374 REPORT OF NATIONAL MITSEUM, UK)0. 



is, in coiiHequeiice, usually depicted as a lauie and ragged beggar 

 exhaling his spiritual essence in the form of a shadowy miniature 

 of his corp(»reaI form, or conjuring five l)ats, symbolical of the five 

 kinds of hai)piness (see No. 27) from a gourd. 

 Han Hsiang-tz'u is rejiuted to have been the grandson of the famous 

 statesman, philosopher, and poet of the T'ang dynasty, and to have 

 lived in tlie latter half of the ninth century. He was an ardent 

 votary of transcendental study, and the pupil of Lii Tung-pin (see 

 ante), himself one of the immortals, who appeared to him in the 

 flesh. Having been carried up into the peach tree of the Genii (see 

 Nos. 27 and 28), he fell from its branches, and in falling entered 

 into immortality. He is usually depicted playing upon a flute or 

 sitting upon a i^ortion of the trunk of a peach tree. 

 Lan Ts'ai-ho is of uncertain sex, but usually reputed a female. The 

 l'oi-j)'hi(j-ki((mg-chi states that she wandered abroad clad in a tattered 

 l)lue gown, with one foot shoeless and the other sho<l, in sunmier 

 wearing a wadded garment next the skin and in winter sleeping 

 amid snow and ice. "In this guise," says Mayers, " the weird being 

 begged a livelihood in the streets, waving a wand aloft and chant- 

 ing a doggerel verse denunciatory of fleeting life and its delusive 

 pleasures." Lan Ts'ai-ho is usually drawn as an aged man or as a 

 female clad in leaves or rags, carrying a basket (?) to hold the alms 

 given. 

 Ho Hsien-Ku was the daughter of one Ho T'ai, a native of Tseng-ch'cng, 

 near Canton, and was l)orn in the latter half of the seventh century. 

 Born with six hairs growing on the top of her head, she at fourteen 

 years of age dreamed that a spirit visited her and instructed her in 

 the art of obtaining immortality by eating powdered mother-of-pearl. 

 She complied with this injunction and vowed herself to a life of vir- 

 ginity. Her days were henceforth passed in solitary wanderings 

 among the hills, among which she moved as on wings, to gather 

 herbs, and eventually renounced all mortal food. Her fame having , 

 reached the ears of the Empress Mu, a concubine endowed with a 

 masterful intellect, who succeeded in usurping the sovereign power, 

 and who, l)ut for a revolution, would have de^iosed the dynasty of 

 T'ang, she was sunnnoned to court, but vanislied from mortal sight 

 on her way thither. She is said to have been seen once more, in 

 A. D. 750, floating upon a cloud at the temple of the Taoist immortal 

 Ma-Ku, and again some years later near Canton. She is sometimes 

 represented clothed in a mantle of mugwort leaves and holding a 

 lotus flower. 

 26. /)Vrw/ of white K'anghsi (1(562 to 1722) porcelain, with scalloped edges dividing 

 the vessel into eight flattened sections, each filled with a scene admirably 

 painted, chiefly in l)lue, but with small details in enamel green, <m a ground 

 inside and out of deep yellow under thick transparent glaze. These paint- 

 ings are copies from celebrated pictures, drawn by a famous artist named 

 Fei of the Yuan dynasty, i. e., latter half of the twelfth or early in thirteenth 

 century, illustrative of the pleasures of the Hsi-yuan or Western Park. At 

 bottom inside, a man holding a jar, also in blue. An admirable specimen of 

 a highly prized ware. Mark 7}i-ch'ing-k'atig-}i!<i-nien-chih, " ^lade during the 

 K'anghsi period of the Great Pure or Ch' ing ( the present) dynasty. ' ' Height, 

 3| inches; diarneter, 7f inches. 



Of this ware the Ambassade de la Compagnie Orientale des Provinces 

 Unis vers I'Empereur de la Chine ou Grand Can de Tartarie fait par 



