[23] Ten was a sort of mystic number with the ancient Chinese. Lao Tzŭ, the "Old Philosopher," for instance, is supposed to have had ten lines on each hand and ten toes on each foot.
[24] These superstitions, which are treated seriously in the Shan Hai Ching, are referred to in the Lun Hêng of Wang Ch'ung, a writer of the first century A.D. Wang Ch'ung decided that the ten suns could not have been real suns, for if they had been in a Hot Water Abyss they would have been extinguished, because water puts out fire; and if they had climbed a tree their heat would have scorched the branches! (See Forke's transl. of Lun Hêng, Luzac & Co: 1907, pp. 271 seq.)
[25] See Legge's Chinese Classics, vol. iii. pt. 1. pp. 18-23.
[26] Ibid., vol. iii. pt. 1. pp. 162 seq.
[27] The Shan Hai Ching mentions an island in the Wên-têng district, off the south-east coast, called Su-mên-tao, which still bears that name; and describes it as jih yüeh so ch'u—"the place where the sun and moon rise." This part of the ocean, though not the island itself, is visible from the sandy strip mentioned in the text.
[28] See the T'ai Ping Huan Yü Chi (chüan 20).
[29] The offensive appellation is preserved to this day in the name of a small island 120 li south-west of the Shantung Promontory, known as Dwarfs' Island. The term is still frequently used by the people, and it often occurred in formal petitions addressed to my own Court until I expressly forbade, under penalty, its further use.
[30] T'ai P'ing Huan Yü Chi, 174th chüan, pp. 3 seq.
[32] For notices concerning the ch'ien-hu and pai-hu of the tribes of far-western China at the present day, see the author's From Peking to Mandalay (John Murray: 1908), pp. 172, 176, 190, 425-7, 429.