BANCROFT LIBRARY THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA MM NOTICES OF FU-SANG, AND OTHER COUNTRIES LYING EAST OF CHINA, IN THE PACIFIC OCEAN. TRANSLATED FROM THE Antiquarian Researches of Ma Twan-Lin, WITH NOTES. By S. WELLS WILLIAMS, Professor of Chinese Language and Literature in Yale College. NEW HAVEN: TUTTLE, MO REHOUSE & TAYLOR, PRINTERS 1881. NOTICES OF FIJ-SANG, AND OTHER COUNTRIES LYING EAST OF CHINA, IN THE PACIFIC OCEAN. TRANSLATED FROM THE Antiquarian Researches of Ma Twan-Lin, WITH NOTES. By S. WELLS WILLIAMS, ' g '' S/ Professor of Chinese Language and Literature in Yale College. NEW HAVEN: TUTTLE, MOREHOUSE & TAYLOR, PRINTERS. 1881. [FROM THE JOURNAL OP THE AMERICAN ORIENTAL SOCIETY, VOL. xi, 1881.] bancroft UbiatfJ NOTICES OF FU-SANG. THE origin of the various nations arid tribes inhabiting the American Continent is a question that has attracted the atten tion of antiquarians ever since the discovery of the continent four centuries ago. The general designation of "Indians," given by Columbus to the people whom he met, shows the notion then entertained of their Asiatic origin, not less than his ignorance of their true position. Since that time, numerous antiquarians have given us their' ideas and researches upon this obscure subject. Some have combined many scattered facts so as to uphold their crude fancies ; while others have formed a theory, and then hunted over the continent for facts to prove it. When their various works are brought together, comparison only shows how little which can lead to a definite conclusion has yet been .really ascertained. The digest of the most careful of these travelers, and the candid analysis of the works of antiquarians and philologists, given by H. EL Bancroft in the fifth volume of his laborious work on the Native Eaces of the Pacific States (pp. 1-136), fully upholds his concluding sentence as to the present state of this question : " To all whose investigations are a search for truth, darkness covers the origin of the American peoples and their primitive history, save VOL. xi. 12 4 Ma Twan- Lin's for a few centuries preceding the Conquest The darkness is lighted up here and there by dim niys of conjecture, which only become fixed lights of facts in the eyes of antiquarians whose lively imaginations enable them to see best in the dark, and whose researches are but a sifting out of supports to a pre conceived opinion." Since the publication of this work, in 1875, attention has been again directed to a hypothesis as to the origin of the native races namely, that America was peopled from China by the issue of Mr. C. G. Leland's book entitled Fusang, or the Discovery of America by Chinese Buddhist Priests in the Fifth Century. Mr. Bancroft had already collected the leading data upon this particular point (volume v., pp. 34-51), and Mr. Leland adduces no new facts. He brings together in a convenient form what he has collected from De Guignes, Neu mann, and d'Eichthal in favor of his theory ; while he analyzes and criticises the remarks of Klaproth, Sampson, and Bret- Schneider against it. I have thought that a translation of the sections describing the lands lying to the east of China found in the work of Ma Twan-lin would tend to place his notice of Fu-sang in its true light, and help us to guess where that country should be looked for. This distinguished Chinese author belonged to a literary family, and spent his life in collecting and arranging the materials for his great work, the Wan Hien Tung Kao (3t JJR 38. 3%) or Antiquarian Kesearches, which was published about the year 1321, by the Mongol emperor Jin-tsung, a nephew of Kublai Khan. Ma Twan-lin's life was passed amid the troublous times of the conquests of the Mongols, and his father held a high office at the court of the emperors of the Sung dynasty at Hangchow. He was busily engaged with these labors during the whole period of the residence of Marco JPolo in China (1275 to 1295), and their deaths probably occur red about the year 1325. The Antiquarian Researches now contains 348 chapters (kiien), arranged without any natural sequence, under twenty- live different heads, as Chronology, Classics, Religion, Dynasties, etc. The hist title is called &' I Kao (0 ^ %) or Re searches into the Four Frontiers. In it are gathered together in twenty-four chapters all the information that the author could collect respecting foreign kingdoms and peoples. He himself seems never to have traveled outside of his own land ; and during the ruthless wars of the Mongols he was probably glad to escape all molestation by staying quietly at his home at Po-yang, in Kiangsi province. The eight volumes contain ing these notices of other countries must consequently be regarded only as the carefully written notes of a retired scholar, Notices of Fu-sang. 6 who was unable to test their value or accuracy by any standard. either of his own