406 



JADE. 



as sung by Tsilcoung : " Pattern after shining virtue, be like jade, be like 

 gold." The author of the Chinese comedy entitled the Pledge of Love 

 describes nectar as the liquor of jade. " My brother," speaking to his 

 hero Han-fei-king, " speak to me no more of wine, for behold, when you 

 possess the liquor of jade, or any of those fruits which confer immortality 

 on such as taste them, I shall not take it." In another comedy, the 

 Accomplished Waiting-woman, the pretty Fan-sou likewise makes a 

 charming comparison, while walking in a park with her lady friend : 

 " The w'.llows wave their silky verdure, whose pearly streams loosen and 

 fall down like a shower of stars in this limpid pool. They are beads of 

 jade thrown into a crystal basin." 



The Yu-kaio-li already quoted, a Chinese romance of the middle of the 

 fifteenth century, uses the same comparison to prove that the conceited 

 Sou-you resembles a rich man rather than a poet, "covered all over 

 with gold and loaded with jade ;" literally encased with gold and en- 

 veloped in jade, he seems to say, look at my brilliant raiment. Although 

 preceded and followed by many servants, there was nothing striking 

 about him but his vestments. Finally, in chapter xix of another 

 romance, the Choui-hout-chouen or History of the Banks of the Eiver, a 

 young musician is named Yo-lan, or "the jade chrysanthemum;" and in 

 the Pe-kouei-tchi, or History of the Sceptre of Jade, referring to an infant 

 child named Hong " as that child has such beautiful eyes, the name 

 should be given him of Mei-yu," meaning as handsome as jade, which 

 recalls a passage in the Mirror of the World, " The nature of yu is 

 like the comeliness of a young girl." 



By the foregoing it is seen that nearly all the jade worked up in 

 China comes from Khotan. This city is pointed out by the historians 

 of the Central Kingdom by the name of Yu-thian, meaning the jade 

 country, being a part of the ancient Turkistan, now called Alt Hissar 

 or Hexapolis, from the six i)rincii)al cities observed there. "We give 

 here what is found relating to it in one of the numerous Notices of 

 Khotan. appended to the history of the Chinese Dynasties. " The 

 source of the Yellow Eiver is in the country of Yu-thian, and it is in 

 the mountains of that country where there is the greatest quantity of 

 yu. There is a river flowing out of it, which, on reaching Yu-thian, 

 separates into two branches, the most eastwardly of which is called the 

 river of White Y"u, that flowing to the west is called the river of the 

 Green Yu, and the most westerly of all is named the river of Black Yu. 

 In all three of them this mineral is found, but the colors difier. The 

 river to which the Chinese notice refers is Khotan, or Youroung- 

 khachi. Instead of parting into three branches, it is made up of three 

 separate rivers which have their origin in the Mouslagh Mountains, or 

 mountains of ice, on the north, a region rich in jade ;" hence the names 

 of white, green, and black jade, which the rivers bear to the present 

 time. 



Another notice asserts that the jade of Yu-thian is of five co'lors, 



