGHT 297

that there was no alternative but to burn it : otherwise
they might feel that their dead relative had been
grievously maligned and his remains treated with
unpardonable disrespect. ** What happens," I asked,
" when the dead man turns out to be just an ordinary
corpse ? " " But that could never be," was the decisive
answer. " The moist grave in a time of drought is an
infallible sign of a Iian-pa. There can be no mistake."
I have described this superstition as it exists at
Weihaiwei, but it is by no means confined to that
locality. The word Jian-pame^ns "demon of drought,"
and the earliest mention of it in extant Chinese
literature is in the beautiful hymn of King Hsiian,
preserved in the Book of Poetry {Shih Ching) edited
by Confucius.^ It is there mentioned as being the
cause of a great drought that appears to have occurred
about the year 821 b.c. The drought-demon is also
referred to in the Shan Hai Ching, a curious quasi-
geographical work of disputed date. A certain
Taoist Book of Marvels tells us that " in the southern
regions there is a man-like creature two or three feet
high, with a naked body and an eye on the top of its
head. It moves with the swiftness of wind, and
wherever it is seen a calamitous drought is sure to
occur. It is called paT^ From none of these
authorities do we gather that there was any connection
between the drought-demon and a human corpse over
which tears had been shed. Wang Ch'ung (first
century a.d.) writes of ** flying corpses " {fei shih),^ but
this does not bring us much further. How the super-
stition as it at present exists grew up is far from clear,
and it seems likely that it represents a coalescence of
several beliefs that were once quite separate. De
Groot discusses the subject with his usual thorough-

' See Legge's C/n'nesc Classics, vol. iv, pt. ii. p. 532. The passage
referred to is translated by Legge thus: i"The demon of drought
[/mn-pd] exercises his oppression, as if scattering flames and fire."

' This passage is quoted in the K'ang Hsi dictionary, s.v. Pa.

^ l.un Hcng, transl. by Forke, pt. i. p. 243.

298 DEAD MEN AND GHOST-LORE

ness/ though he does not appear to have come across
the superstition in the form in which it is known at
Weihaiwei.

It might well be supposed that in the han-pa, if in
nothing else, we have come across a piece of Chinese
folk-lore that has no parallel in Europe ; but perhaps
our supposition would be unwarrantably hasty. I
find that in the Highlands of Scotland " it was thought
wrong to weep, lest the tears should hurt the dead." ^
Then again there is, or was, an English superstition
against the use of certain feathers in feather-beds and
pillows. The feathers of the domestic fowl, goose,
pigeon, partridge, and sometimes those of wild birds
generally, were tabooed.^ No reason has been given so
far as I know for this singular and apparently senseless
idea, any more than for the Highland notion that tears
were hurtful to the dead. It may be far-fetched to
suppose on the strength of these old wives' tales that
the shedding of tears over corpses was once believed
by our own remote ancestors to turn dead men into
feathered demons like the Chinese han-pa ; but perhaps
it might appear less unlikely that there is some ex-
tremely ancient and now forgotten connection between
the British and the Chinese superstitions if we were
able to find some traces of similar beliefs in the
intervening countries of Europe or Asia.

For long I despaired of finding anything that might
be regarded as a missing link ; but Bohemia is the
country that seems to have supplied it at last. The
following letter will show that in Europe, as well as
in Far Cathay, there still exists in our own generation
the remnant of a belief that drought may in certain

* Op. cit. vol. V. pp. 516-20, 761. For remarks on human spectres in
the shape of birds, see vol. v. pp. 634 seq. For a reference to the
spectres known in Europe as Vampires, see vol. v. p. 747 scq. For
evidence as to the supposed existence of vampires and grave-demons iu
the Malay States, see Skeat's Malay Magic, pp. 103 and 327.

* Folk-lore Journal, vol. ii. (1884), p. 281.
' Folk-lore, September 1900, p. 243,

FEATHERS AND RAIN 299

circumstances be caused by a human corpse, and that
such a corpse is in some mysterious way associated
with feathers.

"In the Bohemian village of Metschin," says a writer
in Folk-lore,'^ ** the body of the schoolmaster, who was
buried early in May amid many marks of respect from
the inhabitants, is to be exhumed. There, as else-
where, a great drought prevails, and the story has
got about that a cushion with feathers was put under
his head. Nine-tenths of the population believe that
this is the cause of the drougnt, hence the proposal
to exhume him and remove the cushion, which is in
reality filled with hay. Is this case parallel to the
prejudice against the feathers of certain birds in beds
and pillows, or is there some special connection
between feathers and rain? More particularly in
Australia feathers and hair are associated with rain-
making."

It will be noticed that in China the drought-causing
demon grows the feathers on its own body, whereas
in Bohemia it merely lies on a feathered pillow. That
the two beliefs had a common origin, and that the two
British superstitions already cited may be connected
with them, will not, perhaps, be regarded as altogether
beyond the bounds of possibility.

> Madi Braitmaier in Folk-lore, December 1900, p. 437.

CHAPTER XIII

CONFUCIANISM — I

Various religious notions and practices of the people
of Weihaiwei have been already dealt with in con-
nection with other subjects, but it remains to investi-
gate more thoroughly the relations that exist in this
part of the Empire between the so-called Three
Religions of China (Confucianism, Taoism and Buddh-
ism) and the extent to which they severally con-
tribute to the religious life of the people.

A writer quoted in the Ning-hai Chronicle says of
the inhabitants of this district that their customs are
thoroughly orthodox, or, as he expresses it, " in com-
plete accordance with the doctrines of Tsou and Lu,"
— the native states of Mencius and Confucius re-
spectively. The rituals connected with the worship — •
if it may be so termed ' — of Confucius himself have,
however, no place in the ordinary religious observances
of the millions of China, and this is just as true of

' It is perhaps still necessary to explain that in spite of the honorary
epithets heaped on Confucius by imperial decree (as in the decree
that confers upon him an " equality with heaven and earth ''), Confucius
is tiot worshipped as a god. This was frankly admitted by Prof.
Legge in his later years. " I used to think," he said, " that Confucius
in this service received religious worship, and denounced it. But I
was wrong. What he received was the homage of gratitude, and not
the worship of adoration." " The Religion of China " in Religious
Systems of the World <^\.\v ed.), p. 72.

300

CONFUCIAN RITUAL 301

Shantung — the modern province which includes the
two ancient states just mentioned — as of any other
part of the Empire. Practically those rituals are
carried out only by the governing classes in their
official capacity ; one therefore finds few traces of the
personal Confucian cult except in the cities, at the
spring and autumn ceremonies held under the auspices
of the district-magistrates and higher officials in the
Sheng Miao or Holy (Confucian) Temples. Such
rites, accordingly, have no place in the Territory of
Weihaiwei, though they are carried out with all the
orthodox ceremonies in the neighbouring cities of
Jung-ch'eng, Wen-teng and Ning-hai. Not only is it
the case that the officials alone are regarded as com-
petent to carry out the elaborate memorial or semi-
religious services connected with the cult of the sage,
but to a great extent the same is true in respect of
some of the far more ancient rites which are regarded
as coming under the head of Confucianism because
Confucius " transmitted " them to posterity with his
consecrating approval. Such are the biennial sacri-
fices to Heaven and Earth and to the Land and Grain,
and the spring sacrifice at the Altar of Agriculture.
The high-priest at these great ceremonies is the Em-
peror himself, and it is only by his deputies (that is
to say the ti-faug kiian or territorial officials) that
similar rites can be performed in places other than
the capital.

Yet it must not be supposed that there is no such
thing as Confucianism in China outside the ranks of
the official classes, Confucian ideals of life and con-
duct, Confucian doctrines of the relations between
rulers and ruled, Confucian views of the reciprocal
rights and duties of parents and children, friends,
neighbours, strangers, the Confucian sanction of the
cult of Ancestors, these are all strong living forces
in the China of to-day. •' Wherever Chinamen go,"
says Dr. H. A. Giles, " they carry with them in their
hearts the two leading features of Confucianism, the

302 CONFUCIANISM— I

patriarchal system and ancestral worship."^ The in-
flux of new light from the West is doubtless bringing
about a change in the traditional attitude of the
Chinese towards the person of the teacher whom their
forefathers have revered for more than two thousand
years ; but though the Confucian cult conceivably at
some future time may be formally disestablished and
the Confucian temples turned into technical colleges,
it is to be hoped for the sake of China that many
centuries will elapse before Confucianism as a moral
force, as a guide of life, fades away from the hearts
and minds of the people. Confucianism is not a mere
code of rules that can be established or abrogated as
the fancy takes any prominent statesman who happens
to have the ear of the throne ; it has intertwined itself
with the very roots of the tree of Chinese life, and if
that venerable tree, in spite of a mutilated branch or
two, is still very far from hopeless decay it is to Con-
fucianism that much of its strength and vigour is
due.-

Perhaps no teacher of antiquity has suffered more
disastrously at the hands of most of his interpreters
and translators than has Confucius. Even his Chinese
commentators have not always been successful ; it is
then little to be wondered at that European students,
often lacking both a complete equipment of Chinese

' Great Religions of the World: Confucianism, pp. 28-9. (Harper
& Bros., 1 90 1.)

2 Many missionaries have taken a very different view. Perhaps
they are right and the opinions expressed in this chapter erroneous —
let me hasten to disclaim any intention to dogmatise. However this
may be, I cannot but think that missionaries have not studied, respect-
fully and tactfully, the susceptibilities of the proud and ancient people
whom they wish to proselytise when they hint at the approaching dis-
solution of their Empire and hold out Christianity to them as a con-
solation for the loss of their nationality and all that their forefathers
have held dear. "Disorganisation," says Dr. Legge, "will go on to
destroy it [China] more and more, and yet there is hope for the
people . . . if they will look away from all their ancient sages, and
turn to Him, who sends ih&m, along with the dissolutioti of their ancient
state, the knowledge of Himself, the only living and true God, and ol

CONFUCIAN ETHIC 303

scholarship and a power of sympathetic insight into
alien modes of thought, and above all possessed by
an intensely strong bias against " heathendom " and
" heathen " thinkers, have failed again and again to
give their fellows-countrymen an adequate account
either of the Confucian system as a whole or of the
personal character of the Master himself

Confucius, as one of his most recent English trans-
lators reminds us, was one of the most open-minded
of men, and approached no subject with " foregone
conclusions"; but the whole attitude of the English-
man who is still regarded as the great expounder of
Confucianism to the English-speaking world (Dr.
Legge) " bespoke one comprehensive and fatal fore-
gone conclusion — the conviction that it must at every
point prove inferior to Christianity." ^

Now what is the impression that Confucianism gives
to a European student who is not only a good Chinese
scholar and therefore able to dispense with trans-
lations, but is also entirely free from religious pre-
judice ?

" The moral teaching of Confucius," says the writer
just quoted, "is absolutely the purest and least open
to the charge of selfishness of any in the world. . . .
' Virtue for virtue's sake ' is the maxim which, if not
enunciated by him in so many words, was evidently the

Jesus Christ whom He had sent." Is it to be wondered at that the
rulers of China look askance at a foreign religion the God of which
intends to send them — however sweetly the bitter pill may be coated
— the dissolution of their ancient state ? Perhaps there are still mission-
aries who would give their approval to these extraordinary words,
but fortunately there are laymen who take quite a different view of
China's "ancient sages" whom Dr. Legge recommends the Chinese
to reject. " Never, perhaps, in the history of the human race," says
Mr. Lionel Giles, writing of Confucius, " has one man exerted such an
enormous influence for good on after-generations." {The Sayings of
Confucius, p. 118.) Yet this is one of the sages from whom we invite
the Chinese to " look away " I

' See Mr. L. Giles's Introduction to his translation of The Sayings
of Confucius, p. 1 2.

304 CONFUCIANISM— I

corner-stone of his ethics and the mainspring of his ozvn
career. . . , Virtue resting on anything but its own
basis would not have seemed to him virtue in the
true sense at all, but simply another name for pru-
dence, foresight, or cunning." ^

I have italicised certain words in this quotation
for a reason which will soon be apparent. As is
well known, Confucianism and ancestor-worship, as
well as Buddhism and Taoism, all established them-
selves in Japan. Confucianism is said to have entered
Japan in the sixth century of our era, though it
remained in a stationary position, somewhat inferior
in influence to Buddhism, for about a thousand years.
But during the last three hundred years at least, " the
developed Confucian philosophy," says an authority
on Japanese religion,- " has been the creed of a
majority of the educated men of Japan." Later on
he refers to " the prevalence of the Confucian ethics
and their universal acceptance by the people of
Japan." ^ Of course the Confucian system underwent
certain changes in its new island home, as Dr. Griffis
is careful to point out, — especially in the direction of
emphasising loyalty to sovereign and overlord : but
it still remained recognisable Confucianism. Mr. P.
Vivian, in a highly interesting volume,'* mentions the
fact that " Confucianism is an agnostic ethical system
which the educated classes of Japan have adopted
for centuries, and its splendid results are just now
much in evidence." Later on he quotes an exceed-
ingly significant and important statement made by
the Rev. Henry Scott Jeffreys, a missionary in Japan.
" After seven years' residence among this people I
wish to place on record my humble testimony to
their native virtues. . . . They love virtue for its own

' Op. dt. p 26.

* Dr. W. E. Griffis, The Religions of Japan (4th ed.), p. 108.
^ Op. cit. p. no.

* The Churches and Modern Thought (2nd ed.), p. 38.

CONFUCIANISM IN JAPAN 305

sake^ and not from fear of punishment or hope of reward."
Could higher praise than this be given to any people
on earth ? He goes on, " The conversion of this
people to the Christian faith is a most complex and
perplexing problem, not because they are so bad
but because they are so good." ^

I have italicised the words that are of special in-
terest when considered in connection with the state-
ment already quoted from Mr. Lionel Giles. It is
true that the praise given to the Japanese is a great
deal too high : there is no nation, whether Christian
or non-Christian, that deserves such praise. At the
same time most Europeans might find it no easy
task to prove to the satisfaction of an intelligent
visitor from another planet that the Christian nations
are, on the whole, more virtuous than the people of
Japan. The European advocate would, of course,
lay stress on the alleged weakness of Japanese com-
mercial morality, and perhaps with very good cause.
But there is no valid reason for supposing that the
Japanese, without Christianity, cannot and will not
amend their ways in this respect, and in any case
commercial immorality receives no more justification
from Confucian than it does from Christian ethics. ^

But Japan is not China : and if Confucianism be
such a good thing, exclaims the wondering European,
how is it that China is in a state of decay, that
Chinese officials are corrupt, that the population is
sodden with opium, that the country is only now,
after centuries of sloth and stagnation, beginning to
show an interest in Western civilisation and modern
science? The real condition of China, or at least

' Op. cit. pp. 398-9. One is sorely tempted to ask the question,
" Then why not leave well alone ? "

* Prof. H. A. Giles says in a recent publication : " It is beyond
question that to the precepts and faithful practice of Confucianism
must be attributed the high moral elevation of the Japanese people ;
an elevation which has enabled them to take an honourable place
among the great nations of the world." {Adversaria Sinica, p. 202.)

20

3o6 CONFUCIANISM— I

of the Chinese people, is perhaps not so rotten as it
is sometimes beheved to be, in spite of the grave
political and social dangers that at present lie ahead.
But waiving this point and admitting that reforms
are coming not a day too soon, let us consider one
or two of the most obvious causes to which the
present state of China may be attributed. China
was for many centuries so easily supreme in her
own quarter of the globe that a strenuous life be-
came for her unnecessary. Conflict is a law of
nature, but owing to peculiar circumstances China
as a nation became to a great extent temporarily
exempt from that law.^ She sank into inactivity be-
cause it was not necessary for her, as it was and is
for the great nations of Europe, to be continually
sharpening her wits against those of her neighbours,
or to be for ever engaged in the Sisyphean task of
redressing " the balance of power." Do the nations
of modern Europe sufficiently realise to what extent
they owe their progress and civilisation and even
their mechanical inventions to the fact that they have
all been pitted against each other in a more or less
equal struggle for existence in which none has ever
succeeded in establishing a supremacy over all the
rest ? Had powerful and united non-Chinese king-
doms established themselves in the Indo-Chinese
peninsula, in India itself, in the plains and mountains
of Tibet and Mongolia, in Korea and in mediaeval
japan, — kingdoms capable of contending with China
on fairly level terms, competent to defend themselves
against her attacks yet not strong enough to over-
come her, — can it seriously be supposed that China

* " It is through conflict alone that the fittest can be selected, be-
cause it is through conflict alone that they are aff"orded the chance
of manifesting those qualities, physiological and psychical, which
make them the fittest. And, as a matter of fact, conflict is the law of
Nature. It is no exaggeration, nor is it a mere figure of speech, to say
that progress is accomplished through blood." — Chatterton Hill,
Heredity and Selection in Sociology (A. & C. Black : 1907), p. 355.

CHINA NOT A GREAT AUK 307

would have been politically corrupt, unwarlike and
unprogressive to-day ?

That unhappy bird the great auk ceased to make
use of its wings — perhaps owing to a fatal love for
fish — and thereby incurred the punishment that in-
exorable Nature provides for those who neglect to
exercise the faculties she provides them with. Some-
what in the same way China, fatally set at liberty
from the invigorating impetus of competition, seems
to have lost the use of those powers and qualities
which ages ago carried her to the apex of the
Asiatic world. Unlike the great auk, however, China
has not yet become extinct, nor indeed is extinction
likely to be her fate. To take an illustration of a
very different kind, is it not the case that many
a successful and energetic man of business is only
saved from yielding to the insidious habit of taking
afternoon naps by the incessant ringing of his
telephone-bell ? For ages China could count on un-
disturbed slumber whenever she required it — and
it must be admitted that she seemed to require it
long and often. The telephone-bell has now been
ringing her up continuously for some little time ; she
ignored it at first, or perhaps it only gave a new
colour to her dreams, or occasionally turned them
into nightmares ; but now she has risen, slowly and
unwillingly it may be, and has put the receiver to her
ear. She has taken down the messages sent her, and
she is beginning to understand them ; and among
other things she is realising that afternoon slumbers
for her are joys of the past.

If China thinks, or Europe persuades her into the
belief, that her backward position among the great
Powers of the world is due to Confucianism, she will
be doing a great wrong to the memory of one ot
her greatest sons and a greater wrong to herself.^ It

' " We think that Confucius cut the tap-root of all true progress, and
therefore is largely responsible for the arrested development of China."
(GrifKs, The Religions of Japatt (4th ed.), pp. 104-5.) See also the

3oa CONFUCIANISM— 1

would be just as reasonable to make the Founder of
Christianity, one of the most gracious and most pitiful
of men, responsible for the injustice and cruelty of the
Crusades or for the frightful atrocities practised in
Europe on the bodies of heretics, or for such priestly
and monkish abuses as the sale of " pardons" and the
traffic in saintly relics and fragments of the " True
Cross " ; indeed it would perhaps be rather more
reasonable, for the mediaeval popes and monks at least
professed to act in the name of their Lord, whereas it
is not in the name of Confucius that offices in China
are bought and sold or that Chinese magistrates take
bribes and "squeezes," or that the naval and military
defences of the country have been allowed to fall into
decay. Does any one in Europe now suppose that if
Christ had returned to earth in the Middle Ages He
would have accepted a seat beside the Grand In-

Lectures delivered by Mr. E. R. Bernard in Salisbury Cathedral in
1903-4. The latter says, " Now that we have concluded our survey of
Confucius's work and system, I should like to draw your attention to a
practical inference from the results attained by it. The results are the
cotidition of Chinese society at the present day with its strange mixture
of benevolence and cruelty, industry and fraud, domestic virtues and
impurity. And the inference is the small value of an elevated system
of ethics without religion, for of religion there is nothing in the
'Analects' from beginning to end." (The italics are mine.) One
might almost suppose from this that in Christian England there is no
cruelty, no fraud, no impurity. If a Chinese were to go to England
and declare that the vices of the country were the results of Christianity
he would probably be anathematised as a wicked blasphemer and
hounded out of the land ; why should the Western nations show surprise
if the Chinese are indignant with foreigners who use words which
in their obvious and natural sense would lead the world to suppose
that the cases of cruelty, fraud and impurity one meets with in China
are the result of Confucianism ! As an offset to the dictum of Mr.
Bernard (who I gather has never been in China) I quote the opinion of
one who has made China and the Chinese his lifelong study. "The
cardinal virtues which are most admired by Christians are fully in-
culcated in the Confucian canon, and the general practice of these is
certainly up to the average standard exhibited by foreign nations."
{Religions oj the World, pp. 26-7: "Confucianism," by Prof. H. A.
Giles.)

CHRISTIAN PERSECUTIONS 309

quisitors and joined them in sentencing innocent men
and women "to the thumbscrew and the stake, for the
glory of the Lord"? Or that if He had appeared in
England in 1646 He would have supported the Act
which made it a capital offence to deny the truth of
any of the dogmas that the English Church of that
period chose to consider essential?

This is how a papal legate in 1209 wrote to
Innocent III. after a victorious crusade against the
Albigenses : " Our troops, sparing neither sex nor age,
put to the sword nearly twenty thousand; splendid
deeds were accomplished in the overthrow of the enemy,
the whole city was sacked and burned by a divine re-
venge marvellous fierce." A pope may have taken this
doughty champion of the Church to his bosom, but is
it conceivable that the Carpenter of Nazareth would
have greeted this monster, whose sword was reeking
with human blood, with the welcoming words, " Well
done, thou good and faithful servant " ? If we refuse,
as we well may, to lay on Jesus the least tittle of
responsibility for the terrible crimes perpetrated in
Europe for many consecutive centuries in the name
of the Christian religion, would it not be becoming on
our part to hesitate before we ascribe the faults and
disasters of the Chinese people and their Government
wholly or even partially to their faith in the teachings
of Confucius ?

I once heard a kind-hearted Englishman say that he
could forgive China all her faults except the tor-
turing of prisoners in the law-courts and in the gaols.
Torture in China — which is very slowly becoming
obsolete — has very naturally made Europeans shudder
with horror : but where does Confucius give counten-
ance to torture ? And after all, the extent of China's
crime is only this, that she has not abolished the
practice of torture quite so early as the nations of
Western Europe and America. Perhaps the mission-
aries and others who have pointed out to the Chinese
the enormity of their crime in permitting torture have

310 CONFUCIANISM— I

sometimes omitted to state that only in comparatively
recent times have we ourselves become so merciful
as to forbid the practice. Without dwelling on the
abominable punishments devised for heretical offenders
in every country in Europe, it is as well to remember
that torture was continually inflicted in England
during the Tudor reigns/ and also under the Stuarts.
In Scotland it was long a recognised part of criminal
procedure, and was not finally abolished in that
country till the eighteenth century.^ The Most High
and Mighty Prince whose name adorns the front page
of our English Bibles, in one memorable case directed
the application, if necessary, of " the most severe "
tortures, and expressed the devout wish that the
Almighty would " speed the good work."

When confronted with so lofty an ethical system
as that taught by Confucius, European writers who
wish to prove the justice of their contention that *' it
must at every point prove inferior to Christianity "
are naturally driven to make the utmost of any passage
in the Chinese classics that appears to reveal some-
thing of the Chinese sage's moral imperfections.
Just as an anti-foreign Chinese commentator on the
Christian religion might utilise certain texts in the Old
Testament to show that the Christian God was
neither just nor merciful, and certain texts in the
New Testament to show that Jesus of Nazareth
shared the superstitions of his age and was sometimes
lacking in self-control, so European expounders of
Confucianism have seized upon a fev/ passages in the
Confucian canon to prove to their own satisfaction that
the great Sage of China did not always speak the
truth. The passages are three in number. In one we
are told that a certain brave man was commended by
the Master for his absence of boastfulness, because
though he nobly brought up the rear during a retreat,

1 As Hallam says, " The rack seldom stood idle in the Tower for all
the latter part of Elizabeth's reign."
' By an Act passed in the seventh year of Queen Anne.

CONFUCIUS AND VERACITY 311

he said, " It is not courage that makes me last, it is my
horse that won't gallop fast enough."^ As courage
really was the cause of his conduct. Prof Legge and
those who think with him take the view that the man's
own explanation of what he had done was untruthful
and that Confucius by awarding him praise condoned
a lie. Considering that Confucius's only remark on
the subject was that the man was no braggart, probably
few of us except sanctimonious pedants would say
that either the sage or his hero was guilty of an act
or a word that was in any way discreditable.

In another famous passage it is narrated that " A
man who wanted to see Confucius called on him.
Confucius, not wishing to see him, sent to say he was
sick. When the servant with the message went to
the door, Confucius took up his musical instrument
and sang aloud purposely to let the visitor hear it
and know that he was not really sick." ^ It is
interesting to note that in citing this little story as
evidence of Confucius's lack of veracity. Prof Legge
omits to quote the second part of the passage,^
though it ought to be obvious to the most casual
reader that it was only for the sake of the remark
about the music that the story was preserved in the
Confucian canon at all. So far from proving that
Confucius could tell a lie, it goes to show that even in
small matters of everyday social intercourse Confucius's
nature was superior to all the little " white lies " and
deceptions that are and no doubt always have been
continually practised in " Society." Probably in his
day, as in our own, it was considered more polite
to an unwelcome visitor to plead indisposition or
absence from home as an excuse for not admitting
him than to send him the blunt message, "You are not
wanted : go away ! " Confucius, however, wishing to
make it quite clear to his visitor that the plea of

' Mr. L. Giles's translation of Ltm Vu, vi. 13.

' Mr. Ku Hung-ming's translation of Lun Yii, xvii. 20.

' See Legge's Chinese Classics (2nd. ed.), vol. i. p. 100.

312 CONFUCIANISM— I

sickness was merely a social subterfuge and was not
intended to deceive (as a lie must surely be), took up his
musical instrument and played it in his visitor's hearing.

So far from this passage proving that Confucius
had an inadequate regard for the truth, it will perhaps
strike a good many people as indicating that un-
truth and insincerity were abhorrent to Confucius's
nature : and this was undoubtedly the impression
that the disciple who remembered and recorded the
incident wished to convey.

So much for two out of the three solitary occasions
on which Confucius is said to have laid himself open
to what Prof. Legge calls " the most serious charge
that can be brought against him, the charge of
insincerity." The events recorded in connection with
the third occasion are much more grave and deserve
closer attention. The story goes that Confucius
when travelling to a place called Wei was captured by
a rebel-brigand of that state, who would only release
him on condition that he would take an oath to give
up his proposed expedition to Wei. Confucius took
the oath, and on his release forthwith continued his
journey to the place he had sworn to avoid. On one
of his disciples asking him whether it was a right thing
to break his word, Confucius replied : " It was a forced
oath. The spirits do not hear such." Now of the moral
question here involved Sir Robert Douglas takes the
view that it is "a nice question for casuists," but
expresses the conviction that by most people Confucius
" will not be held to be very blameworthy for that
which, at the worst, was a mistaken notion of
truthfulness." ^ On the other hand many of us will
hold the equally strong conviction that if this story is
true there is an ugly blot on the character of Confucius.
If he deliberately and knowingly broke his word,
as this story would indicate, then he was no gentleman.^

' Sir Robert Douglas, Confucianism and Taouism (5th ed.), p. 146.
* This would certainly have been Montaigne's view, See, for a
very apposite passage, Essays, Bk. iii. ch. i,

FAITHFULNESS AND TRUTH 313

Le bon sang ne pent mentir, as the old French proverb
says. Not his can have been what Burke in thrilling
words calls ** that chastity of honour, which felt a
stain like a wound." But the evidence from other
sources that Confucius was a gentleman — a man to
whom truth and sincerity were very precious — is
Overwhelming. His teachings and actions, so far as
we know them — all but this one — prove conclusively
that he laid almost greater emphasis on truth and
honour than on any other quality. " Hold faithfulness
and sincerity," he said, "as first principles."^ One of
his English commentators remarks that " the earnest-
ness with which he insists on this, repeating the same
injunction over and over again, is a point in his teach-
ing which is well worthy of admiration."^

How then is this strange story of the broken oath
to be explained ? Probably by the simple statement
that the story is not true. The incident is one which
finds no place in the accepted Confucian canon : as
Prof. H. A. Giles says, it "occurs in an admittedly spu-
rious work,"^ — namely the Chia Yti, which in its present
form is believed to have been composed in the third
century a.d. The only other authority for it is the
great historian Ssu-ma Ch'ien. Confucius was born
in 551 B.C., Ssu-ma Ch'ien no less than four hundred
years later. It may, doubtless, be urged by those who
believe in the story and wish at the same time to save
the honour of Confucius, that the standard of truth
at that time was very low and that Confucius was
only acting in accordance with the practice of the
age in breaking his plighted word. But we have no
reason whatever to suppose that the standard was

' This is Legge's translation of Lun Yii i. 8. The doctrine is
repeated in ix. 24. Cf. also Luft Yii ii. 22 and many other passages
in this and other Confucian books.

' Sir Robert Douglas, op. cit. p. 114.

^ " Confucianism," in Great Religions of the World, p. 26. See also
Prof. Giles's Chinese Literature, p. 48, and Wylie's Notes on Chinese
Literature (1902 ed.), p. 82,

314 CONFUCIANISM— I

any lower than it is to-day in Christendom : and what
no writer, so far as I am aware, seems to have made
a note of is the important fact that the story, if true at
all, is of itself a clear proof that the standard of honour
was remarkably high. The rebel would not have
given Confucius the option of taking an oath unless
there had been an expectation on his part that
Confucius would keep that oath ; and if the expec-
tation existed, it must even in those far-off days have
been founded on a belief that a gentleman's word was
" as good as his bond." Thus if we believe in the
story we are compelled to adopt the conclusion that
Confucius was not, as one would have thought,
superior to his contemporaries in matters of morals,
but was immeasurably their inferior : a conclusion
which is patently absurd. To suppose after hearing
the evidence of the canonical books that Confucius
was a man who could deliberately break his word
seems almost as unreasonable as to suppose that Sir
Walter Scott ("true gentleman, heart, blood and bone,"
as Tennyson called him) could have acted dishonour-
ably or that Sir Philip Sidney, the prince of chivalry,
could have told a lie.

I cannot hope that these remarks will re-establish
Confucius's reputation as a lover of truth in the minds
of those who wish for proselytising purposes to con-
vince the Chinese that their sage was a grievous
sinner. Such persons will doubtless in any case
continue to hold that the Chinese as a people are
untruthful, and that whether or not the untruth-
fulness is a legacy left them by Confucius it is a vice
which only Christianity can extirpate. This question
of Chinese untruthfulness we have already considered,^
and a few words are all that is necessary here.

Persons who believe that the untruthfulness of the
Chinese (presuming that it exists) is due to their
" heathenism " and that truth is a typically or exclu-
sively Christian virtue may have some difficulty in

' See pp. 108 seq.

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CHRISTIANITY AND VERACITY 315

proving the justice of their view. " We have proof
in the Bible," as Herbert Spencer remarks, "that apart
from the lying which constituted false witness, and
was to the injury of a neighbour, there was among
the Hebrews but little reprobation of lying." ^ He
goes on to admit, very properly, that in the writings
of the Hebrew prophets and in parts of the New
Testament lying is strongly condemned. Missionaries
often say that the Chinese will never become a truthful
people until they become a Christian people. If truth-
fulness had been an unknown virtue until Christianity
appeared, one might perhaps be unable to question the
accuracy of this statement. But what does Herodotus,
writing in the fourth century b.c, tell us about the
Persians of his day? "They educate their children,
beginning at five years old and going on till twenty,
in three things only, in riding, in shooting, and in
speaking the truth . . . and the most disgraceful thing
in their estimation is to tell a lie."^

And would not most of us trust the word of
Socrates, if we had the chance, as fully as we would
trust the word of an archbishop ? If truthfulness is
a characteristically Christian virtue, how was it that
in the Merovingian period " oaths taken by rulers,
even with their hands on the altar, were forthwith
broken " ? ^ And what are we to say of the alleged
Jesuitical doctrine that the end justifies the means, or
about that immoral dogma of the Decretals (surely
just as bad as Confucius's supposed doctrine regarding
forced oaths) : Juramcntiim contra utilitatem ccclesi-
asticam praestitum non tenet?

' Principles of Ethics, i. 402. Herbert Spencer goes on to refer to
I Kings xxii. 22, Ezekiel xiv. 9, Genesis xxvi. 12, and also to the Jacob
and Esau incident and to the occasion " when Jeremiah tells a false-
hood at the king's suggestion." The Rev. A. W. Oxford, writing on
ancient Judaism, reminds us that "Jehovah protects Abraham and
Isaac after they have told lies, and punishes the innocent foreigner."
Religious Sjslcms of the World (8th ed.), p. 60.

' Herodotus, translated by G. C. Macaulay, vol. i. pp. 69-70,

' Herbert Spencer, op, cit, vol. i. pp. 403-4.

3i6 CONFUCIANISM— I

There are non-Christian peoples in southern India
to-day of whom it has been said that they are
characterised by "complete truthfulness. They do
not know how to tell a lie"; in central India certain
aborigines are described as " the most truthful of
beings." ^ But the list might be indefinitely extended.
There are numerous races in the world among whom
truth is held in the highest honour, and as many
others who appear to regard a skilful liar as a
specially clever fellow. There is certainly very little
reason to believe that truth is a monopoly of the
Christian or that the " heathen" is necessarily a liar.^

^ Both cases are cited by Herbert Spencer, op. cit. p. 405. That
philosopher argues that " it is the presence or absence of despotic rule
which leads to prevalent falsehood or prevalent truth."

' Prof. Legge evidently took the view that truthfulness belonged only
to Christians. He states that a love of truth can only be maintained,
and a lie shrunk from with shame, through " the living recognition of
a God of truth, and all the sanctions of revealed religion." {Chinese
Classics, vol. i. p. loi.) By "revealed religion" Legge means, of
course, Christianity. It would be interesting to know how he would
have accounted for truthfulness among numerous non-Christian races
of our own time or among such people as the ancient Persians.
Perhaps as regards the latter case he would have done it by deny-
ing the capacity of a Greek (especially of a Greek who has been
described as the "father of lies") to judge of truthfulness! Prof.
Martin in The Lore of Cathay (p. 177) says that while Confucius's
writings (presumably he means his recorded sayings) " abound in the
praise of virtue, not a line can be found inculcating the pursuit of
truth." This is an amazing misstatement : let us hope it was written
inadvertently. A third missionary, Dr. Wells Williams, makes state-
ments regarding the character and morals of the Chinese people that
are so grossly unfair as to be almost unreadable \Middle Kingdom,
vol. i. pp. 833-6 (1883 edition)]. Mr. Arthur Davenport in his China
from Within (T. Fisher Unwin, 1904) quotes from a missionary's letter
which appeared in Chifta's Millions (a missionary publication) in
February 1903. "What a mass of evil the missionary in China has to
contend with ! . . . Certainly there are more souls being lost every day
in China than in any country in the world . . . the Bible declares that
no liar or idolater can ever reach heaven, and all these masses of people
are idolaters and liars ; for ' China is a nation of liars,' consequently
there must be among the lost, among those going to eternal death, a
greater number from the Chinese than from any nation on earth. . . .
For though they be all liars and idolaters, they are the most industrious

CHRISTIANITY AND CONFUCIANISM 317

The average Englishman or American does not always
find that his pious acquaintances are the most truthful :^
indeed in many cases he will prefer to trust the word
of a man who from the Church's point of view is a
notorious sinner but who happens at the same time
to be a gentleman. It is of course easy to declare
that a Christian who tells a lie cannot be a true
Christian. It is equally easy and equally just to
assert that the native of China who tells a lie cannot
be a true Confucian.

If in Weihaiwei as elsewhere in rural China the
influence of Confucius is to be traced not in temples
and religious or commemorative ceremonial but in
the customs, manners and character of the people,
it is clear that a description of the Confucianism of
this corner of the Empire would involve a repetition
of much that has been already set forth at length
in the course of the foregoing pages. But there
is a feature of Confucianism that so far has been

of people, and of such intellectual capacity as to be able to compete
for the highest scholarships in the Universities of Europe and
America. . . . We thank God with all our heart that there are now so
many different Protestant Missions at work in Chehkiang, each having
godly, earnest, and faithful men representing them." No wonder
Mr. Davenport, after quoting this astonishing effusion, remarks that
"this rendering of thanks to God that there are now so many 'godly,
earnest, and faithful ' foreign missionaries amongst this ' nation of
liars' forcibly reminds us of the parable of the Pharisee and the
Publican." It is pitiful to think that missionaries of the class to which
the writer of this letter belongs are still at work in China, " converting
the heathen." Let us hope that the day may come when the generous-
hearted people who support Foreign Missions with their money and
services will feel justified in insisting that educated gentlemen, and no
others, are selected for work in the Mission field. Fortunately the
Mission Boards appear to be exercising much greater care in their
selection of missionaries for China than they did formerly ; but how can
they undo the harm that has already been done ?

' " A Highlander, who considered himself a devout Christian, is
reported to have said of an acquaintance : ' Donald's a rogue, and a
cheat, and a villain, and a liar ; but he's a good, pious man.' Probably
Donald 'kept the Sabbath — and everything else he could lay his hands
on.'" — D. G. Ritchie, Natural Rights (2nd ed.), p. 190.

3i8 CONFUCIANISM— I

treated less thoroughly than it deserves, although
it constitutes by far the most important element in
the religious life of the people. This is the cult of
Ancestors.

