Fish CuUurists' Association. 37 



da}', and in adjacent villages the earth system is carried on, and has 

 been carried on for centuries. The intelligent foreigner in China is 

 constantly amused at the claims of these so-called modern inventions — 

 earth closets, for example. In the curious boat life of the empire — 

 thousands born, livin-^ and dying on boats — you will see the same care 

 of the excrement, liquids and solids being saved and sold. In the 

 valley of the Yang-tse, under this system, three crops are raised during 

 the year ; in fact, in no other way could the vast mass of people exist. 



I may mention as an equally curious, instructive and interesting fact, 

 the artificial incubation of fowls, carried on in every village of the 

 empire. You meet flocks of tin}" geese and ducks going to water led by 

 little boys, with the familiar bamboo wand, and another flock of small 

 chicks, numbering a hundred or more, going to pasture led in the same 

 way. In fact, there is wonderful accord between the beasts of the field, 

 the birds of the air, the fishes of the sea, and the average Chinaman, 

 w-ho, patient and plodding, talks to all these creatures of God's vast 

 domain, and brings himself to their level, or they rise to his, in a way 

 utterly unknown to the more fiery or more aggressive Cancasian. 



The amount of pliosphorus contained in certain fishes used for food has 

 led many scientists to assume that a fish diet has a tendency to increase 

 the activity of the brain, and hence is the only suitable diet for persons 

 who tax the brains cells for long and continuous periods. This, I thitik, 

 was a favorite theory of the great naturalist, Louis Agassiz, and many 

 persons believe he was the author of the thcor}-. I found in China that 

 the literary class believed that a farinaceous and fish diet was more suit- 

 able for them than one composed of flesh ; that while the foi'mer supplied 

 the waste of the s^'stem as well as nourished it, the latter made the blood 

 gross and heav}', and hence unfitted the system for severe mental toil. 



I once visited a high official, living on the borders of the famed Tung- 

 ting Lake, the great lake of China. His home was about 800 miles from 

 the Pacific Ocean, in the ver}' heart of the empire. After partaking of 

 his generous hospitality, and smoking the pipe of friendship, I asked 

 him if the Chinese philosophers of the ancient daj's attributed an}' spec- 

 ial properties to a fish diet as a brain producer and brain invigorator. 

 He smiled pleasantly, and begged me to follow him to the. Hall of Ances- 

 try — the sacred spot — the temple in the house of every Chinese gentle- 

 man in good circumstances. The walls were covered with numerous 

 lengthy scrolls, commemorating the virtues of his long line of ancestors* 

 going back, as he told me, to a period long before the birth of Jesus 

 Christ. " Here," he said, pointing to an ancient scroll, " is one of the 

 tablets our family hold in especial reverence. It tells the story of one 

 whose life was devoted to the poor, the sick, and the distressed. He 



