FABLE AND FOLKLORE 209 



of China, proper, the plains and deserts of Mongolia, 

 and the broad prairies that stretch across Manchuria, 

 making together the widest area of fairly level and till- 

 able land on the globe. Much of it was never forested, 

 and from a large part of the remainder the scanty growth 

 of woods had been cleared before written history began. 

 The climate as a whole is temperate and equable, and 

 rarely disturbed by startling and destructive meteoro- 

 logical phenomena. Furthermore, except the tigers of 

 the jungly southeastern border, no dangerous animals are 

 to be feared or to be idealized into mythical things of 

 terror. Two evils of nature remain to disturb the in- 

 habitants of this favored region — annual spring-floods, 

 often fatally widespread; and, second, frequent earth- 

 quakes. The floods are perfectly understood in their 

 cause as well as in their effects, and afford little material 

 for superstition. As for the earthquakes, the people long 

 ago found a sufficient explanation in the invention of a 

 burrowing beast of prodigious size and strength, which 

 they called an "earth-dragon," and whose movements as 

 it stirs about heaves the ground beneath our feet. The 

 wave-like character of the earth-shocks showed that the 

 dragon must be elongated and reptile-like; and now and 

 then a landslide or diggings disclosed long and massive 

 bones that evidently were those of these subterranean 

 monsters, although foreigners said they were fossil re- 

 mains of Mesozoic reptiles or something else. The whole 

 idea, in fact, is so plausible and logical, that it really be- 

 longs to scientific hypothesis rather than to mythology. 



The reaction of this tranquil geographical situation and 

 history has been to produce, or mould, a people gentle, 

 self-contained and averse to strife. This is not par- 

 ticularly to their credit or their discredit. It is as natural 