There is perhaps a popular tendency in Europe
(notwithstanding the doctrines of Herbert Spencer)
to regard this cult as something peculiar to the Far
East and without parallel in Western modes of
religious thought and practice : but, as students of
comparative religion well know, such is not the case.
That ancestor-worship or something very like it
existed among the ancient Egyptians might be assumed
from the extraordinary measures which they took to
preserve the bodies of the dead : but we know from
other evidence that the ancestral Ghost was regularly
approached with veneration and sacrifices. Cakes
and other articles were offered to the Egyptian ka just
as they are offered to the spirits of the dead in China
to-day; and, as in China, the sacrificial ceremonies
were made the occasion of family gatherings and
genial festivities.^ Great religious revolutions have
taken place in Egypt in the course of ages, but among
the Egyptian Mohammedans and the Copts traces of
ancestor-worship exist to this day. The evidence at
present available hardly justifies us in declaring that
this cult was also practised in Babylonia, though it
seems at least certain that heroes and distinguished
men were deified and venerated. There is less doubt

• The parallels between Egyptian and Chinese culture are not
perhaps very numerous or instructive ; it may therefore be worth while
to mention one that is not without interest though it is doubtless
accidental. The Milky Way in Egypt was known as the Heavenly
Nile : in China it is named the Heavenly River {THen Ho). It would
perhaps be correct to translate the Chinese ho in this case as " Yellow
River " : for when the word ho (river) is spoken of without qualification
it is the Yellow River (near the banks of which most of the old Chinese
capitals were situated) that is understood. With the phrases Heavenly
Nile and Heavenly Yellow River may be compared an old English
name for the Milky Way — Watling Street. (See A. Lang's Custom atid
Myth [1901 ed.], p. 122.)

ANCESTOR-WORSHIP 319

about the early Israelites. " It is impossible to avoid
the conclusion," says the Rev. A. W, Oxford/ "that
the pre-Jehovistic worship was that of ancestors." He
observes that ** the importance attached to a father's
blessing before his death and the great fear caused by
a curse (Judges xvii. 2) were relics of the old cult of
ancestors."

The importance of the same cult in Greece and
Rome can hardly be exaggerated. In Greece, Zeus
himself was regarded in one of his aspects as irarpwo-i,
the ancestral god. " The central point of old Roman
religion," as Grant Allen has said,- " was clearly the
household ; the family ghosts or lares were the most
honoured gods." In various parts of the " Dark
Continent " ancestor-worship is the prevailing religion.
"Nowhere," says Max Muller, "is a belief and a
worship of ancestral spirits so widely spread as in
Africa."^ That it existed and still exists in many
Eastern countries besides China need hardly be em-
phasised. It is deeply embedded in Hinduism, and in
Japan it has grafted itself on Shinto.*

It is perhaps of greater interest to Europeans to
know that the cult of ancestors existed in pre-Christian
days in the forests of old Germany. " Our early
Teutonic forefathers," says Mr. F. York Powell,
" worshipped the dead and treated their deceased

' See article on Judaism in The Religious Systems of the World
(Sonnenschein & Co. 8th ed.), p. 56.

^ The Evolution of the Idea of God, pp. 369-70. See also Tylor,
Primitive Culture (4th ed.), vol. ii. 120 ; Fustel de Coulanges, La Cite
Antique ; and T. R. Glover's Conflict of Religions in the Early Roman
Empit'e^ pp. 14-15.

^ Last Essays, Second Series (1901 ed.), p. 45.

* Ancestor-worship has been called " the foundation and chief
characteristic of Shinto " (D. Goh in Religious Systems of the World,
8th ed., p. 99) ; but though this is the statement of a scholarly native
of Japan, it is as well to observe that Dr. Aston, one of the best
European authorities on the subject, holds a somewhat different view
as to the connection between Shinto (in its earliest form) and the cult
of ancestors. "All the great deities of the older Shinto," he says,
"are not Man but Nature gods." {Shifito, p. 9.)

320 CONFUCIANISM— I

ancestors as gods." ^ But old customs, especially
religious ones, die hard ; and so we need not be
surprised to find that just as the Isis and Horus of
the ancient Egyptians have become the Madonna and
Child of the modern Italians,^ so the ancestor-worship
of our Teutonic forefathers has been transformed
under Christian influences into solemn commemora-
tions of the dead, and masses for the souls of the
" faithful departed." The transformation, indeed, is in
some places hardly complete to this day.

" Although full ancestor-worship," says Dr. Tylor,
" is not practised in modern Christendom, there re-
mains even now within its limits a well-marked
worship of the dead. A crowd of saints, who were
once men and women, now form an order of inferior
deities, active in the affairs of men, and receiving from
them reverence and prayer, thus coming strictly under
the definition of manes. This Christian cultus of the
dead, belonging in principle to the older manes
worship, was adapted to answer another purpose in
the course of religious transition in Europe."^

It appears that in one part of Christendom, at least,
actual ancestor-worship is not yet extinct. In back-
ward parts of Russia at this day, we are told, " the
dead in return for the offerings are supplicated to
guard and foster the family and crops. ' Ye spirits of

' "Teutonic Heathendom," in Religious Systems of the World
(8th ed.), p. 279.

* See T. R. Glover's Conflict of Religiofis in the Early Rotnan
Empire, p. 23. See also F. C. Conybeare's admirable work Myth,
Magic, and Morals, in which he says, " Latin hymns in honour of Isis
seem to have been appropriated to Mary with little change ; and I
have seen statues of Isis set up in Christian churches as images of the
Virgin " (p. 230). He also points out that in Asia Minor " the Virgin
took the place of Cybele and Artemis."

' Primitive Culture (4th ed.), vol. ii. pp. 120 seq. See also vol. i. pp. 96 7
for mention of vestiges of sacrificial ceremonies in England in honour
of the dead. With reference to the gradual transformation of the old
Roman feasts for the dead into festivals of the Christian martyrs, see
T. R. Glover's Conflict of Religiofis in the Early Roman Empire,
pp. 15-16.

CONFUCIUS AND ANCESTOR-WORSHIP 321

the long departed, guard and preserve us well. Make
none of us cripples. Send no plagues upon us. Cause
the corn, the wine, and the food to prosper with us.' "^
Evidently if ancestor-worship is idolatrous, Europe
is not without its idolatry even in this twentieth
century.

The Ancestral cult, as every one knows, received
the hall-mark of Confucius's approval, though Con-
fucius himself did not profess to be a theologian or to
speak with authority on matters spiritual. It is an
extraordinary thing that Confucius's reticence with
regard to these matters has been selected by Christian
missionaries as a subject for special reproach. Prof.
Legge, after quoting some of Confucius's utterances
on the subject of the unseen world, asks why he did
not " candidly tell his real thoughts on so interesting
a subject," ^ and exclaims " Surely this was not the
teaching proper to a sage." Elsewhere he solves this
question himself, for he decides that Confucius was
no sage.^ Unfortunately he does not define the word
Sage, though he seems to imply that the word can be
fittingly applied only to a Christian teacher. He did
not perhaps quite appreciate the significance of the
Horatian remark Vixcre fortes ante Agamemnona.

Meadows remarks that every consistent Confucianist
ought to be a blank atheist, though probably he is
using the word in the sense that used erroneously to
be attached to it a good many years ago,^ when
" atheist " was the term applied to all persons who
were outside the Christian fold. In that sense Con-
fucius was an atheist, and inasmuch as he lived half a
millennium before Christ was born it is obvious that
he could not possibly have been anything else.
Mr. Arthur H. Smith states that the mass of Con-

' Dr. L. R. Farnell in Hibbert Journal, January 1909, p. 426.
^ Chinese Classics, vol. i. (2nd ed.), p. 100.
^ Op. cit. vol. iii. pt. i. p. 200.

^ See Max Mullen's Lectures on the Origin of Religion (1901 ed.),
pp. 310-16.

21

322 CONFUCIANISM— I

fucian scholars are "thoroughly agnostic and atheistic,"^
though if these terms are correctly used it is difficult
to see how they could be both at the same time.
Mr. W. E. Griffis thinks it " more than probable" that
Confucius laid " unnecessary emphasis upon social
and political duties, and may not have been sufficiently
interested in the honour to be paid to Shang Ti or
God. He practically ignored the Godward side of
men's duties." ^ Confucius would probably have said
that if people fully and completely discharge all their
duties on the manward side they need have no fear
that they are neglecting the Godward side. Griffis
goes on to compare Confucianism with a child-headed
giant, because it is exaggerated on its moral and
ceremonial side as compared with its spiritual develop-
ment. It must surely be clear to an unprejudiced mind
that Confucius deserves no blame whatever for omitting
to lay down the law on subjects about which he never
professed to know anything. Men have existed on
this planet for tens of thousands of years : if, as many
occidental peoples hold, the Deity revealed Himself
only nineteen centuries ago, it is absurd to find fault
with an honest philosopher for not having known
facts which had been preserved as a secret in the
archives of heaven for countless ages in the past
and were to remain undisclosed for another five
hundred years in the future. Some of us, perhaps,
may be inclined to the opinion that the great secret
remains a secret still. " We are born to enquire after
truth," said the wise Montaigne ; " it belongs to a
greater power to possess it." But supposing for the
sake of argument that Truth, or a certain aspect of
Truth, came to man's knowledge by a miraculous
act on the part of a Divine Power nineteen centuries
ago, one cannot blame Confucius for not having
obtained it from heaven five hundred years sooner.
One might as well blame St. Paul for not anticipating

' Chinese Characteristics (5th ed.), p 293.
* The Religions of Japan (4th ed.), p. 104.

THE RELIGION OF CONFUCIUS 323

the astronomical discoveries of Copernicus and Galileo,
or St. Augustine for not telling us how to deal with
the modern Women's Suffrage problem, or the
Founder of Christianity Himself for not explaining
the mechanism of motor-omnibuses and aeroplanes.
Prometheus is said to have succeeded in wrenching a
valuable secret from heaven without divine permission,
but Prometheus was a Titan and Confucius never
pretended to be anything more than a humble-minded
man.

The remarks made both orally and in writing on
the subject of Confucius and his religious views are
often so framed as to convey the idea, either that he
was somehow to blame for his want of knowledge,
or that he really knew all the time about God and
other spiritual beings, but was deliberately and
wickedly keeping the knowledge up his sleeve. It is
presumably for this reason that some missionaries
have found it their painful duty to explain to the
Chinese (whom they are trying to convert to a beliel
in a merciful and loving Deity) that Confucius is now
writhing in hell.^ It is open to them to add that
good Chinese Christians may look forward to the
happy day when they, from their heavenly mansions,
may behold their national Sage undergoing the tortures
prescribed for him in the nethermost regions : for was
it not Tertullian who, perhaps in a spirit of irony or
mockery, declared ^ that one of the joys of the blessed
when they reach heaven will be to watch the torments
of the damned ? ^ Fortunately bigotry and intolerance

» See pp. 353-4.

^ De Specitlis, 30.

^ In nothing have we moved away from the pious savagery of a
former age more noticeably than in the average Christian's attitude
towards hell. "I don't believe in hell," is a very common observation
nowadays even on the part of those who assert themselves to be good
Christians, though surely from the Church's point of view the position
is a highly heretical one. Modem humanitarianism is gradually teaching
the " plain man " to see that if a heaven exists, and if human souls are
to attain to a condition of perfect happiness there, it is inconceivable

324 CONFUCIANISM— I

of this kind are (tlianks partly to secular pressure)
rapidly disappearing from Christian apologetics, but
the charge against Confucius that his views on
spiritual matters were not only unsound but were
also discreditable to himself and to those who followed
his teachings, is still occasionally heard in the mis-
sionary camp.

It is perhaps worth while to consider briefly what
those views were. They are not to be found in any
consecutive form ; all one can do is to pick up hints
here and there and piece them together as best one
may. It must be remembered that Confucius seems
very rarely to have offered any remarks on spiritual
matters on his own initiative : he did not profess to
be an authority on such subjects, and it was only in
answer to direct questions that he said anything at
all. His attitude may be compared with that of
Mohammed, who administered rebukes to his disciples
when he heard them debating about fate and destiny.
Such things, he taught, were beyond all human know-
that there can be a hell also : for whatever the Christians of Tertullian's
day may have deemed necessary to happiness, few if any of us in
modern times could possibly (without undergoing a fundamental change
of character) attain complete happiness while in possession of the
knowledge that certain of our fellow human-beings were undergoing
eternal torment. The fact that we could ourselves behold the tor-
mented ones in their misery, so far from being an added source of
pleasure would surely turn our heavenly joys into dust and ashes.
We cannot be perfectly happy, as Prof. William James has remarked,
so long as we know that a single human soul is suffering pain. In a
book entitled The Future Life aftd Mode?'?i Difficulties, the Rev. F. C.
Kempson " does not hesitate to defend the belief that there are souls
which are finally lost, although he deprecates any materialistic pre-
sentation of that state of loss." As his critic in the Church Quarterly
Review (April 1909, p. 200) sensibly points out, Mr. Kempson "does
not fully appreciate the depth of the objections against such a doctrine.
To many minds, not generally supposed to be tainted with senti-
mentality, it appears that a universe where there was an ultimate
loss of souls through the complete determination of the will towards
evil would be an essentially atheistic universe, for it would be
one in which the evil was in the end partially triumphant over the
good."

THE RELIGION OF CONFUCIUS 325

ledge. If one might presume to construct a kind of
paraphrase of Confucius's occasional utterances on
spiritual subjects, and put it in the form of a con-
tinuous discourse, it might perhaps run somewhat as
follows :

" You need not ask me about the gods and spirits or
the world beyond the grave, because I really cannot
tell you anything about them. You ask me what
death is. I do not know. 1 think it will be time
enough to consider the problems of death when we
have solved those presented by life : and it will be a
long time before we have done that.^ You ask me
about serving the dead. First make sure that you are
doing everything possible in the service of living men,
then you may consider, if you will, whether any
changes should be made in our ancestral modes of
serving the spirits of the dead. You ask if the de-
parted have any knowledge of the sacrifices we offer
them, or if they are totally unconscious of what we
are doing for them. How can 1 answer you ? If I
were to tell you that the dead are conscious, you
might waste your substance in funerals and sacrifices,
and thus neglect the living to pay court to the dead.
If on the other hand I were to tell you that the dead
are unconscious, filial piety might diminish and sons
begin to leave the bodies of their parents uncared for
and unburied. Seek not to know whether the de-
parted are indeed conscious. If they are, you will
know it some day ; meanwhile study the world you
live in and have no fear that you will exhaust its
treasures of knowledge : the world takes a lot of
knowing. What is the use of my giving you my per-
sonal opinion about death and spiritual beings? You,
or others less intelligent than you, might take my
opinions as definite statements of truth, and if they
happen to be erroneous opinions I might very properly
be charged with the propagation of error. It is the
custom of our race to offer sacrifices to the spirits of

' " I don't know about the unseen world," said Thackeray in one of his
letters, " the use of the seen world is the right thing I'm sure. It is as
much God's world and creation as the kingdom of heaven with all its
angels."

326 CONFUCIANISM— I

the dead and I consider this a good old custom and
one that ought to be kept up, because even if there are
no spirits to receive our homage the practice is in
itself a harmless one and helps to foster reverence for
one's elders and for those in authority. Therefore
I say to you, carry out the solemn sacrifices to which
you have been accustomed, and when you do so,
honour the spirits as if they were present,^ but do
not be so foolish as to attempt familiar intercourse
with them. It was not we who made the chasm
that lies between ourselves and the spiritual world,
nor have we any right (so far as we know) to try to
bridge that chasm. God — if there be a God — knows
why the chasm is there, and God can bridge it if
He will.

" My advice to you is this. Be zealous in the ser-
vices you lOwe to your fellow-men ; behave towards
them as you would wish them to behave towards your-
self. Be not too proud to admit when you are wrong
or that you ' do not know.' The man who sees what
is right and honest and dares not do it is a craven.
Do not repine if you are misunderstood by men ;
repine rather that there are men who are misunder-
stood by you. Choose as your familiar companions
only those who are at least equal to yourself in virtue.
Speak and act with sincerity and truth. Be true to
yourself and charitable towards your neighbour.
Carry out those rites of filial piety and of religious
worship that have been handed down to you by your
fathers, even if you have doubts about the nature or
even the very existence of the objects of your worship ;
there is nothing to be ashamed of in honest doubt, but
do not let doubts interfere with your duty. Let not
your knowledge and practice of the traditional rituals
mislead you into thinking that you are on intimate
terms with the spiritual world ; treat the unseen
Powers with all reverence but keep aloof from them.
Do not fear that God will hold you guilty of neglect
of heavenly things provided you neglect nothing of
the duties you owe to men."

' In some respects, it may be noted, Confucius's position is not very
far removed from that of some of the so-called Modernists of our own
time. Cf. Le Roy, Dogme et Critique (4th ed.), p. 26 ; and the late
Father Tyrrell's Lex Orandi.

CONFUCIUS'S VIEWS ON PRAYER 327

It is true that several remarks of Confucius are on
record which seem to indicate that he had a belief —
however indefinite — in the existence of a God or at least
of spiritual beings who were both greater and better
than men. For instance he is said to have remarked
that men had failed to understand him, adding
proudly, "But there is Heaven: that knows me!"
There is also the famous reply which he gave to
Tzii-lu on the subject of prayer : " My praying," said
Confucius, " has been for a long time." * Some English
translators incline to the opinion that according to
this remark Confucius really did offer up prayers to
an unseen Power. What one knows of Confucius's
life and teachings as well as the context of this particu-
lar passage makes this highly improbable ; and indeed
the remark loses most of its beauty and dignity if
Confucius referred merely to prayers in the ordinary
sense. As one of his English editors says, " his whole
life had been one long prayer"^ — in a sense that the
narrow religious pedant perhaps does not and cannot
understand. One is reminded of the landscape-painter
who scandalised the pious natives of a beautiful Welsh
village by painting on Sundays. " How is it," asked
the local parson reproachfully, " that we have not yet
seen you in God's house?" "I am not aware," was
the artist's quiet reply, " that I was ever out of it."
Those of us who can respect this answer will be able
to respect that given by Confucius when he said, " My
praying has been for a long time."

' Lun Vu, vii. 34.

^ Mr. L, Giles, T/ic Sayings of Confucius^ p. 87.

CHAPTER XIV

CONFUCIANISM — II

Persons whose religion is bounded by dogmas and
rituals, and who take such a dismal view of human
nature that they cannot conceive of the existence of
moral goodness apart from faith in a particular creed,
are always (consciously or unconsciously) on the
look-out for evidences of " sin " or imperfection or
human frailty in the doctrines of those who are
ethical rather than religious teachers, and who do
not profess to have been favoured with a '* divine
revelation." Some of the failings ascribed to Con-
fucius— such as his alleged insincerity — have been
already dealt with ; but if his Christian critics are
unable to substantiate their charges of moral depravity
they are on much firmer ground when they declare
that Confucianism is not a religion at all, but merely
(though why "merely"?) a system of morals. This
is a point which every one will decide for himself in
accordance with his own views of what constitutes
Religion. Cardinal Newman said that by Religion
he meant " the knowledge of God, of His Will, of our
duties towards Him." According to this definition
Confucianism can hardly be called a Religion.
Carlyle said that whoever believes in the infinite
nature of Duty has religion. If this be so, it may
after all be argued that a religion is possessed by
the true Confucian. Legge, who admired Confucius

328

DEFINITIONS OF RELIGION 329

as " a very great man," but was prompt to seek out
evidence that the Confucian system was altogether
inferior to Christianity, admitted that Confucianism
was not "merely" a system of morality, but also
contained religion/ Sir Charles Eliot, on the con-
trary, says " it has produced twenty centuries of
gentlemen. Still, it is not in any ordinary sense a
religion."^ Similarly Sir Thomas Wade declared
that the Chinese " have indeed a cult, or rather a
mixture of cults, but no creed." Hegel said that
Religion is the Infinite Spirit of God becoming self-
conscious through the medium of the finite spirit.
The late Father Tyrrell held that what distinguishes
religion from ethics is " the belief in another world
and the endeavour to hold intercourse with it." Kant
said that when moral duties are regarded as divine
commands, that is religion. Fichte said that religion
was Knowledge rather than morality. Matthew
Arnold defined religion as " morality touched with
emotion." Schleiermacher said that religion consisted
in the consciousness of absolute dependence on a
Power which influences us though we cannot influence
it in turn.

It is obvious that until we are all agreed on what
we mean by Religion it is useless to enquire whether
the Confucian system is or is not entitled to the
name. One might as well try to determine whether
a given literary composition is a poem before we
have agreed upon a definition of Poetry. Some
writers have been apt to look for some quality that
is common to all religion as the best basis for a
definition ; but, as Edward Caird has reminded us,
" such a quality, if it could be found, would be some-
thing so vague and abstract that little or nothing
could be made of it." ^ As nobody has yet invented

' "The Religion of China," in Religious Systems of the World (^^h
ed.), pp. 61 seq.
* Quarterly Review, October 1907, p. 374,
' The Evolution of Religion (3rd ed,), vol. i. p. 40.

330 CONFUCIANISM— II

a definition which will satisfy every one, we must
perforce leave Confucianism unlabelled : though if
we all agree that a religious attitude implies a deep
sense of moral responsibility (either to our own
higher selves or to an external Power) and a feeling
that to do what we believe to be right — irrespective
of how we come to have ideas of right and wrong
at all — is " wisdom in the scorn of consequence,"
then we cannot go far astray in asserting that Con-
fucianism is not an irreligious or unreligious system,
but is merely an untheological one.

If the word Religion may be said to have almost
as many meanings as there are cultivated human
minds, what is to be said of the word God? The
Christian objection to Chinese ancestor-worship, of
which Confucius approved, is that it is a form of
idolatry, inasmuch as the deceased ancestors are
worshipped as gods. Here again our concurrence
or dissent must depend upon the exact shade of
meaning to be attached to the word " god." A rough
unhewn stone may be a " god " at one place and
time — though probably, as in the case of the meteoric
stone that is said to have been carried in the Ark
of Jahveh, it is never regarded by " initiates " as
more than a sacred emblem or representation. At
another place and time God becomes an ineffable
Spirit invisible to the human eye and only partially
attainable by human thought. *' Of Thee," said
Hooker, " our fittest eloquence is silence, while we
confess without confessing that Thy Glory is un-
searchable and beyond our reach." Nor need it be
supposed that the sublimer conception of Deity is
the newly-won possession of Christians only. Perhaps
no loftier idea of the Godhead has ever existed in
man's mind than that of the composers of some of
the Indian Vedas and Upanishads which were pro-
duced many hundreds if not thousands of years B.C. ;
indeed Hooker's prayer and many other Christian
prayers grander and nobler would not seem at all

Q

Q
O

o

CO
CO

•A
Z

■p.

ANCESTOR-WORSHIP 331

out of place if they were put into the mouth of an
Indian forest-sage or a prehistoric Brahman.

It is very difficult, then, to know without precise
definition what is the exact meaning of those who
declare that the Chinese make gods of their dead
fathers. Du Bose has condemned the Chinese an-
cestral cult because it inculcates the worship of
" parents once human but now divine," and he quotes
with apparent approval the words of another writer
who describes it as "one of the subtlest phases of
idolatry — essentially evil with the guise of goodness —
ever established among men." ' Wells Williams says
that Chinese ancestor-worship is distinctly idolatrous ;
yet he admits that the rites consist " merely of pour-
ing out libations and burning paper and candles at
the grave, and then a family meeting at a social feast,
with a few simple prostrations and petitions . . .
all is pleasant, decorous, and harmonious . . . and
the family meeting on this occasion is looked forward
to by all with much the same feeling that Christmas
is in Old England or Thanksgiving in New England."^
So says the earnest American missionary; and those
of us who not only see nothing wrong in the Chinese
ancestral ceremonies but would be exceedingly sorry
to see them abolished, will perhaps feel inclined to
smile at the reproachful terms in which he refers to
Sir John Davis, who had expressed the heterodox
opinion that the rites were "harmless, if not meri-
torious, forms of respect for the dead."

Another American writer, well known as an
authority on China, is equally strongly opposed to
any compromise with the cult of ancestors.

" It makes dead men into gods, and its only gods
are dead men. Its love, its gratitude, and its fears
are for earthly parents only. It has no conception
of a Heavenly Father, and feels no interest in such

' The Dragon, Image and Demon, pp. TJ and 88.
* The Middle Kingdotn (1883 ed.), vol. ii. p. 253-4.

332 CONFUCIANISM -II

a being when He is made known. Either Christianity
will never be introduced into China or ancestral
worship will be given up, for they are contradictories.
In the death struggle between them the fittest only
will survive." ^

To show that this is not quite the view taken by
all American missionaries, let us quote the words of l
yet a third. Dr. W. A. P. Martin, whose Lore of
Cathay is one of the most interesting books of its
kind on China yet produced, has a valuable chapter
on ancestor-worship in which he takes a much more
liberal view than that of his colleagues, though as a
champion of Christianity he feels himself obliged to
find fault with " the transformation of the deceased
into tutelar divinities " and with " the invocation of
departed spirits." He admits that the ceremonies
connected w4th the cult are of an exceedingly impres-
sive nature.

" The spectacle of a great nation," he says, " with
its whole population gathered round the altars of
their ancestors, tracing their lineage up to the hun-
dredth generation, and recognising the ties of kindred
to the hundredth degree, is one that partakes of the
sublime."^

Most of my readers are doubtless aware that it has
been, and perhaps still is, the custom of many
missionaries to require their converts to surrender
their ancestral tablets, or to destroy them, as a proof
of their sincerity before baptism. There are many
sad stories connected with this cruel proceeding,^ and
it is refreshing to listen to the frank confession of
so experienced and fair-minded a missionary as Dr.
Martin, who admits that he himself once insisted on

' Chinese Characteristics (5th ed.), p. 185.

^ The Lore of Cathay, p. 275.

^ None perhaps more pitiful than that which is related in the Revue
des Deux Mondes of September 15, 1900. I forbear to quote this story,
as it would not be fair to do so without hearing " the other side."

CHINESE SUPERSTITIONS 333

a convert giving up his ancestral tablets, and has
ever since regarded this as one of the mistakes of
his life, and looks back upon it with " poignant grief."
As he adds decisively, " I had no right to impose such
a test," it is to be hoped that his words have served as
a warning to some, at least, of his successors in the
missionary field.

If Christianity is to win its way to the hearts of
the Chinese people it will probably have to condescend
to a compromise on the question of ancestor-worship.
A recent writer in 77?^ Spectator evidently thinks it
is the Chinese who will make all the compromise.
" There is no reason," he says, " why the Chinese,
in accordance with their proved mental habit, should
not adopt a kind of metaphysical reading of ancestor-
worship such as would enjoy the hearty sanction of
the Church which preaches the * Communion of
Saints.' " ^

It is indeed likely enough that as time goes on
certain superannuated features of ancestor-worship,
as of other Chinese religious practices, will gradually
disappear, but it is probable that this will be due
rather to rationalistic pressure than to Christianity.
The Chinese are beginning to imbibe Western culture
— especially Western science and philosophy — ^with
avidity, and the more they do so the more ready will
they be to abandon some of their traditional ideas
with regard to demonology, feng-shtii, the burning
of paper furniture and money, the worship of the
"gods" of Taoism, and many other superstitious
beliefs and practices ; indeed this lopping off of the
rotten branches of the religious life of China began
several years ago, and is not likely to cease until
there are no more rotten branches left on the tree.
But it is a very noteworthy fact that the abandonment
of many popular superstitions does not necessarily
imply the establishment of Christian dogmas in their
place.

' The Spectator, August 22, 1908, p 267.

334 CONFUCIANISM— II

A year ago, while travelling in the province of
Anhui, I visited a town which had so far abandoned
its " heathen " rites that a long row of images had
been dragged from their roadside shrines and tossed
into the river. Yet I was told by resident European
missionaries that their converts had had nothing
whatever, directly or indirectly, to do with this
proceeding ; it had been carried out solely by the
young local literati, who had shown themselves as
absolutely impervious to the Christian propaganda
as they were contemptuous of the puerile superstitions
of the masses. But it will be a long time yet before
the essential rites and observances connected with
the cult of ancestors begin to suffer from the inroads
either of Rationalism or of Christianity. Buddhism
and Taoism are China's privileged guests, who — unless
they speedily adapt themselves to new conditions —
may shortly find they have outstayed their welcome ;
but the cult of ancestors is enthroned in the hearts of
the people, and if Christianity is ever to dislodge it,
or even find a place by its side, the intruder will be
obliged to adopt a less arrogant and less uncom-
promising attitude than it has assumed hitherto.
Dr. A. H. Smith, Dr. Edkins,^ and other missionaries
declare that China must choose between Christianity
and ancestor-worship. She made up her mind on the
subject in the middle of the eighteenth century, as a
result of the controversy between the Jesuits and the
Vatican,* and there is no indication that she regrets
her choice.

It will be remembered that in the controversy
alluded to, the Jesuit missionaries, who had hitherto
been amazingly successful in their propaganda, strongly
advocated the toleration of ancestor-worship on the

' Religion in China {i?)()2, ed.), p. 153.

* For brief accounts of this celebrated episode, see Prof. Parker's
China and Religio7i, pp. 197-203 ; Williams's Middle Kingdom (1883
ed.), vol. ii. pp. 2995^^., and Max Miiller's Last Essays (Second Series),
pp. 314-18.

ROMANISM IN CHINA 335

ground that the rites were merely civil and com-
memorative, and were not idolatrous. This view,
after lengthy disputes, was finally condemned as
erroneous, and the cult of ancestors on the part of
Christians was prohibited by the Roman pontiff
(Benedict XIV.) " without qualification or concession
of any kind." ^ The result of this was the collapse
of the young and vigorous Roman Church in China.
The Chinese Emperor, who had found himself contra-
dicted on Chinese soil by papal edicts, was naturally
disinclined to treat the foreign religion and its pro-
fessors with the tolerance and respect that had
hitherto been extended to it.^ It is interesting to
note the Protestant attitude towards the papal de-
cision on this matter. " It is not easy to perceive,
perhaps," writes Dr. Wells Williams, " why the Pope
and the Dominicans were so much opposed to the
worship of ancestral penates among the Chinese when
they performed much the same services themselves
before the images of Mary, Joseph, Cecilia, Ignatius,
and hundreds of other deified mortals."^

Evidently the good Doctor could not withstand the
temptation to administer a sharp Protestant pin-prick
to' his Romanist rivals, though "it is not easy to
perceive" why he should find fault with the Papists
in this respect when missionaries of his own branch
of Christianity were (as some still are) equally ready
to attempt the cheerless task of reconciling contra-
dictories. They condemn the Chinese for their demon-
ology and superstitious follies, yet many of them are
merely substituting Western superstition for Eastern.
They expel demons from the bodies of sick men, they

' Parker, op. cit. p. 202.

* "Considering," writes Sir Charles Eliot, " what would have been
the probable fate of Chinamen in Rome who publicly contradicted the
Pope on matters of doctrine, it is hardly surprising if K'ang Hsi dealt
severely with the rebellious foreign religion." {Quarterly Review
October 1907, p. 375.)

^ The Middle Kingdom (1883 ed.), vol. ii. p. 253.

336 CONFUCIANISM— II

report in their journals the occurrence of miracles
wrought by the Deity on behalf of their propaganda,
they pray for the supersession of the laws of meteor-
ology, they report cases of real devils actually speaking-
through " idols," they believe in the existence of real
witches, and they still teach the "heathen" fabulous
'stories of the creation of the world and the origin
of man.^

That missionaries of this class are less numerous
than formerly is fortunately true, but their teachings
presumably remain the treasured possession of their
converts, and if those converts or their descendants
ever break out in acts of fanatical bigotry and intoler-
ance, or take to enforcing their beliefs on others, the
responsibility will rest with the Mission Boards for
sending out Christian teachers whose religious beliefs
were of a type that flourished widely in our own land
in the age of witch-burning and about the time of
Mr. Praise-God Barebones, but which, thanks chiefly
to Biblical criticism and the study of comparative
mythology and the advance of scientific knowledge,
has happily become all but extinct among our educated
classes.

But to return to the specific charge brought against
Romanists by Dr. Wells Williams — that the Pope
and the Dominicans condemned ancestor-worship as
idolatrous although they conducted much the same
services themselves before the images of the Mater Dei
and other deified mortals — this charge is one that has
never yet been rebutted in a manner satisfactory to
those who are not Romanists.

If a Chinese goes to his fu ti (village " god ") or to
Kuan Yin or to the Queen of Heaven {Sheng Mti T'ien
Hou) or to Lung Wang the ruler of clouds and water,
with prayers for rain, or for the cure of disease, or for

' Evidence of these things may be found passim in such journals
as China's Millions. Some typical cases are mentioned by Arthur
Davenport in his interesting work China from Within. He also
quotes in full the case referred to on p. 332 (footnote 3).

CHRISTIAN SAINTS 337

safety from shipwreck ; or if he beseeches the spirits
of his dead ancestors to protect the family and grant
its members health and prosperity, his proceedings
are immediately condemned as idolatrous. But if a
Christian goes and prays to St. Hubert for an antidote
to a mad dog's bite or to St. ApoUonia for a toothache-
cure, or to St. Theodorus at Rome for the life of a
sick child, or to the Blessed John Berchmans for the
eradication of cancer in the breast, or to Our Lady of
Lourdes for the cure of a diseased bone, this is not
idolatry but good Christianity ! As a matter of fact
the ancestral spirits of the Chinese and the great
majority of the Taoist deities are neither more nor
less " gods " than the saints of Christendom. They —
like the saints — are regarded as the spirits of certain
dead men who in their new life beyond the grave are
supposed to have acquired more or less limited powers
over some of the forces of nature and over certain of
the threads of human destiny. One is just as much
a "god "as the other. The Christian refuses to call
his saints gods because that would be confessing to
polytheism, and as he professes to be a monotheist
that would never do ; but he insists on accusing the
Chinese of turning dead men into gods because he
wants to prove that the Chinese are idolatrous and
polytheistic.

If he says that he goes by the verdict of the
Chinese themselves, who apply to their dead men
the title shen and (in some cases) the higher title
/?, it is fair to remind him that if he insists upon
translating the former of these terms by the word
" god " he should at the same time supply a clear
definition of the precise meaning which that word
is intended to convey ; when he has done that it will
be time enough for us to consider whether the word
*' god " gives a fair idea of the meaning of the Chinese
when they declare that their deceased ancestors have
become shen. As to the supposed functions of the
Chinese "deities" and the Christian "saints," it would

22

338 CONFUCIANISM— II

puzzle a keen dialectician to say how the miracle-
working of the one essentially differs from that of the
other, or how it is that St. Thomas of Canterbury,
in spite of his wonder-working bones, is a mere saint,
while Kuan Ti— who was once a stout soldier, but
having been canonised by imperial decree is now
famous throughout the Chinese Empire as the spiritual
Patron of War — is to be hooted at as a false " god." ^

It would seem that what the Christian says, in
effect, is this : If the Pope — the earthly head of our
religion — canonises a dead man, that dead man be-
comes a saint, and you may pray to him as much as
you like ; if the earthly head of your religion — the
Emperor of China — canonises a man, he becomes a
false god, possibly a demon, and if you commit the
sin of praying to him you do so on the peril of your
soul. It is an exemplification of the old saying, " Or-
thodoxy is my doxy, heterodoxy is your doxy." In
other words — you are right if you agree with me : if

' The processes of beatification and canonisation in Rome and China
are in many respects similar. Some years ago the Archbishop of
Rouen and other prelates addressed a letter to tlie Pope with regard
to Joan of Arc, begging the Holy See to declare that " this admirable
girl practised heroically the Christian virtues . . . and that she is
consequently worthy of being inscribed among the Blessed and of
being publicly invoked by all Christian people." After the lapse
of some years Pope Pius IX. duly " proclaimed the heroic quality of
Joan of Arc's virtues, and the authenticity of the miracles associated
with her name " ; and since then, as is well known, the French heroine
has gone through the process of beatification. (See Ti7?tes of April 13,
1909.) In China a man or woman who was distinguished during life
for some heroic action or for pre-eminent virtue may — in suitable
circumstances — be recommended by the local officials for canonisation,
and if the Emperor wills it to be so he issues a decree whereby that
person becomes a saint or a god (whichever term we prefer) and is
officially entitled to be the recipient of public worship. The memorial
in which the magistrates set forth the virtues of the dead man — and
the miracles performed at his tomb if there happen to have been any —
might be translated almost word for word from similar memorials sent
to Rome by orthodox Christian prelates ; and the Chinese Emperor
gives his decision in the matter in very much the same terms as are
adopted by the Pope. Cf. Farnell's Evolittio?i of Religion, p. 77.

CANONISATION IN CHINA 339

you don't you are wrong! That was indeed a true
saying of Thackeray's, " We view the world through
our own eyes, each of us, and make from within us
the things we see."

Of course there are many degrees of " godhead " —
if we are to employ that term — within the ranks of the
Chinese " pantheon." The man who, on account of
his distinguished career in this world, or the supposed
miracles wrought by him since his removal to the
next, has been canonised or " deified " by imperial
decree, holds a much more important and imposing
position than the ordinary father of a family who,
as it were, automatically becomes shen — a spirit or
ancestral divinity — through the simple and inevitable
process of dying. But the difference is rather in
degree than in kind. The Emperor, as Father of his
people and as their High Priest or Pope, can raise any
one he chooses to the position of a Ti^ and can subse-
quently elevate or degrade him in the ranks of the
national divinities in accordance with his imperial
will. As a matter of fact the process is intimately
connected with statecraft and considerations of practical
expediency. " In the Chinese Government," as Sir
Alfred Lyall says, " the temporal and spiritual powers,
instead of leaning towards different centres, meet and
support each other like an arch, of which the Emperor's
civil and sacred prerogative is the keystone."^

What the Emperor can do on a large scale every
head of a Chinese family does regularly on a small
one. In a sense no ceremony is necessary : a man
becomes an ancestral spirit as soon as he dies, irre-
spective of anything that his son may do for him. But
his position as a shen is hardly a regular one — he is a
mere " homeless ghost "—until the son has carried out
the traditional rites. The sJien chu^ — the "spirit-
tablet " — becomes the dead man's representative ; no

> Asiatic Studies (Second Series), 1906 ed., p. 155.
* See pp. 277 seq.

