CHAPTER XVI

Wayside Shrines—The Fox God—Old Druggists’ Shops—Punishing Refractory Idols.

Few things interested me more than the numerous shrines on mountains, in the forests, or on the sea-shore, loaded with the votive offerings of poor peasants. Such was the shrine of a hermit famous for his strong legs. Round this were hung hundreds of half-worn straw sandals, a silent appeal from their late owners to have strength such as his bestowed on them. Some had presented gigantic new sandals, and a few had hung up roughly-outlined pictures of the same.

Specially dear to the farmers is Inari-Sama, generally called “the Fox-god,” whom they reverence as the special protector of the rice-crops. Inari means literally “riceman,” and the two Chinese characters used in writing the name mean “rice-bearing.” We passed quaint little shrines in the forest, where the wayfarers halted to say a prayer and cast small offerings into an alms-box, which bore an inscription to state its purpose, namely, “For feeding hungry demons.” Thus were the spirits of the forest propitiated. Every here and there in the steep wooded hills we came to two well-sculptured stone (or perhaps wooden) foxes sitting on pedestals. Passing between them, we found stone steps, and as we ascended we came to another couple, and then another, and another, till perhaps a long way up we reached a neat little shrine with a god riding on a fox, and before him were laid tempting little sugar foxes and bowls of rice.

Some of his numerous temples in the towns have beautiful wood-carving, and bronze foxes carrying urns with five flames rising from them. They are always in couples, doubtless that one wily beast may watch over the other. We found a very interesting fox-shrine near Kobe on the summit of a steep hill, at the foot of which (on the outskirts of a pretty village of thatched houses) we had noticed a whole row of wooden _torii_ about twelve feet high, painted a warm red colour. (The _torii_, or “bird-rest,” are simply two upright pieces of timber, supporting a third, which form the symbolic gateway at the approach to Shinto temples.) These were votive offerings from farmers, and led up to a great _torii_ of stone, guarded on either side by two large stone foxes mounted on pedestals.

At Kuzunomia, a famous Shinto temple near Osaka, I saw hundreds of these scarlet _torii_ arranged in avenues, all leading to a very popular fox-temple. The approach to the main temple is by a fine _cryptomeria_ avenue, beneath which stand a multitude of great stone lanterns—a pretty and quaint scene. Round this and several neighbouring temples it is accounted a work of merit to walk a hundred times, keeping reckoning by means of bunches of string. Of course this has originally been the sun-wise turn, common throughout the world, but here the pilgrims go either sun-wise or “widder-shin.” (In Scotland the latter was equivalent to invoking a curse.)

Some people say that the origin of fox-worship was simply a form of homage to Uga, the benefactor of mankind, in that he first cultivated the rice-plant. He is represented in ivory _netzkies_ and other carvings under the symbol of a snake encircling a bag of rice. Is it not strange in how many lands we find the same association of the serpent with the harvest, and his worship as one of the corn-gods? The attendants of Inari-Sama are foxes, ever ready to do his will, and therefore entitled to much propitiation by the farmers. So shrines in his honour and that of his retainers are multiplied all over the land, and children and peasants rejoice to celebrate various rustic but most picturesque festivals in honour of the fox-gods, whose images abound in every direction, and who hold so large a place in legendary lore.

Thus we learn how a noted sword-smith, driven to his wits’ end by a sudden order from the Mikado to forge a special blade, prayed to Inari-Sama, who straightway appeared and bade him do his work and fear nothing. The pious smith obeyed, and having decked his anvil like an altar with sacred ropes of rice-straw and symbolic _goheis_ of white paper, prepared to work single-handed, when suddenly the fox-god, in the likeness of a man, appeared and aided him so powerfully that the fame of that blade went forth throughout the land. In various tales of old Japan the fox figures as a most exemplary being; one especially tells of a peasant who saved the life of a young fox, and soon after, when his child was dying and the doctor prescribed the liver taken from a living fox as the only remedy which could save it, the grateful parent-foxes suddenly appeared, bringing their own young one for this purpose, as an offering to the good peasants.[64]

On the other hand, here as in China, people often firmly believe in a form of demoniacal possession[65] in which an evil fox-spirit has entered into a woman or child, and can only be driven out by priestly exorcism. Such scenes are represented in many picture-books. I also saw a finely painted scroll, many yards in length, representing the dire mischances which befell certain irreligious persons who had malignantly compassed the death of some foxes, an act which is accounted quite as criminal in Japan as in England. I wish I could have secured that scroll as an offering for a certain Master of Fox-Hounds.