personal observation, or of the criticisms of those among his acquaintances who had gone abroad. The energy and skill of the great Khan, so unlike the effete and ignorant rule of the native rnonarchs at Hangchow, must have developed much mental and physical vigor among his subjects. An author like Ma Twan-lin would therefore be stimulated to gather all the information he could, no matter whence it came, to enrich his work. His design was more like that of Hackluvt or Purchas than that of Rollin or La Harpe ; and in carrying it out he has done a good service for the literature of his native land. In his survey of lands beyond the Middle Kingdom, he commences on the east and goes around to the south and west, describing each country without much reference to those near it. Having no data for ascertaining their distances, size, or relative importance, he makes no distinction between islands, peninsulas, and continents; for of all such things his country men are even now just beginning to learn. When he died, the political boundaries and names of the divisions in the vast empire of Kublai, who died at least thirty years before, had already begun to change; and this source of error could not well be analyzed or corrected by him. These conditions must be borne in mind, when estimating his notices of countries lying outside of China. ' The twenty-four chapters in the Sz I Kao comprise 250 titles in all, but this does not mean 90 many kingdoms. There are twenty -five located on the east, seventy- three on the south, and twenty-four on the west ; and after these come brief accounts of seventy-eight regions still further west, even to Constantinople, which is regarded as a separate kingdom. The last eight chapters notice fifty more regions on the extreme north. An idea of the difficulties Ma labored under in prepar ing these accounts may perhaps be obtained by imagining the trouble an Arabian antiquarian, writing in the year 1800, and ignorant of European languages, would find in compiling a history of Germany for the ten previous centuries. His plan of grouping them by their bearings from China helps us a little when looking for them ; and as my present purpose is only to give what he says of those situated eastward beyond sea, this paper is narrowed down to nine sections. Of these, Japan is the longest, and is the seventh in the series. Between it and Hia-i, eight countries are mentioned, which are all now known to have been on the mainland. Thirty pages are devoted to Wo Kivoh (|g g) or Japan ; though it is placed in the series out of its proper order, between Fu-yu (^ f&) and Kao-ku-li (jg 'pj f|), kingdoms lying within 6 Ma Twan- Lin's the basin of the Songari river in the present Manchuria. The sixteenth in the list is Hia-i, or Yezo. It comes next to Poh- ^ ai (Wl $$)> a region identified with the maritime part of the recently acquired Russian possessions east of the river Usuri. SECT. xvi. HIA-I (jg J^), THE LAND OF THE SHRIMP OR CRAB BARBARIANS OR FOREIGNERS. Hia-i is the name of an island in the sea ; it is a small kingdom. Its chiefs have beards more than four feet long. The people arc* very skillful with their bows and javelins; they stick the arrows in their heads (or hair). They will compel people to hold the arrows, and then, standing oft' many tens of paces, will hit the arrows without ever missing. In the autumn of the year A. D. 660, envoys came from this kingdom in attendance upon those from Japan. The mention of the long beards of these foreigners identi fies them with the Ainos, who still dwell in Yezo. Professor A, F. Bickmore* regards them as the relics of an early Aryan race, which gradually emigrated eastward in prehistoric times, or were driven by more powerful races further and further eastward till they reached the Pacific Ocean. Others, with more probability, and more advantage of examination and comparison, look upon them as the aboriginal inhabitants of the Japan islands, and hold that the present Japanese are the offspring of a mixture between the Ainos and a southern race, which invaded the group before the Christian era. The word Ainos is derived, according to one Japanese expla nation, from the early Chinese pronunciation of f^ $(, meaning the ' bondmen of the Japanese.' Another account is that it is changed from inu 'a dog 1 ; a third explains it by the phrase ai-no-ko, or l offspring of the middle,' i. e. a breed between man and beast. The last two are given by Griffis, and they all go to prove the antiquity of this peculiar people. The slight notice of Ma Twan-lin shows that the Chinese knew almost nothing of them, and regarded them as entirely uncivilized. A Japanese description of the whole island, dated A. D. 1786, indicates that the Ainos then formed only a part of the popula tion of Yezo; and Klaproth criticises the mistakes of Euro pean voyagers in relation to their diffusion along the islands on