340 CONFUCIANISM— II

longer visible and audible, he is believed to be still
carrying on his existence on a non-material plane, and
to be still capable, in some mysterious way which the
Chinese themselves do not pretend to understand,
of protecting and watching over the living members
of the family and of bringing prosperity and happiness
to future generations. The filial affection of son for
father is deepened on the father's death into permanent
religious reverence, and this reverential feeling finds
its natural expression in a system of rites and cere-
monies which, for the want of a better term, we call
ancestor-worship. The " idolatry " consists in bowing
with clasped hands towards the tombs or spirit-tablets,
placing before them little cups and dishes containing
wine and food, and burning incense in front of the
family portraits in the ancestral temple at the season
of New Year, or (if there are no portraits) before
a scroll containing the family pedigree. If the dis-
embodied members of a family were " gods " in the
sense usually attributed to the word their spiritual
powers would not be confined — as they normally
are — to the affairs of their own descendants. The
orthodox Chinese knows that it is not only useless
but wrong to " worship " ^ the spirits of any family
but his own. " For a man to sacrifice to a spirit
which does not belong to him," said Confucius, " is
flattery." -

For the sake of brevity and convenience we may
and sometimes do speak of the private ancestral
spirits and of the great national divinities as "gods,"
but we should preserve the necessary distinctions of
meaning in our own minds. That it is only a rough-
and-ready mode of speech may easily be perceived
when we attempt to make a single Chinese term apply
to both these classes of spiritual beings. It is true

' This word " worship " is not a strictly correct translation of the
Chinese /fl/. " To visit or salute ceremoniously " would, as a rule, be
a fairer rendering.

" Lun YU, ii. 24 (Legge's translation).

ANCESTOR- WORSHIP AND GHOSTS 341

enough that both (in most cases) sprang from the
same human origin, so that their powers and functions
differ, as already pointed out, in degree rather than in
kind ; but if — whether from ignorance or from a desire
to be exceptionally polite — we were to describe a
man's deceased forefathers as Ti (the nearest equivalent
to "God" that the Chinese language possesses) we
should probably be the innocent cause of an outburst
of genial mirth. The average Chinese takes a very
much humbler view of the degree of deification that
has fallen to his dead father's lot than would be
implied by the use of so distinguished a title.

It is a rather common opinion that " the worship of
ancestors probably had its origin in the fear of the
evil which might be done by ghosts." ^ Lafcadio
Hearn, a devoted disciple of Herbert Spencer, took a
similar view of Japanese religion, and held that Shinto
was at one time a religion of " perpetual fear."
Nobushige Hozumi, Dr. W. G. Aston and others have
disposed of this opinion with reference to Japan. The
former writer, who was called to the English Bar and
subsequently became a Professor of Law at Tokyo,
and was still proud to own himself an ancestor-
worshipper, declared that " it was the love of ancestors,
not the dread of them, which gave rise to the custom
of worshipping and making offerings of food and
drink to their spirits. . . . Respect for their parents
may, in some cases, have become akin to awe, yet
it was love, not dread, which caused this feeling of
awe. . . . We celebrate the anniversary of our ances-
tors, pay visits to their graves, offer flowers, food
and drink, burn incense, and bow before their tombs
entirely from a feeling of love and respect for their
memory, and no question of ' dread ' enters our
minds in doing so."^

' Sir Charles Eliot, in T/ie Quarterly Review, October 1907, p. 362.

^ Ancestor-worship and Japa?iese Law by Nobushige Hozumi
(Tokyo, igoi), pp. d,seq. For a similar view see Tylor's Primitive
Culture (4th ed.), vol. ii. p. 113.

342 CONFUCIANISM— II

So far as I have had opportunities of judging of
Chinese ancestor-worship, I am strongly of opinion
that, subject to what has been said in an earHer
chapter,^ the words of this writer are as appHcable to
China as they are to Japan.- There seems, indeed, to
be very little reason why any one should propound
or hold the theory that a loving father was liable to
turn into a malevolent ghost. What the Chinese
believeis that theirdeceased ancestors arewell-disposed
towards them, and will give them reasonable help and
protection throughout the course of their lives : though
if the ancestral graves are left uncared-for or the
periodical sacrifices neglected or the spirit-tablets not
treated with respect, or if living members of the family
have wasted the family property or have been guilty
of discreditable conduct, then no doubt the spirits will
be angry and will punish them for the crime of lack
of filial piety {pit hsiao), the worst crime of which a
Chinese can be guilty.

The Chinese are quite satisfied that so long as they
behave in a filial manner (the word " filial " being
taken in its widest possible signification) they have
nothing whatever to fear from their ghostly ancestors.
To be truly filial a Chinese must not merely behave
with dutiful obedience towards his parents when they
are alive and with dutiful reverence towards their
manes when they are dead, but he must also act in
such a way as to reflect no speck of discredit upon

• See pp. 1 19, 263,

' In case the reader should be misled into the belief that this opinion
is shared by all foreigners in China, I quote some words recently pub-
lished by the Rev. J. Macgowan in his work Sidelights on Chinese Life
(pp. 75-6). The root of ancestor-worship, he says, " lies neither in
reverence nor in affection for the dead, but in selfishness and dread.
The kindly ties and the tender affection that used to bind men together
when they were in the world and to knit their hearts in a loving union
seem to vanish, and the living are only oppressed with a sense of the
mystery of the dead, and a fear lest they should do anything that might
incur their displeasure and so bring misery upon the home." This
view is not, I think, a fair one.

FILIAL PIETY 343

them by his own misdeeds. If his parents are them-
selves guilty of wrongdoing he is entitled to remon-
strate with them, because after all his parents as well
as himself owe filial reverence to their common
ancestors. If the wrongdoing is all his own he is
twice guilty, for he has committed an action which is
in itself intrinsically wrong, and by degrading his own
moral nature he has brought disgrace on his parents.
According to this theory, the Chinese who commits a
dishonourable action is unfilial ; if he breaks the law
he is unfilial ; if he does not discharge all his dead
father's obligations he is unfilial ; if he ruins his own
health through immorality or excesses of any kind he
is unfilial ; if he fails to bring up legitimate offspring
(to continue the family and carry on the ancestral
rites) he is unfilial.^

Needless to say there is no such person as a
perfectly filial son in all China— or anywhere else in
the world for that matter: but that fact no more
justifies us in attempting to disparage the noble and
lofty Chinese ideal of filial piety than the failure of
Christian men and Christian Governments to act in
accordance with the doctrines of the Sermon on the
Mount justifies us in disparaging the highest ethical
ideal of Christianity. If the ideal — in either the
Christian or the Chinese system — were actually attain-
able, it would become necessary to form a new ideal
to take the place of that which had ceased as such to
exist or had been seen to "fade into the light of
common day." Some Western observers are apt to
think that the Chinese doctrine of filial piety is too
one-sided to be practical : that it makes the son the
slave of his parents and gives the parents at the
same time the position of irresponsible tyrants. No
greater mistake could possibly be made. The re-
sponsibilities of the parent are correlative to the
duties of the child.

* According to Mencius the most unfilial of sons is he who does not
become the father of children.

344 CONFUCIANISM— II

The locus classicus for this is a famous story told of
Confucius himself. When he was Minister of Crime
in his native state a father brought an accusation against
his own son. Confucius sent them both to gaol, and
when he was questioned as to why he punished the
father as well as the son and did not rather condemn
the son for the gross crime of disobeying his father,
he replied thus : " Am I to punish for unfilial conduct
one who has not been taught filial duties ? Is not he
who fails to teach his son his duties equally guilty
with the son who fails to fulfil them ? " ^

This is a point of view which the Chinese — or at
least those who have not succumbed to the seductive
whispers of Western individualism — thoroughly under-
stand and appreciate to this day. Cases have been
heard in the British courts at Weihaiwei which prove
this to be so. On the rare occasions when a father
has been compelled to bring an action against his son,
or on the more numerous occasions when a father is
summoned to the court in connection with a criminal
case in which his own son is the accused, he frequently
begins by making a humble acknowledgment that
his own failure to perform his duties as father must
at least partially account for his son's depravity ; or if
in accordance with the Chinese practice the British
magistrate sternly lectures a father on the enormity of
his offence in bringing up his son so badly that the
son has fallen into the clutches of the law, the un-
happy man admits the justice of the charge promptly
and without reserve. Yu ts^o: ling tsui^ — " I am guilty:
I accept punishment."

But the Chinese doctrine of filial piety does not
concern itself only with the relations between parent
and child. We have seen that the whole of Chinese
society is regarded as a vast family of which the

' For a criticism of the theory, of. Montesquieu, L Esprit dcs Lois,
vi. 20. But see also some very appreciative remarks by the same
writer on the Chinese theory of Filial Piety, as applied to both domestic
and political relationships, in Book xix. 17-19.

OFFICIAL AND PARENTAL RESPONSIBILITY 345

Emperor is Father ; similarly the territorial officials
are in loco parentis to the heads of the families living
within their respective jurisdictions : they are the
fu-mu kuan — the Father-and-Mother officials.^ The
doctrine of Hsiao — Filial Piety — applies not only to
domestic relationships but also to the relations between
Emperor and Minister and between rulers and ruled.
The head of a family who disobeys an official pro-
clamation is guilty of an offence towards the local
fu-mu knan which is almost identical in kind with the
offence of a son who wilfully disobeys his father.
Here again the responsibilities are not all on one
side : the fu-mu kuan is by the higher authorities held
theoretically responsible for the peace and good order
and contentment of the district over which he presides,
just as Confucius is said to have held the father
responsible for the misbehaviour of his son.

Sometimes, indeed, this doctrine is carried too far,
as when an official is degraded for not preventing an
outbreak of crime which he could not possibly have
foreseen. Western peoples have taken advantage of
this theory when they have called upon the Govern-
ment to punish an official within whose jurisdiction
the slaughter of a missionary has occurred, even when
the official's complicity is quite unproved. The people
themselves know well that their officials are theoreti-
cally responsible for their well-being, and often —
through their lack of scientific knowledge — blame their
fu-mu kuan for troubles which the very best and most
diligent of officials could not have averted. The local
officials — nay, viceroys of provinces and even the
Emperor himself^are regarded by their subordinates
or subjects, or profess to regard themselves, as per-
sonally responsible for such occurrences as disastrous
earthquakes, epidemics and inundations.^ In 1909

' See above, pp. 9, 15.

* Cf. the beautiful prayer-poem of the Chinese king Hsiian Wang,
attributed to the ninth century B.C. (For text and translation see
Legge's Chinese Classics, vol, iv. pt. ii, pp. 528 seq.)

346 CONFUCIANISM— II

the appointment of a new governor to the province
of Shantung happened to be followed by a serious
drought ; he became highly unpopular at once and
received the disagreeable nickname of the Drought-
Governor. As recently as 1908 I passed through a
district in the province of Shansi in which no rain had
fallen for several months. On entering the magisterial
town of the district I noticed that the streets were
thronged with crowds of people from the country, all
wearing willow-wreaths as a sign that the crops were
threatened with destruction and that public prayers
were being offered for rain.^ The whole town was in
confusion, and the sudden appearance of a foreigner
made matters worse. A noisy and restless crowd
followed me into my inn and proved so troublesome
(though by no means violent) that I was obliged to
send a message to the local magistrate to request him
to have the inn-yard cleared. My messenger soon
came back to report that the magistrate's official
residence or yamen was also closely invested by a
clamouring mob and that the wretched man had been
obliged to barricade his windows and doors to save
himself from personal violence. He was therefore
powerless to grant my request. The crowd had no
complaint whatever against him except that his
official prayers for rain had failed to have the desired
result and that his culpable inability to establish
friendly relations with the divine Powers was the
evident cause of the drought.

This of course is carrying the theory of the mutual
responsibilities of father and son, ruler and ruled, a
great deal too far : but occurrences of this kind will
become less and less frequent with the gradual advance
of scientific and general knowledge ; and it is surely
far better that the changes should occur automatically
than by forcible interference with customs and super-
stitions which in their fall might involve the indis-

' See p. 187, .

-'. I

CONFUCIUS AN AGNOSTIC 347

criminate destruction of good and bad. We may now
perceive, perhaps, how it was that Confucius, who
was evidently ahnost an agnostic with regard to gods
and spiritual beings,^ was strenuously opposed to the
abandonment of the rites and ceremonies that pre-
supposed the existence of such beings. He insisted
upon the importance of keeping up the cult of
ancestors not so much for the sake of the dead but
because it fostered among living men feelings of love,
respect, reverence, and duty towards family and State.
The souls of the dead might or might not be uncon-
scious of what was done for them, but it was in the
interests of social harmony and political stability that
the traditional religious and commemorative cere-
monies should be jealously preserved and handed
down to posterity and that during the performance of
such ceremonies the presence of the ancestral spirits
should at least be tacitly assumed.

There is one alleged objection to ancestor-worship
which only a few years ago might have been regarded
as most serious ; and indeed it has been urged again
and again by missionaries, travellers, ethical writers
and sociologists. It was supposed that the cult of

' It need not be supposed that there was anything unique about
Confucius's agnosticism. There is evidence enough that he did not
stand alone in his attitude of uncertainty with regard to the spiritual
world. The writings of Mo TzQ (Micius), who taught an attractive
philosophy of his own in the fourth and fifth centuries B.C., show in-
ferentially that the question of whether there was or was not a world
of spirits was a frequent subject of debate among the learned. Micius
himself took the view that " there are heavenly spirits and there are
spirits of the hills and streams, and there are spirits of the dead also."
He hotly combated the view (which must have been widely current)
that no such spirits existed. The subject remained a stock question
for debate ; indeed once it had been raised, how could it ever have
ceased to agitate men's minds ? The philosopher Wang Ch'ung (first
century a.d.) was a materialist, and besides flouting many prevalent
superstitions, such as those relating to virgin-births and other prodigies,,
he entered the lists against those who sought to prove that dead men
continue to have a conscious existence or can exercise any control
or influence over their living descendants.

348 CONFUCIANISM— II

ancestors kept the race that practised it in the grip
of a remorseless conservatism ; that the ancestor-
worshipper always turned his back on progress and
reform on the plea that what was good enough for his
grandfather was good enough for him ; that ancestor-
worship was the secret of Oriental stagnation, and
that no Eastern race could be expected to advance in
civilisation and culture until it had learned to work
for the good of its posterity rather than for the barren
honour of its ancestry.

" As a system, ancestral worship," says a European
writer, " is tenfold more potent for keeping the people
in darkness than all the idols in the land." " By its
deadening influences," says another, " the nation has
been kept for ages looking backward and downward
instead of forward and upward." ^ A few years ago,
be it repeated, the theory was one that had some
weight : not because it was convincing in itself but
because facts were wanting by which it could be
refuted. The leap of Japan into the front rank of
civilised nations has for ever disposed of the argument
that ancestor-worshippers are necessarily impervious
to change and reform. The cult of ancestors, be it
remembered, is nearly if not quite as prominent a
feature in the religious life of Japan as in that of
China. Says a foreign observer, " The ancestor-
worship of the Japanese is no superstition : it is the
great essential fact of their lives." ^ Says a native
observer, " the introduction of Western civilisation,
which has wrought so many social and political
changes during the last sixty years, has had no
influence whatever in the direction of modifying the
custom." ^

* Both of these enlightening observations are quoted with evident
approval by the Rev. H. C. Du Bose in his work The Dragon, Image
and Demofi (New York : 1887), pp. 87-8.

* O. K. Davis in the Century Illustrated Magazine, November 1904.
This is quoted by Prof. H. A. Giles in Adversaria Sifiica, p. 202.

' Nobushige Hozumi in Aticestor-lVorship and Japa7iese Law, p. 2.

A CHINESE HOUSE OF LORDS 349

According to Lafcadio Hearn, ancestor-worship is
" that which specially directs national life and shapes
national character. Patriotism belongs to it. Loyalty
is based on it." Little wonder is it that, knowing
what the ancestral cult has done for Japan, Prof.
H. A. Giles in quoting this passage adds a significant
remark, " It would seem," he writes, '* that so far
from backing up missionaries who are imploring the
Chinese to get rid of ancestral worship, the sooner
we establish it in this country the better for our own
interests." That ancestor-worship can be introduced
or reintroduced into an occidental country in the
twentieth century is of course out of the question :
but before we continue to devote human lives and
vast treasure to the self-imposed task of uprooting
it from its congenial oriental soil, would it not be
well earnestly to consider whether our work may
not be regarded by our own distant posterity as the
most stupendous folly or as the gravest and most
disastrous of errors ever committed by the nations
of the West ? By all means let it be admitted that
ancestor-worship helped to make China content —
perhaps foolishly content — with her traditional culture,
and too heedless of the rapid development of the
occidental Powers in wealth and civilisation and
scientific equipment : on the other hand it helped to
make her people industrious, frugal, patient, cheerful,
law-abiding, filial, good fathers, loyal to the past,
hopeful and thoughtful for the future. Most em-
phatically may we say this, that it is not essential
to China's future progress that ancestor-worship should
be abolished. Among the people of China their
ancestors occupy the place of a kind of Second
Chamber — a phantom House of Lords, strongly
antagonistic to sudden change and to rash experiments
whether in social life, religion or politics ; a House of
Lords which — like Upper Houses elsewhere — may at
times have opposed real progress and useful reform,
but which perhaps far oftener has saved the nation

350 CONFUCIANISM— II

from the consequences of its own excesses by
exercising a sacred right of veto of which no Lower
House has the least desire to deprive it : a veto which
is none the less effective, none the less binding on
living men, through being exercised by a silent crowd
of viewless ghosts.

CHAPTER XV

TAOISM, LOCAL DEITIES, TREE-WORSHIP

It is not only Confucianism, with its grand ethical
system, its acquiescence in Nature-worship and its
cult of ancestors, that has built up the curiously
unsymmetrical edifice of Chinese religion. Taoism
and Buddism must also be taken into account ; and
if one can find for them but few words of praise
it is only fair to remember that the Taoism of to-
day has very little in common with the lofty if some-
times rather misty speculations enshrined in that
remarkable old classic the Tao Te Ching, and that
Buddhism — as now practised in north-eastern Shan-
tung and indeed in the greater part of China (ex-
cluding certain famous monastic centres) — is perhaps
irrevocably degenerate and corrupt. The Tao Te
Ching, the sacred book of Taoism, is generally sup-
posed, probably on insufficient grounds, ^ to have
been written by a philosopher known as Lao Tzu,

* Prof. H. A. Giles holds that the Tao Te Ching is a compilation and
was not written by Lao Tzu himself though it probably enshrines some
of his sayings. He gives strong reasons for believing that it must have
been compiled after the appearance of the works of Chuang Tzii
(fourth century B.C.), Han Fei Tzu (third century B.C.) and Huai Nan
Tzu (second century B.C.). As for Lao Tzu himself, Dr. Giles rejects
the slender evidence that makes him a contemporary of Confucius,
and assigns him to " some unknown period in remote antiquity." (China
and the Chinese, pp. 145, 148 seq.)

35 1

352 TAOISM, LOCAL DEITIES, TREE-WORSHIP

said to have been an elder contemporary of Con-
fucius, in the sixth century b.c.

The Taoist philosophy, as set forth in that book, may
or may not have been indigenous to China; some writers
insist that it was wholly a product of Chinese specula-
tion,^ while others trace it to early Indian philosophy-
and even connect it with Buddhism.^ Though its
doctrines are metaphysical as well as ethical, Taoism
is to some extent comparable with Confucianism, in
which the ethical element is predominant. Indeed
most writers have admitted that in enunciating the
noble doctrine " Return good for evil," Lao Tzu rose
to a height never quite attained by Confucius, though
the latter also anticipated Christianity by formulating
a version of the Golden Rule. One of the best out-
line comparisons ever attempted between the two
systems of Taoism and Confucianism is that recently
made by a sympathetic American writer,^ who con-
cludes with the carefully-weighed and highly important
utterance that the two codes combined " furnished at
once the foundation and superstructure of as pure,
high, and at the same time practical system of ethics
as the world has ever seen. It need fear comparison
with none. Even that laid down in the Bible, if

' Cf. Dr. W. A. P. Martin in his Lore of Cathay, and many other
authorities.

^ Cf. Sir Robert Douglas, Confudanis?n and Taoiiism (5th ed.),
p. 19U Max Mailer rejected the theory that Tao was a Vedic idea
transferred from India to China : but he mentioned a Sanskrit word
and concept which in its historical development ran parallel with that
of Tao. This word was Riia — the Way, the Path, the Kivoiiv dnivrjTOP
o\ prinmtn mobile. {Last Essays, Second Series, pp. 290 seq.)

3 Mr. T. W. Kingsmill {The Taotch King) calls it "one of the few
remains existing of primitive Buddhism." He points out that as there
is no intimation of any intercourse between China and India before
the Han period, the compilation of the Tao TeChing must be assigned
to that age, — several hundred years after the supposed date of Lao
Tzu.

" Mr. Chester Holcombe in the Intcrnatio7ial Journal of Ethics,
January igo8, pp. 168 seq. The whole article deserves careful
attention.

EASTERN AND WESTERN ETHIC 35J

carefully separated from the religious element here
and there intermingled with it, can do no more for
man than this ancient system of the Far East can do.
And why should it be otherwise, since the two are
similar almost to identity, and are, as has been
claimed, the necessary outgrowth of the same human
spirit."

There is no better augury for future good relations
between the thinkers and scholars (if not the Govern-
ments and peoples) of East and West than the recent
growth of a tolerant and generous spirit on the part of
European students of oriental ethic and religion.
One still hears constantly of " heathen " and " pagan "
— words which, however inoffensive in their original
meaning, have come to be regarded as somewhat
opprobrious epithets ; but that there is a very decided
change for the better coming over missionary enter-
prise in China can be proved very simply by a com-
parison between the sympathetic appreciation shown
in the passage from which the above statement is
quoted (written, be it noted, by one who is keenly
interested in missionary work in China) and the
almost inconceivable bigotry and narrow-mindedness
shown by many missionary writers only a few years
ago. Even Dr. Legge, the laborious and conscientious
translator of the Chinese classics, allowed his Christian
prepossessions, as we have already seen, to obscure
his judgment and stultify his conclusions. "Their
sages, falsely so called" is how he refers to some
of the greatest ethical teachers the world has seen.^
"In January, 1882," writes a doctor of divinity, "a
distinguished missionary in China attacked Max
Muller as a foe to missions and as a heathen because
he had instituted the series of translations of the
Sacred Books of the East. The translation itself was
an offence ; but the use of the title Sacred definitely
fixed Muller's status. Moreover, at even a later date,
some missionaries in answer to the query from China-
' T/ie Chinese Classics, vol. iii. pt. i. p. 200.

23

3S4 TAOISM, LOCAL DEITIES, TREE-WORSHIP

men * Where now is Confucius ? ' were prompt to reply
'In hell.'"^

The missionaries of to-day (let us hope against hope
that there are no exceptions) have abandoned their
old savage belief that the " heathen " as such are
destined for eternal damnation. This change of belief
is of itself sufficient to revolutionise the attitude of
Christian peoples towards those who are not Chris-
tians, and surely it makes the need of proselytising
the " heathen " infinitely less urgent than it seemed
to be when that theory still held sway. " If God
be father of all," writes a missionary of fourteen
years' standing in China, " it is as impossible to
believe in the Bible as the sole written depository
of the Spirit of God as in the condemnation of the
heathen which once we were constrained to believe it
taught." 2

It is perhaps more necessary to lay emphasis on
the value of pure Taoism as an ethical system than
on that of the Confucian code, for one is apt —
especially if one lives among the Chinese — to con-
demn Taoism almost unheard on account of the gross
superstitions that characterise it at the present day.
Popular Taoism is and for many centuries has been
a compound of jugglery and fraud, of pseudo-religion
and pseudo-philosophy. With all this Lao Tzu had
nothing to do. That great man and his brilliant
successor Chuang Tzu — who has been styled the
St. Paul of Taoism — founded their theory of life and
conduct on a mysterious entity called Tao^ a word
which has been variously translated Reason, Realisa-
tion, the Norm, the Word (X6709), the Way, the First
Cause, Nature, the Idea of the Good (in the Platonic
sense), the Creative Principle, Truth, the Metaphysical
Absolute, Virtue, Wisdom, God. This is no place

' Prof. G. W. Knox, D.D., LL.D., in The American Journal of
Theology, October 1907, p. 569.

* Rev. W. K. McKibben in The American Journal of Theology^
October 1907, p. 584.

TAOIST PHILOSOPHY 355

for a discussion of the philosophical principles of
pure Taoism, which has no visible existence among
the farmers of Weihaiwei. All that need be said here
is that to understand Tao and to regulate one's life
according to Tao was to be a chcn-jen, a true man,
a Taoist.

As time went on Taoism became ninety-nine parts
" ism " to one part Tao : it dabbled in alchemy, fortune-
telling and astrology, and its votaries (who included
several Chinese emperors) gave themselves up to a
search for the elixir of immortality and the elusive
secret of the transmutation of metals. The torch of
a lofty philosophy passed into the hands of men
who, instead of using the light to aid them in the
search for the sublime Tao, soon quenched it in the
stagnant waters of witchcraft and demonology. Some
writers seem to have assumed that Lao Tzu, in spite
of the acknowledged fact of his intellectual and moral
greatness, was in some mysterious way the unwitting
cause of the later corruptions : but, as has been said,
a clear distinction must be drawn between popular
Taoism (which has little or nothing to say of Tad)
and the philosophic Taoism which has made a noble
and permanent contribution to the ethical conscious-
ness of the Chinese people.^ Popular Taoism pro-
bably existed, in some form or other, long before the
time of the compiler of the Tao Te Clung. The
astrology and alchemy and demonology that give the
former many of its characteristic features may have
existed in China from a very remote age. The ex-
treme antiquity of superstitions of this kind in other
parts of Asia is an undeniable fact : the records of
the early civilisation of Chaldaea give us statements
concerning the sorcerers and astrologers of that
country that might be applied almost without altera-

' "Pure Taoism has never ceased to affect the cultured Chinese
mind, just as pure Shinto-Taoism has never ceased, or did not for
long cease, to affect the cultured Japanese Court."— Prof. E. H.
Parker, China and Religion, p. 258.

356 TAOISM, LOCAL DEITIES, TREE-WORSHIP

tion to the charm-mongerers and adepts of Chinese
Taoism.^ The philosophy of Lao Tzu may be com-
pared with a pure sparkling stream that bubbled up
amid the crags of a lofty range of mountains ; when
it had flowed down the hillside and began to meander
through the fields and villages below, its limpid waters
became ever more and more defiled by the foulness
and refuse of the plains. Perhaps it would be equally
true to say that the source of the river of popular
Taoism lies among the mists and marshes of some
trackless and pestilential jungle ; that its waters
throughout the whole of its visible course are muddy
and impure ; and that the clear mountain stream that
flowed from the doctrines of Lao Tzu and his inter-
preters and successors was only a tributary stream
whose crystal waters were soon lost in the turbid
flood of the main river. It was a clear perception
of the fundamental difference between the philosophy
of Lao Tzu and popular Taoism that induced a
recent Japanese writer, Kakasu Okakura, to confer
upon the former the name of Laoism, after its founder,
and to relinquish to the latter the barren glory of
the name of Taoism ; - thus in contemplating the un-
attractive mythology and crude rituals of the Taoism
of the temples we must beware of laying any of the
responsibility for such follies on the grand though
shadowy figure of " the Old Philosopher," in spite
of the fact that his image has taken its place in the
Taoist Trinity of gods who are supposed to reign
(though not to rule) over the phenomenal Universe.

If it can be confidently asserted that the people
of Weihaiwei know little or nothing of Laoism, it
must be admitted that they still cling with apparent
fondness to the puerile imaginings of Taoism. In
respect of Confucianism they perform (with zeal and
sincerity) the traditional rites of ancestor-worship,

' See Maspero's Daivn of Civilisation^ edited by A. H. Saj'ce,
translated by M. L. McClure (4th ed., 1901).

* The Ideals of the Far East (John Murray : 1903).

TEMPLES AND PRIESTS 357

and with respect to Buddhism they support (with
less zeal and less sincerity) a few priests to burn
incense for them on stated days before the image
of the Buddha or some favourite pHi-sa such as the
"Goddess of Mercy": but in other respects Taoism
may be said to be the religion that monopolises the
largest share of their attention. The greater number
of temples in the Territory are Taoist— excluding
the Ancestral Temples {Chia Miao), which are not
open to the public. Most of these Taoist edifices
are poor in outward appearance and their interiors
are often dirty and evil-smelling ; while the images
of the numerous Taoist deities are of cheap manu-
facture and tawdry in ornament. A casual visitor
might suppose the gods were left entirely to them-
selves ; for he may go through a dozen temples and
not find a single worshipper or a single priest. But
if he scrutinises the altars he will find, amid the
dust and cobwebs, the ashes of incense-sticks and
sometimes the remains of little offerings in the shape
of cakes or sweetmeats, — ^just enough to show that
the gods are not quite forgotten. It is only the
largest temples that have resident priests ; the smaller
ones are either in charge of apprentices or pupil-
priests or are visited from time to time (as on occa-
sions of annual festivals or theatrical shows) by priests
who exercise spiritual superintendence over a group
of temples scattered over a considerable area.

The Taoist priests as a class are neither well-
educated nor zealous in discharge of their simple
duties, but it would be a mistake to suppose that they
are all abjectly lazy or energetic only in vice and
crime. The Weihaiwei priests are as a rule fairly
respectable in private life ; one of them has done and
is doing really good work by inducing people to cure
themselves of the opium habit. A Taoist temple is
generally the property of a group of villages and the
"living" is in their gift. When a vacancy occurs in
a "living," a new priest is selected by the Imi-slwH

358 TAOISM, LOCAL DEITIES, TREE-WORSHIP

or committee of elders who transact most of the public
business of the villages concerned, and the appoint-
ment is absolutely within their discretion. But once
a priest has been appointed it is (or was) as difficult
to turn him out as it is to remove a clergyman from
his benefice in England. In Weihaiwei the usual
procedure for getting rid of a disreputable priest
(whether Taoist or Buddhist) is to present a petition
to the magistrate, setting forth the reasons why the
priest's continued residence in the locality is con-
sidered undesirable. The British Government, need-
less to say, makes no difficulty about his prompt
expulsion as soon as satisfactory evidence against him
is forthcoming.

Some of the priests of Weihaiwei are office-bearers
in the Tsai Li Sect — a " total abstinence" society (in
some places semi-political in character) which has
claimed a large membership in the Weihaiwei district
ever since the days of the military colonists. There
are gradations of rank among the Taoist priests, but
as a rule each is practically independent of the rest.
The Taoist " Pope " himself— the dispenser of amulets
and charms who resides in the Dragon-Tiger Moun-
tains (Lung-hu Shan) of southern Kiangsi — has no
direct authority over the priests of eastern Shantung,
or if such authority exists in theory it is not exercised
in practice. The official duties of the priests consist
in very little more than looking after the temple
buildings, seeing to the repair of the images when
their clay arms and legs fall off (this is a duty they
often shirk), and calling the attention of the deities
to the presence of lay visitors who have brought
offerings and desire to offer up prayers. Their ser-
vices as magicians and retailers of charms are also
invoked from time to time by private persons.

Men and women (especially women) pay occasional
visits to the temples when they wish to implore the
aid of a favourite deity in connection with some family
matter such as the approaching birth of a child, or

TEMPLES AND FESTIVALS 359

some hazardous business venture, or the ilhiess of
a relative ; and in such cases they often make vows
to the effect that if their prayers are granted they
will make certain additional offerings of money and
incense.

Apart from these visits the temples are usually
deserted except on one or two annual occasions such
as the celebration of a local festival. The temple then
becomes one of the centres of attraction — indeed in
all probability it is a god's birthday that is being
celebrated — and its precincts are thronged from
morning to night by crowds of well-dressed men and
women and children, eager to register their vows or
make their petitions. The worshippers knock their
heads on the ground as an acknowledgment of humi-
lity and powerlessness, while the priest strikes a
tinkling bronze bowl with a view to awaking the god
from his slumbers. In front of every image stand
jars containing sticks of burning incense, sending up
clouds of fragrant smoke. The courtyard resounds
with fire-crackers and bombs which are supposed to
frighten away any wandering spirits of evil. Dense
fumes arise from heaps of burning paper repre-
senting money, prayers and charms, all of which,
through the spiritualisation wrought by fire, are ex-
pected to reach the immaterial region of the unseen
spirits.

In front of the temple stands the open-air stage
where a group of masked or painted actors, clad in robes
resplendent with colour and gleaming with gold em-
broidery, strive by means of extravagant gestures and
high-pitched voices to interpret, for the benefit of
a dense crowd of eager sightseers, their conception
of some fantastic old-world legend or some tragic
episode in the bygone history of China.

To enumerate all the gods and goddesses, great
and small, that crowd the Taoist pantheon would be
tedious. Popular Taoism provides deities or spiritual
patrons for all the forces of nature, diseases (from

36o TAOISM, LOCAL DEITIES, TREE-WORSHIP

devil-possession to toothache), wealth and rank and
happiness, war, old age, death, childbirth, towns and
villages, trades, mountains and rivers and seas, lakes
and canals, heaven and hell, sun, moon and stars,
roads and places where there are no roads, clouds and
thunder, every separate part and organ of the human
body, and indeed for almost everything that is cogni-
sable by the senses and a great deal that is not. It
need hardly be said that no Taoist temple in existence
contains images of all these spiritual personages, or
a hundredth part of them. Each locality possesses
its own favourites.

The Ts^ai Shen or God of Wealth is popular in
Weihaiwei no less than elsewhere. He has become
so important a deity to the Chinese that though he
belongs to Taoism the Buddhists have been compelled
to find room for him in their temples in order to
attract worshippers who might otherwise go else-
where. China's guests from the Western hemisphere
have sometimes selected the "god of wealth" as a
mark for special scorn and ridicule, though why they
should do so is not quite apparent, inasmuch as the
devotion to money-getting is quite as strong and
prevalent among Englishmen and Germans and
Americans as it is among the Chinese. Moreover,
after a careful consideration of the kind of prayers
that are addressed to the god of wealth and the
popular attitude towards him and his gifts, I am
satisfied that he is merely regarded as the dispenser
in moderate quantities of the ordinary good things
of life. The farmer who prays to Ts'ai Shen in the
local temple does so in the hope that the god will
enable him to sell his crops for fair prices so that he
may continue to bring up his family amid modest
prosperity. It is very much as if he were to say
" Give us this day our daily bread " : in fact he some-
times uses almost those very words.

The tradesman who burns incense daily in front of
a strip of paper inscribed with the name of the god ,

THE GOD OF WEALTH 361

of wealth does so because of " old custom," or from a
vague idea that " it cannot possibly do harm and may
bring some good luck," or from a more definite re-
ligious idea that without some support from the unseen
powers— of which Ts'ai Shen is taken as a representa-
tive—his business will not prosper. The people of
Weihaiwei have a very humble idea of what con-
stitutes wealth. A man was described to me in an
official petition as a ** lord of wealth " — a common
expression for a rich man. I had occasion to make
enquiries into the state of this person's finances, and
found that his total possessions amounted in value to
about two thousand dollars Mexican — less than two
hundred pounds. This was all the wealth he was
"lord" of. The Chinese Buddhists — in spite of the
admission of the Taoist god of wealth into their
temples — have always, in their tracts and sermons,
sternly discouraged the pursuit of wealth for its own
sake. There is a saying which one meets with constantly
in a certain class of Buddhistic work : The mean-
minded man devotes his bodily powers to the heaping-
up of money (that is, he regards money as an end in
itself) ; the gentleman uses what money he has to
develop his character (that is, he regards money as
a means to an end).

Among other popular Taoist deities in Weihaiwei
are the San Kuan or Three Mandarins, who are sup-
posed to have a kind of ghostly superintendence over
sky, earth and water. The three together form a
trinity-in-unity, and as such are known as the San
Kuan Ta Ti — literally, the Three-Officials-Great-God.

Several villages contain little tower-shaped shrines
harbouring the image of the God of Literature, or
rather of Literary Composition, who is supposed to
reside in a constellation of six stars called Wen-
ch'ang, forming part of Ursa Major. This deity, who
takes his name from the constellation, receives the
homage of literary men who aim at an official career,
and is supposed to have appeared in several human

362 TAOISM, LOCAL DEITIES, TREE-WORSHIP

incarnations, beginning with one Chang Chung in
the Chou dynasty. Like many other gods of China
he is thus nothing more nor less than a deified man.

Kuan Ti, the God of War, is also a conspicuous
figure in many temples, and he is officially " wor-
shipped" in the cities in the second months of spring
and autumn. He is one of the mightiest of all the
Taoist gods, though his career as a deity has been
quite a short one. He also (in the second century a.d.)
was an ordinary mortal — a great soldier and hero
named Kuan Yu, who performed many acts of valour
at a time when China was given up to internecine
strife. Long after his death he was canonised, but
it was not till near the end of the sixteenth century
that one of the Ming emperors raised him to what
may be called divine rank. His position in China is
equivalent to that of the Japanese Hachiman, who is
also a deified human being. Honours have been heaped
upon Kuan Ti by the present dynasty, and he has
been raised to a theoretical equality with Confucius.
Had the Boxers succeeded in driving all foreigners
out of China it is possible that he (or the deified
Empress-Dowager herself) might have been raised to
a position of something approaching pre-eminence
among the gods of China.

The walled city of Weihaiwei has, of course, its
Kuan Ti temple, as we have seen in connection with
the story of the great fishbone found by one of the
Liu family.^ In this temple there is a very large and
heavy weapon which might be described as a kind
of sword or spear. Weapons of this type are common
enough in China, though when of such great size and
weight as that in the Kuan Ti temple they are intended
more for show than for use, and accordingly find a
more appropriate position in a temple or an official
yamen than on a field of battle. The Weihaiwei
sword — if such it may be called — is of sufficient fame
to be specially mentioned in the local Annals. It is

* See pp. 26-7,

IMAGE OF KUAN TI, WEIHAIWEI.

p. 362]

A CHINESE EXCALIBUR 363

there described, accurately enough, as being more than
a chang in length (say about twelve English feet) and
one hundred catties in weight (say one hundred and
thirty-three English pounds). The blade is made of
iron, and there is much skilful and delicate orna-
mentation in copper. " No other temple," says the
Chronicle, " has anything like it. Old folks have
handed down the tradition that it came out of the sea
with a deep rolling sound (something like the lowing
of cattle). The people of the neighbourhood heard the
sound and went near the strange object. When they
lifted it up and examined it, lo ! it was a great sword.
So they carried it off and presented it reverentiall}'-
to the spirit of Kuan Ti." The god of war, obvi-
ously, was the proper person to possess a weapon
which no human arm was strong enough to wield.
The written account gives us no clear statement of
how this Chinese Excalibur came out of the sea : but
the present warden of the temple tells a somewhat
prosaic story to the effect that it was found along with
sundry other articles, including some arrows and two
copper bells, in an open boat that was cast ashore in
the Weihaiwei harbour. The arrows are still in the
Kuan Ti temple ; the bells are said to have been sent
off to Wen-teng city, where presumably they still
remain.