At the Kitano-ten-jin, which is a fine temple near Kioto, I saw near the fox-shrine a handsome bronze bull, and two others of black and red marble. Amongst the votive offerings to these were many of straw shoes belonging to sick cattle, and also pictures of bulls presented by grateful farmers. Also innumerable metal mirrors (Shinto emblems of the sun) and beautiful brass lanterns inside the temple, and great stone lanterns in the outer court, all votive offerings.

In many places I saw shrines adorned with locks of human hair, and this

## particular offering figures prominently at Kioto, where a great Buddhist

temple, the Hon-gwan-ji, which was burned in an awful fire, has been magnificently rebuilt, a sum equivalent to £850,000 having been raised, largely by poor peasants. It is built entirely of wood, supported on huge pillars imported from the forests of Formosa, and is adorned with a profusion of admirable wood-carving of flowers, birds, and beasts.

From one of the beams hang about fifty very stout ropes, each about fifty feet in length, made entirely from the glossy black tresses of Japanese women, who, having no money to offer, brought this votive offering—a sacrifice of their most precious possession. These ropes represent the offerings of many thousands of women.[66] The men likewise contributed masses of their hair, which was woven into ropes of such strength that by them at least one of the heavy beams was hauled into position. It was estimated that 358,883 heads had been shaven to produce that rope!

Of course the regular method of hairdressing for a man, according to true Japanese custom, necessitates always shaving the front and middle of the head, so that only the hair from the back and sides is available to produce that quaint little tail, stiff with pomatum, which is brought forward to the top of the head. Now that young Japan allows his hair to grow, the work of the professional barber must be greatly diminished.

All hairdressing, male and female, is done at the shop, where feminine hairdressers attend to girls and women, and with skilled hand arrange those glossy loops and chignons which are always so neat, as if fresh from the artist’s hand, although they were perhaps dressed a day or two previously. But the careful damsels have been trained from infancy only to let their neck rest on the little padded wooden pillow, which just raises the head sufficiently to prevent its being ruffled on the mat. It is interesting to find what is practically the same pillow or neck rest, devised for the same purpose, in Japan, Kaffraria, and the South Sea Isles.

The Hon-gwan-ji temples, to one of which I referred just now, are those of a very remarkable sect of Reformed Buddhists who separated from the main body in the year A.D. 1262. Hence they are called the Shin-shiû, or New Doctrine, but they are also known as the Monto. Their founder was a saint of the name of Shinran Shônin. He seems to have attained to a conception of a life of faith, scarcely to be distinguished from Christianity, from which it was doubtless adapted.

In place of the cold, unsympathetic teaching of pure Buddhism, with its faultless standard of well-nigh impossible morality, and requiring a perfection to which every man must attain by his own merit, without any aid whatsoever from any Superior Being (for Buddha only left an example of superhuman purity and self-extinction, which his disciples must strive to follow without any help from him). In place of this cold teaching, Shinran taught that Buddha the Supreme is full of tender compassion for all his creatures, and that of his boundless mercy he desires to help all who rely on his aid and his merit to attain the blessedness of Nirvana, a state which, to the Shin-shiûist, implies no cold extinction, but rather the blessedness of eternal happiness.

The impracticable standard of pure Buddhism, which sanctioned no direct worship of any sort, had led to the growth of a complex mythology in which innumerable beings who were believed to have attained to the perfect state were not only recognised as Buddhas, but received actual worship.

The Shin-shiû sect, while recognising that all these have attained the rank of Buddhas, maintain that they did so only by the help and merit of Amida Buddha, who alone is to be worshipped, and that the true way of salvation is to have a saving faith in him, to keep his mercy ever in the heart, to invoke his name in order to remember him, and especially to cultivate gratitude for his great goodness. Thus the distinctive doctrine of this reformed sect is a belief in “help from another,” and the vain repetition of forms of words is discouraged.