the Pacific coast It is not at all "unlikely that the envoy from Japan mentioned in this notice was sent to the great Emperor Kao-tsu of T'ang in A. D. 660, in consequence of the victory obtained about that time by the Chinese over the Coreans. * American Journal of Science and Arts, vol. xlv., May, 1868. This carefully prepared paper contains most of the facts ascertained respecting them. ee also Miss Bird's Unbeaten Tracks in Japan, vol. ii. Notices of Fu-sang. 7 SECT. xvn. FU-SANG (J Jj|), OR THE KINGDOM OF FUSANG. In the first year of the reign Yung-yuen of the emperor Tung Hwan-hau of the Tsi dynasty (A. D. 499), a Shaman priest named Hwui-shin arrived at King-chau from the kingdom of Fusang. He related as follows : " Fu-sang lies east of the kingdom of Ta-han more than 20,000 li; it is also east of the Middle King dom. It produces m&ny fu-sang trees, from which it derives its name. The leaves of the fu-sang resemble those of the tung tree. It sprouts forth like the bamboo, and the people eat the shoots. Its fruit resembles the pear, but is red ; the bark is spun into cloth for dresses ; and woven into brocade. The houses are made of planks. There are no walled cities with gates. The [people] use characters and writing, making paper from the bark of the fu-sang. There are no mailed soldiers, for they do not carry on war. The law of the land prescribes a southern and a northern prison. Criminals convicted of light crimes are put into the for mer, and those guilty of grievous offenses into the latter. Crimi nals when pardoned are let out of the southern prison ; but those in the northern prison are not pardoned. Prisoners in the latter marry. Their boys become bondmen when eight years old, and the girls bondwomen when nine years old. Convicted criminals are not allowed to leave their prison while alive. If the sentence is a capital one, at the time they separate, they surround [the body] with ashes. When a nobleman (or an official) has been convicted of crime, the great assembly of the nation meets and places the criminal in a hollow (or pit); they set a feast with wine before him, and then take leave of him. For crimes of the first grade, the sentence involves only the person of the culprit; for the second, it reaches the children and grandchildren ; while the third extends to the seventh generation. The king of this country is termed yueh-ki; the highest rank of nobles is called tui-lu; the next little tui-lu; and the lowest no-cha-sha. When the king goes abroad, he is preceded and fol lowed by drummers and trumpeters. The color of his robes varies with the years in the cycle containing the ten stems. It is azure in the first two years ; red in the second two ; yellow in the third ; white in the fourth ; and black in the last two years. There are oxen with long horns, so long that they will hold things the biggest as much as five pecks. Vehicles are drawn by oxen, horses, and deer; for the people of that land rear deer just as the Chinese rear cattle, and make cream of their milk. They have red pears, which will keep a year without spoiling ; water rushes and peaches are common. Iron is- not found in the ground, though copper is ; they do not prize gold or silver, and trade is conducted without rent, duty, or fixed prices. In matters of marriage, it is the law that the [intending] son- in-law must erect a hut before the door of the girl's house, and must sprinkle and sweep the place morning and evening for a whole year. If she then does not like him, she bids him depart 8 Ma Twan-Liris but if she is pleased with him, they are married. The bridal cere monies are for the most part like those of China. A fast of si-vrn days is observed for parents at their death, five for grandparents, and three days for brothers, sisters, uncles, and aunts. Images to represent their spirits are set up, before which they worship and pour out libations morning and evening ; but they wear no mourn ing or fillets. The successor of the king does not attend person ally to government affairs for the first three years. In olden times they knew nothing of the Buddhist religion, but during the reign Ta-ming, of the Emperor Hiao \Vu-ti of the Sung dynasty (A. D. 458), five beggar priests went there from Ki-pin. They traveled over the kingdom, everywhere making known the laws, canons, and images of that faith. Priests of regular ordination were set apart among the natives, and the cus toms of the country became reformed. Ma Twan-lin makes no comment on this narrative, nor does he tell us whence Hwui-shin (|j| g) got it ; he did not feel obliged to discuss its veracity, or explain its obscurities. The first impression made upon one who reads it with the idea that Fa-sang lay somewhere on the American continent, is that it proves rather too much, judging by what we yet know of the nations and tribes who once dwelt there. I do not mean that the notices it gives