The Kuan Ti temple is said to have been the
scene of at least one miracle. Once upon a time a
Taoist priest, named Wu K'ao-yii, who was in charge
of the temple, went out for an evening stroll. Dark-
ness came on before he returned, and he then remem-
bered that he had forgotten to light the altar lamps.
He hunted about for some means of striking a light,
but found none ; so he decided to go to one of his
neighbours and borrow a candle. He was grumbling
at himself for his carelessness when suddenly, in his
presence, the altar was illuminated by four brilliant
lights. When he observed that they neither flickered
nor went out he prostrated himself in reverence ai)d

364 TAOISM, LOCAL DEITIES, TREE-WORSHIP

repeated part of the liturgy. If the god could provide
lights for himself, he argued, there was obviously no
necessity for troubling the neighbours, so he went to
bed like a sensible man, leaving the lamps to look after
themselves.

The question arises, did he ever take the trouble to
light the lamps again ? To this the chronicler gives
no reply. The priest was possibly gifted with powers
which in these days might be termed mediumistic, for
this was not his only remarkable experience of the
kind. On one occasion he beheld, in a midnight
vision, three elaborately dressed men, livel}'- and
active in manner and of handsome appearance. They
looked at the priest and all cried out together, "Come
quickly and save us ! " This remark was twice re-
peated, and the speakers then vanished. The priest
immediately arose, and without choosing his path
allowed himself to be led by unseen influences
down to the sea-beach. There he saw, lying at the
edge of the surf, three copper images. Recognising
them at once as images of the Three Prefects of the
Sea-King's Palace, he picked them up reverently and
deposited them in the principal hall of the temple.
Rumours of the strange discovery soon spread far and
wide, and crowds of worshippers came to the Kuan
Ti temple to see the images for themselves and — in-
cidentally— to make suitable offerings to the highly-
favoured priest.

A much smaller deity than Kuan Ti but of greater
importance to the people in their everyday life is the
City-god — the Ch'ciig Huang. Every walled city in
China has a Ch'eng Huang Lao-yeh (His Worship the
City-god) who acts as its guardian deity. On certain
fixed days, such as the first and fifteenth of every
month and on occasions of special dangers or disasters,
the local officials visit the temple dedicated to this
deity and burn incense in front of his image, which is
generally clad in real robes and is of full human size.
A similar ceremxonious visit also takes place when a

FOUNDATION SACRIFICES 365

new magistrate arrives in the city and takes over the
seals of office.

In many countries there was once a barbarous custom
whereby human beings were sacrificed at the building
of the gates or towers of a city wall and buried
below the foundations.^ Human blood was believed
to add strength and stability to the wall, and the
sacrificed human being was supposed to become its
spiritual guardian. Sacrifices of this kind are believed
to have taken place as recently as 1857, ^t the
foundation of the Burmese city of Mandalay. Not
only city-walls but bridges, temples, river-dykes, and
indeed all buildings of importance were supposed to
be enormously strengthened by the blood and bones
of specially-slain human victims. In some cases, ap-
parently, the wretched victims were buried alive.
There is some reason for believing that human sac-
rifices occurred at the construction of the Great Wall
of China in the third century b.c.

In some parts of the Empire there is still a curiously-
prevalent belief to the effect that Governments and

' This detestable custom was practised in many European countries
as well as in Africa, Polynesia, Borneo, Japan, Indo-China and India.
[See Tylor's Primitive Culture {^ih. ed.), vol. i. pp. 104 seq. ; Lyall's Asiatic
Studies (2nd ed.), First Series, p. 25, Second Series, pp. 312-13;
Grant Allen, The Evolution of the Idea of God, p. 265 (see footnote).]
Prof. S. R. Driver in one of his Schweich Lectures (delivered before
the British Academy on April 2, 1908) described some recent archae-
ological discoveries of great interest in Palestine and the neighbouring
countries. Some of these discoveries clearly prove that foundation-
sacrifices existed in those regions. At Gezer, Taanach and Megiddo
were actually discovered the skeletons of numbers of miserable people
who had been buried under the corners of walls or under towers.
That the custom of sacrificing boys and girls was practised in ancient
Persia we know from Herodotus (Book vii. 1 14). It is not so generally
known that it was apparently practised in the British Isles not merely
in savage times but after the introduction of Christianity and even in
connection with the foundation of ecclesiastical buildings. According
to a legend which may be founded on fact, Oran, the companion of
St. Columba, was buried under the foundations of the great monastery
of lona. For this and many other cases see G. Laurence Gomme's
Folk-lore Relics of Early Village Life, pp. 24-58.

366 TAOISM, LOCAL DEITIES, TREE-WORSHIP

official are in the habit of taking a toll of human life
when they have any great engineering work on hand,
and bad characters or misguided patriots who wished
to bring odium upon foreigners have been known to
circulate stories that Chinese children were being
kidnapped by Western barbarians for the purpose of
burying them under a railway or a fort or a dock or
some great public building. There was a scare of the
kind among a section of the poorer classes of Hong-
kong about eight or nine years ago, and in the little
village known to Europeans as Aberdeen, on the
Hongkong island, there was, in consequence, a small
panic. A white ship, said the people, had been seen
coming by night into Aberdeen harbour, the object of
those on board being to kidnap Chinese boys and girls
for purposes of foundation-sacrifices. Yet the people
of that village had been under direct British rule for
about sixty years ! It would be interesting to know
whether the Ch'eng Huang or City-god was originally
a sacrificed human-being, but the Chinese will not
admit such to be the case and it is difficult to procure
evidence.

The Chinese of to-day profess to think that no such
barbarous custom can ever have taken place in their
country, but they are unquestionably wrong in this
belief: indeed there is some reason to believe that
the custom is not yet extinct in China.^ As for the
barbarity of the practice, the Chinese admit that the
custom of slaughtering men and women at funerals,
and even burying them alive in the tombs of kings
and high officials, became extinct only in modern

• The Rev. Ernest Box, writing on "Shanghai Folk-lore" in ihe Journal
of the China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (vol. xxxv. 190 1-2,
p. 123), mentions that human sacrifices are said to have taken place in
the building of one of the silk-filatures at Soochow. " I am also
informed," he says, " that in the potteries in Kiangsi a new furnace is
secretly consecrated by the shedding of a child's blood, as a sacrifice to
ward off evil influences or accidents." Mr. Box seems to be inclined
to ascribe the custom to the desire of propitiating the spirits of the
earth.

LIFE BEYOND THE GRAVE 367

times.* Whatever may be the truth with regard to
the origin of the Ch'eng Huang, the popular belief is
that he is a kind of ghostly magistrate, and in modern
times he is generally regarded as the spirit of a former
magistrate who on account of his blameless life or
devotion to the interests of the people died " in the
odour of sanctity."

Changes and promotions sometimes take place
among the city-gods just as among the living members
of the Chinese civil service. The world of the dead
is supposed to be a reduplication of the world of men.
One might almost imagine that some rather dull-
witted Chinese philosopher had heard, and grievously
failed to understand, the Platonic doctrine of Ideas,
and had then applied his new learning to the solution,
by Chinese methods, of the mystery of the land
from which no traveller returns. Provinces, cities,
villages, officials and yamen-runners, houses and fields
and cattle, and indeed all material things were and
are vaguely supposed to have their immaterial counter-
parts in the world of shades. It is necessary to
emphasise the word " vaguely," for no well-educated
and very few illiterate Chinese seem to hold this
belief with dogmatic definiteness, and indeed they are
usually ready to join Europeans in criticising or
deriding it. But it is a theory that certainly colours
the traditional Chinese views of death and the
beyond.

The city-god takes rank according to the status of
the living magistrate : a prefectural city is superior to
that of a district-magistracy, hence the city-god of the
former takes precedence of the city-god of the latter.
The deity that presides over the destinies of
Weihaiwei city is thus very humbly placed among the
hundreds and thousands of deities of his class, for
Weihaiwei is only the seat of a hsiln-chien^ — the mere
deputy of a district-magistrate. It is probable, too,
that just as the Weihaiwei hsiln-cliien has become an
* See pp. 225, 274. » See pp. 53-4.

368 TAOISM, LOCAL DEITIES, TREE-WORSHIP

even less important person than formerly, since the
establishment of British rule over the territory that
was once under his supervision, so his ghostly
counterpart has been obliged to assume a humbler
position than before in the ranks of the minor deities.
Yet if local legends are to be credited the Weihai city-
god was once quite competent to assert his authority
and defend his reputation. It is generally supposed
that a deity of this class has control only over the
people of his own city and its subject territory :
beyond those limits his powers do not extend. But
that the Weihai god insisted at one time on respectful
treatment even from strangers is proved by the
following incident. In the seventeenth century a
certain man named Chao, a native of the P'eng-lai
district in the prefecture of Teng-chou, had come to
Weihaiwei to transact business. The weather being
hot he went into the Ch'eng Huang miao (temple of
the city-god) for an afternoon nap, and sat down
with his back to the god's image. A bystander, who
was a local man, hastened to point out that his
attitude was disrespectful. " It is not proper," he
said, *' to sit with your back to the god. Wouldn't
it be wiser to turn sidev/ays ? " Chao smiled scorn-
fully. " I am a P'eng-lai man ; your god has no
power over me. I propose to stay where I am."

Soon afterwards he fell asleep. He slumbered long
and deeply, and in the middle of the night he
suddenly woke up and to his horror found himself
bound hand and foot to one of the rafters of the roof,
and there unseen hands proceeded to subject him to
an unmerciful beating. The more he howled the
faster and heavier came the blows. When he had
suffered excruciating pain for what seemed to him
a long time, the thongs that bound him were
mysteriously loosened by ghostly fingers and he was
lowered to the floor. Then the flogging began again,
and the wretched Chao was driven screaming out of
the temple precincts. Outside the gates he fell un-

STORIES OF CITY-GODS 369

conscious to the ground. When he came to himself
he was hardly able to move; his body was still
bruised and scarred, and when he tried to drag one
leg after the other he writhed in agony. After many
weary days the pains left him, but his contempt for
alien gods was a thing of the past : he had become
a grave and religious man. Before leaving the city
on his return journey he took care to prove his
remorse by presenting the outraged deity with a
beautiful paper horse, which was of course despatched
to the spirit-world through the usual agency of
fire.

There is a quainter and more touching story told
of the city-god of the neighbouring district-city of
Jung-ch'eng. The Chinese, as we have seen,^ regard
three days in the year as specially consecrated to the
spirits of the dead, just as there are three special
holidays for the living. On each of the spirit-festivals
the Ch'eng Huang is expected to hold a formal
inspection of his city. His image is accordingly
brought out of the dingy temple in which it usually
reposes, placed in an official chair, and carried in a
noisy and not very solemn procession through the
principal streets of the town. The story goes that
during one of these periodical excursions a young girl,
a member of a well-known local family, was watching
the procession with the keenest interest. As the
god's palanquin passed the spot where she was
standing, she saw the image — or believed she saw it —
deliberately turn its face in her direction and smile
at her with a look of friendly interest. Full of excite-
ment the girl went home and poured out her tale in
the ear of her mother. The good lady treated the story
as a kind of joke and laughed gaily at her daughter's
fancy. *' It is clear," she said, " that Ch'eng Huang
Lao-yeh wants you for his wife : so off you go to
him."

A few days passed by and the girl became seriously

^ See p. 192.

24

370 TAOISM, LOCAL DEITIES, TREE-WORSHIP

ill. A doctor was called in, but all he did was to
look wise, give her a charm to hang over her door,
and make her swallow some disagreeable medicine.
In less than a month after the meeting with the city-
god the girl was dead. During the night following
her death her mother had a strange dream. She was
visited by the spirit of her dead daughter, who told
her that she was now well and happy, for she had
become the bride of the Ch'eng Huang. Needless to
say the dream soon became the common talk of the
neighbours, through whom it reached the ears of the
district-magistrate. After evidence had been given
and duly corroborated it was officially decided that
the Ch'eng Huang's will had manifested itself in an
unmistakable manner and that to thwart it would
bring certain disaster on the city. The girl's body
was therefore buried with much pomp and ceremony
within the temple grounds, her image, robed in real
silks, was installed in the central pavilion beside that
of the god himself, and she received formal recognition
as the Ch'eng Huang's consort.

As time went on the dead girl began to acquire
some local fame as a healer of various diseases, and
persons who believed she had cured their ailments
took to buying little votive offerings such as tiny
pairs of shoes, hair-combs, ear-rings, and other trinkets
such as Chinese ladies love. These were all stored
up in the temple, where many of them may still be |
seen. The citizens of Jung-ch'eng who tell the story
to strangers and fear it will not be believed are in the
habit of mentioning a prosaic little fact which, they
think, must banish all doubt. Every morning, they
say, a basin of clean water is taken by the priest into
the inner room which is supposed to serve as the
sleeping-chamber of the Ch'eng Huang and his wife.
Having put the basin on its stand the priest discreetly
withdraws. In half an hour he returns and takes the
basin away : and lo ! the water is clean no longer.
This realistic touch is rather characteristic of Chinese

LOCAL DEITIES 371

tales of wonder. Whatever the real origin of the
legend may be there is no doubt that the city-god
of Jung-ch'eng does share the honours of local worship
with a female spirit whose image rests beside his
own ; and if any one questions whether she was ever
a living human being he may ask for an introduction
to the descendants of the very family to which she
belonged, — for their name is Ts'ai and their home is
in one of the city suburbs, where they flourish to this
day.i

Just as every town has its Ch'eng Huang Lao-yeh,
so every village has its T*u Ti Lao-yeh or Old Father
T'u Ti. He is of course inferior in rank to a Ch'eng
Huang, and instead of possessing an ornate temple
and being represented by a full-sized robed and
bearded image he has no better resting-place, as a
rule, than a little stone shrine three or four feet high.
In the case of the Weihaiwei villages this shrine is
generally situated on the roadside close by the village
to which it belongs. The ordinary villager's cere-
monial visits to the local T'u Ti miao or temple of the
village-god are not very frequent. If he or any
member of his family is sick he will beseech the T'u
Ti to grant a restoration to health, and on such
occasions, or after a cure has been effected, he will
very often hang little flags of scarlet cloth — they are
often mere rags — on a stick or pole in front of the
shrine. The popular T'u Ti of a large village some-
times possesses a dozen of these simple offerings at
one time. The death of a villager must be formally
announced to the T'u Ti, whose duty it is to act as a
kind of guide to the dead man when he finds himself
for the first time in the bewildering world of ghosts.
It is a common sight and a somewhat pathetic one to
see a long row of wailing mourners, clad in loose and

' It is probable that similar stories are told of other city-gods, for
the Rev. Ernest Box {J.R.A.S. {China Branch), vol. xxxiv. p. 109)
mentions a case in connection with Lutien, a place a few miles north-
west of Shanghai.

372 TAOISM, LOCAL DEITIES, TREE-WORSHIP

unhemmed sackcloth and with hair dishevelled, wend-
ing their way along the village street in the direction
of the shrine of the T'u Ti to report the death of
a relative or fellow-villager. The T'u Ti is, in fact, a
kind of registrar of deaths : the unseen record kept
by him in the underworld and the family record kept
by the people in their homes or in their ancestral
temples, are sufficient to satisfy all Chinese require-
ments in the matter of death-registration. ^ Births are
not reported to the T'u Ti, who, being concerned
chiefly v/ith the world of spirits, is not supposed to
take any special interest in the multiplication of living
men. It is to the ancestors that a child's birth (if the
child be a boy) is naturally supposed to bring joy and
consolation.

Beings like the Ch'eng Huang and T'u Ti and
Hearth-god ^ and many other popular deities may be
all regarded as included in the list of Taoist gods, but
as far as ceremony or ritual goes they are really in-
dependent of Taoism : that is to say, no priestly inter-
vention is necessary between the god and the person
who prays. If the rites of Taoism and the major
Taoist gods were expelled from the land, minor deities
such as those mentioned might continue to attract
just as much or just as little reverence as they do at
present ; similarly ancestor-worship would not neces-
sarily be affected by the official abolition of the cult
of Confucius.

The fact that the T'u Ti is supposed to interest
himself in such matters as the death of individuals
seems to suggest that he must have been in origin an
ancestral god : but I cannot find any trustworthy
evidence that this is so, though it seems that in some
cases at least he (like the Ch'eng Huang) was a human
being posthumously raised to quasi-divine rank. It

* As the functions of the T'u Ti are, on a reduced scale, similar to
those of the Cli'eng Huang, it follows that in walled towns it is the
Ch'eng Huang who receives reports of death.

^ See p. 193.

2

H

TUTELARY AND CLAN DEITIES 373

is noteworthy as bearing on this point that no village
in Weihaiwei, or elsewhere so far as I am aware,
possesses more than one T'u Ti, though there may be
two or more " surnames" or clans represented in the
village ; moreover, when a man migrates from one
village to another he changes his T'u Ti, although his
connection with his old village in respect of ancestral
worship and such matters remains unimpaired. The
T'u Ti, in fact, appears to be a local divinity who
holds his position irrespective of the movements of
families and changes of surnames. It may be that he
is regarded as representing in some mysterious way
the first settler in the locality concerned, or the first
builder of the village. The Chinese T'u Ti seems to
bear a considerable resemblance to the Uji-gami of
Japan. As the name Uji implies, this deity was
evidently at one time regarded as a clan-deity or
tribal ancestor. But as a Japanese authority has told
us, " the word Uji-gami or clan-god is now used in
another sense, namely in the sense of the local tutelary
god or the patron-god of a man's birthplace or
domicile." ^ Dr. Aston says that the Uji-gami having
originally been the patron-gods of particular families
" became simply the local deities of the district where
one was born."^ It seems at least possible that the
history of the T'u Ti has been similar to that of the
Uji-Gami.

Perhaps Greek and Roman religion may help in
throwing some light on the subject. Just as we find
the ancestral cult forming a prominent element in the
religion of Greece and Rome, so we find traces of the
existence of something like a T'u Ti. Every family
had its own altar and its own gods (namely its
deceased ancestors), and every phratria or group of
families "had a common altar erected in honour of a
common deity who was supposed to be more power-

* Ancestor Worship and Japanese Law, by Mr. Nobushige Hozumi,

p. 25.
^ Shinto, p. 10.

374 TAOISM, LOCAL DEITIES, TREE-WORSHIP

ful than the deities of the households taken separ-
ately." ^

Like the Ch'eng Huang of the city of Jung-ch'eng,
the T'u Ti of the Weihaiwei district are very often
if not almost invariably provided with wives, who
are known as T'u Ti P'o. The T'u Ti and his lady
are represented by rough stone effigies, about a foot
in height, which are placed side by side within the
little stone shrine ; or sometimes the lady has a
separate shrine, of smaller size, beside that of her
husband. Some T'u Ti are attended by two T'u Ti
P'o. On making inquiries into the reason for this
at a village where the T'u Ti was thus distinguished,
I was informed that the lady on his left (the place
of honour) was his wife and the lady on his right
his concubine. It was pointed out that the concu-
bine's image was only about half the size of that of
the wife, which was quite as it should be in view
of her inferior status. Two explanations were offered
as to why this particular T'u Ti had been allowed to
increase his household in this manner : one was that
he had won the lady on his right by gambling for
her, the other was that the T'u Ti had appeared to
one of the villagers in a dream and begged him to
provide him with a concubine as he had grown tired
of his wife. The villager called on the local image-
maker the very next morning, the image-maker went
to the shrine and took measurements, and in a few
days a nice new concubine was placed by the T'u
Ti's side. Whether the dreamer's material position
underwent any marked improvement about this time
is not recorded.

It has been mentioned that little red flags are often
hung on a stick or pole close by the T'u Ti's shrine
on behalf of persons whose ailments the T'u Ti is
supposed to have cured. At first sight one might
suppose that the flags were intended as thank-

' Rev. Sir G. W. Cox, " Religion of the Ancient Greek and Latin
Tribes," in Religious Systems of the IVorld {8th ed.), p. 224.

MAGICAL EXPULSION OF DISEASE 375

offerings to the T'u Ti, but though they certainly
are regarded as such at the present day, I am strongly
inclined to believe that they have a quite different
origin. Similar customs in other parts of the world
irresistibly suggest the idea that the piece of cloth
was originally regarded as the vehicle of the disease
which was supposed to have been expelled from the
human subject.

Dr. Tylor refers to "that well-known conception of a
disease or evil influence as an individual being, which
may be not merely conveyed by an infected object
(though this of course may have much to do with
the idea) but may be removed by actual transfer
from the patient into some other animal or object."^
He goes on to consider many examples of the practical
working of this conception, and draws special atten-
tion to the belief common to many parts of the world
(though China is not mentioned) that disease can be
banished by driving it into a rag and hanging it on a
tree : — " In Thuringia it is considered that a string
of rowan-berries, a rag, or any small article, touched
by a sick person and then hung on a bush beside
some forest path, imparts the malady to any person
who may touch this article in passing, and frees the
sick person from the disease. This gives great
probability to Captain Burton's suggestion that the
rags, locks of hair, and what not, hung on trees near
sacred places by the superstitious from Mexico to
India and from Ethiopia to Ireland, are deposited
there as actual receptacles of disease; the African
'devil's trees' and the sacred trees of Sindh, hung
with rags through which votaries have transferred
their complaints, being typical cases of a practice
surviving in lands of higher culture." ^
There are traces of a belief of this kind in Japan, and

1 Prhnitive Culture (4th ed,), vol. ii. pp. 148-9. See also Frazer's
Golden Bough (2nd ed.), vol. iii. pp. 26 seq., and W. G. Black's Folk
Medicine^ pp. 34 seq.

* Primitive Culture (4th ed.), vol. ii. p. 150,

376 TAOISM, LOCAL DEITIES, TREE-WORSHIP

I have observed many proofs of it also in the
border country between China and Tibet, There is
good reason, I think, to believe that the custom of
hanging rags in front of the T'u Ti's shrine has a
similar origin. The fact that the rags are usually
hung up after the patient has already recovered
merely goes to show that the primitive meaning of
the act has become obscured.

It is probable that the T'u Ti originally had nothing
to do with the matter. Of what possible use to him
could be a number of small pieces of ragged cloth,
unless indeed he wished to make himself a patch-
work quilt? But as soon as the significance of the
suspended rag had been forgotten, the idea may very
naturally have grown up that the practice was essen-
tially a religious one and ought to be associated with
some god : and what god so suitable as the local
guardian-spirit — the T'u Ti — whose shrine was always
conveniently close at hand, and who was supposed
to take a personal interest in every villager? As
soon as the rag came to be regarded as a votive-
offering the Chinese would naturally select red — the
colour of joy and good luck — as most acceptable to
the god and most likely to win his favour. This
theory will perhaps gain in reasonableness if it is
explained that the uneducated Chinese of the north —
including Weihaiwei — do actually believe to this day
in the possibility of transferring certain diseases from
a human being to an inanimate object. They declare
that if a sick person rubs a piece of cloth over the part
of his body in which he feels pain, and then throws
the cloth away at a cross-road,^ he will feel the pain

' Quite an interesting chapter might be written about various beliefs
connected with cross-roads. See, for example, the superstition referred
to in Plato's Laws, quoted by Dr. Frazer in The Golden Bough
(2nd ed.), vol. iii. p. 20 ; and the Bohemian prescription for fever :
" Take an empty pot, go with it to a cross-road, throw it down, and run
away. The first person who kicks against the pot will catch your fever
and you will be cured." {Op. cit., p. 22.) Again, of the Dyaks we are
told that they "fasten rags of their clothes on trees at cross-roads,

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TREE-WORSHIP 377

no more. Wayfarers who see such cloths lying on
the road will on no account touch them, as they are
supposed to harbour the disease that has been
expelled from the human patient.^ There are similar
beliefs in Korea ^ and elsewhere in Asia, and also in
several countries of Europe.'

To confine ourselves to Weihaiwei, it should be
mentioned that the sticks or poles in front of the
T'u Ti's shrine to which the rags are fastened are
inserted perpendicularly in the ground in front or at
the side of the shrine, and are often made to repre-
sent, on a miniature scale, the well-known mast-like
poles that stand outside the gates of official yamens
and the houses and family temples of the literary
" aristocracy." But sometimes the shrine is shaded
by the branches of a tree, and in such cases the rags
may occasionally be seen hanging on the tree itself.
It is possible that here we hav© something like a
blending of three old beliefs or superstitions : the cult
of the local tutelary god, faith in the magical expulsion
of sickness, and the worship of sacred trees.

Tree-worship is one of the bypaths of Chinese
religion. It is not connected, except as it were acci-
dentally, with Confucianism, Taoism or Buddhism.
But the bypath is worth exploring if only because
it leads to a region of folk-lore and myth that is
common to both China and Europe. The idea that

fearing for their health if they neglect the custom." (Tylor's Primitive
Culture (4th ed.), vol. ii. p. 223.) Still more remarkable is it to find a
similar belief in England. " Lancashire wise men tell us, ' for warts,
rub them with a cinder, and this, tied up in paper and dropped where
four roads meet, will transfer the warts to whoever opens the parcel.' "
(W. G. Black's Folk Medicine, p. 41. This author mentions the
existence of the same superstition in Germany.)

' For superstitions of the kind in the Shanghai district, see Rev.
E. Box's " Shanghai Folk-lore" xnJ.R.A.S. [China Branch), vol. xxxiv.
pp. 124-5. For a Chinese cross-road superstition see the same article,
p. 130 ; and see Dennys's Folk-lore of China, p. 22.

^ See Mrs. Bishop's Korea and Her Neighbours, vol. ii. pp. 143 scq.,
and Folk-lore, September 1900, p. 329.

' See Frgzer's Golden Bough (2nd ed.), vol. iii. p. 21.

378 TAOISM, LOCAL DEITIES, TREE-WORSHIP

certain trees are animated by more or less powerful
spirits, or the distinct and still earlier view that certain
trees are themselves the bodies of living divinities,
is a belief that can be traced to almost every part
of the world. It existed in ancient Rome,^ where
the sacred fig-tree of Romulus was an object of
popular devotion ; it existed among the ancient Jews
at Hebron, Shechem, Ophrah and at Beersheba;^ it
existed in Pelasgian Attica and neighbouring regions
thousands of years b.c.;^ it existed in India in pre-
Buddhistic and post-Buddhistic times — witness the
history of the famous Bo-tree of Anuradhapura in
Ceylon, to which pilgrims still flock in their thou-
sands ; it flourishes to this day in all the countries
of Indo-China; it is to be found in Korea and in
many islands of the Pacific ; indeed traces of it exist
in every part of the world, including western Europe
and the American continent. No wonder Dr. Tylor
says of " direct and absolute tree-worship " that it
may lie " very wide and deep in the early history
of religion."'' Its extraordinary vitality in Europe
may be estimated by the fact that though the early
Christian missionaries on the Continent and in Britain
anathematised it as idolatrous and endeavoured to
stamp it out — sometimes adopting the method of
cutting down a sacred grove and using the timber
for building a Christian chapeP — traces of the belief

* See T. R. Glover's Conflict of Religioiis in the Early Roman
Empire (Methuen & Co., 1909), p. 13.

2 See the Rev. A. 'SN . Oxford's " Ancient Judaism " in Religions Systefns
of the World (8th ed.), p. 55. He remarks that the sacred trees at these
places " were always evergreen trees as being the best symbols of
life ; ' green ' is the constant adjective applied to them by the prophets.
The name used for them — ela or eloft — shows that they were con-
sidered to be divine beings." As regards the choice of evergreen trees,
see above, pp. 262-4.

5 See also Mr. A. B. Cook's articles on " Zeus, Apollo and the Oak "
in The Classical Review for 1903 and 1904.

* Primitive Culture (4th ed.), vol. ii. p. 221. The whole subject is
discussed pp. 214-29.

' Op. cit. p. 228.

SACRED TREES IN EUROPE 379

in sacred trees actually survive in popular traditions
and local customs up to the present time right across
the Euro-Asiatic continent from England and Sweden
to China, Malaya and the islands of Japan. ^ Folk-
lore has much to tell us about talking trees, and
trees that could plead for their own lives when the
wood-cutter approached them with his axe. In 1606
Lincolnshire was reported to possess " an ash-tree
that sighed and groaned." ^

Apart from all consideration of the origin of may-
poles, some faint traces of a surviving belief in holy
trees have been found in recent years in Yorkshire.'
In Switzerland it is a common belief of the people
that walnut-trees are tenanted by spirits.* Dr. Frazer
tells us that " down to 1859 there stood a sacred larch-
tree at Nauders in the Tyrol which was thought to
bleed whenever it was cut. ... So sacred was the
tree that no one would gather fuel or cut timber near
it; and to curse, scold or quarrel in its neighbourhood
was regarded as a crying sin which would be super-
naturally punished on the spot. Angry disputants
were often hushed with the whisper, ' Don't, the sacred
tree is here.' " ^ The belief in trees animated by some

' " Trees of great size and age are worshipped in almost every village
in Japan. They are girt with honorary cinctures of straw-rope and
have tiay shrines erected before them." — Dr. Aston's Shinto, p. 45.
See also W. W. Skeat's Malay Magic, p. 67.

^ County Folk-loi'e, vol. v. : Li7tcolnshire (David Nutt, 1908).

' County Folk-lore, vol. ii. : North Riding of Yorkshire, p. 54.

* Folk-lore Journal, vol. i. (1883), p. 377. For tree-worship in
Tuscany see Dr. J. G. Frazer's article in Folk-lore, Dec. 1901.

* Frazer's Golden Bough (2nd ed.), vol. i. pp. 173-4. For Dr.
Frazer's admirable discussion of the whole subject see especially
vol. i. pp. 166-232, and vol. iii. pp. 26 seq. See also Grant Allen's
Evolution of the Idea of God, pp. 1 38 seq. ; Philpot's The Sacred Tree,
passim ; Maspero's Dawn of Civilisatio7i (4th ed.), pp. 12 1-2; H. M.
Bovver's The Elevation and Procession of the Ccri at Gubbio (David
Nutt, 1897), pp. 61, 70 seq., 85 seq., 93 and passim; Griffis's The
Religions of Japan (4th ed.), pp. 30 seq. ; Ferguson's Tree and Serpent
Worship, passim ; W. W. Skeat's Malay Magic, pp. 52 seq., 63 seq.,
193 seq., 203 seq. ; Reinach's Orpheus (Eng. tr. 1909), pp. 114, 129.

38o TAOISM, LOCAL DEITIES, TREE-WORSHIP

kind of divinity or inhabited by spirits is parallel
with many other ancient animistic beliefs. Just as
the sea has its mermaids and nymphs and the streams
have their naiads and water-kelpies and the mountains
their gnomes and elves, so groves and single trees
have their haunting spirits, dryads or gods. At the
present day the popular faith in the existence of tree-
spirits is exceedingly strong in such countries as
Burma, the Shan States and Siam ; indeed Buddhism
was obliged to compromise with the pre-Buddhistic
animism of those lands to the extent of finding a place
for tree-nats or tree-spirits — as well as water-nats
and numerous other fairy-like beings — in its general
scheme of the cosmos.

In view of the almost universal prevalence of tree-
worship of some kind or other it would be strange
indeed if no trace of it could be found in China. It
has been said by a writer on the subject that " there
is very little evidence of the existence of tree-worship
among Chinese," ^ but as a matter of fact the evidence
for its existence (though perhaps it is not to be found
to any great extent in books) is abundant and con-
clusive. I have myself seen " sacred trees " in at least
seven provinces of China — Chihli, Shansi, Honan,
Shensi, Ssilch'uan, Fuhkien and Shantung — and I
have good reason to believe they are to be found in
other provinces as well." The trees are generally
seen in the neighbourhood of a village or sometimes
in the middle of a village-street ; their branches are
usually hung with votive-offerings and lettered scrolls,
and below them are sometimes placed little altars
with incense-burners and small dishes of sacrificial
food. Such trees are regarded with veneration, and

' Philpot's The Sacred Tree (Macmillan & Co., 1897), p. 15.

' As for example in Kansu. For Kiangsu see J.R.A.S. {China
Branch), vol. xxxiv. (1901-2), p. 116. For observations on Chinese
tree-spirits see De Groot's Religious System of China, vol. iv. pp. 272
seq. and vol. v. pp. 653-63 ; and see Folk-lore, June 1906, p. 190; and
Dennys's Folk-lore of China, p. 47.

,^j^

THE HAUNTED TREE OF LIN-CHIA-YUAN (see p. 381).

S>. 380]

HAUNTED TREES 381

their decay or accidental destruction is looked upon
as a public calamity. In north China the sacred tree
seems generally though not always to be a Sophora
tree, known by the Chinese as liuai} But any one
who wishes to be convinced that tree-worship is
still a living faith in China need not travel so far as
the inland provinces : it is unnecessary to go further
than Weihaiwei. Close to the picturesque village of
Lin-chia-yuan (The Garden of the Lin Family) is a
fine old specimen of the Ginkgo or Maidenhair tree,^
known by the Chinese as the pai kiw or " white-fruit
tree." It is believed in the neighbourhood to be in-
habited by the spirit of a Buddha or Bodhisatva.

Here we have an interesting example of how
Buddhism utilised local legends for its own purposes
and for the advancement of its own interests. Close
by the tree stands an old Buddhist temple that dates
from the T'ang dynasty. Had there been no priests
to mould the religious ideas of the neighbouring
villages into a Buddhistic form the tree would still
have been regarded as the abode of a spirit, but no
one would have thought of suggesting that the spirit
was that of a Buddha. The devout Christian need
not jeer at the harmless wiles of the Buddhist priests
in this little matter, for the European monks of the
Middle Ages were equally ready to seize upon local
superstitions and give them a Christian interpretation.
" The peasant folk-lore of Europe still knows," says
Dr. Tylor, " of that old tree on the Heinzenberg near
Zell, which uttered its complaint when the woodman
cut it down, for in it was Our Lady, whose chapel
now stands upon the spot." ^ Exactly the same pro-
cedure was adopted, as is well known, with regard
to the sacred wells and springs of our European
forefathers. It was found a simpler matter to sub-
stitute the name of a Christian saint for that of a

' The Sophora japonica.

* Salisbima adiantifolia. See p. 168.

^ Primitive Culture (4th ed.), vol. ii. p. 221.

382 TAOISM, LOCAL DEITIES, TREE-WORSHIP

heathen divinity than to crush the popular super-
stitions altogether. " With a varnish of Christianity
and sometimes the substitution of a saint's name,"
says the writer just quoted,^ "water-worship has held
its own to this day. The Bohemians will go to pray
on the river-bank where a man has been drowned,
and there they will cast in an offering, a loaf of new
bread and a pair of wax candles." The bread, no
doubt, represented the old heathen offering to the
water-spirit, the candles represented the compromise
with Christianity. But let us refrain from ridiculing
the superstitions of ** the heathen Chinee " so long
as we possess such obvious relics of heathendom in
our own quarter of the globe.

Signs are not wanting that the old belief in shen shu
(" spirit-trees "), as they are called by the Chinese, is
more or less rapidly decaying in this district. Certain
villages, such as Chang-chia-shan, Wen-ch'iian-chai,
Ho-hsi-chuang, Pao-hsin and others, possess fine
old trees which, according to tradition, were once
" worshipped," but are now only familiar and much-
loved landmarks which the villagers would on no
account allow to be removed. I do not refer only
to the temple-groves and the little woods that shade
the ancestral burial-grounds, for they, as we have
seen,^ derive their sanctity from causes not necessarily
connected with tree-worship. I refer rather to the
large isolated trees that one sometimes sees in or
close to a village or overhanging the T'u Ti shrine.
In the latter case it would be interesting to know
whether it was the tree or the shrine that first
possessed the site. Sometimes the little shrine is
almost hidden by the low-hanging foliage of a group
of trees — such trees having in all probability sprung
from a parent-stem. Of the Khond tribes in British
India it is said that when they settle in a new village
" the sacred cotton-tree must be planted with solemn
rites, and beneath it is placed the stone which en-
' Op. cit. vol. ii. p. 213. * See pp. 261 seq.

•J

SACRED TREES OF WEIHAIWEI 383

shrines the village-deity." ^ Whatever may have been
the practice in Weihaiwei, it seems not improbable
that similar rites once attended the planting of sacred
trees in some parts of China,

The proximity of an ancient Buddhist temple is
sufficient to explain how it is that the sacred tree of
Lin-chia-yuan is supposed to be inhabited by a
Buddhist spirit : but no one seems to have thought
it worth while to proselytise the spirit of the most
famous tree in the Territory, the sophora of the
village of Mang-tao, which enjoys a celebrity extend-
ing far beyond the limits of the surrounding villages.
Only a year or two ago a serious calamity befell the
villagers of Mang-tao. During one night of dismal
memory their famous tree caught fire and was
destroyed. Their consternation was great, for the
disaster seemed irremediable ; but the local sages rose
to the occasion, for they declared that the tree-spirit
had grown tired of the old tree and had moved into a
smaller one a few yards further up the village-street.
As for the fire, it was explained as being fien Into — fire
from heaven — sent purposely at the instigation of the
migrated tree-spirit in order to prevent people from
worshipping the wrong tree. A circumstantial story
has already been invented in the village to this effect.
A villager came with incense to pay his respects to
the old tree which — unknown to him — was now un-
tenanted. The tree-spirit from his new perch saw
what was going on, and was much disgusted to per-
ceive that the old tree, though he had abandoned it,
was still the recipient of offerings. Grinding his
branches with rage and jealousy at the vexatious
spectacle, he persuaded heaven to send a mysterious
wind that fanned the villager's lighted sticks of incense
into a mighty flame, which speedily stripped the poor
old tree of bark and foliage. Whatever the true cause
of the fire may have been, the fact is indisputable that
the tree was completely destroyed. Its blackened

' Tylor's Primitive Culture (4th ed.), vol. ii. p. 225.

