242 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



it was at last decided to induce good fung-sJiui 5 by erecting a pagoda 

 where the worst breach in the embankment had been made. This is 

 the pagoda already frequently referred to and which is still in good 

 condition. " After it was built, the tide, though it still continued to 

 come in the shape of a bore, did not flood the country as before." 



Fanciful as these ideas are, it is not at all surprising in view of the 

 awe-inspiring phenomenon which recurs at every tide, and with which 

 the inhabitants have had to cope perhaps from time immemorial, that 

 they should think of it with reverential superstition as the head of a 

 monster serpent which must needs be appeased. As many as five or 

 six thousand people have sometimes assembled on the sea-wall to 

 propitiate the god of the waters by throwing in offerings at a time 

 when the serpent under his control was raging at its highest. 



Intermittency of the Bore 



This legend taken in connection with the fact that Marco Polo, 

 who in the thirteenth century spent a year and a half in Hangchow, 

 does not include in his account, which otherwise pretends to great 

 minuteness, any reference to the bore seems to Professor Darwin to 

 indicate that the bore is intermittent, because the Emperor referred to 

 is of undoubted historical existence and antedated Marco by some cen- 

 turies. But Marco Polo's accounts are not to be taken entirely at their 

 face value as to accuracy and faithfulness, and even if the bore did 

 not exist in his time, the great sea-wall which was in all probability 

 built when the Chinese historians claim it was built by Prince Ch'ien, 

 viz., 911-915 a.d., must have existed, and it is hard to conceive how 

 he should have failed to mention such a stupendous public work, 

 especially when he seems to have been so keenly interested in the Grand 

 Canal. Either, as some authorities suggest, 6 Marco Polo never really 

 visited Hangchow, but got his glowing account of the city's wonders 

 from some native poet without admixing the proverbial grain of salt; 

 or else he was so enamoured with the gayeties of life at the capital that 

 he could not spare the time to visit Haining or the lower estuary in 

 person, but judged from afar that there must have been much shipping 

 there, for to this he alludes in several places. 



As Professor Darwin finally concludes, it is very uncertain whether 

 the Hangchow Bore has been intermittent, but it is sure that it is liable 

 to considerable variation, for reports by the foreign officers who headed 

 the troops sent against the Taiping rebels show that the intensity of 

 the bore was then (1852-1864) far less than it is to-day. The ex- 



6 Fung-shui, literally " wind-water," a much-used term in Chinese geomancy, 

 signifying propitious influence of the controling spirits involved in any under- 

 taking — perhaps the nearest simple English equivalent is "luck." 



6 Decennial Reports, Chinese I. M. Customs, 1892-1901, Vol. II., p. 4. 