of the houses, unwalled cities, curious mode of judging prisoners, and mourning customs, could not have applied to the natives of Mexico or Peru ; but it has not the air of the narrative of a man who had actually lived there. It is easy to reply that all traces of the people mentioned have been lost, so that our present ignorance of their early civiliza tion proves nothing either way. Still this account reads more like the description of a land having many things in common with countries well-known to the speaker and his hearers, but whose few peculiarities were otherwise worth recording. The shaman Hwui-shin may have been one of the five priests who went to Fu-sang from Ki-pin only forty years before his arrival at Kingchau (fij JH) the capital of the Tsi dynasty. A7- phi is the Chinese name for Coph&ne, a region mentioned by the Buddhist traveler Fa-hien (Chap, v.) under that name, and by Strabo and Pliny as situated between Ghazni and Canda- h'ar, along the western slopes of the Suleiman Mts., in the upper valleys of the Helmond river. These priests had prob ably traveled faf north of China in their missionary tour, as described by DeGuignesand d'Eichthal (Lelancl, pp. 143,144), and lived in Fa-sang until it had become familiar to them. I think that Ma Twan-lin inserts Hwui-shin's account next to that of Hia-i, from an idea that both kingdoms lay in the same direction. He seems to have found no accounts of a later date, and the long interval of seven centuries had furnished Notices of Fu-sang. 9 nothing worth recording about a land so insignificant as Fu- sang. We can hardly imagine that such would have been the case with a country to be reached by a long sea voyage, one where stupendous mountains, great rivers, well-built cities or citadels, and people with black or dark red complexions, would' each make a. deep impression upon an Asiatic. It is just as likely that junks drifted across the Pacific Ocean in the sixth century as in the nineteenth ; but Hwui-shin is as silent respecting the manner in which he returned from Fu-sang, as of the way he reached it. If the five priests had traveled towards Okotsk, and beyond the Kiver Anadyr, till they reached Behring's Straits, and then slowly found their way down to warmer climes, this would naturally form part of the story. Silence on all these points makes one hesitate in coming to the conclusion that Fu-sang formed any part of America. The internal evidences to be deduced from what is stated are still more opposed to that conclusion. In our present state of knowledge of the ancient American languages, so far as I can learn, it would be a vain search to look for any words among them suggesting the names of yueh-ki (, J|$) for king; tui-lu (;) jj) for a high noble ; siao tui-la (>J> |jj ^) for a secondary grandee; and no-cha-sha ($jfy PjlJ {j?).for those of the lowest rank. It is not possible, at this date, to be quite sure what sounds were intended by the priest, or by the historian, to be represented by these Chinese characters in transliterating the three foreign words : but those here given are the present sounds in the court dialect, and probably near their originals. But the next statement, respecting the changes required every two years in the color of the king's dress, carries with it altogether too much likeness to Chinese ritualism to be over looked. It needs a little explanation to be made clear. The sexagenary cycle used in Eastern Asia from, remote times is made by repeating ten stems six times in connection with twelve branches repeated five times; the two characters united form the name of a year. The ten years containing the ten stems begin with the first year of the sixty. Consequently, the first and second years, the eleventh and twelfth, the twenty- first and twenty-second, and so on to the last decade, will con tain the same two stems kiah yueh (^ ) five times over; in these two years, the king's dress must be (sing (^tf) or azure color. In the next two, the third and fourth in each decade, the stems ping tiny (pj "J ) require it to be chih (jj^), red or carnation. In the next two the stems wu-ki (jrj^ ,) require it to be hwang ( J|), yellow ; in the fourth binary combination, the stems kdng shi (j|? ^) require it to be peh ((Ej), white. Lastly, the two stems jin kwei ( |), denoting the ninth and tenth years of each decade, close the series, and 10 Ma Twan- Lin's then his robes are to be heh (J3|), black. These five are the primitive colors of Chinese philosophy. Nothing analogous to this custom has ever been recognized among the Aztec, Peruvian, or Maya people. The ten stems in these five couples indicate among the Chinese and Japanese the operation of the five elements, wood, fire, earth, metal, water, in their active and passive exhibitions ; each one destroys its predecessor, and produces its successor, in a perpetual round of evolutionary forces. The mention