384 TAOISM, LOCAL DEITIES, TREE-WORSHIP

trunk has been removed by the villagers, so that not
a trace of the tree now remains ; while its proud
successor is now decorated with the rags and other
offerings that once hung upon its venerable branches.
The Mang-tao tree is prayed to for many things,
but especially for recovery from illness, and the rags
are chiefly the offerings of grateful worshippers whose
prayers have met with favourable response. It is very
possible that the rags were originally regarded as the
mere vehicles of expelled diseases in accordance with
the old superstition already described, but there is no
doubt that the tree or the tree-spirit is looked upon as
the power through which the diseases are driven out.
The Mang-tao tree is often adorned with more than
mere rags : cloth scrolls on which are inscribed mottoes
and sentences expressive of gratitude and reverence
are also to be seen on its branches. Grant Allen
remarks that '* Christianity has not extinguished the
veneration for sacred trees in Syria, where they are
still prayed to in sickness and hung with rags." ^ It
is interesting to find in a remote Weihaiwei village —
probably never visited by any European other than
an occasional Englishman on official duty — a super-
stition that still flourishes in the very birthplace of
Christianity.

' The Evolution of the Idea of God, p. 1 50.

CHAPTER XVI

THE DRAGON, MOUNTAIN-WORSHIP, BUDDHISM

A DISTRICT like Weihaiwei, which is agricultural and
which also possesses an extensive coast-line, naturally
pays special reverence to the gods that preside over
the weather and the sea. Two of the most popular
of the Weihaiwei deities are Lung Wang — the Dragon-
king — who possesses the power of manipulating rain-
falls and is therefore appealed to in seasons of drought,
and T'ien Hou— the Queen of Heaven, also known as
Sheng Mu, the Holy Mother — a goddess who is in
many respects the Taoist counterpart of the Buddhist
Kuan Yin (the " Goddess of Mercy ") and is regarded
as a protecting deity of sailors and fishermen. The
Holy Mother has many shrines along the coast,
besides a quaint old temple at Port Edward and a
locally-famous one called Ai-shan Miao on a mountain-
pass a short distance to the north-west of the market-
village of Yang-t'ing. The last-named temple, which
recently has been undergoing a partial restoration, is,
owing to its position, exposed to the fierce north winds
of winter and the equally boisterous south winds of
early summer, and after its erection about the end
of the fifteenth century it was more than once blown
down. The priests and other wise men of the time
deliberated on the question of how to prevent such
catastrophes in future, and finally decided that the
best way would be to dig a tunnel through the hill

38S 25

386 DRAGON, MOUNTAIN-WORSHIP, BUDDHISM

from north to south nndenieath the temple, so as to
give the wind a means of crossing the pass comfort-
ably without hurting the building. The tunnel was
duly made and exists to this day. It is over six feet
in height, four feet in breadth, and perhaps thirty
yards in length. No self-respecting wind, it was sup-
posed, would play havoc with the walls and roof of
the temple when a nice channel had been specially
constructed for its private use, and indeed for many
years, it is said, the temple enjoyed complete immunity
from storms. But the priest now in charge has in-
formed me regretfully that the tempests of these latter
days are not so amenable to reason and discipline as
were those of the good old times. ^

Temples and shrines to Lung Wang, the Dragon-king,
can be seen in or near many villages, sometimes ad-
joining the shrine of the T'u Ti, and also on many head-
lands along the coast. The Dragon-king's mother is
a favourite object of worship as well as the Dragon-
king himself, and her image often occupies a neigh-
bouring shrine. The dragon, as is well known, figures
prominently in Chinese myth and legend and in
Chinese art-conceptions. It is regarded as a kind of
symbol of empire and of things imperial : the " dragon-
body " is the emperor's person ; the " dragon-seat " is
the emperor's throne ; the " dragon-pen " is the
imperial autograph ; the " dragon-flag " is the imperial
standard. The myths connected with the dragon are
vague and conflicting and no doubt they are of various
origins, though Taoism, always an eclectic religion,
has found room for them all in its capacious system.
There are the dragons of the four quarters of the
universe and a fifth for the centre ; there are the four

' We need not jeer at Chinese simplicity in this matter unless we
reserve some of our gibes for the good folk of Settrington, Yorkshire,
where " it is considered prudent during a thunder-storm to leave the
house door open in order to enable the lightning to get out if it should
come in." (County Folk-lore, vol. ii. : North Riding of Yorkshire,
l^T- 43-4.)

X)

d,

o
o

W

S
w

H
Q

m
<

<

i

SERPENT-WORSHIP 387

dragons of the seas {Hai lung ivang), the dragon of
rain and clouds, the earth dragon (who is closely
concerned with feug-shui^), the dragon of hidden
treasures, the heavenly dragon, and several protean
dragons that can assume any shape and go anywhere
they please. The Mother-dragon, judging from her
clay image in the temples, seems to be quite an
ordinary and rather benevolent old lady, who — one
might think — should have been the last person in
the world to give birth to an uncanny son ; but even
the Dragon himself is similarly privileged to be repre-
sented by the image of a man.

Serpent-worship, which was one origin of the
dragon-mythology,^ seems to have left several traces
of its existence in China : large snakes — especially in
localities where snakes are rare — are often supposed
to be manifestations of the divine Dragon.^ There is
another superstition to the effect that certain evil
demons can assume a serpent-like shape and drive
men to death by haunting them and climbing on their
backs.* Very recently (during the summer of 1909) a"
large snake was killed by lightning near a village close

* See pp. 119 seq.

* Serpent-worship was as we know common in Egypt, and also
among the Hebrews up to the time of Hezekiah, and among certain
Indian and other Asiatic races. As for " dragons," they existed even in
Lincolnshire and Gloucestershire (see County Folk-lore, vol. x. p. 33 ;
and Cotcttiy Folk-lore : Gloucestershire, p. 23). It is unnecessary to
remind the English reader of St. George and his feats. For further
parallels see Dennys's Folk-lore of China, pp. 92, 102 seq., 107, no.

^ Sir Robert Douglas mentions a case in point in his Confucianism
and Taouism (5th ed.), p. 277. He says of a certain great serpent that
" Li Hung-chang, the viceroy of the province, came in person to pay
reverence to it as the personification of the Dragon-king." For a
discussion of snake-demons in China see De Groot's Religious System
of China, vol. v. pp. 626 seq. See also f.R.A.S. {China Branch), vol.
xxxiv. p. 116. For a famous snake-demon legend that has been widely
accepted in lands other than China, the reader need not look further
than Genesis, chap. iii.

* A belief of the kind exists in Japan. See Griffis, The Religions of
fapan (4th ed.), p. 32. For China, see also De Groot, Religious System
of China, vol. iv. pp. 214-19.

388 DRAGON, MOUNTAIN-WORSHIP, BUDDHISM

to the borders of the Weihaiwei Territory, Next
morning (the thunderstorm having occurred at night)
the villagers found the scorched body of the reptile
and forthwith agreed among themselves that it was
a devil-snake. Their only reasons for this surmise
seem to have been its unusually great size ^ and the
peculiar manner of its death. A devil-snake is sup-
posed to be nearly as dangerous when dead as when
alive, so the villagers deputed six of their number to
carry it to the coast and carefully consign it to the
ocean. There, no doubt, the sea-dragon could look
after its own.

"The Chinese, the Mexicans and the Semitic
nations," says Dr. Aston, " concur in associating water
with the serpent." ^

Perhaps it was the sinuosity of rivers viewed from
a height that first suggested the connection, and this
would also account for the Chinese dragon's association
with mountains as well as with rivers. It should be
remembered that when one meets cases of mountain-
gods, river-gods, sea-gods, tree-gods, one finds one of
two beliefs, or both inextricably mixed : there is the
belief that the mountain, river, sea or tree is itself a
god, and there is the belief that these natural objects
are merely inhabited or presided over by a god or
spirit, who may or may not be visible to mortal eyes.
We know that in the case of sun-worship the earliest
belief seems to have been that the visible sun is the
god himself; later on the sun is regarded merely as
the sun's chariot ; and later still the god (Apollo)
identifies himself with so many different activities
and interests that we are apt altogether to forget
or ignore his primary connection with the sun.
The case of Zeus, who was originally the deified
vault of heaven, is a similar one : and there are very
many others,

* Large snakes are very rare in Shantung, though pythons are common
enough in south China.

* Shinto, p. 42.

LEGEND OF THE DRAGON 389

The legend current in Weihaiwei regarding the
origin of the Dragon-l<;ing (who may be compared
with the Naga-raja of the Indian peninsula) runs
somewhat as follows. His mother was an ordinary
mortal, but gave birth to him in a manner that
was not — to say the least — quite customary. Being
in his dragon-shape the lusty infant immediately
flew away on a journey of exploration, but returned
periodically for the purpose of being fed. As he
grew larger and more terrifying in aspect day by
day his mother grew much alarmed, and confided
her woes to her husband, the dragon's father. The
father after due consideration decided there was
no help for it but to cut off his preposterous son's
head : so next day he waited behind a curtain, sword
in hand, for the dragon's arrival. The great creature
flew into the house in his usual unceremonious
manner, curled his tail round a beam below the roof,
and hung head downwards in such a way that by
swaying himself gently he could reach his mother's
breast. At this juncture his father came from behind
the curtain, whirled his sword round his head, and
brought it down on what ought to have been the
dragon's neck. But whether it was that his hand
shook, or he misjudged the distance, or his prey was
too quick for him, the fact remains that the dragon's
head remained where it was, and its owner merely
emitted a strange gurgling sound that might have
been meant for an expression of irritation or might
on the other hand have been a draconic chuckle.
Before the sword could be whirled a second time the
dragon seized his father round the waist, untwisted
his tail from the beam in the roof, and flew away to
the eastern seas. The dragon's father was never
seen again, but the dragon and his mother were
elevated to a divine rank from which they have never
since been displaced.

The reasons for the elevation to godhead are perhaps
not quite apparent : but the popular saying that " the

390 rjRAGON, MOUNTAIN-WORSHIP, BUDDHISM

dragon's bounty is as profound as the ocean and the
mother-dragon's virtue is as lofty as the hills " has
a reference to their functions as controllers of the
rains and clouds. Of other local legends about Lung
Wang perhaps two will suffice.

In the Jung-ch'eng district, not far from the British
frontier/ is a pool of water which though several
miles from the sea is said to taste of sea-salt, to be
fathomless, and to remain always at the same level.
It is dedicated to the Dragon. One day an inquisitive
villager tried to fathom its gloomy depths with his
pien-tang or carrying-pole. Hardly had he immersed
it in the water than it was grasped by a mysterious
force and wrenched out of his hand. It was im-
mediately drawn below, and after waiting in vain for
its reappearance the villager went home. A few days
later he was on the seacoast, gathering seaweed for
roof-thatch, when suddenly he beheld his pien-tang
floating in the water below the rocks on which he
was standing. On the first available opportunity
after this, he burned three sticks of incense in Lung
Wang's temple as an offering to the deity that had
given him so striking a demonstration of his mira-
culous power. The Lung Wang of the ocean, it may
be mentioned, is said to have a great treasure-house
under the sea in which he stores the wealth that
comes to him from wrecked junks. Among his most
precious possessions are the eyes of certain great fish,
which are believed to be priceless gems. That is the
reason, say the fisher-folk, why large dead fish, when
cast up on shore, are always found to be eyeless :
Lung Wang has picked out their eyes and put them
among his treasures.

The annals of Weihaiwei also contain this story.
In the year 1723 there was a very heavy shower of
rain. In the sky, among the dark clouds, was espied
a dragon. When the storm passed off a man

' Near the village of Hsing-lin (" Almond-Grove "}.

TAOIST GODS 391

named Chiang of the village of Ho Ch'ing or Huo
Ch'ien picked up a Thing that was "as large as a
sieve, round as the sun, thick as a coin, and lustrous
as the finest jade. It reflected the sun's light and
shone like a star, so that it dazzled the eyes." It was
passed from hand to hand and minutely examined,
but no one knew what it was. The village sooth-
sayer was appealed to for a decision. A single glance
at the strange object was enough for the man of
wisdom. "This Thing," he said, "is a scale that
has fallen from the body of the dragon." Chiang
placed the treasure on his family-altar and pre-
served it as a precious heirloom, but whether it
still exists no one seems to know, or those who
know will not tell.

Among the greatest of the Taoist gods are Lao
Chiin,— Lao Tzu himself, who would have been more
disgusted than most men to know of his future
deification ; P'an Ku, a kind of magnified Adam ;
and Yii Huang Shang Ti, the Jade-Imperial-God to
whom is entrusted the supreme control of the world
and mundane affairs. The functions of these deities
are general rather than specific, so it is no wonder
that they are rather neglected by the ordinary wor-
shipper, who usually prays to the Taoist gods not
for the sake of glorifying the divine personage ad-
dressed (which would be regarded as mere useless
flattery) but with the direct and avowed object of
obtaining some benefit for himself or his friends and
relatives.

One hears little of Lao Chiin and P'an Ku in
Weihaiwei — probably most villagers know hardly
anything of them — but there are several shrines dedi-
cated to the Jade-Imperial-God. These are little
stone buildings on the hill-tops. They are perhaps
the most interesting, if among the most insignificant
in size and appearance, of all the Taoist temples.
Mountain-worship is one of the very oldest forms
of religion in China. The most ancient historical

392 DRAGON, MOUNTAIN-WORSHIP, BUDDHISM

records which the country possesses tell us how those
famous old emperors of the Golden Age — Yao, Shun
and Yu — offered sacrifices on mountain-tops. The
old records are so terse in expression that it is
scarcely possible to say definitely whether the moun-
tains were worshipped for their own sakes or
whether they were merely regarded as altars for the
worship of Shang Ti or T'ien, the One God or the
Greatest of Gods. As the Emperor Shun (2255-05
B.C.) and other rulers of that early time (presuming
they are not altogether mythical) are said to have
selected particular mountains for their acts of worship
it seems probable that the mountains themselves, or
the spirits they harboured, were the usual objects
of worship ; though it is possible and even probable
that the imperial sacrifices to Shang Ti (still carried
out annually on the Altar of Heaven at Peking)
were also regularly offered up on the summits of
lofty hills.

Primitive worshippers of the visible heavens natur-
ally thought that the higher they climbed the nearer
they would be to their god and the more acceptable
to him would be their sacrifices. As time went on,
four and subsequently five mountains in China were
singled out as being specially sacred for their own
sakes as well as for the imperial sacrifices, and those
Five Mountains (T'Vu Yiieh) have been annually visited
and worshipped by countless pilgrims through all the
centuries down to the present day.^ It does not
appear, from the ancient records of the Shu Chmg, that

' The Five Sacred Mountains are T'ai Shan in Shantung, Heng
Shan in Shansi (and a rival claimant of the same name in Chihli),
Sung Shan in Honan, Hua Shan in Shensi, and the Nan Yiieh in
Hunan. The Spirits of these Mountains are known as Ta Ti — " Great
Gods." The most famous of them, so far as literature and tradition go,
is T'ai Shan ; the most popular (judging from my own observation of
the number of worshippers during the pilgrim season) is the Nan
Yiieh; the most beautiful, as well as the loftiest, is Hua Shan, which —
when there is a railway from Honan-fu to Hsi-an-fu — will become a
European tourists* Mecca. See supra, pp. 71, 73, 74,

MOUNTAIN-WORSHIP 393

1 aoism had anything whatever to do with mountain-
worship in its early days : but it was evidently the
policy of the Taoists — as soon as they developed
something like a priestcraft — to associate themselves
and their cult with every form of worship in the
country. Thus they soon established a priestly
guardianship, which they still retain, over the Five
Sacred Mountains. I have come across, in Chinese
Buddhistic literature, evidence that the priests of these
mountains were Taoist priests in the first century of
the Christian era. No doubt it was natural enough
that the sacred hills should fall under the priestly
superintendence of the Taoists, for it was in the dark
ravines and caves and on the rocky ledges of great
mountains that the Taoist recluses were accustomed
to make their solitary homes.

The impelling cause that first drove them to the
hills was no doubt to find the magical herbs and roots
that were necessary ingredients of the elixir of life,
and to practise the self-control and purity of thought
that were as essential to success as the mysterious
draught itself. But the spell of the mountains soon
became independent of drugs and philosophies. Men
discovered — many centuries before the sterner aspects
of hill and forest had begun to make their appeal to
the poets and artists of Europe — that wild Nature was
an enchantress who made willing slaves of all who
had feelings responsive to beautiful sights and sounds.
The time came when poets, scholars, dreamers — many
of them Taoists only in name and some not even in
name — sought the solitude of mountains not because
they hoped to concoct medicines or acquire strange
faculties and powers, but because they had fallen
under the power of the great enchantress, because they
found amid the sky-piercing crags and cloistered
watercourses and dark pine-forests of the great
mountains a companionship, a peace of mind, a pure
and sometimes ecstatic happiness that they had never
known and could never know in peopled plains or in

394 DRAGON, MOUNTAIN-WORSHIP, BUDDHISM

crowded cities. If one may presume to alter a single
word of a great poet's confession —

" The sounding cataract
Haunted them Uke a passion : the tall rock,
The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood,
Their colours and their forms, were then to them
An appetite."

Five mountains, it is hardly necessary to say, were
too few to satisfy the Chinese longing for natural
beauty. When the Buddhists came to China in the
first century of our era they found Taoist recluses and
priests in possession of the Five Sacred Mountains,
but it was not long before they, too, fixed upon equally
beautiful mountain-retreats of their own ; ^ and no one
who has visited a number of them can fail to be
struck by the peculiarly keen sense of the loveliness
of nature that must have guided the Buddhist re-
cluses in their choice of romantic sites for hermitages
and monasteries. It is hardly too much to say that
there is not a beautiful mountain in all China that is
not to-day or has not been in past time the resort of
monks and hermits or laymen who have abandoned
"the world."

People to whom wild Nature does not appeal with

' The so-called Four Famous Mountains {Ssii Ta Ming Shan) of
Buddhism are Wu-t'ai Shan in Shansi, Omei Shan in Ssuch'uan, Chiu
Hua Shan in Anhui and Pootoo Shan off the coast of Chehkiang.
After visits to all these hills I am inclined to give the palm of beauty
to Omei Shan, though the others have great charms of their own,
more especially the little fairyland of Pootoo, with its silver sands, its
picturesque monasteries, its tree-clad slopes and the isle-studded deep-
blue sea that laps its rock-fringed coast. But apart from the Five
Sacred Mountains (still predominantly Taoist) and the Four Famous
Hills (almost exclusively Buddhist) there are very many other beautiful
and famous temple-studded hills in China. Wu-tang in Hupei, T'ai
Pai in Shensi, T'ien-t'ai in Chehkiang, Huang Shan in Anhui, Shang-
Fang near Peking, Wu-i and Ku Shan in Fuhkien, the Lo-fou hills
near Canton, are only a few of those of which the fame has spread
furthest.

HILL-TEMPLES OF WEIHAIWEI 395

irresistible force, those whom she does not " haunt
like a passion," are of course in the overwhelming
majority in China as everywhere else, and it is just
as well, perhaps, for the practical concerns of this
workaday world that such is the case. Yet let not
the hermits and Nature-worshippers be despised : for
it is an intense imaginative love of natural beauty that
has inspired the noblest pictorial art of China and
has proved the well-spring of her greatest poetry,
and it was amid the glory and wonder of the eternal
hills that some of her greatest philosophers have
pondered the problems of life and death.

The hills of Weihaiwei, in spite of some fine scenery,
are of small account when compared with the glorious
mountains of southern and far western China, but
even Weihaiwei has its legends of saints and monks
and "immortals" who made their homes amid the
rocks and woods. There are no monasteries now in
this district, but the ravines still contain both Taoist
and Buddhist temples, each with its priest or two, and
it is easy to see that the Buddhists have generally
secured the most charming sites. The bitter coldness
of the winter is sufficient excuse for the absence of
residential temples on the hill-tops : though, as we
have seen, there are many little stone-shrines dedicated
to the Jade-Imperial-God, the Governor of the Taoist
universe. This is the deity that has practically taken
the place (so far as Taoism is concerned) of the
exalted God of Heaven— T'ien or Shang Ti ^ — who
was worshipped four or five thousand years ago by
the rulers of the Chinese people. There are similar
little Buddhist shrines on the hills, but these are
comparatively few. Among the greater hills of the
Territory there are several known locally as Yu

' Shang Ti is the term that the majority of Protestant missionaries
in China have adopted to represent the word God. THen Chii (Lord
of Heaven) is the name selected by the Roman Catholics. The
Chinese know Protestantism as Ye-stt Chiao (the Jesus Doctrine) and
Roman Catholicism as T'icn Chu Chiao (the Lord-of-Heaven Doctrine),

396 DRAGON, MOUNTAIN-WORSHIP, BUDDHISM

Huang Ting (the Peak of the Jade-God) and at least
two known as Fo Erh Ting (the Peak of Buddha).
Every hill also has its shrine — sometimes a mere heap
of unhewn stones put together without mortar — dedi-
cated to the Shan Shen or Spirit of the Hill, a divinity
who belongs to the same order of beings as the Ta Ti
or Great Gods of the Five Sacred Mountains. The
hill-gods of Weihaiwei, though they are not visited by
pilgrim-bands from afar, receive a limited amount of
** worship " from herdsmen, silkworm-breeders and
others. On many hill-slopes may also be seen shrines
to the Niu Wang and the Ma Wang, divinities whose
business it is to protect cattle and horses, and to
Ch'ung Wang, the " king of locusts." Locusts, as we
know, have at various times been a terrible scourge to
the local farmers. It is supposed that by propitiating
their king with prayers and offerings they can be
banished to some locality where prayers and offerings
are neglected. The Chinese of Weihaiwei say that in
spite of the devastation that locusts can work among
crops they are not really so much to be dreaded as
many other insects who have no king and are there-
fore under no one's control and subject to no law. If
monarchical government, it is thought, could be es-
tablished among the more harmful flies and grubs,
the happiness of labouring mankind would be materi-
ally augmented. The shrines to the mountain-spirit
and the deities that preside over horses, cattle and
locusts very often contain no images but merely small
uncarved stones. The images of Yii Huang and other
deities, when they exist, are usually squat, flat-faced,
dwarf-like creatures with large heads and small
bodies.^ Of all these numerous mountain shrines the

^ The simple uncarved stones seem to gain in interest when we go
back in thought to the days of the early Greeks and the early Baby-
lonians and Assyrians. Of the ancient Greeks Pausanias tells us that
they worshipped the gods through the medium of images, and that
these images were unwrought stones. Some of the T'u Ti and other
images that one finds everywhere in Weihaiwei — with their short,
squat, scarcely human bodies — suggest a transition from the mere un-

I

■J

o
y,

Q

y.

O

H

en

w

s

7)

MOUNT MACDONALD 397

largest are only about eight feet high and six feet
square, while the smallest are mere dolls' houses.

The highest hill in the Territory is the central peak
of the Macdonald Range, in the South District. The
Chinese name of the hill is Cheng-ch'i or Cho-ch'i
Shan. Here there are half a dozen or more shrines
to the various deities mentioned, each containing
small stone images and stone incense-burners. Just
below the summit is an old stone slab with an almost
illegible inscription relating to " Heaven and Earth,"
and close by is a shrine to the Mother-dragon. The
images are all weather-worn and have an appearance
of antiquity which is perhaps deceptive, though they
are probably much older than their stone canopies,
which — as is stated on several mural tablets — have
been restored at various times during the present
dynastic period, beginning in 1644. Besides the
shrines there is also a small bell-house containing an
iron bell dated Hsien Feng X (i860), and close by are
the unrecognisable remains of a theatrical stage where
performances were at one time given in the middle of
the seventh month. The principal shrine is the San
Sheng Miao, " The Temple of the Three Holy Ones "
of Taoism.

wrought stone to the carved and finished statue. Similarly in Greece
we find first the absolutely rough, unhewn stone, such as that which
represented Eros at Thespioe, next the legless, angular, ugly images
such as the well-known square Hermes — of which, one would have
thought, both gods and men should be ashamed — and finally the ex-
quisite statues of idealised boyhood and youth such as are still a source
of the purest delight to all lovers of beauty and of art. Unfortunately
the desire to make the gods appear different from ordinary mankind
led the Chinese, as it led the Indian and other Eastern races, to what
may be called the cultivation of the grotesque, so that there is very
little that is grand or beautiful, as a rule, even in the best of their
divine images. The finest statues, generally speaking, are undoubtedly
those of Sakya Buddha. Tradition, in this respect, has been compara-
tively merciful to the memory of the great Indian philosopher and
sage. Europeans often find fault with the Buddha-faces for their
alleged insipidity : whereas what the artist has really aimed at is an
ideal of passionless repose.

398 DRAGON, MOUNTAIN-WORSHIP, BUDDHISM

From this mountain can be seen practically the
whole of the leased territory of Weihaiwei, laid out
as it were like a map or — as the Chinese would say —
like a chessboard. The summit is a ridge which slopes
southward and northward to the two beautiful valleys
of Yu-chia-k'uang and Chang-chia-shan. Once or
twice a year a priest ascends the mountain from a
temple far down on the western slope, and having
reached the summit he burns a few sticks of incense
and recites some Taoist prayers. Occasionally a
villager climbs the mountain to return thanks to the
Jade-Imperial-God or the spirit of the mountain for
granting him success in some family matter or in
business : but ordinarily the little group of gods on
the hill-top are left in quietness and solitude. The
Taoist devotee is not disturbed by uneasy feelings
that he is neglecting his deities : loneliness and peace
amid beautiful hills and valleys are or ought to be
his own ideal, and the gods whom he has made in
his own image can surely ask for nothing better.

Of Buddhism in Weihaiwei not a great deal need
be said. Some of the beliefs and superstitions which
have been dealt with in this book belong, indeed, as
much to Buddhism as to Taoism, but the Buddhism is
of a kind that would not be recognised in south-
eastern Asia. There are some so-called Buddhist
temples, each tenanted by a single priest and a
pupil or two, and proofs are not wanting that many
centuries ago the sites of some of these rather
dilapidated buildings v/ere occupied by flourishing
little monasteries : but Buddhism has long been a
decadent religion in Shantung, and, considering the
corrupt state into which it has fallen in northern
China, its disappearance as a power in the land is
not to be regretted. Judging from the inscriptions
on a few old stone tablets it appears that Buddhism
in the Weihaiwei district reached its most flourishing
state during the T'ang period (618-905 a.d.). At that
time, indeed, Buddhist activity throughout China was

!^^^^'i^-*:^

in

'7 ^ 5

THE T'ANG DYNASTY 399

very great, for though the faith often underwent
persecution or was treated with chilling neglect, it
enjoyed from time to time the goodwill and patronage
of the highest and most influential persons in the land.

It was during this period that many famous pilgrims
travelled from China to India — the Holy Land of
Buddhism— in search of books and relics, and some
of them left accounts of their travels which are among
the treasures of Chinese literature. This was, indeed,
one of the most glorious epochs in Chinese history.
It was a period during which the Empire, under a
succession of several able and highly-cultured rulers,
enjoyed a prosperity — political, social, literary, artistic
— that it has never quite attained in any succeeding
age. The prosperity seems as a rule to have affected
every class of the people and every corner of the
Empire : even the comparatively poor and bleak
regions of eastern Shantung shared in the good
fortune that radiated from the brilliant capital of an
Empire which — though the fact was undreamed of by
the young nations of Europe — was undoubtedly the
mightiest and most highly civilised state then existing
in the world.

The existence of large Buddhist monasteries
generally indicates a fertile and populous tract of
country, for a large assemblage of monks accustomed
to live to a great extent on the free offerings of
the people can hardly expect to be received with open
arms in a region that is inhabited by a sparse and poor
population. The monasteries of Weihaiwei, then,
were always small — none probably harbouring more
than six to twelve monks. But, like Buddhists else-
where, the monks who came to this part of the Empire
took care to select for their dwelling-places the most
charming and picturesque sites available. The best or
one of the best of these little establishments was
known as Ku Shan Ssu — the Monastery of the Ku
Hill. It was founded between the years 785 and 804,
and part of it still exists as a small temple pleasantly

400 DRAGON, MOUNTAIN-WORSHIP, BUDDHISM

situated at the foot of the hill from which it takes
its name. Close by is the famous Buddha-tree of
which mention has been made.^ Not far away from
the temple, and immediately in front of the British
District Officer's official quarters, there is a natural
hot spring that bubbles out of the sandy bed of a
shallow stream. One can imagine how, eleven hundred
years ago, the little band of gowned monks, released
for an hour from the contemplation of Nirvana or
the service of the Lord Buddha, would wend their
way in the twilight hour down to the edge of the
ravine to lave their reverend limbs in those delicious
waters. The spring is still a daily source of joy to
hundreds of men and boys from the neighbouring
villages, but the monks are all gone.

In the temple there is a large image of the Buddha
which, say the villagers, was not made but "just
growed." There is a little story told of this image.
A peasant-woman was in the habit of cutting fire-
wood from the shrubs on the slopes of Ku Shan
and one day she noticed a particularly thick and
well-grown shrub which she immediately proceeded
to cut down, leaving nothing in the ground but the
roots. Next day she happened to pass that way
again, and to her amazement found another shrub,
equally thick and well grown, in precisely the same
spot. Her surprise was great, but seeing no reason
why she should neglect to avail herself of her good
luck she treated the second shrub exactly as she
had treated the first, and took it home. On the third
day the same thing happened again. The woman
possessed herself of the shrub as before, but having
done so she could no longer keep the knowledge of
these strange occurrences to herself ^nd decided to let
her neighbours into the secret.

Next day a large number of her incredulous fellow-
villagers accompanied her to the spot she indicated,
and there, sure enough, a lordly shrub had once more

1 See p. 381.

J

o

<

I

X
u

I

A WONDERFUL BUDDHA 401

made its miraculous appearance. The wise man of
the party explained that the locality was obviously
haunted by a powerful spirit, and suggested the
advisability of digging up the ground to see what
might be underneath. This was accordingly done,
and immediately below the roots of the shrub was
discovered a colossal stone image of Sakyamuni
Buddha. The village councillors then held a meeting
to discuss the prodigy, and it was unanimously
resolved, firstly, that the image had not been carved
by the hands of man, and, secondly, that a suitable
resting-place must be found for it as soon as possible
in a well-conducted Buddhist temple. The temple
finally decided on was the Huang K'o Ssu — a lonely
building which still exists on a hillside overlooking
the village of Fang Chi. Ropes and trestles were
obtained, and dozens of willing hands volunteered to
carry the sacred image to the temple selected : but the
image would not move, A reinforcement of bearers
was summoned, yet though they pulled and strained
for over an hour not a single inch of progress was
made. The wise man then announced that the Buddha
had evidently taken a dislike to the Huang K'o Ssu :
perhaps he wished to be taken to the Ku Shan temple
instead. So the bearers began pulling in the opposite
direction (for Huang K'o Ssu lies to the south, Ku
Shan Ssu to the north), and to their astonishment
hardly any effort on their part was required : the
image almost went of its own accord. In a short
space of time the party reached a brook which hap-
pened to have been swollen by heavy rains. Fearing
that an accident might occur if an attempt were made
to cross the brook at that time, the villagers decided
to leave it on the bank until the flood-waters had gone
down. At sunrise next day they all returned to the
spot where the image had been left, but to their
profound consternation it had disappeared. After a
prolonged search it was accidentally discovered on
the jurther side of the brook : obviously it had gone

26

402 DRAGON, MOUNTAIN-WORSHIP, BUDDHISM

across of its own accord ! By this time the villagers
were thoroughly awed, and even the most irreligious
of them impressively assured his companions that he
had decided to devote the rest of his life to piety and
good works. The wonderful image was duly installed
in the temple of its choice, and there — amid picturesque
if somewhat decayed surroundings — it still remains.

One of the largest Buddhist temples is that known
as Tou Shan Ssu, situated on a hill overlooking the
village of Tung Tou Shan. It contains nothing of
much interest except a " temple of horrors," as
Europeans usually designate such places, namely a
roomful of clay images representing the tortures
applied to sinners in the Buddhist " hells." The
educated classes of China (including enlightened
Buddhists) regard such things with good-natured
contempt. A writer in the Jung-ch^eng Chili^ men-
tioning the so-called hells of Buddhism, remarks that
" although this is not in accordance with the true
worship of the gods it is useful as a means of warning
and keeping in order the ignorant multitude."^ Into
the outside wall of this temple has been built a curious
old stone representing the historical Buddha. The
style of carving is Indian, such as may be seen in
many old Buddhist temples in China. The traditional
Indian styles of what may be called ecclesiastical
architecture and decoration survived in Chinese
Buddhistic art long after Indian and Chinese Buddhists
had ceased to make pilgrimages to each other's countries.
This stone was doubtless saved for the present build-
ings during one of the rather frequent restorations
which this temple has undergone.

There is now very little that is distinctively Buddh-
istic in the religious ideas or ceremonies of the
people, and apart from the priests it is very doubtful
whether there is a single Chinese in the Territory

' Cf. the remark of Diodorus Siculus (i. 2) : " The myths that are
told of affairs in Hades, though pure invention at bottom, contribute to
make men pious and upright."

1

TRANSMIGRATION OF SOULS 403

who could give the date and place of the Buddha's
birth/ much less give any account of the teachings
of that wonderful man. The reincarnation of human
souls is vaguely believed in after a fashion, though
some belief of the kind would probably be found in
China even though Buddhism had never existed. The
theory of the "transmigration of souls," which is not
Buddhistic except in a popular sense, has driven out
of sight and memory the theory of the reincarnation
of Karma, which is taught by canonical Buddhism,
The doctrine of the Buddha on this and many other
points is too profound to be grasped by the uncultivated
peasant. The crude idea of "transmigration" has
been held by numerous tribes and races never reached
or affected by Buddhism — such as certain American
Indians, Greenlanders, Australian aborigines, and
African negroes : indeed it existed in Asia (and
probably elsewhere) long before the days of the
Buddha.

Dr. Tylor shows,^ in the case of the Manichaeans and
Nestorians, that even within the range of Christian
influence the idea of transmigration has widely
flourished ; indeed, to a limited extent it apparently
exists to this day among certain Christians of eastern
Europe. Thus when a Chinese litigant in Weihaiwei
presents a petition in which he says, " if I am not
telling the strict truth may I after death change into a
donkey or a worm and never more appear in the form
of a man," he is only expressing himself in the terms
of a belief that is in reality independent of Buddhism,
though now closely connected with it in the popular
mind. I have before me a petition which concludes
in words that may be translated thus : " If His Worship
will take pity on his humble petitioner and come to
his help in the present trouble, then the whole of
his petitioner's family and all future generations of his

' In any case they would be wrong, as the Chinese Buddhists ante-
date the Buddha's birth by several centuries.
* Primitive Culture (4th ed,), vol. ii. pp. 2 seq. and 14 seq.

404 DRAGON, MOUNTAIN-WORSHIP, BUDDHISM

family for a period of ten thousand kalpas (innumerable
ages) will reverently raise their hands and repeat the
name of Amitabha Buddha." This, of course, is a
" patter" taken from the lips of the Buddhist priests;
Amitabha ^ is the great Buddha-god of the fabled
Western Heaven — that abode of bliss which in the
Chinese Mahayana system has practically abolished
(except for certain monkish schools) the Nirvana of
primitive and orthodox Buddhism.

A few stories and legends survive in Weihaiwei to
show that Buddhism was once a mightier power in
this part of China than it is at present. Of a fisher-
man named Miao we are told that once upon a time
when he was at sea he hooked what he thought
was a great fish ; but when he hauled in his line he
found his " catch " was an image of Buddha. Being
an irreligious man he took a stone and smashed the
image to pieces. A few days afterwards he sickened
and died. According to another story an image of
Kuan Yin (the " Goddess of Mercy ") in the tower of
the south gate of Weihai city is of pecular sanctity.
About the year 1650 part of the city wall collapsed
and the gate-tower fell in ruins : but the image,
though it was only made of clay, was miraculously
preserved and was found uninjured on the top of
the pile of ruins. The people of Weihaiwei mar-
velled much at this incident and willingly subscribed
for the restoration of the tower and the shrine. For
the better protection of the goddess in future, an image
of Wei To was set up within the shrine, and since then
there have been no accidents.^

' The Japanese Amida.

* Wei To in Chinese Buddhism is a fabulous Bodhisatva whose
special function it is to act as protector of Buddhist temples {Vihdra-
pdla) and all their contents. His image is generally found in the front
hall of such temples. He is often depicted on the last page of
Buddhist books : this prevents them from destruction by fire and
insects, and (it is confidently asserted) compels their borrower to
return them to their owner. A private Wei To would perhaps be a
most welcome addition to the furniture of many an Englishman's library.

THE STORY OF A NUN 405

A more interesting story is told of Miss Ch'en, who
was a Buddhist nun celebrated for her virtue and
austerity. Between the years 1628 and 1643 she left
her nunnery near Weihai city and set out on a long
journey for the purpose of collecting subscriptions for
casting a new image of the Buddha. She wandered
through Shantung and Chihli and finally reached
Peking, and there — subscription book in hand — she
stationed herself at the Ch'ien Men (Great South
Gate) in order to take toll from those who wished
to lay up for themselves treasures in the Western
Heaven. The first passer-by who took any notice
of her was an amiable maniac. His dress was
made of coloured shreds and patches and his general
appearance was wild and uncouth. " Whither away,
nun ? " he asked. Miss Ch'en explained that she
was collecting subscriptions for the casting of a great
image of Buddha and had come all the way from
Shantung. " Throughout my life," remarked the
madman, " I was ever a generous giver " ; so taking
the nun's subscription book he headed a page with
his own name (in very large characters) and the
amount subscribed. The amount in question was two
" cash," equivalent to a small fraction of a farthing.
He then handed over the two small coins and went
on his way.

