The Chinese and Eclipses.
During the eclipse of the moon, September 3d, I asked a Chinaman, "What the matter moon?" and he said: "Man eat um all up, sometime little bit. My country make um big noise, scare um 'way." He then made the motions of beating a drum and fingering a wind instrument to show me how they made the noise in China. I suppose the Chinese think that some devil eats up the moon, and by making a great noise they scare him away.
Robert P. Stephenson.
Nordhoff, California.