292 



NA TURE 



[January 26, 1899 



notice. Much of it has been published before in the 

 first two volumes of his monumental work on China, the 

 size and price of which have made it a sealed book to 

 most commercial Germans, and the lanj^uaye has pre- 

 sented an even more serious obstacle to the vast useful- 

 ness which it should have for the British merchant and 

 student. Parenthetically one cannot help remarking 

 how much an English publisher could serve the interest 

 of his country by producing translations of such works 

 as Richthofen's "China," and resolutely rejecting the 

 sensational jottings of uninstructed tourists, whose 

 writings it is a dreary and discouraging task merely to 

 glance through and throw aside. While the German 

 bar remains to exclude English readers of the class who 

 could most profit by it, the handy form and low price of 

 the new volume will be highly appreciated in Ciermany. 

 The fact that Baron von Richthofen recognised Kiauchou 

 Bay thirty years ago as a desirable base for German 

 colonial enterprise, is a striking example of the practical 

 value of expert opinion, even though a government be 

 long in acting upon it. 



The book contains a valuable introduction dealing with 

 points of practical importance for all interested in China. 

 The section on the European orthography of Chinese 

 names is of great value, and, making allowance for the 

 slight differences in phonetic expressions in German and 

 English, it is no less useful for us than for our neighbours 

 across the North Sea. Baron von Richthofen points 

 out that all Chinese names are made up from a collection 

 of 330 syllables, each represented by a single ideograph 

 which does not vary, although the phonetic and tone 

 value of it differs in each provincial dialect. But while 

 the natives of distant provinces cannot understand each 

 other's speech, they can all not only read the ideographs, 

 but can understand an educated Chinaman speaking the 

 Mandarin dialect — High Chinese, as Richthofen terms it 

 in order to work out a pretty analogy between Chinese 

 and the High German and various local dialects of his 

 Fatherland. MX that has to be done is to discover the 

 normal phonetic value of each syllable in " High Chinese," 

 and adopt a definite spelling for it, and the names of 

 all China can then be written with confidence. This, of 

 course, is not published for the first time ; but it may 

 be appropriately referred to at present in reference to the 

 adoption in the publications of the Royal Geographical 

 .Society of such spellings as Vano-tsc-Chinngm accordance 

 with Sir Thomas Wade's system of selecting the Peking 

 dialect as the basis for phonetic rendering, whereas the 

 form )'(ini;-tse-ki(i>ii^ is the normal one. As so much will 

 be written on China and Chinese affairs in the immediate 

 future, it is really an urgent matter to scientific men, as 

 as well as to merchants and journalists, to fix upon some 

 one mode of spelling which will facilitate reference and 

 prevent confusion. The (lerman forms of Von Rich- 

 thofen can be adopted in every particular except that 

 where it has sch we must write s/i, and where it has /sc/i 

 we must write ch simply. The Germans have adopted 

 r in place of theiry, have the s always sharp, and discard 

 the German z in favour of ts, and they have received the 

 j with its French (our z/i) sound, and the ti' with its 

 English value. 



.\ note on the various grades of Chinese towns explains 

 the meaning of the -/«, -c/ioii, and -hsien attached to the 

 .\'0. 1526, VOL. 59] 



significant part of the name. There is a useful section on 

 weights and measures, in which, however, an error of a 

 decimal point occurs, the length of the chili or Chinese 

 foot being given as j'jSi metres according to the British 

 Commercial Treaty. That treaty, however, specifies I4'i 

 inches as the length of the chih, i.e. o'jjS metre. 



AUSTRALIAN FOLK LORE. 



Australian Legemiary Tales. Collected by Mrs. K. 

 Langloh Parker. With introduction by .Andrew Lang. 

 Pp. .\vi -t- 132. (London: Nutt. Melbourne: Mel- 

 ville, Mullen, and Slade, 1897.) 



Afore Aus/ralian Legendary Tales. Pp. xxiii + 104. 

 (London : Nutt. Melbourne : .Melville, Mullen, and 

 Slade, 1898.) 



AUSTR.ALIA is still in many respects an unknown 

 country, full of unravelled problems, not the least 

 amongst them being the people who were once the 

 owners of the land. Bit by bit we are getting to know 

 something about the continent, its geology, fauna, and 

 flora ; but of its people, beyond their language and 

 physique and complex marriage laws, we know little, 

 and especially is this the case regarding their psychology. 

 This is much to be regretted ; but the seeds of the neglect 

 were sown when the first Colonial governments began to 

 sell lands, not their own, to the squatters and settlers to 

 stock with sheep and cattle or for cultivation. But the 

 sheep and cattle ate up the foods which had hitherto been 

 the support of the fauna, upon which the aborigines 

 relied largely for sustenance, so that before long the 

 flocks and herds of the invaders were killed by the 

 hungering natives. The stock-riders and shepherds left 

 to guard the flocks were attacked with a boldness born 

 of ignorance, and reprisals followed with a wantonness 

 and cruelty we would gladly shut our eyes to. In the 

 end the weaker party succumbed and degenerated as 

 we see them in the smaller township of the bush, breed- 

 ing an undeserved contempt in the tninds of their de- 

 spoilers. .-Xny intercourse of an elevating nature with 

 the Australian was thus nipped at the outset, and hence 

 it is we know so little of the inner life of the doomed 

 people. Fortunately, of late years many good attempts 

 have been made to rescue from loss a very considerable 

 knowledge of the natives, and we have now to record a 

 further attempt, resulting in the publication of two 

 charming volumes, for which we must express our grati- 

 tude to the author. F"or twenty-five years Mrs. Parker 

 has studied the aborigines on the Narran River in New 

 South Wales, close to the Queensland border, discover- 

 ing practically a new field, for it is the first collection of 

 .Australian aboriginal legends we have had the good 

 fortune to meet with. A large number of the stories 

 explain the origin of things according to the native 

 mind — why the cockatoo is bald under his crest, and the 

 lizard covered with prickles ; how fire was discovered and 

 stolen ; how the Narran lake (.' swamp) first made its 

 appearance ; and how it is that the pelican has a pouch ; 

 how the platypus came to be a cross between a duck 

 and a rat. .Much also do we gather about the daily life 

 of the natives : how they prepare their food, hunt the 

 emu, carry on war, and make rain — which latter is 