of such an obser vance in Fu-sang seems to fix its location in Eastern Asia, where the sexagenary computation of time has long been known. It was a curious usage which would strike a priest familiar with the Chinese ritual. The same may be said of the worship of ancestral manes and images, and of the three years' mourning by the new king. The efforts to explain the big horns of the oxen, the red pears which will keep a year, and the vehicles drawn by horses, have each their difficulties if applied to anything yet known of the nations of ancient America along the Pacific coast, but may be applied to northern Asia with some allowances. I think the red pears may denote persimmons, which are dried for winter use, and to this day form a common article for native ships' stores. The identification of the tree fu-sang, on which the notice chiefly turns, is not yet complete. Klaproth refers it to the Hibiscus rosa-si.nensis, but I agree with Dr. Bretschneider in making it to be the Broussonetia papyri/era, or paper mulberry, & common and useful tree in Northeastern Asia. The use asserted to be made of the bark in manufacturing paper and dresses does not apply to the Hibiscus nearly so well, though that plant also produces some textile fibers; as does also another large tree not yet entirely identified, belonging to the family Tiliaceae or lindens. The further statement, too, that its shoots are eatable like those of the bamboo, is inapplicable to the agave of Mexico, as well as to the Hibiscus, the linden, or Broussonetia, none of which are endogenous. It is one of the inaccuracies of the description, and cannot be reconciled with either plant. The maguey made from the agave is better fitted for threads and cloth than for making paper. The fruit or berry of the Broussonetia is reddish, indeed, but no one would liken it to a li (JjJ) or pear. If the agave is intended, as Mr. Leland urges, it is very probable that Hwui-shin would have said something about the intoxicating drink called pulque, obtained from the leaves, rather than have likened them to the tung (flji)), as he has done. This last tree is either the ^Ehococca or Pawlonia, both well known in China and Japan : so that an omission to speak of the pulque becomes rather an evidence against the agave being the fu-sang tree. Notices of Fu-sang. 11 The remark about the fibers being woven into brocade is also true of the Broussonetia. A beautiful fabric is made in Japan by weaving them with a woof of silk, but nothing of this sort could be made from the weak agave fibers. More over, the Broussonetia has not been found in Mexico, although Neumann thinks that it once existed there. His argument in this respect is worth quoting as an instance of the general quality of those adduced to prove that Fu-sang was in America : u We know that the flora of the northwestern part of America is closely allied to that of China, Japan, and other lands of East ern Asia. We may also assume that the fu-sang tree was formerly found in America, and afterwards, through neglect, became extinct. ... It is, however, much more probable that the traveler described a plant hitherto unknown to him, which supplies as many wants in Mexico as the original fu-sang is said to do in Eastern Asia I mean the great American aloe, called by the Indians maguey. From the crushed leaves, even at the present day, a firm paper is prepared. Upon such paper the hieroglyphic manuscripts alluded to by the Buddhist mis sionary, and destroyed by the fanatic Spaniards, were written." I/eland's Fusang, page 37. The word kin ($) applied to the curious paper-silk brocade manufactured from the fu-sang bark, according to Ma Twan- lin's text, is also applied to embroidery and parti-colored textures. It is not so much the damask-like figure that is the essential point ; but among the Chinese the kin always has a variety of colors. This seems to have attracted the attention of Hwui-shin, and the remarkable iridescence of some specimens of this Japanese mulberry silk still excites admira tion. Professor Neumann says that in the year-books of Liang he found the reading to be mien (jg), 'floss'; but the textual character kin has more authority in its favor, and is found in the Yuen Kien Lui Han. He translates the sentence : "From the bark they prepare a sort of linen which they use for clothing, and a sort of ornamental stuff." The word pu (/||l), here rendered linen, is now confined to cotton fabrics, but the distinction aimed at in the two terms used seems to have been that of a plain fabric and a brocaded one, like the Japanese nisiki. It may be added, lastly, that many fables have gathered around the tree and the country of Fu-sang, which increase the difficulty of their identification. For instance, the Shih Ghau Ki, quoted in the native lexicon Pei-wan Yin Fu, says : "The fu-sang grows on a land in the Pih Hai or Azure Sea, where it is abundant; the leaves resemble the common mul berry (sang Jj|), and it bears the same kind of berries (shin ^J) ; the trunk rises several thousand rods (chang ?), and is VOL. XI. 13 12 Ma Tioan-Li,). more than two thousand rods in girth. Two trunks grow from one root, and lean upon each other as they rise ; whence it gets the name fu-sang (fa |j|), i. e. supporting mulberry." The use of the technical word shin for the fruit of the fu-sang is a very strong argument for its being the Broussonetia, and shows that its affinity to the silk mulberry (Morns') had been noticed. Since the publication of Mr. Leland's book, the Marquis d'Hervey de St.