“Tsung Shih says: ‘All statements [concerning dragons’ bones] disagree; they are merely speculations, for when a mountain cavern has disclosed to view a skeleton head, horns and all, who is to know whether they are exuviæ or that the dragon has been killed? Those who say they are exuviæ, or that the dragon is dead, then have the form of the animal, but have never seen it alive. Now, how can one see the thing (as it really is) when it is dead? Some also say that it is a transformation, but how is it only in its appearance that it cannot be transformed?’
“Ki, in the present work, says that they are really dead dragons’ bones; for one to say that they are exuviæ is a mere speculation.
“Shi Chăn says: ‘The present work considers that these are really dead dragons’ bones, but To Shi thinks they are exuviæ. Su and Kan doubt both these statements. They submit that dragons are divine beings, and resemble the principle of immortality (never-in-themselves-dying principle); but there is the statement of the dragon fighting and getting killed; and further, in the Tso-chw‘en, in which it is stated that there was a certain rearer of dragons who pickled dragons for food [for the imperial table?].’
“The I-ki says: ‘In the time of the Emperor Hwo, of the Han dynasty, during a heavy shower a dragon fell in the palace grounds, which the Emperor ordered to be made into soup and given to his Ministers.’
“The Poh-wuh-chi states that a certain Chang Hwa ‘got dragon’s flesh to dry, for it is said that when seasoning was applied the five colours appeared, &c. These facts prove that the dragon does die, an opinion which is considered correct by [the writers of] the present work.’”
The Yuen Kien Lei Han.
This is an encyclopædia in four hundred and fifty books or volumes, completed in 1710. More than eighty pages are devoted to the dragon. These, with all similar publications in China, consist entirely of extracts from old works, many of which have perished, and of which fragments alone remain preserved as above.
I have had the whole of this carefully translated, but think it unnecessary to trouble the reader, in the present volume, with more than the first chapter, which I give in the Appendix. There is also a description of the Kiao, of which I give extracts in the Appendix, together with others relating to the same creature, and to the T‘o lung, from the Păn Tsao Kang Mu.