This help does not extend to things temporal, for it is not lawful to pray for happiness in this present life, that being a matter beyond the control of any save the individual concerned, who must make or mar his own present condition according to his diligence or carelessness in the practice of morality.

This is the teaching of the learned; but we may be sure that as regards the mass of the worshippers who have thus been taught to commune with Amida Buddha as with a personal Saviour, the craving of the human heart will not express itself only with respect to things spiritual.

It is evident that the humanity and comfort to be found in this reformed Buddhism has given it a hold on the affections of the people which the other sects are rapidly losing, for whereas they are for the most part growing weaker and weaker, and their temples falling into decay from sheer neglect, those of the Monto continue to be thronged by devout worshippers, who prove their devotion to their church by the most open-handed offerings for its support, and for the repair of its vast temples—temples which were built on so gigantic a scale, that there might be room for all the multitude who should assemble to hear the preaching that proclaimed the welcome news of a Mighty Helper.

In its appeal to the human sympathies, and consequently to the masses, the Shin-Shiû seems to me to hold the same position with regard to other Buddhist sects that the worship of Juggernath (with its festival of Holy Food, to be eaten in common by prince and pariah,) does to all other sects among the Hindoos.

Even the priests are exempt from the life-long struggle to attain self-righteousness by asceticism, and are freely allowed to eat both fish and flesh—and also to marry and make their homes as happy as they can. They are required to be diligent in preaching, that they may make known to all men this better creed, and theological colleges have been established in order to bestow such thorough training, that the preachers may be fitted to cope with all rival teachers, whether Christian or Shintoist.

With all its advantages, the Monto creed nevertheless retains a full belief in transmigration, with all its weary succession of stages in an interminable existence; so that the man who, failing to claim the merciful aid of Amida Buddha, continues to be the slave of evil passions (such as anger or covetousness), must inevitably at the close of his present life be reborn as a lower animal, there to be met by the same mercy, offered to him in a new phase.

I do not know why these temples are built in couples, but both at Osaka and Kioto there are two close together, the Nishi, or Western, and the Higashi, or Eastern, Hon-gwan-ji, whose gigantic twin thatched roofs are conspicuous objects. I visited them all, and (notwithstanding the Monto repudiation of a belief in heaping up merit by vain repetitions) I found outside each of these, large revolving scripture-wheels, just the same as one at the Chi-on-in monastery of the Jō-do sect, and many other places.

Nevertheless there is a simple solemnity about these vast interiors, where there is comparatively little of obtrusive idolatry—only the great gilt images of Buddha and his disciples, dimly seen in the cool, deep shadow. Leaving our boots in the verandah not to sully the beautifully clean mats, we admired the exquisite uncoloured wood-carving of birds, beasts, flowers, phœnix, and dragons. In the first we entered, a group of priests in richly-coloured vestments, were chanting their litanies before the altar, occasionally ringing a small bell—and the fragrance of incense filled the air. There were only a handful of worshippers present, but they were unmistakably in earnest. As we passed behind a very respectable-looking woman, my companion overheard her simple petition: “O Buddha,” she said, “I have been very rude to you; I pray you to forgive me.” And when she had ended her prayer, she uttered a fervent “_Arigato, arigato_”—“I thank you,” with deeper feeling than goes with many an Amen.

There is said to be room in the temple for two thousand worshippers, who need no seats nor church accommodation other than the soft clean mats on which they kneel.

Beyond this house of prayer, there is a hall of preaching, where a black-robed priest, with crimson hood, expounds the law to a few attentive hearers, emphasising his words by tapping on his reading-desk with his fan. What a sensation it would produce in London if some of our great preachers carried fans into the pulpit on hot summer days. And yet what could be more sensible?

An extremely interesting Buddhist temple of quite another type, is that of Tennō-ji, in Osaka, which is dedicated to the Goddess of Mercy, but has many other shrines. In one small metal pagoda three thousand tiny images of many Buddhas receive homage, and near them are paintings of four mythological kings, each wearing the invariable halo, and holding “The Wheel of the Law.” Small wheels inscribed with Sanscrit characters are fastened on the gateways, and the worshippers gave them a twirl; also (as usual in a building by itself) stands a revolving scripture-wheel containing all the sacred Buddhist books, inviting the faithful to give it a turn on its pivot.

