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how to seek the life-prolonging herb '. After having been favoured 

 with high dignities and salaries, they set sail with a crowd of 

 six thousand girls and boys, not older than fifteen years, to seek 

 the island of the blessed % but although they sought for it a 

 long time, it was all in vain. The sien, who were afraid of 

 punishment on accoimt of their lies, now invented a new scheme. 

 On returning to the Court they advised the Eraperor to go on 

 board himself and set out with a large army. Again the foolish 

 monarch believed them, and put to sea with not less than three 

 millions of soldiers, who made a terrible noise by crying in 

 chorus and beating drums (in order to frighten the sea-gods and 

 thus be able to reach the island of the blessed). The dragon-god, 

 aroused by the din, appeared at the surface of the sea in the 

 shape of an enormous shark, five hundred chHh (feet) long, with 

 a head like that of a lion. He was immediately surrounded by 

 the fleet and killed with poisonous arrows, so that his blood 

 coloured the sea over a distance of ten thousand miles. That 

 night the Emperor dreamt that he had a battle with the dragon- 

 god ; and the next day he fell ill and died within seven days '. 



1 Cf, De Groot, Rel. Syst. of China, Vol. IV, pp. 307 seqq. : the chi, -W^ , a branched 

 fungus, which was said to grow on the isle of Tsu in the Eastern Ocean. According 

 to the Shih cheu ki ( -+- Ml W^ , ''Description of the Ten Islands", "an account of 

 fabulous countries which were believed to exist in several regions beyond the oceans, 

 probably written in the earlier part of the Christian era" [De Groot, 1. 1 , Vol. I, p. 

 272]) the Emperor heard about the existence of this herb on the Tsu island from a 

 Taoist ascetic philosopher, and then sent an envoy to the island with five hundred 

 young people of both sexes. They put to sea to seek the island^ but never came back. 



2 P'eng Lai, ^J ^, "fairy land, an elysium far from man's abode; some regard 

 it as denoting Kyushij in Japan" (Wells Williams, Chin.-Eng. Diet, p. 661 s. v.). 



3 This version of the tale is to be found in the Taiheiki, "^ ^ f E , Ch. XXVI, 

 pp. H5 seqq. 



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