Fing-shui once ntore 221 



from the Tibetan mountains. In many places, where the 

 auger-holes, as one may well call them, approached the 

 water's edge, their sides had been broken in, and thus 

 the hard rock was being rapidly disintegrated. This process 

 is being carried on throughout the whole river-bed, from 

 Tibet all the way to the great plain of Hukwang, which 

 is being steadily filled up with so much of the detritus as 

 does not find its way still lower down to the delta of the 

 Great River in Kiangsu. My Chinamen, seeing me poking 

 about and fishing up the boulders from the bottom of the 

 basins, most of which contained a pool of stagnant and by 

 no means fragrant water, of course imagined I was looking 

 for gold; they received an attempted explanation of the 

 phenomena, that were so interesting to me, with an air of 

 absolute incredulity. It is as hard to lead a Chinaman to 

 believe that natural phenomena are due to natural causes, 

 and not due to mysterious polytheistic agencies, as it is in 

 the West to convince a devout believer in witchcraft of the 

 non-existence, or rather non-interference,'of the supernatural 

 in current mundane affairs. Whether the old philosophers 

 of China ever had any real insight into the workings of 

 nature, such as is credited to them by their enthusiastic 

 admirers, I entirely doubt; but certain it is, that at the 

 present day Feng-shui, although a delightful superstition, 

 greatly interferes with progress, and prevents the search 

 for real remedies for the many ills from which humanity, 

 and Chinese humanity especially, is still cruelly suffering. 

 This living and travelling for any length of time with such 

 unsympathetic creatures as the ordinary Chinaman, is 

 exasperating to a degree, and I do not wonder at those 

 Europeans who have cast their lot in the interior of China 

 appearing eccentric, to say the least, to their fellow-country- 

 men, when they again emerge into real civilization. For 