Above all towers a lofty five-storied pagoda, each finely curved roof supported by many dragons’ heads, and terminating in carved elephants’ heads, the red woodwork gleaming against the blue sky.

But a specially pathetic interest centres round two temples, one on each side of the great court, at which mothers offer the clothes, dolls, and other playthings of their sick or dead children, quite regardless of the contagion or infection which these may scatter. To put herself in communication with the Goddess of Mercy, the sorrowing mother holds the end of the rope which the priest pulls while tolling the great bell. (In all the temples there are long silken bell-ropes which the worshippers pull to call attention to their prayer, that they may not waste them on inattentive deities.)

But what interested me most of all in that neighbourhood was the discovery of two shops which at first I took to be taxidermists, well filled with specimens of their art. Like all their neighbours, they were open to the street, so we were able to take a leisurely survey of their strange contents; and it was some time before I could quite realise that these really were druggists’ shops of the pure and unadulterated old Chinese school, happily quite untouched by foreign innovations.

So rapidly has the scientific study of medicine been taken up by the Japanese medical practitioners, that the survival of such chemists was quite remarkable, and I was greatly struck by the evident annoyance of a Japanese gentleman, to whom I expressed my interest in having seen these curious mediæval shops; he evidently felt it humiliating that a foreigner should have seen such a relic of the days of foolish ignorance! He could not possibly understand how this glimpse of the little shops in Osaka enabled me to realise, as I had never done before, what strange medicines were administered to our British ancestors in the Middle Ages, and indeed within the last two centuries.

The quaint old men, whose loyal adherence to the customs of their forefathers afforded me such an interesting illustration of old Japan and old Britain, were compounders and sellers of CUROYAKIE, _i.e._ carbonised animals—in other words, animals reduced to charcoal, and potted in a multitude of small covered jars of earthenware, neatly ranged on shelves, to be sold as medicine for the sick and suffering.

Formerly all these animals were kept alive in the back premises, and customers selected the creature for themselves, and stood by to see it killed and burnt on the spot, so that there could be no deception, and no doubt as to the freshness of their calcined skin or bone medicine. Doubtless some insensible foreign influence—very likely some police regulation—may account for the disappearance of the menagerie of waiting victims and their cremation-ground. Now the zoological back-yard has vanished, and only the strange chemist’s shop remains, like a well-stored museum, wherein are ranged portions of the dried carcases of dogs and deer, foxes and badgers, fishes and serpents, rats and mice, toads and frogs, tigers and elephants.

The rarer the animal, and the further it has travelled, the more precious, apparently, are its virtues. From the roof hung festoons of gigantic snake-skins, which certainly were foreign importations from some land where pythons flourish, Japan being happily exempt from the presence of such beautiful monsters. I saw one very fine piece of skin, which, though badly dried and much shrunken, measured twenty-six inches across; but it was only a fragment ten feet in length, and was being gradually consumed, inch by inch, to lend mystic virtue to compounds of many strange ingredients. I was told that the perfect skin must have measured nearly fifty feet in length. I saw another fragment twenty-two feet long and twelve inches wide—this also had evidently shrunk considerably in drying, and must, when in life, have been a very fine specimen.

There were also some very fine deers’ horns, (hart’s-horn in its pure and simple form), a highly-valued rhinoceros horn, and ivory of various animals. My companion was much tempted by a beautiful piece of ivory about ten feet in length. I think it was the horn of a narwhal, but the druggist would only sell it for its price as medicine, namely ten cents for fifty-eight grains—whence we inferred that the druggists of old Japan, like some nearer home, fully understand the art of making a handsome profit on their sales!

Tigers’ teeth and claws were also esteemed very precious, and some strips of fur of the woolly tiger of China (a much handsomer animal than the hairy tiger of India), and fragments of other skins and furs, proved that these also held a place in the pharmacopœia of old Japan, as they continue to do in China (the source whence Japan derived many branches of learning besides the use of letters).

