And then a new cycle commences just as before.

This Calendar was carried by the Mongols into all their dominions, and it would appear to have long survived them in Persia. Thus a document issued in favour of Sir John Chardin by the Shaikh-ul-Islám of Ispahan, bears the strange date for a Mahomedan luminary of "The year of the Swine." The Hindus also had a 60-year cycle, but with them each year had an independent name.

The Mongols borrowed their system from the Chinese, who attribute its invention to the Emperor Hwang-ti, and its initiation to the 61st year of his reign, corresponding to B.C. 2637. The characters representing what we have called the ten coefficient epithets, are called by the Chinese the "Heavenly Stems;" those equivalent to the twelve animal symbols are the "Earthly Branches," and they are applied in their combinations not to years only, but to cycles. of months, days, and hours, such hours being equal to two of ours. Thus every year, month, day, and hour will have two appropriate characters, and the four pairs belonging to the time of any man's birth constitute what the Chinese call the "Eight Characters" of his age, to which constant reference is made in some of their systems of fortune-telling, and in the selection of propitious days. for the transaction of business. To this system the text alludes. A curious account of the principles of prognostication on such a basis will be found in Doolittle's Social Life of the Chinese (p. 579 seqq.; on the Calendar, see Schmidt's Preface to S. Setzen; Pallas, Sammlungen, II. 228 seqq.; Prinsep's Essays, Useful Tables, 146.)

CHAPTER XXXIV.

[CONCERNING THE RELIGION OF THE CATHAYANS ;' THEIR VIEWS AS TO THE SOUL; AND THEIR CUSTOMS.

As we have said before, these people are Idolaters, and as regards their gods, each has a tablet fixed high up on the wall of his chamber, on which is inscribed a name which represents the Most High and Heavenly God; and before this they pay daily worship, offering incense from a thurible, raising their hands aloft, and gnashing their teeth three

times, praying Him to grant them health of mind and body; but of Him they ask nought else. And below on the ground there is a figure which they call Natigai, which is the god of things terrestrial. To him they give a wife and children, and they worship him in the same manner, with incense, and gnashing of teeth, and lifting up of hands; and of him they ask seasonable weather, and the fruits of the earth, children, and so forth.3

Their view of the immortality of the soul is after this fashion. They believe that as soon as a man dies, his soul enters into another body, going from a good to a better, or from a bad to a worse, according as he hath conducted himself well or ill. That is to say, a poor man, if he have passed through life good and sober, shall be born again of a gentlewoman, and shall be a gentleman; and on a second occasion shall be born of a princess and shall be a prince, and so on, always rising, till he be absorbed into the Deity. But if he have borne himself ill, he who was the son of a gentleman shall be reborn as the son of a boor, and from a boor shall become a dog, always going down lower and lower.

The people have an ornate style of speech; they salute each other with a cheerful countenance, and with great politeness; they behave like gentlemen, and eat with great propriety. They show great respect to their parents; and should there be any son who offends his parents, or fails to minister to their necessities, there is a public office which has no other charge but that of punishing unnatural children, who are proved to have acted with ingratitude towards their parents.5

Criminals of sundry kinds who have been imprisoned, are released at a time fixed by the Great Kaan (which occurs every three years), but on leaving prison they are branded on one cheek that they may be recognized.

The Great Kaan hath prohibited all gambling and sharping, things more prevalent there than in any other

part of the world. In doing this, he said: "I have conquered you by force of arms, and all that you have is mine; if, therefore, you gamble away your property, it is in fact my property that you are gambling away." Not that he took anything from them however.

I must not omit to tell you of the orderly way in which the Kaan's Barons and others conduct themselves in coming to his presence. In the first place, within a half mile of the place where he is, out of reverence for his exalted majesty, everybody preserves a mien of the greatest meekness and quiet, so that no noise of shrill voices or loud talk shall be heard. And every one of the chiefs and nobles carries always with him a handsome little vessel to spit in whilst he remains in the Hall of Audience-for no one dares spit on the floor of the hall,—and when he hath spitten he covers it up and puts it aside. So also they all have certain handsome buskins of white leather, which they carry with them, and, when summoned by the sovereign, on arriving at the entrance to the hall, they put on these white buskins, and give their others in charge to the servants, in order that they may not foul the fine carpets of silk and gold and divers colours.]

