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THE SEA. 



The natives were terror-struck, more especially if the quake happened at night, and there 

 would burst a mass of confused sounds, ' Kew ming ! Kew miug ! ' (' Save your lives ! 

 save your lives ! '} Dogs added their yells to the medley, amid the striking of gongs and 

 tomtoms. Next day there would be exhaustless gossip concerning upheaval and sinking 

 of land, flames issuing from the hill-sides, and ashes cast about the country. The Chinese 

 ideas on the subject are various. Some thought the earth had become too hot, and that it had 



to relieve itself by a shake, or that it was changing its place for another part of the universe. 

 Others said that the Supreme One, to bring transgressors to their senses, thought to 

 alarm them by a quivering of the earth. The notion most common among the lower 

 classes is, that there are six huge sea-monsters, great fish, which support the earth, and 

 that if any one of these move, the earth must be agitated. Superstition is rife in 

 ascribing these earth-shakings chiefly to the remissness of the priesthood. In almost every 

 temple there is a muTi-yu an image of a scaly wooden fish, suspended near the altar, and 

 among the duties of the priests, it is rigidly prescribed that they keep up an everlasting 

 tapping on it. If they become lax in their duties, the fish wriggle and shake the earth 

 to bring the drowsy priests to a sense of their duty. 