Unfortunately for the little lizards, which dart about so joyously in the sunlight, they too are classed among the popular remedies, being considered an efficacious vermifuge, so strings of these ghastly little corpses are hung in festoons in many village shops where I have often looked wonderingly at them. So lizards and dried scorpions (imported as medicine) also found a place in these strange druggists’ shops, which, with their general litter of oddities of various sorts, strongly resembled old curiosity-shops, while the eccentric old men in the midst of it all might have passed for mediæval wizards, rather than for grave dispensers of drugs as, in dark caps and flowing robes, they sat crouching over their little _hibachis_ (fire-pots) boiling broth of abominable things in small vessels.

On my return to England, I borrowed from several old libraries (especially the Advocates’ Library in Edinburgh) various books on Anglo-Saxon Leechdoms, and sundry medical works of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, especially such as related to the use of calcined animals, and as I read the medicine-lore of our very recent ancestors, I realised how accurately I had seen it represented in Osaka.[67] Although we cannot flatter ourselves that our ancestors were as exquisite in their neatness as the Japanese, or their earthenware jars as dainty and refined, there must have been just similar assortments of vessels containing the ashes of goat’s flesh, of dead bees, of wolf’s skull, or swine’s jaw, nay even of human skulls and bones. On the walls hung remains of birds, lizards, rats, and moles, together with skins of serpents, portions of mummies, horns of stags, rhinoceros, narwhal, and many other items of the strange _materia medica_ of our own ancestors.

In Hogarth’s illustrations of _Marriage à la Mode_, Plate III. shows a druggist’s shop in London in 1745, with shelves well stocked with little jars, and surmounted by a stuffed wolf’s head, while on another cupboard (which stands open to reveal a skeleton) hangs a large narwhal horn, part of a sword-fish, two dried crocodiles, and sundry other reptiles.

Doubtless such quaint shops were then found near majestic Westminster Abbey and St. Paul’s, just as the little Osaka drug-stores still existed side by side with the latest innovations of science, such as the numerous Japanese doctors, highly trained in England and America, the railway, telegraph, gas, and, most remarkable of all, a magnificent Mint, with fine large English houses for its foreign employees, and all the latest improvements in all its machinery, making it far more perfect than our own in London. So I was told by the English Master of the Mint, who most kindly took me all over it and entertained me most hospitably during my visit to Osaka.

In these streets every shop is a temptation to linger, and every group of figures suggests sketching, especially those of children playing happily, although each has a baby securely strapped on his or her back. Often while I was busily sketching I found quite a crowd of these courteous little people silently watching my work, and on one occasion I counted twelve small boys, each thus carrying the family baby! They were all so quiet that I should scarcely have known they were there, but that occasionally one of the boys would whisper some kind remark to the grave little one whose small face appeared above his shoulders. They were most picturesque in their gay dressing-gowns, with long sleeves and open neck lined with some bright colour, and gay waist-cloth.

The commonest game of these little folk, encumbered with babies and long garments, is a variety of battledore and shuttlecock, in which the sole of the foot acts as battledore,—very jerky for the babies!

One of the quaintest national festivals in honour of children is the feast of the _Nobori_, which are large paper fishes, floating from tall bamboos; these are attached to the roof of every house in which a son has been born in the previous twelvemonth. The emblematic fish is the carp, which is the emblem of perseverance, a characteristic which he is said to display in working his way up difficult rapids. As Japanese babies are legion, a considerable number of houses in every street are entitled to hang up this curious announcement, which I have no doubt fills the happy mother with considerable pride. The open mouth of the carp catches the breeze, which puffs it out like a balloon, and keeps it constantly in movement.

As the elder brothers might be jealous of a baby who had such an honour all to himself, the day is made joyful to them by gifts of boys’ playthings—warrior dolls, and little heroic demi-gods, with any number of flags and banners; and to these national toys are now added miniature cannon, guns, and other modern innovations. I need not say that to me only the purely native toys were attractive, and their variety is surprising.