-Denys, who has succeeded Stanislas Julien in the Chinese Professorship at Paris, has contributed a paper in the Transactions of the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles Lettres for 1876, which contains some additional notices of Fu- sang. Among these is an extract translated from the Liang iSz 1 Rung Ki (fj}| Q $) or Memoirs of Four Lords of the Liang Dynasty, which throws some light on the times in which Hwui-shin lived, and the circumstances attending his arrival at King-chau. The Marquis shows that it was just at the overthrow of the Tsi dynasty that the priest came as envoy from Fa-sang, and had to wait three years before the Emperor Wu-ti of the Liang dynasty could receive him. The section in Ma Twan-lin he justly regards as a copy of the official report made to his superiors by Yu Kieb, one of these four Lords, obtained from Hwui-shin, the envoy. It is quite unlike the usage in such cases that. nothing is said in the official annals of the presents offered by him ; these, if they had come from America, would have been different from any thing before seen, and therefore likely to be recorded. Such a list, however, did not necessarily fall within Ma's pur pose when describing Fu-sang. The Marquis notices some of the presents offered, which are spoken of in the Memoirs of the Four Lords, and also some popular notions of that day con cerning Fu-sang. He identifies the envoy with the shaman Hwui-shin, and concludes, with reason, that he was one of the five priests who went in $ie year 458 from Ki pin. I have no copy of the Liang SV Kung Ki, and therefore quote his trans lation " At the commencement of the year 502, an envoy from the kingdom of Fu-sang was introduced, ami having offered different things from his country, the emperor ordered Yu Kich to interro gate him on the manners and productions of Fu-sang, the history of the kingdom, its cities, rivers, mountains, etc., in conformity to the usage practiced at court, whenever a foreign envoy visited it. The envoy from Fu-sang wept, and replied with a respectful ani mation, says the Chinese text, such as an old man would exhibit when he found himself in his own country after a long absence. The presents which he offered consisted especially of three hundred pounds of yellow silk, produced by worms found on the 1 Notices of Fu- sang. 13 tree, and of extraordinary strength. The censer of the empe ror, made of solid gold, weighed fifty catties (between fifty and sixty pounds), and three threads of this silk held it up without breaking. Among the presents was also a kind of semi-transpa rent stone, carved in the form of a mirror, in which, when the sun's image was examined, the palace in the sun distinctly ap peared " One day, while he was entertaining the Court about foreign countries, the magnate Yu Kieh began to speak thus: 'In the extreme east is Fu-sang. A kind of silkworm is found there which is seven feet long, and almost seven inches around. The color is golden. It takes a year to raise them. On the eighth day of the fifth moon, the worms spin a yellow silk which they stretch across the branches of thefu-sanc/, for they wind no coc- coons. This native silk is very weak, but if it be boiled in the lye made from the ashes of fu-sang wood it will acquire such strength that four strands well twisted together are able to hold up thirty catties. The eggs of these silkworms are as big as swallows' eggs. Some of them were taken to Corea, but the voyage in jured them, and when they hatched out they were ordinary silk worms. The king's palace is surrounded with walls of crystal. They begin to be clear before daylight, and become all at once in visible when an eclipse of the moon occurs.' " The magnate Yu Kieh proceeded to say : * About ten thous and li northwest of this region there is a kingdom of women ; they have serpents for husbands. The serpents are venomous and live in holes, whilst their spouses dwell in houses and palaces. No books are seen in this kingdom, nor have the people any writing. They firmly believe in the power of certain sorceries. The wor ship of the gods imposes obligations which no one dares to violate. In the middle of the kingdom is an island of fire with a burning mountain, whose inhabitants eat hairy snakes to