282 



CHINESE TKADITIONS. 



Chap. XIII. 



it, and that it was impossible to get it out ; but 

 that it was there, nevertheless, they firmly be- 

 lieved. I confess I was a good deal surprised, 

 and was half inclined to think my friends were 

 having a good-humoured joke at my expense, but 

 again, when I looked in their faces, I could detect 

 nothing of this kind expressed in any of their coun- 

 tenances. Much puzzled with this curiosity , and not 

 being able to gain any information calculated to 

 unravel the mystery, I determined to keep the 

 subject in mind, and endeavour to get an expla- 

 nation from some one who was better informed 

 than these countrymen appeared to be. 



A short time after this I happened to meet a 

 Chinese gentleman who had travelled a great deal 

 in many parts of his own country^ and whose 

 intelligence was of a higher order than that of 

 his countrymen generally. To this man I applied 

 for a solution of the Kin-chung, or golden bell. 

 When I had described what I had seen at Quan- 

 ting, he laughed heartily, and informed me that 

 it was simply a superstition or tradition which 

 had been handed down from one generation to 

 another, and that the ignorant believed in the 

 existence of such things although they did not 

 endeavour to account for them. He further in- 

 formed me such traditions were very common 

 throughout China, particularly about Buddhists' 

 temples and other remarkable places visited by 

 the natives for devotional purposes. Thus, at the 

 falls in the Snowy Yalley, which I have already 