In course of time the nun returned to Weihaiwei
with her subscriptions, and the work of casting the
image was duly begun. When .the time had come for
the process of smelting, it was observed that the
copper remained hard and intractable. Again and
again the furnace was fed with fuel, but the shapeless
mass of metal remained firm as a rock. The head
workman, who was a man of wide experience, volun-
teered an explanation of the matter. " An offering of
great value must be missing," he said, " Let the
collection-book be examined so that it may be seen
whose subscription has been withheld." The nun,
who was standing by, immediately produced the mad-

4o6 DRAGON, MOUNTAIN-WORSHIP, BUDDHISM

man's money, which on account of its minute value
she had not taken the trouble to hand over. " There
is one cash," she said, "and there is another. Certainly
the offering of these must have been an act of the
highest merit, and the giver must be a holy man who
will some day attain Buddhahood."

As she said this she threw the two cash into the
midst of the cauldron. The great bubbles rose and
burst, the metal melted and ran like the sap from a
tree, limpid as flowing water, and in a few moments
the work was accomplished and the new Buddha
successfully cast. This story has a pleasant and in-
structive little moral of its own, though perhaps the
Western reader will be chiefly struck by the parallel
between the madman's two cash and the Widow's
two mites. ^ In each case the value of the gift lay not
in the amount given but in the spirit of the giver.

A glance at the interior of a Buddhist temple at
Weihaiwei shows that there is little or nothing left
here of any form of Buddhism that is worthy of the
name. A native from Burma, Siam and Ceylon
(where comparatively pure forms of Buddhism are still
to be found) would recognise the image of Sakyamuni,
but otherwise he would see hardly anything to in-
dicate that the Light of Asia had ever penetrated to
this far corner of the continent. The people, as we
have seen, know nothing of the life of the Buddha
and next to nothing of his teachings, while the priests
— temple caretakers would be a more fitting descrip-
tion for them — know not much more than the people.
Here, as in the greater part of China, efforts have
evidently been made to popularise the Buddhist temples
by the introduction of the images of Taoist divinities
— especially the various gods that bring material
prosperity and heal diseases. A Buddhist temple
therefore contains nearly as many images as a Taoist

' Mark xii. 41-4, and Luke xxi. 1-4. Buddhism also has a story of
a Widow who gave as an offering two pieces of copper. It occurs in
a Chinese version of the Buddhacarita of Asvagosha.

CHRISTIANITY IN WEIHAIWEI 407

temple : if they were excluded the temple would be
deserted, and the sole revenue— apart from the profits
arising from a few cultivated fields — would probably
be a small sum paid annually by laymen for the
privilege of storing their unused coffins in the temple
precincts.

Weihaiwei is not by any means unique in respect
of the decayed state of Buddhism. It is hardly too
much to say that Buddhism as a distinct religion only
exists in China in certain famous monastic centres.
The only true Buddhists are the monks of the great
monasteries (to be found chiefly south of the Yangtse)
and the people of certain localities where monastic
influences happen to be strong. Elsewhere Buddhism
has indeed tinged— sometimes very deeply — the re-
ligious life and customs of the people, especially in
the beliefs and ceremonies relating to death and burial,
but it can hardly be said to be a separate living
faith.

Of other religions besides the San Chiao — the "Three
Doctrines" of Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism —
there is very little to be said so far as Weihaiwei is
concerned. Mohammedanism exists in certain parts
of the province — as in Chinan-fu and Ch'ing-chou-
fu — but there is no trace of it in Weihaiwei or
its neighbourhood. Both Catholic and Protestant
Missions exist, and there are some converts to
Christianity. At present — 1910 — there are reported
to be about fifty baptized Catholics besides some
catechumens preparing for baptism ; there are also
eighty-three Christians belonging to Protestant de-
nominations. The Christians may thus be said to
number less than one-tenth of one per cent, of the
inhabitants of the Territory.

CHAPTER XVII

RELIGION AND SUPERSTITION IN EAST AND WEST

We have now made a rough survey of the different
religious systems that are to be found in China, and
especially in that part of China with which these
pages are chiefly concerned ; and it is not improbable
that the reader's verdict will be that Confucianism
is an admirable if unemotional system of ethics, that
Buddhism has decayed out of recognition, and that
Taoism has degenerated into mere ritual, mythology
and image-worship. But before we reproach the
Chinese for the childish superstitions that seem to
occupy so large a place in their outlook on life, let
us remember that the Chinese are very far from
believing all they are supposed to believe. ,

When writers on comparative m3'thology and re- '
ligion declare that this or that race holds this or that
strange belief they do not necessarily mean that such
belief is present to the minds of the people in question
in the definite and clear-cut fashion that a dogma of
the Christian faith may be supposed to present itself
to a devout Catholic. A so-called belief, when it
comes to be closely examined, is often found to be
nothing more than some quaint old fancy that has
crystallised itself in the form of a quasi-religious
ceremonial. Many a strange national or tribal custom
that seems to presuppose a definite religious belief j
is carried on because it is traditional ; the belief that

408

CUSTOMS AND BELIEFS 409

it represents may or may not be extinct : in some
cases, indeed, it has obviously been invented to
explain the existence of a ceremony the cause of
which has long been forgotten. Sometimes the
custom lingers on — like the children's masquerades
in the first Chinese month at Weihaiwei ^ — not only
after the ideas that originally prompted it have dis-
appeared but in spite of the fact that no one has
thought it worth while to evolve a new theory of
origin.

If it were definitely proved that these children's
dances sprang from prehistoric magical rites con-
nected with the growth of the crops, we might
soon hear from European writers on myth and
religion that *' the people of Weihaiwei hold certain
dances in the first inonth of each year in the belief
that they will conduce to good harvests." Yet this
would be a misleading statement, for whatever the
origin of the custom may have been the people of
Weihaiwei at the present time are absolutely des-
titute of any such belief. When studying comparative
religion in books it is very necessary to be on
one's guard against obtaining quite erroneous im-
pressions of the actual conditions of belief among
the people treated of, for however careful and con-
scientious the writers may be, it is very difficult for
them (writing very largely from travellers' and mis-
sionaries' notes) to distinguish between a belief that
is an active religious force and a stereotyped custom
which merely represents a belief that existed or is
supposed to have existed in days gone by. The
mistakes that arise are of course the natural result
of studying books about men instead of studying the
men themselves. Unfortunately all of us are obliged
to rely on books to a great extent, as life is too short
to enable each of us to make himself personally
familiar with the customs and religious ideas of more
than a very grnall number of different races. But this

? S^e pp. 183-4.

4IO RELIGION AND SUPERSTITION

fact ought to make us particularly careful not to run
the risk of misleading others by misunderstanding
and therefore erroneously reporting the facts that
have come under our own observation.

There are few of the minor superstitious practices
of the Chinese which are regarded by their Western
teachers as more ridiculous and contemptible than
their strange fancy that they can send money, articles
of furniture and clothing and written messages to the
dead by the simple and economical expedient of
burning paper images or representations of such
things. Perhaps at a Chinese funeral one may be
shocked to see a liberal-minded Chinese gentleman
of one's own acquaintance joining the rest of the
mourners in this foolish occupation. If, after having
gained his confidence, one asks him whether he literally
believes that paper money will turn into real money
in the other world or that his dead ancestors actually
require a supply of money to help them to keep up
appearances among their brother ghosts, he will in
all likelihood say that of course he believes in nothing
of the kind, but that the paper-burning forms part
of the customary rites and it is not for him to alter
them. Perhaps he will say that the women and
children believe, and that an attempt to disabuse them
of their silly notions might unsettle their minds and
cause trouble.

If he is a scholar he will perhaps say something like
this : " In ancient times real valuables were thrown
into the grave. Money, jewels, animals, even living
men and women were once buried with the dead.
When it was decided that this custom must be given
up it was thought necessary to keep ignorant minds
quiet by explaining that worthless imitations of the
real articles would serve the purpose equally well ;
so clay and wood and paper began to be used at
funerals, and their use still continues. It is a foolish
custom, but we think it helps to convey a useful
lesson to the average unthinkingi man gand woman

SUPERSTITIONS IN CHINA AND ROME 411

and makes them feel that they are bound to their dead
ancestors by ties of love and reverence and gratitude.
The more strongly their feelings are moved in this
v^ay the more likely will they be to rule their families
well and to lead peaceful and orderly and industrious
lives. They might show love and reverence for the
dead in some better way than by burning heaps of
paper ? I grant you : but it happens to be our way,
and when we ourselves or rather the superstitious
masses begin to disbelieve in it and laugh at it then
it will be time enough to make a change."

But why should we take the Chinese to task for
a custom which we tolerate within a stone's throw
of the Vatican itself? How puzzled our Chinese
gentleman would be, after listening to our arguments
on the folly of burning paper for the dead, to read
such a paragraph as this : " In the Church of the
Jesuit College at Rome lies buried St. Aloysius
Gonzaga, on whose festival it is customary especially
for the college students to write letters to him, which
are placed on his gaily decorated and illuminated
altar, and afterwards burned unopened. The mira-
culous answering of these letters is vouched for in
an English book of 1870."^

It is well to remember that as regards the world
beyond the grave and the nature of spirits the Chinese
ideas — like those of the average European — are vague
and inconsistent. The ordinary Christian seems able
to reconcile in his own mind (perhaps by providing
himself with separate thought-tight compartments)
all kinds of heterogeneous beliefs and notions about
heaven and hell and the Day of Judgment and the
present lot of those who have " gone before." A
Chinese who, knowing nothing of Western religious
notions, began with an unbiassed mind to study many
of our Church hymns, our old-fashioned epitaphs and
obituary notices, our funeral sermons and a good deal
of our serious poetry (such as Tennyson's magnificent

' Tylor's Primitive Culture (4th ed.), vol. ii. p. 122.

412 RELIGION AND SUPERSTITION

" Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington ") would
probably account for obvious inconsistencies of doctrine
by the supposition that the eschatological ideas of the
West were rather like those of his own land, inasmuch
as each dead man evidently possessed at least three souls
— one that remained in the grave, another that hovered
round the bereaved relatives, and a third that wore a
crown in heaven. Yet the devout church-goer would
doubtless be surprised to hear that his prayers and
hymns contained any words which could give an out-
sider so false an impression of his real belief.

I have been asked this question : How is it that from
all accounts the Chinese are such sensible and in-
telligent men and yet hold such puerile and idiotic
views about nature and religion ? The answer is that
backwardness in scientific knowledge (especially in
such knowledge as has been acquired very recently
even by Western peoples) is accountable for many of
their foolish imaginings, but that a very great number
of the most childish superstitions and customs of the
Chinese are not founded on any existing beliefs at all
but are merely traditional forms. The " heathen "
rites so harrowingly described by missionaries are
very often much more harmless than one would
suppose from their accounts. A careless Chinese
traveller in England might after observing some of our
English rites and customs tell tales which would make
England appear hardly less grotesque than poor China
appears in numberless books written by well-inten-
tioned foreigners. If he visited an old-fashioned
country-house in England and watched the yule-log
blazing in the hall at Christmas time he might suppose
(after learning the origin of the custom) that his host
was knowingly practising an old heathen rite connected
with the winter solstice.^

* For other examples of the " extraordinary survival of pagan fancies
amidst Christian worship " see Gomme's Folk-lore Relics of Early
Village Life, pp. 138-44 ; and the works of Tylor, Frazer and other
anthropologists passim.

MAY MORNING AT MAGDALEN COLLEGE 413

At dawn on May Morning it is the custom for the
surpliced choristers of Magdalen College to ascend the
Great Tower and there greet the rising sun with
the sweet strains of a Latin hymn. Just as the full
circle of the sun flushes with morning light the grey
stone pinnacles the beautiful hymn comes to an end,
and the tower — the " dawn-smitten Memnon of a
happier hour" — trembles and sways as its eight mighty
bells leap into glad music and awaken " the college of
the lily" into joyous life. No one seems to know the
certain origin of the ancient rite of which this is a
survival, but some have said that it represents an
old heathen ceremony connected with the worship of
the sun. The rite (in a modern form) is very properly
kept up because it is singularly beautiful— the most
beautiful and impressive ceremony of its kind practised
throughout the length and breadth of England. But
would not Oxford be politely surprised and somewhat
amused if our Chinese traveller were to inform his
fellow-countrymen that sun-worship was still kept up
at England's academic capital and that the President
of Magdalen was an Egyptian initiate or a Druid ?

The analogy between Chinese and English survivals
is far from perfect. Heathen ceremonies in England
have been Christianised ; in China all ceremonies
remain " heathen." But, after all, the difference ceases
to oppress us by its magnitude if we regard Religion
as One though creeds are many. What good do we
do the cause of truth by heaping disagreeable epithets
on faiths other than our own ? Socrates was de-
nounced as an atheist by his fellow-countrymen.
Which of us now would not be proud to have been an
atheist with Socrates ? Christians themselves were
at one time stigmatised as atheists by both Greeks
and Romans. What good does the Vatican do to the
cause of Christ by vituperating the Modernists because
they are honest ? What did Athanasius gain, either
for himself or for "Orthodoxy," by applying to the
Arians such ugly names as " devils, antichrists, maniacs

414 RELIGION AND SUPERSTITION

leeches, beetles, gnats, chameleons, hydras " and other
terms equally discourteous?^

But, comes the reply, when we say the Chinese are
idolaters we are only stating a simple fact that any one
can verify for himself. " That the Chinese have
profound faith in their idols," says a Western writer,
"is a fact that cannot for a moment be questioned.
China is a nation of idolaters, and neither learning nor
intelligence nor high birth tends to quench the belief
that has come down from the past that these wooden
gods have a power of interfering in human life, and
of being able to bestow blessings or to send down
curses upon men." ^

Now this question of idolatry is a difficult one to
deal with, for plain speaking is sure to offend. It is
on the heads of the unfortunate Chinese " idols " that
the vials of Christian wrath are chiefly poured. As a
matter of fact it is rather questionable whether the
images in Chinese temples are correctly described as
idols at all. Surely it would be less misleading to
reserve that term for images which are regarded as
gods per se and not merely as clay or wooden repre-
sentations of gods. One sees a Chinese " wor-
shipping " an image, say, of Kuan Yin. Does he regard
Kuan Yin as actually present before him or does he
merely regard the image as a man-made statue of his
goddess, — an image set up as an aid to pra3^er or as
a stimulator of the imagination or the emotions ?

Theoretically, at least, he most emphatically does not
believe that the goddess is herself before him : for he
knows perfectly well that if he walks two miles to
another temple he will find another image of the same
divinity ; and that if he wishes to do so he may come
across three or four Kuan Yins in the course of
a single day's walk. On the island of Pootoo he
could see dozens in a couple of hours. Unless the

' See Max Miiller's Lectures on the Origin of Religion (1901 ed.),
p. 312.
* The Rev. T. Macgovvan, Sidelights on Chifiese Lt/e, p. 83.

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THE IDOLS OF CHINA 4^5

goddess is endowed with multiple personalities it is
obvious that she cannot possibly be present in every
image, and that all these clay figures are therefore
merel}^ lifeless statues which fulfil a useful enough
function in exciting the devotional feelings of wor-
shippers who might feel unable to offer up prayers to
a blank wall. If the Christian urges that the Chinese
worshipper of Kuan Yin is still an idolater because
there is no such person as Kuan Yin either in the
material world or in the spiritual and that there-
fore nothing remains to worship but the image, it
may at least be tentatively suggested that if indeed
there be a God of Love then the prayers that fly
forth on the wings of sincerity from an upright
heart will not be allowed — though they be misdirected
— to flutter aimlessly for ever in some dark region
of Godlessness.

That the Chinese sometimes treat the images of
their gods or saints as if they were sentient creatures
is true enough. They are taken out in processions,
for example, and sometimes — if public prayers have
been disregarded — they are buffeted and even muti-
lated. This is simply another instance of the remark-
able inconsistency that seems to go hand in hand
with religious opinions all over the world, and in
the case of the most ignorant classes is doubtless
due to the fact that many uneducated people cannot
conceive of the existence of a being that is in no way
cognisable by the bodily senses. Is Christendom free
from such inconsistency? Certainly not in the matter
of images,^ as any one may see for himself at any
time in southern Europe and elsewhere. There is a
story told of St. Bernard, who eight hundred years
ago knelt in a cathedral in front of an image of
Mary. Devoutly and fervently he commenced to
pray : " O gracious, mild and highly favoured
Mother of God," he began : when lo ! the image
opened its lips and vouchsafed an answer. " Welcome,

' See above, pp. 335 seq.

4i6 RELIGION AND SUPERSTITION

my Bernard ! " it said. In high displeasure the saint
rose to his feet. " Silence ! " he said, with a frown
at his holy patron. " No woman is allowed to speak
in the congregation."

Let us pass this over as a fable, for it finds no place
in the A urea Legenda and is useful only as an
indication that St. Bernard, though doubtless a true
disciple of St. Paul,^ took a somewhat ungenerous
view of women's rights. But there are other facts
to be noted which are not fables. ** Is it not notorious,"
says Max Miiller, "what treatment the images of
saints receive at the hands of the lower classes in
Roman Catholic countries ? Delia Valle relates that
Portuguese sailors fastened the image of St. Anthony
to the bowsprit, and then addressed him kneeling,
with the following words : * O St. Anthony, be pleased
to stay there till thou hast given us a fair wind for
our voyage.' Frezier writes of a Spanish captain
who tied a small image of the Virgin Mary to the
mast, declaring that it should hang there till it had
granted him a favourable wind. Kotzebue declares
that the Neapolitans whip their saints if they do not
grant their requests." ^ In a missionary's account of
China 1 recently came across a statement to the
effect that in this land of idolatry, gamblers and other
evil-doers will sometimes take the precaution of
bandaging their idols' eyes so that the divinity may
not be aware of what they are doing. This I believe
is true enough, and it proves that in such cases, at j
least, the clay figures are supposed to be endowed
with human senses ; unless indeed the real idea at
the root of the proceeding is connected with what is]
known as sympathetic magic: "As I bandage the
eyes of the god's image so the eyes of the god him-
self (wherever he may be) will for the nonce bej
sightless." But even this practice is not unknown

' I Corinthians, chap. xiv. 34-5.

- Lectures on the Origin of Religion (1901 ed.), p. 106 Cf. also
Farnell's Evolution of Religion, pp. 41-8.

IDOLATRY IN CHRISTENDOM 417

to Christendom, however repugnant it may be to
Christianity. In the passage from which I have just
quoted Max Miiller goes on to mention an analogous
practice in Russia : " Russian peasants, we are told,
cover the face of an image when they are doing
anything unseemly, nay, they even borrow their
neighbours' saints if they have proved themselves
particularly successful," '

There are Protestant missionaries who will agree
that in tolerating superstitions of this kind the Roman
Catholics and the Greek Church are as bad or nearly
as bad as the Chinese themselves — and they will not
hesitate to let their Chinese "enquirers" know what
their opinions on the subject are. The Rev. J. Edkins,
in describing a great Roman Catholic establishment
at Shanghai, remarks that " it caused us some painful
reflections to see them forming images of Joseph
and Mary and other Scripture personages, in the same
way that idol-makers in the neighbouring towns were
moulding Buddhas and gods of war and riches,
destined too to be honoured in much the same
manner." 2 Elsewhere the same writer remarks that
" unfortunately, Catholicism must always carry with it
the worship of the Madonna, the masses for the dead,
the crucifix and the rosary. Some of the books the
Jesuits have published in Chinese contain the purest
Christian truth ; but it is an unhappy circumstance
that they must be accompanied by others which teach
frivolous superstition."^ It is interesting to observe
with what comfortable confidence the Protestant
missionary tacitly assumes infallibility as to what
does and what does not constitute the purest Christian
truth and what is and what is not frivolous super-
stition. Noah's ark and Jonah's whale would no
doubt come under the former heading, the doctrine
of the Real Presence under the latter. Yet Dr. Edkins

' Lectures on the Origin of Religion (1901 ed.), p. 106.

* Religion in China (1893 ed.), p. 169.

* Op. cit. p. 14.

27

4i8 RELIGION AND SUPERSTITION

might have remembered that Roman Catholicism and
the Eastern (Greek) Church embrace, after all, an
exceedingly large part of Christendom, and are just
as confident of their own possession of the truth as
he was. As for Protestants, if they have refrained
from worshipping pictures and images, have they not
come perilously near worshipping a Book ?

No wonder Emergency Committees and English
University officials are bestirring themselves to find
means for the education of China when they are
told, for example, that the people of that country
from the Emperor downwards believe that an eclipse
signifies the eating of the sun or moon by a celestial
dog or a dragon. Perhaps it may be worth while to
dwell a little on this particular superstition. I will
not venture to deny that this quaint belief is honestly
held by many, but I may say that after questioning
very many Chinese, mostly ignorant and illiterate, on
this threadbare subject I have only discovered one
who appeared (after cross-examination) sincerely to
believe that eclipses are caused by a hungry beast.
That person was an old woman (only half Chinese
by race) who kept a tea-house near Tali in western
Yunnan. Her confession of belief, I may add, was
greeted with roars of laughter by the crowd of
Chinese coolies who were sipping their tea close by
and who heard my question and the woman's reply.

In Dr. Tylor's great work we read that the Chiquitos
of South America " thought " that the moon in an
eclipse was hunted across the sky by huge dogs, and
they raised frightful howls and lamentation to drive
them off; the Caribs "thought" that the demon
Maboya, hater of light, was seeking to devour the sun
and moon, and danced and howled all night to scare
him away; the Peruvians "imagined" that a monstrous
beast was eating the moon and shouted and sounded
musical instruments to frighten him, and even beat
their own dogs in order to make them join in the
general uproar. Other similar theories existed in

FU-SANG 419

North America also.^ It is curious to find such
customs existing in both Asia and America. Some
have thought that Fu-sang,^ the mysterious land of
bUss and immortality, which according to song and
legend lay very far away in the eastern ocean, was a
portion of the American continent;^ and it has even
been held that an ambassador from Fu-sang (or a
Chinese who had visited Fu-sang and had safely
returned) was received at the Chinese Imperial Court,
where he gave an account of the strange land. China's
possible knowledge of the existence of the American
continent in prehistoric days is a fascinating subject
that we cannot pursue here, but with reference to the
accounts of the American eclipse-theories one feels
inclined to ask whether the peoples named were as
a matter of fact convinced of the truth of the dog
or demon theory while they were beating tom-toms
and shouting themselves hoarse, or whether the
practices referred to by Dr. Tylor did not merely
represent the survival in comparatively civilised times
of a custom which in a ruder age had been based on
a real belief This would not of course mean — either
in China or America — that the belief might not still
be vaguely held by ignorant women and children and
even in a thoughtless way by many average men.
They would " believe " that some horrid beast was
eating the sun just as a modern child — the Victorian
child, at least, if not the Edwardian — usually "believed"
that Santa Claus was a benevolent old gentleman who
entered people's houses by way of the chimney.

There are always people to be found in every race
whose minds are of the receptive but unanalytic order
— people who continue to believe anything they have
been told in childhood simply because it does not
occur to them to ask questions or to think out

1 Tylor's Primitive Culture (4th ed.), vol. i. pp. 328 seq.
^ See pp. 21, 24-5. To the Japanese Fu-sang is known as Fusd.
^ .See Memoire sur Fou-sang, by M. le Marquis d'Hervey de Saint-
Denys. (Paris, 1876.)

420 RELIGION AND SUPERSTITION

problems for themselves. Whether such a mental
attitude is worthy of being called an attitude of
" belief" is another matter. What makes it sus-
piciously probable that the shouting and uproar
among certain American tribes was merely a cere-
monial survival from a primitive age is the fact that
entirely different and much more reasonable theories
of the cause of a lunar or solar eclipse were known
and apparently assented to by the very people who
nominally believed in the hungry-dog theory. "Pass-
ing on from these most primitive conceptions," says
Dr. Tylor, " it appears that natives of both South and
North America fell upon philosophic myths some-
what nearer the real facts of the case, insomuch as
they admit that the sun and moon cause eclipses of
one another." ^ A further significant observation is
made that the Aztecs, " as part of their remarkable
astronomical knowledge, seem to have had an idea
of the real cause of eclipses," yet " kept up a relic of
the old belief by continuing to speak in mythologic
phrase of the sun and moon being eaten."

It is the old story, that to introduce changes into
religious ceremonial is considered impious or sacri-
legious, even when the advance of knowledge renders
such ceremonial meaningless. One hears of stone
knives being used by priests for sacrificial purposes
long ages after metal has come into common use,
simply because a kind of sanctity is attached to the
form of instrument that was used when the sacrificial
rite itself was young : though it had only been
selected originally because in the stone age nothing
better was available. One of the stone knives of
some Western Churches is the so-called Creed of
St. Athanasius. There are many other stone imple-
ments in the ecclesiastical armouries of the West, but
some of them are cunningly carved and regilded from
time to time so that as long as no one examines them
too critically they are regarded without disfavour.

^ Op. cit. p. 329.

THEORIES OF ECLIPSES 421

But the carving and gilding will not hide their im-
perfections for ever.

Writing of events at Canton, Dr. Wells Williams
says that " an almost total eclipse of the moon called
out the entire population, each one carrying some-
thing with which to make a noise, kettles, pans, sticks,
drums, gongs, guns, crackers and what not to frighten
away the dragon of the sky from his hideous feast . . .
silence gradually resumed its sway as the moon re-
covered her fulness." ^ Dr. Williams does not say so,
but the fact was that the townspeople were simply
availing themselves of a recognised and legitimate
opportunity to have what English schoolboys might
call a " rag." If he had scrutinised the faces of the
gong-beaters he would have observed that the pre-
vailing feelings were those of mirth and good-humour,
not of terror at the occurrence of a distressing
celestial calamity. The stereotyped nature of the
official ceremonies (in which every action is carefully
prescribed) that take place during an eclipse, not
to mention the fact that eclipses have for centuries
been regularly foretold by the Court astronomers,
ought to be sufficient to show that the noisy cere-
monial is merely a rather interesting survival from
an age of complete scientific ignorance and perhaps
barbarism.

It seems very possible, indeed, that the eclipse-
theory supposed to be generally held in China is not
a traditional inheritance of the Chinese race but came
to them in comparatively recent times from some less
civilised neighbour, possibly an Indian or a central
Asiatic race. It is hardly likely to have come from
America ; for even if the Fu-sang stories are not
mere fairy-tales it is not probable that China can have
borrowed her superstitions from so distant a source.
If China was foolish enough to borrow the beast-
theory from India, she may at least retort that it was
borrowed by Europe too : for the same theory, with
* The Middle Kingdom (1883 ed.), vol. i. p. 819.

422 RELIGION AND SUPERSTITION

or without variations, has existed even on the Con-
tinent and in the British Isles. ^

It is noteworthy that the oldest books extant in the
Chinese language mention eclipses but give no hint of
the beast-theory, and the philosopher Wang Ch'ung
(first century a.d.), whose delight it was to de-
molish foolish superstitions, mentions several explana-
tions (wise and foolish) of eclipses without directly or
indirectly referring to that which we have been con-
sidering. He would certainly have referred to it if
it had been known to him. Whatever may have been
the date of their first observance, the official eclipse-
rites (which are said to have been recently abolished
by order of the Prince-Regent) continued to exist
through the centuries simply because, partly from
political motives, Chinese Governments have always
been very reluctant to interfere with established
customs. Much of the imperial ritual carried on at
the present day in connection with the worship of
Heaven and Earth is a pure matter of form so far
as religious belief goes. If the Emperor gave up the
grand ceremonials conducted annually at the Altar of
Heaven it would doubtless be interpreted to mean that
he had lost faith in his own divine right to rule and that
the Manchu dynasty was about to abdicate the throne.

On the whole, then, we may conclude that in spite
of appearances the Chinese do not, as a nation, hold
that when the moon is passing through the earth's
shadow it means that the moon is being devoured by a
hungry dragon. That very many Chinese will profess
belief in the dragon, if suddenly asked about the cause
of an eclipse, is perfectly true. Somewhat similarly,
many an Englishman, if suddenly asked what became
of Red Riding Hood's grandmother, would probably
reply without hesitation that the wretched old lady
was eaten by a wicked wolf.

' Tylor, op. cit. vol. i. pp. 333-4. The superstition exists throughout
Indo-Chiiiaandthe Malay Peninsula. See, for instance, Skeat's yl/rt/rt_>'
Magic, pp. 11-13.

CHINESE SUPERSTITIONS 423

A missionary writer already quoted states tliat
though the Chinese are gifted with a keen sense of
humour, " when they come to deal with the question
of spirits and ghosts and ogres they seem to lose their
reasoning faculties, and to believe in the most out-
rageous things that a mind with an ordinary power of
the perception of the ludicrous would shrink from
admitting."^ That the Chinese (like multitudes of
Europeans) do believe in some outrageous and
ridiculous things I am quite ready to admit, but it is
necessary again to emphasise the undoubted fact that
many Chinese (like multitudes of Europeans) seem to
believe in a great deal more than they really do, and
that what seems like active belief is often nothing
more than a passive acquiescence in tradition. Let
us remember that in China, as in our own Western
lands, relics of early barbarism hold their own through
ages of civilisation " by virtue of the traditional
sanctity which belongs to survival from remote
antiquity."^ As time goes on and knowledge grows
(especially among the mothers of the race) many of the
unreasonable forms of traditional belief and many of
the crude ideas which are accepted in China because
traditional, though not really believed in, will gradu-
ally decay and disappear ; arms and heads will fall off
clay images and will not be replaced ; temple-roofs
will fall in and will not be repaired ; annual processions
and festivals will be kept up because they provide
holidays for hard-working adults and are a source of
delight to the children, but will gradually become
more and more secular in character; while ghosts and
devils will be relegated to the care of lovers of folk-
lore or (perhaps with truer wisdom) submitted as
subjects of serious study to a future Chinese society
for psychical research.

It often happens that a writer on matters connected
with religion in a " heathen" land will tell little stories

' Rev. J. Macgovvan, op. at. p. 67.
^ Tylor, op. cit. vol. ii. p. 167.

424 RELIGION AND SUPERSTITION

intended to illustrate the unsatisfying nature of the
"heathen" rites, thus leaving the inference to be
drawn that what the unhappy " pagans " are uncon-
sciously in want of is Christianity with its crystallised
statements of truth. Such a little story is the follow-
ing, told by a writer upon whose pages I have drawn
more than once.^ " ' What have you gained to-day in
your appeal to the goddess ? ' I asked of a man that I
had seen very devout in his prayers. He looked at
me with a quick and searching glance. * You ask me
what answer I have got to my petition to the goddess ? '
he said. 'Yes,' I replied, * that is what I want to know
from you.' ' Well, you have asked me more than I
can tell you. The whole question of the idols is a
profoundly mysterious one that no one can fathom.
Whether they do or can help people is something I
cannot tell. I worship them because my fathers did
so before me, and if they were satisfied, so must I be.
The whole thing is a mystery,' and he passed on with
the look of a man who was puzzled with a problem
that he could not solve, and that look is a permanent
one on the face of the nation to-day."

Perhaps there are a good many Englishmen and
Americans who on reading this instructive little
dialogue may be tempted to sympathise not a little
with the idol-worshipper. A profound mystery that
no one can fathom ! I worship them because my
fathers did so before me ! Are there not thousands
and thousands of Western people who might in all
sincerity use those very words ? For in spite of
everything that all the Churches and all the prophets
and all the philosophers have done for us, in spite
of all we have learned from dogmas and revela-
tions and sacred books, we are still groping in
darkness. The whole thing is a mystery, and the man
who can solve it is wiser than any man who has
yet lived. Yes, inevitably replies the Protestant
missionary, but God can solve it : and he has done so,

' Rev. J. Macgovvan, op. cit. pp. 92-^.

WHAT IS TRUTH? 425

for to us He has revealed the Truth. Not to you, but
to Me! cries the Holy Catholic Church. Not to you,
but to us ! cry the Anglican and the Baptist and the
Unitarian and the Quaker and the Theist and the
Swedenborgian and the Mormon and the Seventh
Day Adventist and the Christian Scientist and the
Plymouth Brother and the Theosophist. Not to you,
but to us! cry the Jew and the Mohammedan and
the Brahman and the Sikh and the Babist and the
Zoroastrian.

What is Truth ?

The Castle of Religion is guarded by an ever-
watchful band of armoured giants called Creeds and
Dogmas. When a lonely knight- errant rides up to
the castle gate eager to liberate the lady Truth who
he knows lies somewhere within, he is met by the
giant warders, who repel him with menaces and blows.
"You seek Truth?" they exclaim. " You need go no
further. We are Truth." Some think that if the
giants were slain the lordly castle itself would fade
like a dream. Why should it fade ? More likely is it
that nothing but their defeat and death can save the
time-battered walls from crumbling to utter decay ;
that only then the drawbridge will fall and the
darkened windows blaze into lines of festal light ; that
only by stepping across those huge prostrate forms
shall we ever come face to face with the Lady of the
Castle — no more a manacled captive, but free and
ready to step forth, gloriously apparelled and radiant
with beauty, to receive for the first time a world's
homage. From the lips of Truth herself will the
question of the jesting Pilate at last be answered.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE FUTURE

The past history of Weihaiwei is not sucli as to justify
very high expectations of a dazzling future. It has
never tasted the sweets of commercial prosperity and
perhaps it is hardly likely to do so in days to come.
Its situation near the eastern extremity of Shantung
is such that the ports of Chefoo and Tsingtao are
almost inevitably bound to intercept the greater part
of the trade that might otherwise reach it from west
or south, while ocean-borne merchandise is not likely
to find its way into the northern provinces of China
through the gateway of Weihaiwei when there are
ports, more favourably situated as distributing centres,
a few scores of miles further westward. Weihaiwei
has a valuable asset in its harbour, which is superior
to that of Chefoo, though its superiority is hardly so
great as to neutralise its several disadvantages. Yet
the very unsuitability of the port for purposes of com-
merce tends to increase its potential value as a naval
base — if, indeed, all naval bases do not become ob-
solete in the rapidly-approaching era of aerial warfare.
The Chinese naval officer of the future may congratu-
late himself on the fact that here can arise no conflict
of naval and mercantile interests, such as is bound to
occur from time to time in ports like Hongkong. The
deep-water anchorage of Weihaiwei is not large
enough to accommodate a squadron of battleships as

426

PROSPECTS OF WEIHAIWEI 427

well as a fleet of ocean liners, and if Weihaiwei were
to develop into a great naval port it is difficult to see
how in any circumstances it could show much hos-
pitality to merchant shipping.

The naval authorities of China, therefore, would
have it "all their own way" in one of the best
harbours of north China. They could build forts,
carry out big-gun practice in the neighbouring waters,
land men and guns for martial exercises at all points
along the coast, establish naval depots and dockyards
on the island and the mainland, all at a minimum of
cost and without in any appreciable degree interfering
with vested interests ashore. All this was recognised
by the Chinese Government long ago, when Wei-
haiwei was, as a matter of fact, a military and naval
station second only in importance to the Manchurian
fortress of Port Arthur.

The conspicuous and not inglorious part played by
Weihaiwei during the Sino-Japanese war of 1894-5
has already been mentioned. Many of the guns
which, it was vainly hoped, would effectually protect
the approaches to the eastern entrance to the harbour,
are still lying amid the ruins of a chain of forts extend-
ing from the village of Hai-pu to that of Hsieh-chia-so.
The fine military road that connected the forts is now
in many places barely traceable, for its masonry has
been carted away by unsentimental Chinese farmers
for use in the construction of dwelling-houses, and
here and there the road itself has actually been
ploughed up and made to yield a scanty crop of sweet
potatoes,— for even so does the prosaic spirit of agri-
cultural enterprise avenge itself upon the pomps and
vanities of wicked warfare. But forts can be re-
constructed, heavier and more modern guns can be
purchased, military roads can be rebuilt ; and this is
what doubtless will take place when China has decided
to undertake the task of creating a fleet of warships
and of re-establishing Weihaiwei as a naval base.

But, the bewildered reader may ask, where does

428 THE FUTURE

Great Britain come in? Is not Weihaiwei a British
Colony ? If forts are to be built, will they not be
British forts ; if war-fleets are to ride at anchor in the
harbour of Weihaiwei, will they not be British fleets?
The answer to this is that the British Government
had given up all idea of fortifying Weihaiwei even
before the result of the Russo-Japanese war and the
fall of Port Arthur had drawn attention to the merely
temporary nature of the occupation of Weihaiwei.
Moreover, Weihaiwei is not officially recognised as
an integral portion of the King's " dominions beyond
the seas"; it is occupied and administered by Great
Britain, but its inhabitants — as we have already
seen ^ — are not, with technical accuracy, to be de-
scribed as British subjects. Weihaiwei has never
been ceded to the British Crown, and when it is
restored to China the British Crown will suffer no
diminution of lustre, though doubtless unjustifiable
murmurs will be heard concerning the damage to
British prestige. As to when rendition is to take
place, this is entirely a matter for international agree-
ment; though it will be remembered that the date of
the expiration of the original Russian lease of Port
Arthur will not take place until March 1923.^

As the trade of Weihaiwei is (at least from the point
of view of European mercantile interests) almost a

' See p. 85.

^ In Article iii. of the " Port Arthur and Talienwan Agreement "
between Russia and China it is provided that " the duration of the
lease shall be twenty-five years from the day this treaty is signed
[March 27, 1898], but may be extended by mutual agreement between
Russia and China." It may be noted that the British, German and
Russian treaties with respect to the leases of Weihaiwei, of the
Kowloon Extension (ninety-nine years), of Kiaochou (ninety-nine
years) and Port Arthur (twenty-five years), all stipulate that Chinese
war-vessels, whether neutral or not, retain the right to the free use
of the several leased harbours. It is a right that seems to be seldom
exercised. The ultimate "sovereignty" of China over the various
leased territories is specially safeguarded in the treaties relating to
Kiaochou and Port Arthur, and has been admitted in respect of
Weihaiwei.

CHINESE PATRIOTISM 429

negligible quantity, it may be said that the place is
useful to Great Britain only as a summer resort for
her warships stationed in Far Eastern seas : and it
may be observed that as the port is totally unfortified
the interests of the British Navy would hardly suffer
if the whole of the mainland territory were unre-
servedly restored to China and only the island of
Liukung and the right to use the waters of the
harbour retained in British hands. An arrangement
of this kind, however, would only be welcomed
by China so long as she was without a navy of
her own.