Fascinating as are even the commonest kinds of Japanese dolls (such are now so freely imported to Europe) I was tantalised by accounts of the delightfully quaint doll-army which holds sway throughout the land for one day in every year—namely, the third day of the third month. It is known as the Hina Matsuri, that is to say “The Dolls’ Festival.” The dolls in question all represent historical or mythological characters—gods and demi-gods, Mikados and Shoguns, warlike heroes, Empress and other ladies of note, minstrels, courtiers, priests. They vary in size from tiny things to about twelve inches in height, and are made of wood or baked clay or china, but all alike are beautifully dressed in correct costume.

Two of these are presented to every baby girl at the first festival after her birth, and as they are carefully treasured from year to year, and fresh dolls are occasionally added, the family doll-house requires to be capacious. When a girl marries she takes her original brace of dolls with her to her new home, as an early offering for her prospective family! The dolls are provided with miniature properties of all sorts, tiny but exquisitely lacquered tables, with complete dinner or tea-sets, all requisites for the toilet and for painting, and making music.

These well-brought-up little Japanese maidens commence their festival by making formal offerings of sweetmeats and rice-wine to the dolls who personate the Mikado and the Kôgô—and then devote the whole long, happy day to play with the delightful companions who at night will be hidden from them, not to be seen again for twelve long months. I have had the luck to be shown some of these precious dolls, but they are only offered for sale at the orthodox season.

Japanese ingenuity seems never at a loss for something on which to expend itself, and as kite-flying is one of the popular amusements of old and young, much care is bestowed on decorating the kites. These are generally simply of a square form, a canvas (sometimes five or six feet square!) on which to depict strange mythological, theatrical, or historic scenes. But sometimes the kite-maker wearies of so prosaic a form, so he shapes his kite like some great bird or flying dragon, or other strange object. And he fastens to it a narrow strip of bamboo or whale-bone, so placed that as it flies through the wind it shall produce a low humming sound like an Eolian harp.

When grown up men take to kite-flying, they dip the upper end of the string in glue, and then in powdered glass, so that it may become a sharp cutting-instrument. Then several go out together and take sides (sometimes they adopt the names of the grand old families to give point to their mimic warfare) and each tries to fly his kite higher than that of his opponent, and then suddenly to draw it down, and in so doing cut loose his rival.

As all the shops are open to the street, and the workers never seemed at all to object to our halting to watch them, I saw much of the processes of manufacture, from that of exquisitely delicate patterns of enamel on copper or china, to that of idols being rough-hewn from the original timber, and thence up to the highly coloured and gilded article, ready to receive worship.

On several occasions, in rural districts, I saw a regular ecclesiastical “spring-cleaning” going on, which was exceedingly curious. Thus on the shores of beautiful Lake Biwa we halted at a tumble-down old temple called Go-Hiyaku-Rakkan, sacred to the five hundred disciples of Buddha, and there found a painter of images repairing five hundred very cleverly carved old images, every one different, and all full of character; a large number of them representing devout women. The artist was endowing each with a new halo, which, with the gaudy fresh paint, vulgarised them. About half had been thus renovated, and their arms, heads, and legs were stuck on sticks to dry. The great Amida Butzu was represented with a wife on either side, one riding on a lion, and the other on a white elephant.

A few months later I saw various similar scenes in the course of my wanderings in China, and heard much about the very peculiar attitude of the Chinese towards the celestial powers, and their mode of dealing with refractory gods, who cannot be induced to grant the humble prayers of their worshippers. This is most strikingly shown in regard to those gods who are supposed to have special control of the weather, and whose neglect to send rain in due season (or rather, their grievously irregular distribution of this gift) results in the terrible droughts and awful floods which so frequently devastate vast tracts of the Chinese Empire.

In the first instance the gods are approached in all humility, with fasting and prayer, the temples are thronged, and the officials of inferior rank even go thither on foot. Should they fail to obtain their petition, officials of higher grade take the matter in hand; first the City Prefect, then the Governor-General of the Province, clothed in sack-cloth, and loaded with chains and fetters, and escorted by the Arch-Abbots of both Buddhist and Taonist temples. Failing these, a Prince of the Imperial family tries his persuasive power, and should the Water Dragon still prove obdurate the Emperor himself assumes his highest office as High Priest of his people.

