FISH AND FISHING IN CHINESE WATERS. 6$? 



manufactured in a very simple manner by the primitive method of 

 the solar evaporation of sea-water. The salt-factory consists of a 

 large terrace, above which is another terrace of only one sixth the su- 

 perficial area of the lower one, and of two salt-water cisterns, one at a 

 short distance from the terraces, and the other between them. The 

 terraces having been covered with a bed of gravel, the larger or lower 

 one is filled with water, which is admitted at high tide through a 

 sluice-gate in the dike. After giving a sufiicient time for the soil of 

 the terrace to absorb the water, the gravel, on which a considerable 

 quantity of salt has accumulated, is raked up. At a little above the 

 level of one of the cisterns is fixed a filter made of bamboo rods. On 

 this is piled the salted gravel which has been collected from the lower 

 terrace, and through the whole is run a stream of sea-water from the 

 larger cistern. The water, having absorbed the salt from the gravel 

 over the filter, is then led into the smaller cistern — the one between 

 the terraces — and from this is taken and spread over the second ter- 

 race, where the solar heat soon removes it by evaporation from the 

 dissolved salt. The salt is then ready for use without any further 

 preparation. Two men are sufficient to work a salt-bed that will fur- 

 nish an average of seven hundred and twenty kilogrammes of salt 

 every two days — a return that would be extremely profitable were 

 it not for the taxes. But the manufacture of salt is a government 

 monopoly, and whoever goes into the business has to pay the state 

 seven tenths of all that he produces ; so that the road to wealth, for 

 the individual, is not, after all, through a salt-marsh. 



Busy as he is at his busy time, the Chinese fisherman's life is a 

 hand-to-mouth existence, and it is a great strain upon him to maintain 

 himself through his dull season. Men of this craft have then to resort 

 to other side-trades to eke out their living. Some of them gather up 

 shells on the beach and burn them into lime ; some split off the na- 

 creous parts from large muscle-shells and carve them into square semi- 

 transparent panes, which serve as substitutes for window-glass ; and 

 others, going to the oyster-beds, skillfully pry open the shells so as not 

 to disturb the inhabitants, and slip into them pieces of wood carved 

 into fanciful shapes, which will in time become thinly covered with 

 nacre and be sold for mother-of-pearl ornaments. 



In view of the precarious condition of their existence, the fishermen 

 have formed themselves into societies for common protection against 

 the rapacity of the mandarins and to give assistance to such as may 

 be in need. The society at Hai-Meun constitutes a strong corpora- 

 tion, and possesses a large building, where its business meetings are 

 regularly held and theatrical representations are given ; a hall for the 

 public weighing of such fish as are sold by weight ; and a temple where 

 sacrifices are made before going to sea, with a space in front of it in 

 which the new nets are spread for the performance of the ceremonies 

 of consecration. 



VOL. XXTI — 42 