A question that is often asked by Western visitors
to Weihaiwei is one that does not directly concern the
Government either of China or of Great Britain. Are
the people of Weihaiwei pleased with British rule?
Would they be glad or sorry to pass once more under
the yoke of Chinese administrators ? That the people
appreciate the benefits directly or indirectly conferred
upon them by the British occupation there is no
reason to doubt. ^ That trade — external and internal —
is brisker, that the people are more prosperous, that
money circulates more freely and more abundantly,
that roads and other means of communication have
been greatly improved — all these things are fully
realised. But though the shopkeepers and contractors
on the island and in Port Edward would undoubtedly
vote — if they had the chance — for the perpetuation
of present conditions, I have no doubt that if the
matter were to be decided by a secret ballot among
all the people of the Territory a very great preponder-
ance of votes would be given for the resumption of
Chinese rule.

It is perhaps unnecessary to cast about for reasons
why this should be so. Many Europeans ridicule the
notion that the Chinese possess the virtue of patriotism.
Even if there be no patriotism (a very rash assumption
after all) there is certainly a strong racial feeling in

1 See pp. 93 seq.

430 THE FUTURE

China : and when race and nation are one it may
perhaps be plausibly argued that racial sentiment and
patriotic sentiment come to be interchangeable terms.
Granting that patriotism or some analogous sentiment
does exist among the people of China, surely no
Englishman need look further for a reasonable cause
why the evacuation of Weihaiwei should be welcomed
by the people.^ The Chinese of Weihaiwei do not
like to be ruled by foreigners any more than the
average Englishman would care to see Spanish rule —
let us say — established in the Isle of Wight, quite
irrespective of the merits or demerits of the foreign
rulers and their system of government.

Too much stress should not be laid on the alleged
racial antipathy between White and Yellow, inasmuch
as there is no strong basis for the too common view
that the people of East and West are so differently
constituted that they must always remain spiritually
and intellectually sundered. What is often mistaken
for a barrier of race is in many cases, I believe, merely
a barrier of language. The number of men — Chinese
or English — who can be said to have a scholarly
knowledge of the two languages is still astonishingly
small.- Yet there is unfortunately little doubt that the

' It has been urged in some quarters that the occupation of Kiaochou
by Germany and that of Weihaiwei by Great Britain are specially
objected to by the Chinese on the ground that Shantung, through its
associations with Confucius, Mencius, Chou Kung and other ancient
sages, is China's Sacred Province, and one that ought to remain
inviolate. There is no reason to suppose that this notion has any
basis in fact. The Chinese undoubtedly regard certain districts in
the south-west of Shantung with immense reverence, more particularly
the district of Ch'ii-fou, which contains the temple and tomb of Con-
fucius, but no pre-eminent sanctity attaches to the province as a whole.
The province of Shantung, indeed, did not exist as such in Confucius's
time. If China's provinces were to be arranged in order of sanctity or
inviolability it is probable that both Honan and Shensi would, for
historical reasons, take precedence of Shantung.

- There are many Chinese who speak English fluently, and the
number is increasing daily, but as a rule such persons have devoted
so much time to the acquirement of a totally alien tongue, and

RACIAL AND LINGUISTIC BARRIERS 431

antagonism between Europe and Asia, whether the
causes be racial or merely political, is in some respects
steadily growing stronger, and it is difficult to see

" Western learning " generally, that they have been obliged to neglect
the culture of their own country. (One of the greatest dangers ahead
of China is the possibility that her foreign-educated students may, .
through ignorance, grow contemptuous of the intellectual achievements
of their ancestors, and that Chinese culture may consequently suffer a
long, though probably it would not be a permanent, eclipse.) There
are also some Englishmen who can speak Chinese fluently, but very few
of them have had the time or inclination to acquire a sound knowledge
of Chinese literature. Thus it too often happens that an educated
Englishman and an educated Chinese whose natures are such that they
might become intimate friends, fail to become so through inability to
exchange ideas in the region of politics, philosopliy, literature or art.
A German and an Englishman, even if they disagree on the subject of
naval armaments, may find themselves at one in the matter of the music
of Mozart or the psychological condition of the mind of Hamlet.
Between an Englishman and a Frenchman a friendship may spring up
on the basis of a common admiration for the prose of Flaubert or
Anatole France or the philosophy of Bergson. But though there are
now many Chinese who can discourse fluently on evolution or the
conservation of energy, how many Western students of Chinese would
bear themselves creditably in a conversation with a Chinese scholar on
the ethics of Chu Hsi or the poetry of Su Tung-po? In the vast
majority of cases, conversation between a Chinese and an Englishman
(unless the relation between them is that of teacher and pupil) is very
apt to degenerate into the merest " small talk " and exchange of
civilities, and it is obvious that friendships can hardly be built up on
so slender a foundation as this. But among those Europeans and
Chinese who have successfully surmounted the barrier of language
there is, I believe, nothing to prevent the growth of sincere friendships.
Yet it should be observed that a recognition of the possibility of
intimate social intercourse between European and Chinese does not
necessarily imply an acceptance of the view that the races may safely
and successfully intermarry. This point must be emphasised, for my
own views on the subject have been to some extent misapprehended
by a very friendly critic in The Spectator (August 22, 1908, p. 268).
This question is really one for biological experts, and no definite
answer has yet been given to it, though Herbert Spencer, we know,
was strongly of opinion that the white and yellow races should not
mingle their blood. From the physiological point of view the question
is, of course, in no way concerned with any fanciful theories as to one
race being " higher " than another. (For Herbert Spencer's views see
the Appendix to Lafcadio Hearn'sya/«« .• an Interpretation^

432 THE FUTURE

how we can expect that antagonism to diminish so
long as present political conditions subsist. Asiatics,
rightly or wrongly, are acquiring the notion that
European dominion in the East has been due not to
any intrinsic superiority (biological, intellectual or
moral) of the white races, but chiefly to temporary
and (speaking unphilosophically) accidental circum-
stances that will soon cease to exist. One noble
Asiatic nation has definitely and probably for ever
freed herself from " the White Peril," and it is not
unnatural that other nations in Asia should aspire to
do the same.

" The real cause of unrest," it has been recently
said,^ " is not Indian at all, but Asiatic. The unrest
is the most visible symptom of that resentment of
prolonged European domination which is affecting the
whole continent of Asia. For 300 years the tide of
European dominion has flowed eastward, but the ebb
has now set in. Liao-yang and Mukden, the driving
back of the legions of the Tsar, gave it a stimulus
far more potent than if Bengal had been administra-
tively divided into forty pieces. It would probably
have arisen even if Japan had still remained m chain-
armour, and had never emerged from the control of
her Tycoons and her Samurai. It became inevitable
from the day that steam and quick transit broke down
the barriers of India's isolation, and her yielding
people began to cross the seas. It is part of a great
world-movement, the end of which no man can foresee.
No concessions, however sweeping, will conjure it.
We have to reckon with its continued — and most
natural — increase and growth, and to shape our course
accordingly."

This is not very pleasant reading for English — or
indeed for European — ears, but if the facts are as
stated there is nothing to be gained by ignoring them.
Setting patriotism and racial prejudices aside, there

' See an able article on " Britain's Future in India," in The Times
of June 28, 1909.

OBJECTIONS TO FOREIGN RULE 433

are other reasons why British rule could never be-
come really popular in Weihaiwei or in any part of
China. With every wish to rule the people according
to their own customs and their traditional systems of
morality, it is not always possible to do so without
a surrender of much that a European considers
essential to good order and a proper administration
of justice. The different views of East and West on
a matter so fundamental as the rights and duties of
individuals as compared with the rights and duties
of the family or clan are alone sufficient to give rise
to a popular belief that the foreign courts do not
always dispense justice. Then the Chinese believe
that our courts are much too severe on many offences
that they consider venial, and not severe enough on
offences such as burglary, piracy and armed robbery.
They also detest our insistence, in certain circum-
stances, of the post-mortem examination of human
bodies. Again, they totally fail to understand why
men who have been charged with a crime and whose
guilt in the eyes of the " plain man " is a certainty
should sometimes get off scot-free on account of
some technicality or legal quibble. If Englishmen are
sometimes driven to think that " the law is an ass,"
we may be sure that the Chinese are, at times, even
more strongly inclined to the same opinion.

If one were to ask a native of Weihaiwei what
were the characteristics of British rule that he most
appreciated one would perhaps expect him to em-
phasise the comparative freedom from petty extortion
and tyranny, the obvious endeavour (not always
successful) to dispense even-handed justice, the facili-
ties for trade, the improvement of means of communi-
cation. It was not an answer of this kind, however,
that I received from an intelligent and plain-spoken
resident to whom I put this very question. " What
is it we like best in our British rulers? I will tell
you," he said. " Our native roads are narrow path-
ways, and very often there is no room for two persons

28

434 THE FUTURE

to pass unless one yields the road to the other.
When our last rulers — the Japanese — met our small-
footed women hobbling along such a path they never
stepped aside to let the women pass, but compelled
them to clamber along the stony hillside or to stand
in a ditch. An Englishman, on the contrary, whether
mounted or on foot, always leaves the road to the
woman. He will walk deliberately into a deep snow-
drift rather than let a Chinese woman step off the
dry pathway. We have come to understand that the
men of your honourable country all act in the same
way, and this is what we like about Englishmen."

It may seem strange that a native should draw
attention to a trivial matter of this kind rather than
to some of the admirable features — as we regard them
— of British administration, yet there is very little
just cause for surprise. A year or two ago the corre-
spondent of a great newspaper indulgently referred
to Weihaiwei under British rule as affording a con-
spicuous example of the ability of individual English-
men to control — without fuss or display of force —
large masses of Orientals. Let it be granted that
the English people, or rather some Englishmen, are
endowed with the twin-instincts to rule with justice
and integrity and to serve with industry and loyalty —
for it is only the union of these two instincts or
qualities in one personality that distinguishes the
good administrator : but to regard Weihaiwei as an
example of the English power of successfully ruling
hordes of alien subjects shows a misapprehension
of the facts. Englishmen, Irishmen and Scotsmen
have carried out such splendid administrative work
in other parts of the world that there is no need to
give them credit for work which they have not done.
What makes the people of Weihaiwei law-abiding,
peaceful, industrious, punctual in the payment of
taxes, honest in their dealings one with another is
not some mysterious ruling faculty on the part of
the three or four foreign administrators who are

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THE POWER OF CONFUCIANISM 435

placed over them, but something that has existed in
China from a time when the ancestors of those ad-
ministrators were painted savages and England was
not even a name : it is filial piety, it is reverence for
law and respect for those in authority, it is the cult
of ancestors, — it is, in short, Confucianism. " The
same readiness with which we serve our father," says
one of the Chinese classics, " we should employ in
serving our Ruler, and the reverence must be the
same for both. To honour those who are in a high
position and to respect those who are in authority
is our first duty." Again, we are told that " Confucius
said, the Ruler is served with observance of hsiao
[filial piety] and elders are served with such sub-
mission as is due from a younger brother to his elder
brothers, which shows that the people should make
no distinction." ^

If the Weihaiwei Government deserves any com-
mendation at all it is only for its acceptance of
Confucian principles as the basis of administration.
Confucianism, indeed, is the foundation of the civil
law that is administered in the British Courts, Con-
fucian customs are wherever possible upheld and
enforced by the officials in their executive and judicial
capacities, and it is by the recognition of Confucianism
that the Government has been able to dismiss its
armed force. Philostratus, about seventeen hundred
years ago, wrote a book in which he tells us how
Apollonius of Tyana was one day walking with his
friend and disciple Damis when they met a small
boy riding an enormous elephant. Damis expressed
surprise at the ease and skill with which the youngster
could control and guide so huge a beast ; but Apol-
lonius succeeded in convincing him that the credit
was due not to the small boy's skill, but to the
elephant's own docility and self-control. Should we
be far wrong if we were to regard the people of

' These translations are from Dr. De Groot's Religious System of
China, vol. ii. p. 508.

436 THE FUTURE

Weihaiwei as the elephant and the local Government
as the little boy that rode it ? Perhaps, indeed, the
parallel might be applied to British dependencies
greater and more important than Weihaiwei.

The people of this corner of China are so ill-
acquainted with the politics of their country — for
there is no local newspaper, and if there were it
would have but few readers — that they possess but
the haziest notion of the probable destiny of their
port in the event of its rendition to China and the
creation of a modern Chinese navy. But indeed even
Europeans could hardly enlighten them as to the
probabilities of the future of Weihaiwei unless they
were furnished with some clue to the solution of a
much vaster problem — the future of China herself.

It is most earnestly to be hoped for China's own sake
that her rulers do not seriously intend, at present,
to place naval expansion in the forefront of their
numerous schemes for reform. The subject is one
upon which a section of the native Press has become
somewhat enthusiastic, and the recent visit to Eng-
land of a Chinese Naval Commission, under the
leadership of an Imperial prince, naturally leads one
to suppose that the Government is actually about to
undertake the exceedingly difficult, dangerous and
most costly work of securing for China a place among
the Naval Powers, Many of China's Western sym-
pathisers— especially those who have not lived in
the East — probably regard this as the best possible
proof that China is "pulling herself together" and
is already far advanced on the road of regeneration.
But there is hardly a man among China's foreign
friends and sympathisers resident in the East who
does not regard the navy scheme with dismay and
disappointment. At some future date the Chinese
may be fully justified in acquiring a great navy, but
to build a really serviceable modern fleet at the present
time is to invite a financial and political disaster of
appalling magnitude. Even if the project comes to

CHINESE NAVAL PROGRAMME 437

nothing it is a bad omen for the future that the
Chinese Government should give it serious considera-
tion at a time when all the energies and resources of
the Empire should be devoted to internal reform and
development. If China's responsible rulers do not
realise the precarious position into which the country
has drifted and the pressing necessity of administrative
reform, they are not fit to hold the helm of the State.
Common sense — if they are devoid of the higher
qualities of statesmanship — should tell them that until
the existing departments of Government have been
thoroughly reorganised, corruption stamped out, and
a spirit of loyalty and patriotism infused into all ranks
of the Civil Service, the creation of a great spending
department, such as an Admiralty or Naval Board,
will merely add enormously to the financial burdens
of the country without providing it with any reliable
safeguard or protection in the event of war.

The unfortunate thing is that every warning of this
kind received by China from her foreign friends is
received by her with doubt and suspicion. She has
realised that in one foreign war after another her
military and naval weakness has led her — or has
helped to lead her — through the dark shadows of
defeat and humiliation, and she is intensely desirous
of making such provision for her own protection that
in future foreign wars she may not be foredoomed to
disaster. When she is advised to content herself, for
the present, with a small though well-equipped army
and the most modest of coast-defence fleets, she sus-
pects that her advisers wish to keep her in a state of
perpetual weakness, so that they may continue to help
themselves, from time to time, to treaty-ports, trade
privileges, sites for churches and other missionary
buildings, mining and railway concessions and cash-
indemnities. At the present time the Power which
she regards with a more friendly eye than any other
is undoubtedly the United States of America — the
only Great Power that has occupied none of her

438 THE FUTURE

territory and the one against which she believes
herself to have least reason for complaint. A few
years ago many Western dwellers in China were
inclined to predict that a powerful offensive and de-
fensive alliance would be entered into by China and
Japan, or that Japan would assume the hegemony of
the Far East and having created a reformed China
would draw upon the immense resources of that
country to help her in establishing the supremacy of
the Yellow Race in the Eastern hemisphere. One does
not often hear this view expressed to-day, not only
because of the repeated occurrence of serious disputes
between the Chinese and Japanese Governments with
reference to Manchurian and other problems, but also
because it is now seen that the growth of a really
strong and progressive China cannot be regarded
without grave alarm by the far-seeing statesmen of
Japan. The whole of the Japanese Empire, be it
remembered, might be packed into one of China's
provinces ; the population of Japan is only about
one-tenth that of China, and her natural resources
are meagre compared with those of her huge neigh-
bour. If the development of China proceeds on the
same proportionate scale as that of Japan (and the
Japanese themselves realise that this is no impossi-
bility), it is difficult to see how Japan can reasonably
hope to maintain her present international position.

We have heard a great deal lately about the mo-
mentous change in the European balance of power
caused by the great advance of Germany in population
and wealth : let us give a loose rein to our imagina-
tions and suppose that the German Empire by skilful
diplomacy or other means has further succeeded in
annexing Austria, Denmark, Belgium and Holland,
and by successful warfare has reduced France, Italy
and Russia to a state of military imbecility. The
position of Great Britain in these circumstances
would, to say the least, be precarious and unenviable.
If she did not become the "conscript appanage" of

CHINA AND JAPAN 439

a "stronger Power" (to use the warning words of a
British Cabinet Minister) she would at least be in
a state of chronic peril, and subject to periodical
panics that might end in the disorganisation of all
industry and the demoralisation of the people.
England's position as opposed to that of a vastly-
magnified Germany would be similar in many ways
to that which Japan would occupy relatively to
a reformed, united and progressive China. Indeed,
Japan would be in a worse case than England : for
England has beaten one Napoleon, and, by again
championing the cause of the down-trodden states of
a heterogeneous Europe, she might conceivably beat
another ; whereas Japan would perhaps find herself
faced not by a single powerful tyrant, under whose
dominion vassal states writhed and groaned, but by
a vast homogeneous people who through careful dis-
cipline and wise statesmanship had learned to sink
provincial rivalries in a splendid realisation of racial
solidarity and national patriotism.

Thus we need not be surprised if during the years
of China's education and growth Japanese diplomacy
in respect of Chinese affairs is to some extent charac-
terised by petulance, hesitation, vacillation, and occa-
sional displays of " bluff." ^ The policy of Japan must
necessarily hover between two extremes : she does
not wish to see China partitioned, for this would
mean a strengthening of European influence in Asia
which might be disastrous to Japanese interests ; nor
does she wish to see China become one of the Great
Powers of the world, for this would inevitably lead
to her own partial eclipse, China is now well aware
of the delicate position of the Japanese Eoreign Office,
and it is on the whole improbable that she will readily
consent to a Japanese alliance, even if she finds herself

' In her purely commercial relations with China, Japan's policy will
of course continue to be consistent and strenuously active. It is a
vital necessity to Japan that she should enjoy a large share of China's
foreign trade.

440 THE FUTURE

seriously menaced by the armed strength of Europe —
happily a most unlikely event. She knows that the
differences of opinion between Japan and the United
States are not yet a forgotten chapter in international
politics/ and this fact, perhaps, will make her all the
readier to throw herself into the arms of the great
American Republic. It is well to remember, however,
that racial and industrial rivalries between China and
America may some day become dangerously acute.
Even now, while such rivalries loom no larger in
the political firmament than a man's hand, there are
whispers of storms to come. Meanwhile, China is
beginning to realise that the most wide-awake of
modern states does not propose to hamper her own
freedom by watching over a nation that has hitherto
been regarded as the most somnolent in the world.
Even the strong matronly arms of the United States
might grow weary of carrying about so bulky an infant
as a China that only woke up in order to experience
the luxurious delight of going to sleep again. The
Chinese dimly understand that until they have raised
themselves out of their present condition of political
helplessness they cannot expect to get more from
the United States or from any other Great Power
than amiable professions of goodwill.

But China has not yet fully grasped the truth that
military and naval strength is not the only qualifica-
tion— or the principal one — that will win the respect

' " It is, I think, an error to assume that eHmination of the school
and immigration questions will mean complete restoration of the
former Japanese-American entente. This never can be restored in the
shape which it previously assumed. Conditions never will revert to
the situation which gave it vitality. It is perhaps not going too far
to say that relations of America and Japan are only now becoming
serious, in the sense that they directly include propositions about
which modern nations will, upon due provocation, go to war. . . . The
genesis of a collision between Japan and the United States of America,
if it ever occurs, will be found in conditions on the mainland of Asia."
(^The Far Eastern Question, by T. F. Millard (T. Fisher Uuwin, 1909),
pp. 60-61.)

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FAULTS OF CHINESE DIPLOMACY 441

and support of the Western Powers. If she will
honestly devote herself to the work of internal reform,
to the thorough reorganisation of her administrative,
judicial and fiscal systems, and to the loyal fulfilment
of her treaty obligations, it is as certain as anything
in politics can be that she will be doing far more for
her own protection against foreign interference than
if she were to construct a dozen coast-fortresses and
naval bases and a fleet of thirty ** Dreadnought "
battleships. Her military weakness will not invite
aggression : it might do so if she were friendless, and
matched against a single ruthless strong Power or
group of allied Powers, but the state of international
politics at the present day is such that an orderly and
progressive China is absolutely certain to find herself
backed by at least two mighty friends the instant that
her legitimate interests are wantonly attacked by any
aggressive or adventurous foreign state.

On the other hand, if the Government adheres to its
present course of alternate radicalism and conservatism
and continues to play with reform schemes as if they
were ninepins and foreign treaties as if they were
packs of cards, the new fleet and naval bases will not
only be of no avail to the country in her hour of need
but will serve to hasten a catastrophe in which the
dynasty, at least, will in all probability be overwhelmed
and foreign intervention will once more become a
painful necessity. We saw in a former chapter that
to charge the Chinese, as a people, with a proclivity to
untruthfulness, or at any rate to assign such untruth-
fulness, if it exists, to Confucianism, is erroneous and
unjust. But let it be admitted at once that the charge
of insincerity in politics is one that can without unfair-
ness be brought against the Chinese Government— as,
indeed, it can be brought against some other states that
have had less excuse for their conduct than China.

In her transactions with Western Powers she has
too often shown want of straightforwardness, duplicity,
even treachery. Not only does she try to play off

442 THE FUTURE

one Power against another (a game that is played
with more or less assiduity by every government in
the world) but she makes promises which she does not
intend to fulfil except under compulsion, she adopts
an attitude that is now arrogant and now cringing,
she is alternately dilatory and hasty, she is often
hypocritical, and her perpetual changes of external
and internal policy are a source of the greatest em-
barrassment to the governments and merchants of
foreign lands and a source of gravest danger to
herself. Nothing distresses the sincere friends and
well-wishers of China so much as the manner in
which she palters with her international obligations,
unless it be her haphazard and erratic attempts
at administrative reform — now hesitating and half-
hearted, now extravagant and ultra-progressive.

As regards her foreign relations one is tempted to
assert that Obstruction, Prevarication and Procrasti-
nation seem to be the three leading principles of
Chinese statesmanship. Those who know how sound
China is at heart, how able, industrious and intelligent
are her sons, and how well fitted their great country
is in many ways to play a grand part in the history of
the world and in the development of civilisation, are
perhaps even more ready than others to denounce the
Manchu government of China for its gross mismanage-
ment of the internal and external affairs of the nation,
its pitiful misuse of splendid material and its shameful
waste of magnificent opportunities.

It is obvious to every foreigner who knows China
well that the first and most urgent necessity is the
thorough reform of the entire Civil Service in all its
branches. So long as offices are bought and sold, so
long as salaries are so meagre that they must neces-
sarily be supplemented in irregular ways, so long
as revenue and expenditure accounts go through no
proper system of audit, so long as bribery and the
" squeeze " system are practically recognised as neces-
sary features of civil administration — so long will it

CHINESE POLITICS 443

be utterly futile to attempt far-reaching reforms in
other directions. When these abuses have become
things of the past the general progress of the country
will be swift and sure, but not till then. It may be
that they will never be abolished until the new
Provincial Assemblies — the most striking develop-
ment of Chinese political life that has been witnessed
since the opening of the country to foreign intercourse
— have compelled the central government to admit the
popular representatives to an active share in the real
business of administration.

A question was recently asked in the British House
of Commons^ as to whether the Chinese Government
had taken any steps to carry out the provisions of
Article VIII. of the Mackay Treaty relating to the
abolition of the Likin system. The reply was that
China had not yet done anything in the matter ex-
cept in so far as to express a desire to enter into
negotiations for an increase of the Customs tariff in
return for the abolition of likin.^ " In view, how-
ever, of the failure of the Chinese Government to
carry out other important provisions of the Treaty
of 1902, His Majesty's Government are not at present
disposed to give this proposal their support ; more
especially in view of the fact that new likin stations
are being established in China, and that foreign trade
is being subjected to likin exactions of greater fre-
quency and amount."

Probably the most important of the other un-
observed provisions of the Mackay Treaty, to which
Mr. McKinnon Wood referred, was the second
article, in which China undertook to reform her
currency. Financial reform (including a reorganisa-
tion and readjustment of the system of internal

' The question was asked by Captain Murray, M.P., and answered
by Mr. McKinnon Wood, in September 1909

^ The " Mackay " Commercial Treaty between Great Britain and
China was signed at Shanghai on September 5, 1902 Likin is an
internal tax on merchandise in transit

444 THE FUTURE

taxation as well as the establishment of a uniform
national coinage) is, next to the thorough cleansing
of the whole machinery of administration, the
most urgently necessary of all the tasks that
confront the Government, yet though nearly eight
years have elapsed since the Mackay Treaty was
signed, the only indications that the Chinese
Government has given any serious consideration to
this vitally important problem have consisted in
the despatch of a costly Mission to enquire into the
financial systems of other countries and in the peri-
odical issue of Imperial Edicts which promise the
standardisation of the coinage and other useful reforms
but have not as yet been followed up by practical
measures. Not to dwell upon the commercial interests
of the great foreign communities of Hongkong,
Shanghai and Tientsin, which are most seriously
hampered by the apathy of the Chinese Government
in the matter of currency reform, there can be very
little doubt that if the present policy of " drift " is
adhered to, the country will be gravely menaced by
the peril of bankruptcy. The wiser heads among
the Chinese officials know perfectly well that an
inability to meet their foreign liabilities will inevitably
result in the loss of the economic independence of
their country, yet they hesitate to introduce the drastic
financial reforms without which China cannot hope
to make real progress or to assume a dignified
position in the councils of nations.

Provincial independence in matters aff'ecting currency
and finance is still to a great extent unchecked ; local
officials still make large temporary profits out of the
excessive issue of copper coin; the most elementary
laws of economics are ignored ; innumerable native
banks are allowed to issue notes against which are
held cash reserves that are generally inadequate and
sometimes (so it is whispered) non-existent.^ If China

> A good general view of the nature of the grave difficulties that
stand in the way of currency reform may be gained from a perusal of

CHINESE FINANCE 445

would declare her intention of engaging the services
of a European or American Financial Adviser — the
best and ablest she could get — the mere announce-
ment would do more to re-establish her financial
reputation than a hundred plausibly-worded Imperial
Decrees. Yet even the ablest of advisers would
accomplish little of permanent value unless he were
given a free hand to deal with official corruption in
high places and safeguarded against petty jealousies
and underhand intrigues ; and judging from the
present temper of Chinese officialdom it is very
doubtful whether any satisfactory guarantees of this
kind would or could be given.

The Chinese, not unnaturally, resent the suggestion
that they should apply to a foreign government for
the loan of a guide and teacher, or that among all
their millions of population they possess no able
statesmen of their own ; but what they should under-
stand is this, that though there may be and probably
are hundreds of Chinese officials who in intellect,
energy, and devotion to duty (if not in actual ex-
perience) are quite as fully qualified to reorganise the
finances of the country as any foreigner could be,
yet it is inconceivable in the present state of Chinese
politics that any native official, however capable and
energetic, would be able to withstand and overcome
the conservative forces that would certainly oppose
him as soon as he began to assail the fortresses of
corruption. A foreign adviser might be denounced
to the Throne in memorial after memorial and yet
possibly retain his position and authority ; a Chinese
minister who attempted to initiate reforms worthy of
the approval of foreign experts would probably be
overwhelmed by his enemies before a single important
measure had been carried into effect.

H. B. Morse's The Trade and Administration of the Chinese Empire
(Shanghai, 1908). See especially pp. 166-9. Another recent work well
worth consulting is T. F. Millard's The Far Eastern Question
(T. Fisher Unwin, 1909), pp. 316 seq.

446 THE FUTURE

One of the strongest reasons why the Chinese
Government is reluctant to invoke the assistance of a
foreign Financial Adviser is that such a step might
lead to the introduction of foreign capital on an
immense scale, and its gradual monopolisation of
industry and exclusive exploitation of the national
resources. Many recent events have shown that the
Chinese people — even more than the Government —
are exceedingly averse from throwing China freely
open to foreign capital, even when the want of capital
obviously retards the material development of the
country. This attitude, though naturally enough it ex-
cites the indignation of foreign financiers and traders,
who are apt to regard the matter solely from the
economic standpoint, is probably only temporary, and
not unjustifiable when we remember the enormous
power wielded by capital in these days, not only in
commerce and industry but also in international
politics. Sir Alfred Lyall truly points out that the
European money-market is to Asia a " most perilous
snare," and that the more any Asiatic Government
runs into debt with European financiers, or has per-
mitted the investment of foreign capital within its
territory, the more it falls under the stringent, self-
interested and inquisitive " political superintendence "
of the capitalist state.^

That China cannot expect to develop her resources
fully and rapidly without the help of European and
American capital is doubtless true enough : but in
view of her somewhat precarious political condition
it may be that she is acting not unwisely in restricting
the inflow of foreign capital to the irreducible minimum,
and if she has reason to believe that the recommenda-
tions of a Financial Adviser would include the free
admission of alien capital, her hesitation to avail her-
self of foreign expert advice may perhaps be easily
explained. Chinese apprehensions on this subject

' Asiatic Studies (Second Series, 2nd ed.), pp. 374-5, 376-7.

FORESTATION 447

might perhaps remain for ever unrealised, but at least
they can hardly be said to be totally unreasonable.^

Next to finance there is perhaps no department that
calls more peremptorily for foreign supervision than
that of forestation. The dearth of timber throughout
the greater part of north China has caused a serious
deterioration of the climate within historic times, and
is largely responsible for the denudation of once fertile
lands and the periodical recurrence of famines.
Forestry is an unknown science in China, and without
foreign expert assistance it is unlikely that re-foresta-
tion will be undertaken seriously and methodically.
In legal and judicial matters, education, railways,
municipal government, the army, hospitals, technical
institutions, and other important matters, some con-
siderable progress has already been made with or
without direct foreign assistance, though it seems
obvious that until the national finances and the Civil
Service have been thoroughly reorganised every effort
made in the direction of other reforms must to some
extent be crippled.

The Chinese are naturally most anxious to secure
the abolition of the foreign rights of extra-territorial
jurisdiction. They feel very keenly the undignified
position of their country in respect of the fact that
they alone, of the great nations of the world, have

^ The following remarks by Lafcadio Hearn on the question of
the admission of foreign capital into Japan are not inapposite. " It
appears to me that any person comprehending, even in the vaguest
way, the nature of money-power and the average conditions of life
throughout Japan, must recognise the certainty that foreign capital,
with right of land-tenure, would find means to control legislation,
to control government, and to bring about a state of affairs that
would result in the practical domination of the Empire by alien
interests. . . . Japan has incomparably more to fear from English
or American capital than from Russian battleships and bayonets."
{Japafi : An Interpreiatioti, -p. 510.) Urgent economic considerations
have, of course, compelled Japan not only to admit foreign capital
in enormous amounts, but even to make heavy sacrifices in order to
obtain it : but if any other course had been open to her she would
gladly have adopted it.

448 THE FUTURE

no judicial authority over the foreigners who reside
within their territorial limits, and they know that the
reasons why they are in this undignified position are
that their laws are to some extent inconsistent with
Western legal theories, that many or most of their
judicial officers are corrupt, that torture is sometimes
resorted to as a means of extorting confessions, and
that their prisons are dens of filth and disease. Know-
ing that until these matters are remedied it will be
impossible to persuade the Western Powers to re-
linquish jurisdiction over their own nationals, the
Chinese have devoted a good deal of attention during
recent years to the reform of their judicial procedure
and — under Japanese and other foreign advice — to the
production of a new legal code.^ Time will show
whether the importation of a brand-new legal system
into a country like China will effect all the good that
is expected of it. There is a very serious danger that
by adapting Western legal notions to a country in
which the native legal system (however faulty in
practice in some respects) has for many centuries been
closely intertwined with the traditions and customs
that govern the lives of the Chinese people, the
Government may be applying a treatment that will
act as a solvent of the bases of the entire social
organism. Even the abolition of foreign consular
jurisdiction might be bought too dearly if it necessi-
tated a surrender of doctrines and principles which,
as we have seen in the foregoing chapters, have
formed the foundation of the social and political
system of China throughout the whole of her known
history.

If in the matter of finance the Chinese Government

' Article xii. of the Mackay Treaty reads thus: "China having
expressed a strong desire to reform her judicial system and to bring
it into accord with that of Western nations, Great Britain agrees to
give every assistance to such reform, and she will also be prepared to
relinquish her extra-territorial rights when she is satisfied that the state
of the Chinese laws, the arrangement for their administration, and other
considerations warrant her doing so."

"BACK TO CONFUCIUS!'' 449

would unquestionably do well to act on the advice of
the best foreign expert it can get, it is by no means
so certain that it would be wise to follow foreign
counsel, with tacit obedience, in all matters affecting
social, administrative, or even judicial reform. That
changes are urgently needed in certain directions goes
without saying; but in view of the impossibility of
carrying out extensive legal reforms in China without
simultaneously affecting the social organism, perhaps
in serious and unexpected ways, it will be well for the
stability of the State if amid the contending factions
into which the intelligent sections of the country are
sure to be divided there may always be one party in
the land whose programme will be summed up in the
words "Back to Confucius!" That such a call will
ever be literally obeyed is quite improbable and cer-
tainly undesirable ; but it is earnestly to be hoped
that however drastic may be the social and political
changes that China is destined to undergo her people
may never come to regard Confucianism, with all that
the term implies, merely as a fossil in the stratum of
a dead civilisation.

In the course of the foregoing chapters an attempt
has been made to show that there is much funda-
mental soundness in many of China's social institu-
tions, much that it is to the interest of China herself
and of the whole world to respect and conserve. It
is difficult to say whether China stands at present
in greater danger from her own over-enthusiastic
revolutionary reformers or from her well-meaning but
somewhat ignorant foreign friends who are pressing
her to accept Western civilisation with all its political
and social machinery and its entire religious and
ethical equipment. If ever a State required skilful
guidance and wise statesmanship, China needs them
now : but wise statesmanship will not consist in tear-
ing up all the old moral and religious sanctions that
have been rooted in the hearts of the Chinese people
through all the ages of their wonderful history.

2i)

INDEX

Chinese words that appear in the text of this book and in the index have been
given their Pekingese sounds in accordance with Wade's system of trans-
literation.—R.F.J. ]

Aberdeen (Hongkong), Scare at, 366
Aboriginal tribes of Shantung, 38

seq.
Aden, Weihaiwei compared with, 1 7
Adiantifolia Salisburia, 168, 381
Administration of Weihaiwei, 7-9,

28, 80 seq., 429 seq.
Adoption of heirs, 151, 203, 205, 231,

284 seq.
Africa, Suicide of Widows in, 225
Agriculture, 16, 56,79, 90, 91, 153-

4, 164, 166, 180 seq.
Ai-shan-ch'ien (village), 54
Ai-shan Miao (temple), 54(1), 385-6
Akeste, H.M.S., i, 156
Allen, Grant, quoted, 251, 287 (2),

319.365(1), 379(5X384
Amitabha Buddha, 404
Amputations, Chinese superstitions

regarding, 281
Ancestor-worship, 119, 126, 134-5J

186-7, 192, 196, 251-2, 258 seq.,

263, 276 seq., 301 seq., 318 seq.,

328 seq., 331 seq., 342
Ancestral spirits not malevolent, 286-

7, 341 seq.
Ancestral tablets, 135, 236-7, 277

^^^M 339-40. 277-9, 282 seq.
Anhui, Province of, 334
Annals, Chinese official, of Weihaiwei

and neighbourhood, 26, 35-6, 37,

46, 52 seq., 56, 58, 59 seq., 168-9,

289 seq., 300, 362-3, 3907!' 402
Appeal Court of Weihaiwei, loo-i
Armadas sent against Japan, 44-5
Arnold, Matthew, quoted, 329
Ashtoreth, Moon-goddess of Hittites,

191 (4)

Aston, Dr., quoted, 319, 341, 373,

388
Astronomical knowledge in early

China, 40 seq., 59 seq.
Australia, Folk-lore of, 299
Aztecs, 420

Barbarians of eastern Shantung, 38
seq., 42

Barnes, Lt.-Col., 83

Barton, Mr. S., 79

Bat'uru, a Manchu military distinc-
tion, 71

Beacon-fires, 19

Bee-hive tombs, 257-8

Bernard, Mr. E. R., quoted, 308
{footnote')

Betrothals, 203 seq.

Bishop, Mrs., cited, 377 (2)

Black's Folk- Medicine quoted, 287-

8, 291, (I), 375 (I), 377
Bohemia, Folk-lore of, 298-9, 376

(I), 382
Bower, H.M., cited, 379 (5)
Box, Rev. A., quoted, 180 (3), 1S3

(2), 185 (3), 366 (I), 371 (I), 377

(I)

Boy Scouts of the Weihaiwei School,
90

Brenan, Byron, quoted, 15 (i)

Bridge to Fairyland, 2 1 -3

Brigands, 55, 60, 62, 90

British and Chinese officials, Rela-
tions between, 87-9

British Columbia, Betrothal customs
in, 206

British rule at Weihaiwei, i seq., 7-

9, 77 ^"^?.

