The constant fear of this River God is so deeply intrenched in these poor souls that they take no pleasure on the water and they carry their sense of fear to such an extent that they will not even attempt a rescue of their own babies or loved ones if these happen to fall into the water.
Mr. Hutchinson calls attention to Dr. E. D. Soper's book "The Faiths of Mankind" in which there is an entire chapter called "Where Fear Holds Sway."
"Where is it that fear holds sway?" the reader asks.
The answer is, "In the Orient"!
Yes, the whole Orient is one great gallery of dim, uncertain, weird, mysterious Flash-lights of Fear.
Paul Hutchinson says:
"It is impossible for the Westerner to conceive such an atmosphere until he has lived in it. In fact he may live in it for years and never realize the hold which it has upon his native neighbors. But it is no exaggeration to say that, to the average Chinese, the air is peopled with countless spirits, most of them malignant, all attempting to do him harm. Even a catalogue of the devils, such as have been named by the scholarly Jesuit, Father Dore, is too long for the limits of this article. But there they are, millions of them. They hover around every motion of every waking hour, and they enter the sanctity of sleep. An intricate system of circumnavigating them, that makes the streets twist in a fashion to daze Boston's legendary cow and puts walls in front of doors to belie the hospitality within, runs through the social order."
This fear is even expressed in Chinese architecture.
"Why is that strange wall built in front of every household door and even before the Temples?" I asked a friend in China.
"It is put there to fool the devils. They will see that wall and think that there is no door and then will go away and not bother that house any more," I was told.