Should the Imperial prayer be granted, the good Dragon is rewarded by a general repair of his temples, and by the official award of a new title, which is duly chronicled in the _Peking Gazette_. Thus in 1867, when after a season of prolonged drought the scorched earth at last hailed refreshing showers, a certain well near his temple at Han-tan, in the Province of Honan, was officially canonised as “The Holy Well of the Dragon God.”

But when the gods prove obdurate, their worshippers sometimes lose patience and resort to most irreverent methods of bringing them to reason, such as carrying the idols from the cool shade of their temples, and depositing them in the scorching sun till they are cracked and blistered, and their paint and gilding all falls off. Thus they are supposed to realise something of the discomfort to which they are subjecting poor human beings.

For it must not be imagined that the idols are incapable of feeling! Dr. Dudgeon of Peking, who examined a number, while in process of demolition in various old temples, told me that inside the idols he found the various organs of the chest, heart, lungs, abdomen, and intestines in general, all accurately figured according to Chinese notions of anatomy. Some of these were several hundred years old, but all in wonderful preservation, being generally made of rich silk or satin, the heart being of red silk, with veins of variously coloured silk proceeding from it. To the heart is frequently attached a small brass mirror, to enable the god to reflect the heart of his worshipper, and to this is also attached an invocation written on silk and wound round a stick. The bowels are all enveloped in a large piece of silk or satin, so as to keep all compact.

In certain cases, though no visible idol is made to suffer, the invisible Water Dragon is made exceedingly uncomfortable by the application of an iron gag. In the well to which I have already referred, in the Court of the Temple of the Water Dragon, outside the gates of the city at Han-tan, there is kept an iron plate six inches long and half an inch thick, on which is inscribed a petition for abundance of rain. When all other means to obtain relief in times of excessive drought have proved in vain, the Emperor sends a special officer to travel all the way to the Province of Honan, to bring this plate to Peking. Its arrival having been duly notified in the _Gazette_, it is reverently placed on the altar in the great Temple of the National gods, where it is supposed to act as a key to lock the mouth of the great Water Dragon, who is chief of the Rain-gods, and this makes him so extremely uncomfortable, that he hastens to send rain, to induce his troublesome worshippers to remove the gag!!

It is not only the gods of the weather who are dealt with in this extraordinary fashion. On the same principle that a surgeon sometimes bandages the eyes of his patient during some horrible operation, so while a temple is undergoing repair, and the dilapidated images are irreverently stowed away in a corner, their eyes are covered with little strips of paper, as a hint that they are requested not to observe what is going on, till all is restored to order.

But the most startling of all human relations to celestial beings, are when the former venture to sit in judgment on the latter, and, finding them guilty of misdemeanour, condemn the idols to decapitation—the form of execution which is held in the utmost abhorrence, and is deemed infinitely worse than hanging or crucifixion, because its evil consequences follow the dead beyond this present life, a decapitated spirit being immediately recognised as quite unfit company for respectable spirits, whose bodies were buried intact. It is therefore evident that to subject a god to such treatment, represents the very acme of contempt.

Yet this was done in 1889 at Foo Chow, where amongst the numberless temples to gods of every description, there is one temple specially frequented by persons desiring to be revenged on their foes. A few months previously the Tartar military commander died suddenly, and his death was forthwith attributed by the populace to the gods of this temple. Hearing this, the Viceroy of the province issued commands to the Prefect of the city that they should be legally arrested, and judicially punished.

Armed with the Viceroy’s warrant, the Prefect proceeded to the temple and arrested fifteen wooden idols, averaging five feet in height—hideous beings gaudily painted. Their eyes were at once destroyed, in order that they might not see who was their judge, nor be able to trouble him in this world or in the life to follow. Thus sightless, they were brought before the judgment-seat of the Prefect, who having fully investigated the case, sent his report to the Viceroy, who pronounced the terrible verdict that all fifteen should be beheaded, their bodies be cast into a neighbouring pond, and there left to decay, while their temple should be sealed with the Government seal, which no man dare break, and thus be deserted for evermore. Thus were these injudicious gods banished from Foo Chow never more to trouble the peace of its inhabitants!

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