451

452

INDEX

Brooms, Demons afraid of, 190 (i),

296
Bruce, Major (now Lt.-Col.), 83
Buddha, Images of, 397, 400-2,

406
Buddhism, 10, 334, 351, 352, 357,

381, 398 seq.
Burial customs, 6-7, 254 seq., 276

seq., 367
Burial-grounds, 135, 254-75
Burial of evoked souls without the

body, 281 seq.
Burial of the living, 225, 274, 367
Burma, 156 (2)
" Burning of the Books," 20
Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy

quoted, 164

Caird, Edward, quoted, 329
Canal suggested at Shantung Pro-
montory, 19
Canonisation of saints and deities,

335. 337, 338 seq.
Canton, 421

Capital, Foreign, in China, 446-7
Carlyle, Thomas, quoted, 328
Cats, Beliefs regarding, 292-4
Ceylon, 80
Chang-chia-shan (village), iS, 382,

398
Ch'ang-feng (village), 97
Ch'ang-kuang prefecture, 44
Chao-shih-shan (hill), 21
Character of people of Weihaiwei,

168 seq.
Charities in China, 70, 73-4
Charms, 173-4, 187, 188, 194, 198,

346, 358

Chatterton Hill, G., quoted, 224,
306 (I)

Chefoo, 14, 24, 78, 426

Chemulpo, 14

ChCn-jen of Taoism, 355

Cheng-ch'i Shan, see Mount Mac-
donald

Ch'eng Huang (city god), 364-7 1

Ch'eng-shan-tsui, see Shantung Pro-
montory

Ch'eng-shan-wei, 46 seq., 51, 53, 63

Chi-ming-tao (" Cock-crow Island "),

25. 52
Ckt-t^ien (sacrificial land), 122, 135,

258-9
Chiang-chia-chai (village), 158
Chik-hui, 47 seq., 70
Children of Weihaiwei, 129, 179,

183-4, 245-53
Chin dynasty, 59

ChincCs Millions (missionary journal),
316-7, 336

Chinan-fu (capital of Shantung), 407

Chinese drama, 130 seq.

Chinese Regiment, The, 28, 82-7

Ching-hai-wei, 53

Ching-wei (a mythical bird), 38

Ch'i Ch'ung-chin, 70

Ch'i K'uang (village), 18

Ch'i, State of, 17, 42 seq.

Ch'iao-t'ou (village), 14, 53, 129

Ch'ien-Jni, 47

Ch'ien Li-k'ou (village), 18

Ch'ien Lung, Reign of, 65

Ch'in dynasty, 20, 43

Ch'in Shih Huang- ti (the "First
Emperor "), 20 seq., 42, 43

Ch'ing dynasty, 62

Ch'ing Chou (one of the nine pro-
vinces of Yii), 39

Ch'ing-chou-fu, 407

Ch'ing-feng-t'eng, a Chinese medi-
cinal herb, 177

Ch'ing-ming Festival, 70, 185-7,

255-6
Cho-ch'i Shan, see Mount Macdonald
Chou dynasty, 20, 43
Christendom, Pagan survivals in, 182

seq., 186
Christianity, 104, 157, 302-3, 305

seq., 314 seq., 333, 407, 412, and see

Missionaries
Christian Science, 176
Chronicles, Chinese, see Annals
Chrysanthemum wine, 192
Chuang Tzii (Chinese philosopher),

351 (I), 354
Ch'utt ChHu (the " Spring and

Autumn Annals"), 34
Ch'ii Yiian (ancient statesman of

Ch'u), 188
Cicero quoted, I'ji, (4)
Cinderella of the British Empire,

The, 2
City-god, 364-71, and see Ch'eng

Huang
Civil authority, Chinese respect for,

47> 434-6
Civil Service of Weihaiwei, 97-101
Climate of Weihaiwei, 28, 63, 81-2
Club, United Services, at Weihaiwei,

25

Coffins, 121, 290-1

Coffin-nails, Superstitions regarding,
290-1

Coffin-wood, Chinese and other super-
stitions regarding, 290- 1

Cold Food, Festival of, 185-6

Comets, 59, 62, 63, 65, 66, 67

INDEX

453

Commercial probity of Chinese, 138
Commissioner of Weihaiwei, 28, 79,

80, 81, 98
Concubinage in China, 169, 214 seq.
" Confucian Pencil," 31
Confucianism, 10, ii, 109, 116, 123,

300-50, 434-6, 449, and see

Confucius
Confucianism not unreligious but un-

theological, 330
Confucius, II, 34-5, 42, 271, 272,

300, 301 seq., 311 seq., 321, 324

^eq-, 347. 352-4) 430. 449i ««^ ^^^

Confucianism
Conservatism of Weihaiwei, 6~i i
Convention relating to Weihaiwei, 2,

29-30. 57, 77-8, 428
Conyljeare, F. C, quoted, 320 (2)
Cook, A. B., cited, 378 (2)
Corpses, Superstitions regarding, 292

seq., 295 seq.
County Folk-lore quoted, 176 (i),

179 (I), 180 (3), 291 (i), 294,

379,386(0,387(2)
Courtesy of Orientals, 169 seq.
Cox, Rev. Sir G. W., quoted, 374
Crime and lawlessness, Comparative

freedom from, 87, 99, 158 seq.,

434-5
Cross-roads, Superstitions regarding,

376-7
Currency question, 443 seq.
Cypress trees, 262, 263, 264, and see

Evergreen trees

Dalny, 14 {footnote')

Davenport's China from Within

quoted, 316 (2), 336 (l)
Davis, O. K., quoted, 348
Davis, Sir John, quoted, 331
Davison, Charles, quoted, 67 (i)
Dead, Festivals of the, 191, 192, 292,

369
Dead, Marriages of the, 6, 204 seq.
Dead men and ghost-lore, 276 seq.
Deer in Weihaiwei, 166
Dennys's Folk-lore of China quoted,

27, 175 (2), 177 (I), 191 (4),

287 (2), 291 (i), 292 (2), 294 (I),

377 (I), 380 (2)
Devils, 173 seq.
Devonshire folk-lore, 291 (i)
Diodorus Siculus quoted, 402 (i)
District headmen, 95, 156, 289
District magistracies, 15 seq., 53
District Officer's Department, 53, 54,

97, and see Wen-ch'iian-t'ang and

South Division

Divisions, North and South, of

Weihaiwei, 97-8, 104, 114 seq.,

129
Dog, Heavenly, 174
Dogs, Superstitions regarding, 292-3
Doolitlle's Social Life of the Chinese

cited, 291 (i)
Dorward, Maj.-Gen. Sir A., 79
Douglas, Sir Robert, quoted, 104,

312,313, 352 (2), 387 (3)
Dragon, Chniese, 36, 37, 385-91,

and see Lung Wang
Drama in China, 130 seq.
Driver, Prof. S. R., 365 (i)
Drought-demon, 295-9
Droughts, 16, 52, 60 seq., 81, 90,

297, 346
Drowning, Superstitions regarding,

287-8
Du Bose quoted, 331, 348
" Dwarf-catchers," 49
" Dwarfs," see Wo-jen ««</ Japanese
Dyaks of Borneo, 376 (i)
Dynastic histories of China, 35

Earthquakes, 55, 60, 61, 63, 64,

66, 67
Eclipses, 68, 418-22
Edkins, Dr., quoted, 334, 417-8
Education, 172 seq., 195, 333
Egypt, 318, 320, 387 (2)
Egypt, Funeral trees in, 264 (i)
Eliot, Sir Charles, quoted, 329, 335 {2),

341
Elixir of Life, 20, 22, 24, 32
Epidemics, 56, 64, 67
Ethics, Confucian, 301 seq., 307 seq.,
^ 328 seq., 352-3

Ethics, Taoist, 352 seq., 354 seq.
Ethnography of Weihaiwei, 38 seq.
Evergreen trees. Significance of, 121-

2, 262-4, 378
Evil spirits, 289 seq., 292
Excalibur, A Chinese, 362-3
Export trade of Weihaiwei, 90,

164 seq.
" Expulsion from the clan" i^ch^u tsu).

Expulsion of disease, Magical, 183,

192, 375 -y^'/-, 384
Extra-territorial jurisdiction, 447-8

Fairs, Country, 129 seq.

Family organisation, 112 seq., 135

seq.
Families, Antiquity of Chinese, 134

seq.
Famines, 16, 36, 55, 56, 59 seq.

454

INDEX

Fang Chi (village), 401

Farnell's Evolution of Religion cited,
321, 338, 416 (2)

Feathers and rain, Supposed con-
nection between, 295 seq.y 298-9

Feti-chia (Family division), it^^ seq.,
a 1 8-9

Fhi-sku (deed specifying details of
division of family property), 149
seq.

Feng-lin (village), 129

Feng-shui (geomantic superstition),
119-20, 181, 198, 203, 251, 264-70,

333. 387
Ferguson's Tree and Serpent Worship

cited, 379 (5)
Festivals at Weihaiwei, 178 seq.
Fichte quoted, 329
Fiji Islanders, Religious ideas of,

251 (3)
Filial Piety, 196, 199, 200, 272-5,

342 seq., and see Ancestor-worship
Filial Fiety, Classic of, quoted, 271-4
Financial position of China, 443 seq.
Fir-trees, 121-2, 167, 262-4, 378,

and see Evergreen trees
" First Emperor, The," 20 seq., 43
Fish, Large, seen at Weihaiwei, 24,

26, 27, 62, 65
Fitzgerald Range, 31
Five Sacred Hills, 71, 73, 74, 391

seq., 396
Fleet, Ships of British, at Weihaiwei,

25-6, 81-2, 429
Floods, 16, 36, 52, 55. 56, 59 ^£'1-, 81
Flora of Weihaiwei, 167
Flowers' Birthday, 185
Flying corpses, 295 seq.
Fo-erh-ting (Buddha's Head), 32
Folk-lore, 34 seq., 155 seq., 173 seq.

and passim
Folk-lore quoted, 183 (2), 184 (l),

281 (i), 298 (3), 299, 377 (2), 379,

380
Folk-lore Jotirnal quoted, 264 (l),

291 (I), 294, 298 (2), 379
Food of the people, 164 seq.
Foot-binding, 195
Foreslation, 17, 447
Forke's translation of Lun Heng

cited, 40 (2), 271 (I), 297 (3)
P'ortifications of Weihaiwei, 27, 56,

78, 426-9
Foundation Sacrifices, 365 seq.
Four Famous (Buddhist) Mountains,

394
Frazer's Golden Bough quoted, 183(2),
186 (I), 187 (3), 294 (2), 295,
375(1), 376(1), 377 (3): 379

From Peking to Mandatay cited,

47
Frugality of people of Weihaiwei,

79
Fruit, Magic, 25

Fruit-growing in Weihaiwei, 164-5
Fu (Prefecture), 15, 16
Fu-fHU-kuan (Father - and - mother

officials), 9, 15, 98, 122-3, 345-6
Fu-sang (name of mythical land in

the East), 21, 24-5, 419
Fuso, Japanese name for Fu-sang.
Fustel de Coulanges cited, 142,

319(2)
Future of China, 125-6, 135 (5),

138 (I), 240 seq., 307, 426 seq.

Gambling, 171

Game-birds, 165-6

Gardiner, S. R., quoted, 200-I

Garrison of Weihaiwei, 82 seq.

German action in China, 57, 58

Ghosts, 173 seq., 276 seq., 286 seq.,

289 seq.
Gibbon's Decline and Fall quoted,

182 (2)
Gibraltar, 80
Giles, Prof. H. A., quoted, 188,

301-2, 305, 308, 313, 348 (2),

349. 351
Giles, Lionel, quoted, 303, 305, 311,

327
Ginkgo tree, see Maidenhair tree
Gloucestershire, Dragons in, 387 (2)
Glover, T. R., cited, 319 (2).

320(2, 3), 378(1)
God, Definition of, 330-1
God of the City, 364-71
God of War, see Kuan Ti
God of Wealth, 360-1
Goddess of Mercy, see Kuan Yin
Goh, D., cited, 319 (4)
Golden Age of China, 39
Golden Bough, The, see Frazer.
Golden Rule, The, 352
Golf links at Weihaiwei, 25, 2g
Gomme's Folk-lore Relics quoted,

186 (2), 193 (I), 293, 365 (I),

412(1)
Government of Weihaiwei, British,

7-9, 28, 80 seq., 429 seq.
Grape-cultivation, 165
Graveyards, 254-75
Great auk, China not a, 307
Great Wall of China, The, 21, 365
Greece, Ancient, 373, 396-7
Griffis, Dr. W. E., quoted, 304, 307,

322, 379 (5), 387 (4)

INDEX

455

Groot, Dr. De, quoted, 6, 7, 17,
174 (3), 185 (i), 192 (i), 219,
262, 263, 271, 277, 27S, 279, 280,
283, 287 (i), 291 (I), 292, 298 (I),
380 (2), 387 (3, 4), 435

Ground-nuts, 164

Guisers, 184 (i)

Hachiman (Japanese deity), 362

Hai Chuang (village), 78

Hai-hsi-t'ou (village), 2S9

Hailstorms, 59, 61-2

Hallam quoted, 310

Halley's comet, 59, 63

Han dynasty, 59, 79 ( i )

Han Fei Tzii (philosopher), 351 (l)

Han Kao Tsu, (Emperor Kao Tsu

of the Han dynasty), 43
Han Wu Ti (Emperor Wu of the

Han dynasty), 23
Han-pa (drought-demon), 295 seq.
Happy marriages in China, 195-6,

244-S
Harbour of Weihaiwei, 25 seq., 28,

78, 426 seq.
Hare, Mr. G. T., 79
Harriers, Weihaiwei, 82
Headmen, 155, 289, 336, 371-7, 382,

386
Hearn, Lafcadio, 341, 349, 431,

447 (I)
Hearth-god, 193, 372
Hebrews, Serpent-worship among,

387
Hegel quoted, 329
Hell, Christian attitude towards idea

of, 323-4
Hells of Buddhism, 402
Hemp, Folk-lore connected with,

179

Herd-boy and Spinning Maiden,

Chinese legend of, 190
Yi&xoAo\.w% quoted, 315, 316, 365 (i)
Heroes and other celebrities of

Weihaiwei, 69 seq.
High Court of Weihaiwei, 99-icX)
Hill-Tout's British North America

cited, 206
Hills of Weihaiwei, 30-3, 78-9,

391-8
Hills, Sacred, of China, 71, 73, 74,

116, 391 seq., 396
Historians' History of the World

quoted, 35
History of Weihaiwei, 38 seq.
Ho the Astronomer, 43
Ho Ch'ing (village), 391
Holcombe, Chester, 352 (4)
Holidays at Weihaiwei, 178 seq.

Hongkong, 77, 80, 81, 366
Honour, Commercial, among Chinese,

138 seq.
Hooker quoted, 330
Hot springs, 29, 98, 400
Hotels at Weihaiwei, 26, 28
House of Lords, The Chinese, 349-50
Hsi and Ho (astronomers), 40-2
Hsi-yii-ting (hill), 31
Hsien (magisterial district), 14 seq.,

48, 53
Hsien-jen (mountain recluses), 32
Hsiin-chien (Chinese deputy-magis-
trate), 30, 53-4, 367-8
Hua Shan (one of the Five Sacred

Hills), 73 ^
Huai Nan Tzii (philosopher), 351 (i)
Huan-ts'ui-lou (tower on city walls),

30, 31
Huang Ch'eng-tsung, 75-6
Huang K'o Ssii (temple), 401
Human flesh, Eating of, 61, 64
Human sacrifices, 365-6
" Hundred-grass lotion," 189-90
Hunting at Weihaiwei, 82
Huo Ch'ien (village), 391
Hydrophobia, 176-8

Idolatry, 320-I, 335 seq., 337, 340,

348, 412, 414 seq.
India, Unrest in, 432
Individualism, 135 seq., 344
Insincerity in politics, Chinese, 441
Irish folk-lore, 281 (i), 296 (i),

375
Isis and Horus, 320
Isles of the Blest, 24-5

Jade-Imperial-God, 32, 391 seq,, 396,

398
Jamaica, 80

James, Prof. William, cited, 324
Japan and Japanese, 40, 44, 48, 56,

70, 87 (I), 348, 373, 375-6, 379,

387 (4), 432, 438-9
Japan, Abortive Chinese attempts at

invasion of, 44-5
Japan, Confucianism in, 304-5
Japanese ancestor- worship, 341-2,

348

Japanese " spiritualism," 175 (2)

Jen-chieh (Festival of Living Men),
192, 369

Jesuits in China, 334

Jih-tao (Sun Island), 30

Jih-yileh-ho-pi (atmospheric appear-
ance), 64

Joan of Arc, 338(0

456

INDEX

[u Hsiieh (Director of Confucian
studies), 47

Jung-ch'eng city and district, 13, 14,
16, 18, 19, 24, 43. 44, 47, 51.
53, 98, iSo(i), 301, 369 71, 390

Jiing-ck''hig hsien chih (Annals of
Jung-ch'eng), 37, 56, 168-9, 402

Jurisdiction of courts in Weihaiwei,
98-101

Juristic Person {Persona ficta), Evolu-
tion of, 156 seq.

Kakasu Okakura cited, 356

K'ang Hsi, The Emperor, 51

K'ang Hsi Dictionary, 40, 297 (2)

Kempson, Rev. F. C, quoted, 324

Khond tribes of India, 3S2-3

Ki-ming island, see Chi-ming-tao

Kiao-chou, 14, 17, 57, 58, 428

Kingsmill, T., quoted, 352 (3)

Kitchen-god, see Hearth-god

Knox, Prof. G. W., 353-4

Kojin (Japanese deity), 193 (i)

Korea, i, 20, 39, 40, 183 (2), 377

Kowloon, 77, 428 (2)

Ku Hung-ming quoted, 311

Ku-mo Shan, 31

Ku Shan (hill and temple), 399-402

Ku-shan-hou (village), 129

Ku Sheng-yen, 70

Ku-yli hills, 78-9

Kuan Ti (God of War), 27, 338,

362-4
Kuan Yin, 336, 357, 385, 404,

414-S
Kublai Khan, 44-5
Ktiei Chieh (Festivals of the Dead),

191, 192, 292, 369

La-pa-choic (Twelfth-month gruel),

192
Lai-tzu, 43

Lancashire folk-lore, 377
Land-tax, 64, 65, 96-7
Land-tenure, 55, 127-54
Lang, Andrew, quoted, 318 (l)
Lantern-dances, 184
Lantern Festival, 182-4, 409
Lao Chiin, 391
Lao Mountains, 73
Lao Tzii (The Old Philosopher),

40(1), 351 seq., 391
Lao-ya Shan, 31
Laoism, 356

Lawyers, Absence of, 102, 104
Le Roy cited, 326 ( i )
Lease of Weihaiwei to Great Britain,

29, and see Convention

Legal system ol China, Reform of,
448

Legge, Professor, cited, 39, 41 (l),
271 (i), 297 (I), 300 (I), 302 (2),
311, 312, 313, 316, 321, 340,

345 (2), 353 . .
Li ChUtn (Beginning of Spring),

180 seq.
Li Hung-chang a serpent-worshipper,

.387 (3).
Li-k'ou hill, 32
Li Tzii-ch'eng, 50
Lighthouses, 19
Likin tax, 443
Lin-chia-yiian (village), 165, 381,

383
Lincolnshire, Folk-lore of, 176 (i),

.179 (0, 379. 387(2)

Literature, God of, 361-2
Litigation, 98 seq., 102-26
Liu, Mr. and Mrs., 26-8
Liukungtao, 12, 25 seq., 30, 47, 48,

50, 78, 79
Lockhart, Sir James PL Stewart, 79
Locusts, 60, 61, 62, 64, 65, 66, 67,

68, 396
Lowell, Percival, Occult Japan by,

quoted, 175 (2)
Lu, Earl of, 69

Lu, the native state of Confucius, 42
Luchu Islands, i

Lucky and Unlucky days, 295 (2)
Lun Hhig of Wang Ch'ung cited,

40(2), 271 (i), 297, 347 (I)
Lung Wang (Dragon King), 289,

336, 385-91
Lyall, Sir Alfred, cited, 339, 365 (l),

446
Lyra, H.M.S., l, 56

Ma-t'ou, see Port Edward
Macdonald, Mount, 32, 166, 397-8
Macgowan's Sidelights on Chinese
Life quoted, 109, 201 (2), 342 (2),
414, 423, 424
Mackay Treaty, 443-4, 448 (0
Mad dogs. Cures for bites of, 176-8
Madagascar, Mirror superstition in,

295
Magdalen College, May Day at, 413
Magisterial courts at Weihaiwei, 98

seq.
Maidenhair tree, 168, 381
Maine's Ancient Law cited, 136 (i)
Malay States, Superstitions and folk-
lore of, 175 (I), 298 (I), 379,
422 (I)
Manchu dynasty, 50- 1
Manchu invasion of China, 50-1

INDEX

457

Mandalay, 365

Mang-shm, 180-2

Mang-tao village and tree, 383-4

Market villages, 129

Marriage customs, 169, 203 seq., 232

seq.
Marriages between the dead, 6, 204

seq.
Martin, W. A. P., quoted, 332-3,

352
Maspero cited, 356, 379 (5)
McKibben, Rev. W. K., quoted, 354
Meadows quoted, 321
Mencius, 34, 300, 343 (i), 430 (i)
Meng-chia-chuang (village), 134
Mexico, Religious customs and beliefs

in, 186, 375, 388
Micius (Chinese philosopher), 347 (i)
Middlemen in Chinese marriages,

204, 206
Midsummer, Folk-lore relating to, 189
Military precautions against Japanese,

44 seq.
Milky Way, Different names for,

318(1)
Millard, T. F., quoted, 440 (i), 445

(footnote)
Ming dynasty, 31, 44, 46, 50-1, 6 .
Mirage, 30

Mirrors, Superstitions regarding, 294-5
Missionaries, 11, 57, 58, 122, 123-4,
302 (2), 315 seq., 331 seq., 336,
353 ^eq., 407, 412
Mo Tzii, see Micius
Mock suns (parhelia), 60
Modernists, 326 (i), 413
Mohammedanism, 407
Mongol dynasty, 44, 257-8, and see

Kublai Khan
Montaigne's Essays quoted, 312 (2),

322
Montesquieu quoted, 344 ( i )
" Moon" (month) in China, 59-60
Moon-worship, 1^2 seq., 191
Morse, H. B., cited, 444 (i)
Mortgages of Land, 145 seq.
Mou Chou (district), 44
Mou-p'ing, Marquisate of, 43
Mou-tzii country, 43
Mountain-shrines, 395-8, and see

Hills
Mountain-worship, 391-8
Mountains, Celebrated, of China,

35-6, 71, 73, 74, 391 seq.
Mu yii (Buddhist "wooden fish"),

190-1
Mugwort, Magical use of, 188-9
Miiller, Max, cited, 319, 321,334(2),
352 (2), 353, 414, 416-7

Mutilations of human body, Chinese
abhorrence of, 281

Nagasaki, 14

Nai-ku-shan (hill), 30, 76

Names of persons and villages, 163-4

Nature, Chinese love of wild, 32-3,
393 seq.

Navy, The Chinese, 426 seq. , 436 seq.

"New Fire," 186

New Guinea, Treatment of children's
corpses in, 25 1

New Territory of Hongkong, 77

New Year Festivities, 178-8, 193-4

New Zealand Hearth-god, 193 (l)

Newman, Cardinal, 328

Newspapers, Absence of, in Weihai-
wei, 436

Ning-hai city and district, 14, 16, 44,
53, 180(1), 301

Ning-hai-chou Chih (Annals of Ning-
hai), 37, 300, and see Annals

Nobushige Hozumi quoted, 341, 348,

373 .. .
North Division of Weihaiwei, 97 seq.,

129
Northumberland folk-lore, 180 (3),

185 (2), 293
Nun, Story of a Buddhist, 405-6

Ocean spirits, 21-2
" Oie-hai-oie," i

Oman's Cults, Ctistoms and Super-
stitions of India quoted, 225
Opium in Weihaiwei, 17 1-2, 357
Order-in-Council, Weihaiwei, 8, 99>

100
Ordinances of Weihaiwei, 80-1
Orkney and Shetland folk-lore,

184(1), 293, 294
Orpheus of S. Reinach quoted, 379 (5)
Oxford, Rev. A. W., quoted, 315 (i),
319. 378(2)

Pa kua (mystic diagrams), 181

Pai-hu, 47

Palestine, Human sacrifices in, 365 (i)

Pao-hsin (village), 382

Parhelia (mock-suns), 60, 63, ()T, 68

Parker, Prof. E. H., quoted, 137 (l),

334 (2), 335. 355 (i)
Patria potestas, 1 49 seq.
Patriarchal theories, 15, 16,149, ^S^,

209 seq., 252-3
Patriotism in China, 429 seq.
Peasantry of Weihaiwei, Hardihood

of, 68-9
Pedigree-scrolls, 279

4S8

INDEX

Pei k'ou Pass (also village and

temple), i8 (i), l68 (i)
Peking, 8i, 392
Pennant's Tour in Scotland cited,

293

Persecutions by Christians, 308-9
Peru, Religious and other customs in,

186, 225, 418
Pestilences, 55, 64, 68, and see

Epidemics
Petitions to officials at Weihaiwei,

114 seq.
P'eng-lai (name of fairy islands), 21,

24-5
Philanthropy shown by Chinese, 70,

73-4
Philostratus quoted, 435-6
Philpot's The Sacred Tree cited,

379 (5). 380
Pi Kao, 70
Pine-trees, 262, and see Evergreen

trees
Pirates, 44 seq., 48 seq., 52, 55, 61
Planchette in China, 174 seq.
Poets and poetry of Weihaiwei, 30,

72, 73. 74
Poisonous influences of the fifth

month, 188-9
Police of Weihaiwei, 83, 98, loi,

1 58 seq.
Polygamy in China, 214
Pootoo (sacred island), 394, 414
Population of Weihaiwei, 28, 29, 79,

128-9
Port Arthur, 2, 14, 56, 57, 428
Port Edward, 27, 28, 29, 79, 97, 172,

385. 429
Prayer, Confucius's attitude towards,

327
"Pro-Chinese," 125
Promontory, see Shantung Promontory
Prosperity of Weihaiwei under British

rule, 90, 94-5
Psychic research, 175
Pu-yeh city and district, 43
Public works at Weihaiwei, 93-4

Queen of Heaven, The Chinese, 336,
385

Rain, Curious superstitions regarding,

295^
Rain, Prayers for, and rain-charms,

31, 187, 336, 346
Rainfall, 16, 18, 8i
Rationalism in China, 334
Recluses, Taoist, 32, 393 seq.
Recreation, Means of, at Weihaiwei,

26, 29

Red, a lucky colour, 174, 178, 179,

376
Reform movements, 9-1 1, 173, 436

seq., 449
Regiment, Weihaiwei, 28, 82-7
Reinach's Orpheus cited, 379 (5)
Religion, Definitions of, 328-30
Religions of China, 23, 27-8, 31, 32,
69-70, 129 seq., 254 SCKJ., 276 seq.,
300, 351, 385, and see IBuddhism,
Taoism, Confucianism, etc.
Revenue and expenditure of Weihai-
wei, 93-7
Ritchie, D. G., quoted, 135, 317 (i)
Rivers, see Streams
Robbers and brigands, 55, 62, go
Robertson, J. M., quoted, 186
Rome, Church of, in China, 334 seq.
Rome, Religion in, 373, 378
Russian action in China, 57

Sacred Edict, The, 123-4

Sacred hills of China, see Hills, Sacred

Sacred trees, 375, 377-81

Sacrifices, Human, 365 seq.

Saints of Christendom, 335, 337,
381-2

San Chiao (Three Religions of
China), 407

San Kuan (Taoist divinities), 361

Sati, 224-5, and see Widows

Scenery of Weihaiwei and neighbour-
hood, 17, 18, 25, 395 seq.

Schleiermacher quoted, 329

Scholarly hermits of China, 72-3,

393 ■^^?-
School, European, at Weihaiwei, 28,

9°
Scolds, Female, in Weihaiwei, 197

seq.
Scott, Sir Walter, 314
Scottish folk-lore, 1S4 (l), 291 (l),

293, 294. 296, 298
Sea-monsters in Chinese legend and

history, 24, 26, 27, 62, 65
Secretary to Government of Weihai-
wei, 79, 98
Seoul (Korea), Spring customs at,

183 (2)
Serpent-worship, 387 seq.
Shan Hai Ching ("Hill and Sea

Classic"), 38, 40 (2), 42, 297
Shan-shen (mountain-spirits), 166,

and see Hills, Sacred, of China
Shansi (Shan-hsi), Province of, 346
Shang Chuang (village), 18
Shanghai, 14 (l\ 142 (2)
Shanghai folk-lore, 180 (3), 183 (2),

185 (3). 371 (I), 377(1)

INDEX

459

Shang Fen ("Going up to the
Tombs"), 187, and see Ancestor-
worship

Shang Ti, 392, 395

Shantung, Area and subdivisions of,
16

Shantung Promontory, 14, 18-25, 40

^«<l^^ S3. 56, 60, 78

Shantung Province, Alleged special

sanctity of, 430 (i)
Shantung T^ttng Chih (official Annals

and Topography of Shantung), 56
Shen, an ancient worthy of Wen-teng,

Shen-nung, The Emperor, 39, 180
Sheng-chia-chuang (village), 69
Sheng-tzu (village), 14, 53
Shetland Islands, Folk-lore of, 184(1),

291 (i)
Shih Ching quoted, 206, 297
Shih Huang Ch'iao (Bridge of the

" First Emperor "), 19 seq.
Shinto, 319 (4), 341
Shu Ching (a Confucian classic), 34-5,

39, 40, 41
Shuang-tao (village), 97
Shun, The Emperor, 39, 392
Sidney, Sir Philip, 314
Silk industry, 59, 141 (i), 162, 166
Sino-Japanese war, 2, 56, 87 (i),

428
Skating, 81
Skeat's Malay Magic quoted, 1 75 ( i ),

298(0.379(1, S), 422 (I)
Small-pox in Weihaiwei, 193
Smith, A. H., quoted,22^ (2), 321-2,

331-2, 334
Snipe, 165-6
Sociological interest of Weihaiwei,

133 seq., 155 seq., 195 seq.
Solomon, King, 22
Sophora Japonica, 168, 381, 383
Souls, Festivals of, 191, 292, 369
South Division of Weihaiwei, 97 seq.,

104, 114 seq., 129
Spectator, The, quoted, 333, 431
Spencer, Herbert, 315, 316, 341, 431
"Sphere of Influence," British, 78
Spiders, Folk-lore connected with,

Spiritualism, Chinese, I'j^seq.

Sport at Weihaiwei, 82, 165-6

Spring Festivals, iSo seq.

Spring Ox, 180-2

Ssuch'uan, Chinese official Annals of,

36
Ssu-ma Ch'ien (Chinese historian),

35
St. George and the Dragon, 387 (2)

St. Helena, 80

Straits Settlements, 80

Streams of Weihaiwei, 18

Su-men-tao (island), 42

Suicides, 219, 221 seq.

Sulphur springs at Weihaiwei, 29

Summer at Weihaiwei, 66

Sun, Chinese legends relating to the,

21, 40 seq., 60-1
Sun-worship, 185
Sung dynasty, 44, 59
Sung-lin-Kuo-chia (village), 163
Sung Ting hill, 31
Swettenham's Malay Sketches quoted,

1.75 (O
Switzerland, Holy trees in, 379

Sympathetic magic, 176, 416

Ta-jen (term of respect), 15, 16,

106-7
Taku, 14

Ta K'un-yii hills, 79
Ta-lan-t'ou (village), 78
Ta lao-ych (term of respect), 15,

106 (2)
Ta-sung-wei, 53
T'ang dynasty, 44, 59, 398-9
T^ai PHng Huan Yii Chi quoted,

21, 22, 43.46
Tao, Meaning of, 352, 354-5
Tao Te Ching, 351 seq., 355
Taoism, lo-il, 32, 173 seq., 333,

351-84
Taoism, Supreme God of, 32, 391 seq.
Taoist "Pope," 358
Taoist priesthood, 357 seq.
T'ao Lang-hsien, 50
Taxation under British rule, 93-7
Temperature of seasons at Weihaiwei,

81-2
Temples, 23, 26, 27, 60, 78, 79, 129

seq., 135, 258, 279, 301, 357 seq.,

391 seq., 399 seq.
Tengu, see T'ien Kou
Teng-chou, 16, 40, 44
Tennyson, 411-12
Tertullian, 323
Thackeray quoted, 325 (i)
Theatricals, i^^o seq., 183-4
Thermal springs, 29, 98, 400
Ti, a Chinese word for God, 339-41
Tiao-wo hill, 31
Tiger, Manchurian, 160
Times, The. quoted, 432
Ting, Admiral, 2
Ting Pai-yun, 73
T'ien Hon, Queen of Heaven, 336,

385

460

INDEX

Tien Kou (Heavenly Dog), 174
Tombs, Festivals of, 186-7, 255-6,

and see Ch'ing-ming
Torture in Chinese courts, 309-10
Tou Shan Ssii (Buddhist temple),

402
Trade of Weihaiwei, 28, 94-5, 129,

164 seq., 426 seq.
Transmigration of souls, 403-4
Tree-worship, 261-2, 375, 377-81
Trees, 17, 18, 167-8
Truthfulness, Chinese and Confucian

conceptions of, 105, 108-12, 310-17
Tsai Li Sect or Society, 35S
Ts'ai Shen (God of Wealth), 360-I
Tsao Shen, see Hearth-god
Ts'ao-miao-tzii, 1 29
Tsingtao, 426
Tso Chuan, 35
Ts'iin Kuei (village regulations),

160 seq.
Tung-lai Prefecture, 43, 44
Tutelary local deities, 364-77
T'u Ssii, 47
T'u Ti (local deity), 155, 336, 371-7,

, 382, 386
Tylor's Primitive Culture quoted,

177, 186,251 (3), 252, 261, 287(2),

319 (2), 320, 341 (2), 365 (i),

375. 377, 378, 381, 382, 403. 4".
418, 419, 420, 422, 423
Tyrell, George, quoted, 326 (l), 329

Uji-gami of Japan, 373

United States and China, 440 seq.

Untruthfulness of Chinese, Alleged,

108-12, 310-17
Upanishads of India, 330
Urn-burial, Sir Thomas Browne's,

quoted, 239 (l), 264 (l)

Vaeddas of Ceylon, 252
Vampires, 298
Vedas of India, 330-1
Vientian, Dances at, 131-2
Village-life and Land tenure, 127 seq.

155 JtV/.
Village tutelary gods, 155, 336, 371-7
Villages of Weihaiwei, 79, 127 seq.,

155 seq. and passim
Vine-cultivation, 165
Vivian, Philip, quoted, 304-5

Wade, Sir Thomas, quoted, 329
Walter, Mr. R., 79
Wang-chia-k'uang (village), 18
Wang Ch'i-jui, 74-5

Wang Ch'ung (Chinese philosopher)

quoted, 40 (2), 271 (i), 297,

347 (I), 422
Wang Hsien-wu, a Pirate, 50
Wang Yiieh, 71
War, God of, see Kuan Ti
Water, Lack of running, 18
Watters, T., quoted, 183 (2)
Wealth, God of, 360-1
Weather, Methods of forecasting,

179
Weeping over corpses. Superstition

regarding, 295 seq.
Wei, meaning of, 12-13
fFe? (military district), 12, 13, 46j-d'^.,

5?-3. 54, 55
Wei Chiang-chiin, 70

Wei To (Buddhist divinity), 404

Weihaiwei Convention, 2, 29-30, 57,

77-8, 428 ; meaning of name, 12-3 ;

Order-inCouncil, 8, 99, 100 ;

scenery of, 17, 18, 25, 395 seq.
IVeihaizvei Chih (Chinese Annals of

Weihaiwei), 37, 46, 168, 289 seq.,

362-3, 390-1
Weihaiwei City, 29, 47, 78, 129, 362,

367-8
Weihaiwei, Future of, 426 seq.
Weihaiwei Police, 83, 98, loi, 158

seq.
Weihaiwei Regiment, 28, 82-7
Weihaiwei School, 28, 90
Wen-ch'ang (Taoist divinity), 361-2
Wen-ch'iian-chai, 53, 54, 382
Wen-ch'lian-t'ang, 53, 54, 70, 98,

165, 400
Wen-teng city and district, 13, 14, 16,

23, 43, 44, 48, 53, 63, 69, 98,
180(1), 301
Wen-teng, Legendary origin of name,

23
Wen-teng Magistrate, 30, 61, 64
Wen-teng, Marquis of, 69-70
Wen-teng Shan (hill), 23, 69
Wcn-tc)ig Hsien Chih (Annals and

Topography of Wen-teng), 36,

37, 46, 56, and see Annals
White-clouds, Mr., 73
Widow-immolation, 204 seq., 2\(jseq.,

225 seq.
Widows, 217 seq.
Wild-fowl at Weihaiwei, 165-6
Williams, Dr. Wells, 316 (2), 331,

334 (2), 335. 336, 421
Willow-wreaths as rain-charms, 187,

346
Wiltshire, Folk-lore of, 281 (l)
Winter at Weihaiwei, 81-2
Witches, Chinese, 21-4, 174, 176

INDEX

461

Wives, Purchase of, 211 seq.
Wo-jen (" Dwarfs," a term applied to

Japanese), 46, 48, 70
Wo Lung Shih (names of rocks), 19
Wolves, 56, 57, 166
Women, Chinese, 103, 112, 113,

\i^o seq., 168-9, 195-216, 217-45
Wordsworth quoted, 394
Wu fit (five degrees of relationship),

143
Wii Yileh or Wu Yo, see Hills,

Sacred
Wylie's Notes on Chinese Literature

cited, 313 (3)

Yamens, Chinese, 55

Yang and Yin. see Yin-yang

Yang Ku (the Valley of Sunlight),

41-2
Yang-t'ing (village), 129, 385
Yao, The Emperor, 39, 40, 392

Yao-yao hill, 31

Yellow and White races. Alleged

antipathy between, 430 seq.
Yin-ma-ch'ih (" Drink-horse-pool"),

24 . . .,

Yin-yang (in ancient Chinese philo-
sophy), 262 seq., 276, and see
Feng-shui
York Powell, F., quoted, 319-20
Yorkshire, Graveyard superstitions of,

291, 386(1)
Yorkshire, Holy trees in, 379
Yung Lin, Suicide of, 223 (i)
Yli, The Emperor, 20, 39, 392
Yu-chia-k'uang (village), 18, 398
Yii I (earliest recorded inhabitants of
eastern extremities of Chinese
Empire), 38 seq.
Yii P'eng-lun, 70
Yiian (Mongol) dynasty, 44, 45, 59,

257

Yiian Shu-fang, 72

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