preserve them selves from the heat ; rats live on the mountain, from whose fur an incombustible tissue is woven, which is cleaned by putting it into the fire instead of washing it. North of this kingdom of women there is a dark valley ; and still farther north are some mountains covered with snow whose peaks reach to heaven. The sun never shines there, and the luminous dragon dwells in this- valley. West of it is an intoxicating fountain whose waters have the taste of wine. In this region is likewise found a sea of var nish whose waves dye plumes and furs black; and another sea having the color of milk. The land surrounded by these wonders is of great extent and exceedingly fertile. One sees there dogs and horses of great stature, and even birds which produce human beings. The males born of them do not live ; the females are carefully reared by their fathers, who carry them on their wings ; as soon as they begin to walk they become mistresses of them selves. They are remarkably beautiful and very hospitable, but they die before the age of thirty. The hares of that land are as big as the horses elsewhere, having fur a foot long. The sables are like wolves for size, with black fur of extraordinary thickness.' 14 Ma Twt in the official reports collected in relation to this kingdom of women, it might be all simply inhabited by savages wh arc LT "East of China lies Wo-kwoh, also called Japan ; east of Wo-kwoh, further on, lies Fu- sang, about 30,000 li from China." These figures are much too nap-hazard to depend on in settling this point, and carrv less weight than such internal evidence as we can analyze. If compared with other distances applied to those regions by this author, we soon find how valueless they all are. No one in the sixth century had any means of measuring long distances, or taking the bearings of places, so as to make even a rough guess as to their relative positions, if he had tried to make a map. For an illustration of this remark, see Dr. Bretschneider's article in Transactions of North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, No. X, 1876, where lie gives an example of Asiatic map-making in A. D. 1331 to show the divisions of the Mongol Empire. It looks like a checker-board. The position of Fu-sang cannot therefore be yet settled from these notices ; but we may, as the Marquis d'Hervey de St.- Denys hopefully remarks, yet see the day when the immense riches hidden and almost lost in Chinese books will be brought out, and something more definite on this head be discovered. I have only two other quotations to add. One is the name Fiishi-koku, i. e. the kingdom of Fu-sang, an unusual designation known to the Japanese themselves, of their own country or a part of it, and which would hardly have been applied to a land on the other side of the Pacific Ocean. The other is the mention found in the Ying-hwan Chi Lioh, or Geography of the World, by Sii Ki-yii, the late Governor of Fuhkien, who wrote it in 1848. In speaking of the troubles in Corea caused by the Mongol invasion, and the ravages of the Japanese cor sairs along the Chinese coast during the Ming dynasty, he pro ceeds to say, "But as the rising grandeur of our present Imperial house began to diffuse itself afar, its quick intelli gence perceived that it ought first to scatter [as it were] slips from the fu-sang tree in the Valley of Sunrise; and thereby those lands (Corea and Japan) were awed into submission for many years, and our eastern frontier remained quiet and pro- Notices of Fu-sang. 1 7 tected ; neither of these nations presumed to iucroach on our possessions." The Valley of Sunrise, used in the Shu King or Book of Records, is regarded as a synonym of Corea, and the fu-sang tree is here connected with that land. A few sen tences on. Gov. Sii quotes from another book called Records of Ten Islands or Regions : "In the sea towards the northeastern shores lie Fu-sang, Pang-kiu and Ying-chau ; their entire cir cuit is a thousand li." He then adds, "I think that the story about these Three Fairy Hills arose from the exaggerated de scriptions of our own writers, who used them to deceive and mislead men ; for really they were small islands contiguous to Japan and belonging to it. If their ships of that period went to them out in the ocean, why could not [our people?] find them if they had searched for them ?" He then relates the quixotic expedition sent by Tsin Chi Hwangti under Sii Fuh, to find them, with several thousand men and women, none of whom ever returned. From this reference it may be con cluded that Gov. Sii regarded Fu-sang and the other two to belong to the Kurile islands near Yezo. He had access to many works in his own literature, and took unwearied pains to get at the truth of what he was writing about, by asking intelli gent foreigners who were able to tell him. Among these were Rev. David Abeel (whose aid he acknowledges), and M. C. Morrison, a