286 



NA TURE 



[January 21, 1892 



closes the fact that Yuang Chuang, the pilgrim monk, who, in 

 the seventh century A.D., returned after sixteen years' wander- 

 ings in India, brought cats with him to protect his collection of 

 Sanskrit Buddhist books from rats. That account, however, 

 is somewhat invalidated by an anecdote of Confucius, who 

 is related to have one day seen a cat chasing a rat. These 

 conflicting statements are from authoritative sources, and it is im- 

 possible to offer a satisfactory explanation. Possibly the cat of Con- 

 fucian times was only a partially domesticated wild cat. There 

 must have been some ground for the statement of the cat having 

 been brought from India, as it is hardly likely that in all the 

 long period of Chinese history it should be named but twice as 

 a domestic animal. He quotes from Chinese folk-lore on the 

 subject of cats. As cruelty to cats and other animals is followed 

 by retribution, so services rendered to them meet with supernal 

 recognition. As anciently the tiger was sacrificed to because it 

 destroyed wild boars, so the wild cat was worshipped because 

 it was the natural foe of rats ; boars and rats being the natural 

 enemies of husbandry. At the commencement of the Sui 

 dynasty (a.d. 581), the cat spirit inspired greater terror than the 

 fox did subsequently. The hallucinations of cat spirit mania 

 prevailed, forming a remarkable episode in Chinese history, 

 only to be likened to the fanatical delusion of witchcraft that 

 frenzied Europe a thousand years later. It was believed that 

 the spirit of a cat possessed the power of conjuring away 

 property from one person to another, and inflicted through 

 incantations bodily harm. The popular belief was intensified 

 and spread like an epidemic, until every disastrous affair that 

 took place was ascribed to cat spirit agency set in motion by 

 some mischievous enemy. Accusations were lodged against 

 suspected persons, and, the slightest evidence sufficing for con- 

 viction, the malicious were encouraged to trump up charges 

 against the innocent, until the country became a pandemonium. 

 No one was safe, from the Imperial family down to the humble 

 clodhopper. Even a magnate of the reigning house, who 

 enjoyed the titular distinction of Prince or King of Szechuan, 

 was executed for nefariously employing the agency of cat 

 spirits. In this manner several thousands were immolated 

 before the delusion was dispelled. Happily the period appears 

 to have been of brief duration : incentives such as kept up the 

 witch mania for centuries were wanting in China. Coming 

 down to our own times we find a cat-craft delusion prevailed 

 over a great portion of Chekiang. ' ' In the summer and autumn 

 of 1847 frightful wraiths appeared throughout the departments 

 of Hangchow, Shaohsing, Ningpo, and Taichow. They were 

 demons and three-legged cats. On the approach of night a 

 foetid odour was perceptible in the air, when dwellings were 

 entered by something by which people were bewitched, causing 

 alarm everywhere. On detecting the effluvium in the air, 

 householders commenced gong-beating, and the sprites, 

 frightened by the sonorous noise, quickly retreated. This 

 lasted for sveral months, when the weird phenomena ceased." 

 Well did he remember, said Dr. Macgowan, the commotion 

 that prevailed in Ningpo throughout those months of terror. 

 Every gong that could be procured or manufactured for the 

 occasion was subject to vigorous thumping through the live- 

 long night, maintained with vociferations by relays of zealous 

 beaters. This deafening din was but a recrudescence of what 

 had occurred a few generations before — a panic which was only 

 exceeded by that which subsequently prevailed over the entire 

 empire. 



With regard to sheep, Dr. Macgowan said the ancient 

 mode of writing the character for yang, goat, was ideo- 

 graphic—four strokes on the top to represent horns, two 

 horizontal strokes representing legs, and a perpendicular one to 

 represent body and tall. The modern form gives an additional 

 parallel stroke, like the word for horse ; it is a simple not a 

 compound character, and when sheep came to be known, 

 instead of making a new character, the sheep was called the 

 " Plun-goat," thus indicating its origin and affinity. Yang, goat, 

 is often translated sheep, the earliest instances being found 

 in one of the Odes, wherein the Court habiliments of Wen Wang 

 are called "lamb-skins and sheep-skins." This was about 

 1 160 R.c, but it is doubtful if these robes are really the skins of 

 sheep. It is not certain that such was the case, for the skins of 

 goats were used then, as now, for clothes. Hun-goats are not 

 named before the period of the Tang dynasty, say the seventh 

 century a.d. The goat was one of the sacrificial animals, as at 

 present, and was at the first selected for sacrifice when sheep 

 were unknown. 



