152 CHINESE PUZZLEDOM 



the fellow who stole the dog, and the direction he has gone 

 is to the eastward. Besides this, we have the radical "ear." 

 The ear denotes the sense of hearing, from which I gather 

 that if you keep your ears open you will hear tidings of the 

 dog. Go to the east of your master's house; keep your ears 

 open and listen for the dog's bark. There is no doubt the 

 dog will be found." I am unable to tell whether the boy 

 did not go far enough eastward, or whether he did not keep 

 his ears wide enough open, for the dog was not found in spite 

 of the oracle. 



Chinese writing is also well calculated to put the wits 

 of the student to a severe test. The old "seal" characters 

 now chiefly used for seals, titles and decorative purposes are 

 puzzling enough in all conscience, to say nothing of the 

 archaic "tadpole" script rarely seen at the present time 

 except on ancient bronzes and coins. The ordinary manu- 

 script style is admittedly the most elegant and at the same 

 time the most difficult writing in the world, while the 

 "cursive" or "current" hand is certainly the most perplex- 

 ing in existence. It is a special study by itself. An ex- 

 cellent puzzle is an ordinary cash note, or a shopkeeper's 

 receipt, written in the cursive hand. Let the student only 

 try to decipher one of those documents, he will realize to 

 what a high standard of illegibility cursiveness can be 

 brought, and if he is disposed to be "cursive" himself, he- 

 will probably doom the perpetuators of this style and all 

 their deceiving flourishes to execration. Apart from this, 

 and in a special category of its own, is the "charm" writing 

 of the Taoist priests, based on Chinese notions of cosmogony 

 and astrology curiously blended with the esoteric mysticisms 

 of Taoist and Buddhist lore and the tenets of Confucianism. 

 Many have doubtless seen these anagrammatic charms, traced 

 as a rule, on slips of yellow paper and generally pasted over 

 doorways to intimidate evil spirits and to ward off sickness 

 at certain seasons. It will suffice to say here that every Fu, 

 as the charms are called, is the quintessence of a profound 

 riddle that baffles the Chinese themselves. 



On the subject of Mathematics it will be enough to 

 mention that at a very early date the Chinese were 

 acquainted with several branches of higher mathematics, 

 and that long before the introduction of the abacus they were 

 able by means of bamboo tallies called Ch'ou ( W ) to make 

 accurate use of an effective system of notation in the resolu- 

 tion of complex problems. According to the Shih Chi ( &IE), 

 or Book of Eecords, the Chinese were sufficiently advanced 

 in mathematics in the reign of the Emperor Yao (2357-2255 