NOTE 1.-Ramusio's heading has Tartars, but it is manifestly of the Cathayans or Chinese that the author speaks throughout this chapter.

NOTE 2.-" Sbattono i denti." This is almost certainly, as Marsden has noticed, due to some error of transcription. Probably Battono i fronti, or something similar, was the true reading.

NOTE 3.-The latter part of this passage has, I doubt not, been more or less interpolated, seeing that it introduces again as a Chinese divinity the rude object of primitive Tartar worship, of which we have already heard in Book I. ch. liii. And regarding the former part of the passage, one cannot but have some doubt whether what was taken for the symbol of the Most High was not the ancestral tablet, which is usually placed in one of the inner rooms of the house, and before which worship is performed at fixed times, and according to certain established forms. Something, too, may have been known of the emperor's worship

of Heaven at the great circular temple at Peking, called T'iantan, or Altar of Heaven (see p. 439), where incensed offerings are made before a tablet, on which is inscribed the name Yuh-Hwang-Shang-ti, which some interpret as "The Supreme Ruler of the Imperial Heavens," and regard as the nearest approach to pure Theism of which there is any indication in Chinese worship (see Doolittle, pp. 170, 625; and Lockhart in J.R. G.S., xxxvi. 142). This worship is mentioned by the Mahomedan narrator of Shah Rukh's embassy (1421): "Every year there are some days on which the Emperor eats no animal food. . . . . He spends his time in an apartment which contains no idol, and says that he is worshipping the God of Heaven”* (Ind. Antiquary, II. 81).

The charge of irreligion against the Chinese is an old one, and is made by Hayton in nearly the same terms as it often is by modern missionaries: "And though these people have the acutest intelligence in all matters wherein material things are concerned, yet you shall never find among them any knowledge or perception of spiritual things." Yet it is a mistake to suppose that this insensibility has been so universal as it is often represented. To say nothing of the considerable numbers who have adhered faithfully to the Roman Catholic Church, the large number of Mahomedans in China, of whom many must have been proselytes, indicates an interest in religion; and that Buddhism itself was in China once a spiritual power of no small energy will, I think, be plain to any one who reads the very interesting extracts in Schott's essay on Buddhism in Upper Asia and China (Berlin Acad. of Sciences, 1846). These seem to be so little known that I will translate two or three of them. "In the years Yuan-yeu of the Sung (A.D. 1086-1093), a pious matron with her two servants lived entirely to the Land of Enlightenment. One of the maids said one day to her companion: 'To-night I shall pass over to the Realm of Amita.' The same night a balsamic odour filled the house, and the maid died without any preceding illness. On the following day the surviving maid said to the lady: 'Yesterday my deceased companion appeared to me in a dream, and said to me: "Thanks to the persevering exhortations of our mistress, I am become a partaker of Paradise, and my blessedness is past all expression in words."' The matron replied: 'If she will appear to me also then I will believe what you say.' Next night the deceased really appeared to her, and saluted her with respect. The lady asked: May I, for once, visit the Land of Enlightenment?' 'Yea,' answered the Blessed Soul, 'thou hast but to follow thy handmaiden.' The lady followed her (in her dream), and soon perceived a lake of immeasurable expanse, overspread with innumerable red and white lotus flowers, of various sizes,

* "In the worship carried on here the Emperor acts as a high priest. HE only worships; and no subject, however high in rank, can join in the adoration" (Lockhart). The actual temple dates from 1420-1430; but the institution is very ancient, and I think there is evidence that such a structure existed under the Mongols, probably only restored by the Ming.

VOL. I.

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