NO. II 60, VOL. 45] 



In the discussion which followed, the conclusions of the paper 

 were not accepted by all the speakers ; and it was agreed 

 that the subject was one worthy of scholarly investigation. 



HAINAN. 



'T'HEgreatislandof Hainan, off the south-eastern coast of China, 

 is but little known to Europeans, although since 1877 there 

 has been a treaty port there. Mr. Parker, the Consulat Kiungchow, 

 the port in question, lately made a short journey in the interior of 

 the island, of which he gives some account in a recent report. He 

 travelled about sixty miles up the Poh-Chung River, to within 

 a mile or two of Pah-hi, which is, at most seasons of the year, 

 considered the limit of navigation for all but the smallest craft. 

 He walked round the walls of Ting-an city, one of the disturbed 

 districts during the recent rebellions, on New Year's Day 

 (February 9) ; they are just one mile in circuit, and differ little 

 from those of other Chinese cities. Wherever he had an oppor- 

 tunity of walking diametrically across lengthy curves of the 

 river he found the inclosed area to be extremely well cultivated ; 

 though not so flat, its general appearance recalled many features 

 of the Tonquin delta, especially in its great wealth of bamboos. 

 The productions of the soil are much the same, the papaw, 

 areca-palm, sweet potato, turnip, ground-nut, orange-tree, &c. ; 

 but a peculiar Hainan feature is the cocoa-nut palm. Another 

 peculiarity of this region is the ubiquitousness of the dwarf 

 Panda7tus, probably the same as the P. odoratissinia of Fiji, 

 the fibre of which is used in the manufacture of grass-cloth, 

 and is usually known to foreign trade here as hemp. Much of 

 the land was under sweet potato cultivation, and every house- 

 hold seemed to possess a few pigs, of the very superior and 

 stereotyped Hainan variety, black as to the upper and white as 

 to the lower part of the body, with a dividing line of grey 

 running along the side from the snout to the tail. These whole- 

 some-looking pigs are fattened on the sweet potato, and do not 

 rely for sustenance upon precarious scavengering, as is the case 

 with the repulsive and uncleanly animals of North China. 

 Land contiguous to the river is irrigated by enormous wheels, 

 forty feet in diameter, of very ingenious construction, moved by 

 the current, needing no attention, and discharging perhaps one 

 hundred gallons of water in a minute into the trough above, 

 day and night without intermission. He passed several large 

 pottery establishments ; but as at the New Year all business 

 and cultivation are suspended for a few days, the opportunity 

 was not a very good one for gathering precise information. 

 The temperature during the week ranged between 50° and 

 60° F. Game seemed plentiful everywhere, and he men- 

 tions that a German resident has recently made a very fine 

 collection of about 400 Hainan birds, embracing 154 species, 

 which will shortly be on their way to a Berlin Museum. One 

 of the commonest birds in the river is a spotted white and black 

 kingfisher of large size. Amongst the trees which attracted his 

 attention was one locally called the "great-leafed banyan," 

 which looks remarkably like the gutta-percha tree ; the natives 

 seem to use its gum mixed with gambier, in order to make that 

 dye "fast" ; but there is some doubt whether it is not the sap 

 of the real banyan-tree which is used for the purpose. A very 

 strong silk is made from the grub called the " celestial silk- 

 worm," or, locally, "paddy-insect." This grub is found on a 

 sort of maple. When full-grown it is thrown into boiling 

 vinegar, on which the " head " of the gut, or " silk," appears; this 

 is sharply torn out with both hands drawn apart, and is as long 

 as the space between them, say five feet ; it is so strong that 

 one single thread of it is sufficient to make a line with which to 

 catch the smaller kinds of fish. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 

 Oxford. — The Chancellor of the University, acting as 

 Visitor of Pembroke College, has appointed the Rev. Bartholo- 

 mew Price, M.A., F.R.S., Senior Fellow, and Vicegerent of 

 the College, Sedleian Professor of Natural Philosophy, to _be 

 Master of the College in the place of the late Dr. Evans. Prof. 

 Price, whose contributions to mathematics are well known, has 

 long taken a leading part in University business, and his appoint- 

 ment to the Mastership of the College, of which he has been a 

 Fellow since 1843, will be warmly approved. 



