[337] Used for pounding rice.
[return to text]
[338] A fancy name for the Tung-t‘ing lake. See No. XXXVIII., [note 226].
[return to text]
[339] The commentator declares himself unable to trace this allusion.
[return to text]
[340] These are bound in between several sharp-pointed stakes and serve their purpose very well in the inland waters of China.
[return to text]
[341] This deity is believed to be constantly on the look-out for wicked people, aided by the Goddess of Lightning, who flashes a mirror on to whomsoever the God wishes to strike. “The thief eats thunderbolts,” means that he will bring down vengeance from Heaven on himself. Tylor’s Primitive Culture, Vol. I., p. 88.
[return to text]
[342] See No. V., [note 48].
[return to text]
[343] Gambling is the great Chinese vice, far exceeding in its ill effects all that opium has ever done to demoralize the country. Public gaming-houses are strictly forbidden by law, but their existence is winked at by a too venal executive. Fantan is the favourite game. It consists in staking on the remainder of an unknown number of cash, after the heap has been divided by four, namely whether it will be three, two, one, or nothing; with other variations of a more complicated nature.
[return to text]
[344] See No. XLVI., [note 271].
[return to text]
[345] See No. LIII., [note 288].
[return to text]
[346] The virtuous conduct of any individual will result not only in happiness and prosperity to himself, but a certain quantity of these will descend to his posterity, unless, as in the present case, there is one among them whose personal wickedness neutralizes any benefits that would otherwise accrue therefrom. Here we have an instance where the crimes of a descendant still left a balance of good fortune surviving from the accumulated virtue of generations.
[return to footnote anchor 346]
[return to Vol. II. footnote anchor 101]
[return to Vol. II. footnote anchor 262]