[165] It would be more usual to “renew the guitar string,” as the Chinese idiom runs. In the paraphrase of the first maxim of the Sacred Edict we are told that “The closest of all ties is that of husband and wife; but suppose your wife dies, why, you can marry another. But if your brother were to die,” &c., &c.
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[166] This, as well as the staff mentioned below, belongs to Buddhism. See No. IV., [note 46].
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[167] The first Manchu ruler of the empire of China. He came to the throne in A.D. 1644.
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[168] It is worth noting that the author professes actually to have witnessed the following extraordinary scene.
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[169] The vernal equinox, which would fall on or about the 20th of March.
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[170] A fabulous lady, said to reside at the summit of the K‘un-lun mountain, where, on the border of the Gem Lake, grows the peach-tree of the angels, the fruit of which confers immortality on him who eats it.
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[171] One of the most celebrated of the numerous secret societies of China, the origin of which dates back to about A.D. 1350. Its members have always been credited with a knowledge of the black art.
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[172] Of Chinese jugglers, [Ibn] Batuta writes as follows:—“They produced a chain fifty cubits in length, and in my presence threw one end of it towards the sky, where it remained, as if fastened to something in the air. A dog was then brought forward, and, being placed at the lower end of the chain, immediately ran up, and reaching the other end immediately disappeared in the air. In the same manner a hog, a panther, a lion, and a tiger were alternately sent up the chain, and all equally disappeared at the upper end of it. At last they took down the chain, and put it into a bag, no one ever discerning in what way the different animals were made to vanish into the air in the mysterious manner above described. This, I may venture to affirm, was beyond measure strange and surprising.”
Apropos of which passage, Mr. Maskelyne, the prince of all black-artists, ancient or modern, says:—“These apparent effects were, doubtless, due to the aid of concave mirrors, the use of which was known to the ancients, especially in the East, but they could not have been produced in the open air.”
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[173] See No. LXXI., [note 53].
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