son of Rev. Dr. Morrison, the missionary, His opinion deserves to be received as that of an intelligent scholar, though he knew nothing of the question started by De Guignes. In reading the Marquis's translation of Yu Kieh's story, an English scholar can hardly fail to compare it with the Voyage to Laputa; for that land was placed not far from Fu-sang by its clever discoverer and historian. Dean Swift, like Yu Kieb, drew on his imagination for his facts. The numerous refer ences in that Voyage to the people of China, their institutions, peculiarities, costumes, and manners, must have been derived or suggested to him by the writings of Semedo, Martini, Men- dez Pinto, and other travelers in Asia before 1720, which were probably in Sir William Temple's library. But one would almost as soon think of quoting Swift's assertion in Chap. iii. of this Voyage regarding "the two lesser stars or satellites which revolve about Mars," as proof that Prof. Asaph Hall's discovery of 1876 had been already known in Queen Anne's reign, as to seriously undertake from these Chinese authors to prove that they knew the American con tinent by the name of Fu-sang. SECT. xviu. Nu KWOH (^ g), OR KINGDOM OF WOMEN. Concerning the Kingdom of Women the shaman Hwui-shin re lates : " It is a thousand li to the east of Fu-sang. The bearing 18 Ma Twan-Liu. and manners of the people are very sedate and formal ; their color is exceedingly clear and white; their bodies are hairy and the hair of the head trails on the ground. In the spring they emulously rush into the water and become pregnant; the chil dren are oorn in the autumn. These female-men have no paps on their bosoms, but hair-roots grow on the back of their necks ; a juice is found in the white ones. The children are suckled a hun dred days, when they can walk ; they are fully grown by the fourth year. Whenever they see a man they flee and hide from him in terror, for they are afraid of having husbands. They eat pickled greens, whose leaves are like wild celery; the odor is agreeable and the taste saltish." In the year A. D. 508, in the reign of Wu-ti of the Liang dynasty, a man from Tsin-ngan was crossing the sea when he was caught in a storm and driven to a certain island. On going ashore he found it to be inhabited. The women were like those in China, but their speech was unintelligible. The men had hu man bodies, but their heads were those of dogs, and their voices resembled the barking of dogs. Their food was small pulse ; their garments were like cotton. The walls of their houses were of adobie, round in shape, and the entrance like that to a den. From this account following that of Fu-sang, we might con clude that Ma Twan-lin regarded Hwui-shin alone as his au thority for both of them, as he is quoted at the beginning of each section. But the incident of A. D. 508 may have been taken from the History of the Liang Dynasty. The mention of Tsin-ngan (|f 4g), however, as the residence of the ship wrecked man who found the Nil Kwoh, shows how little de pendence can be placed on the Buddhist priest's estimate of the distance or direction of either Fu-sang or Nil Kwoh from China. The only seaport of that day named Tsin-ngan was the present Pu-tien hien (fjjj JJ), identical with the pre- fectural city of Hing-hwa, situated between Fuhchau and Tsiien-chau in the province of Fuhkien. This man was probably a fisherman bound for the Pescadore Islands, who was driven off by a storm through the Bashee Straits into the Pacific Ocean, among the islands east of the Philippines. I think the priest is not responsible for the sailor's story, as it is omitted in the Yuen Kien Lui Han, and only the first part given. The legend of the Nil Kwoh probably applies to two places. Sir John Maundevile* places his Lond of Amazoyne beside the Lond of Caldee where Abraham dwelt; but his Yle of Nacumera, where " alle the men and women of that "Yle have Houndes Hedes ; and thei ben clept Cynocephali," might be looked for where the History of the Liang Dynasty puts them as well as anywhere else. * Maundevile 's Voyage, ed. by Halliwell, 1839, pp. 154, 197. Notices of Fu-sang. 19 In his Book of Marco Polo (ed. 1871, vol. ii., pp. 338-340), Col. Yale has brought together notices of the various legends which have appeared from time to time in Eastern Asia of this fabled land of Females, to illustrate what the Venetian has reported in Chap. xxxi. about the "Two Islands called Male and Female." In his other admirably edited work, Cathay and the Way Thither (page 324), he alludes to the report of Marig- nolli, about A. D. 1330, of a kingdom in Sumatra ruled by women. The first part of Ma's notice, which is certainly ascribed to the Shaman, leads one to look northeasterly toward the Kurile Islands for people with so much hair ; and suggests a comparison with the inhabitants of Alaska called Kuchin In dians, described in Bancroft's Native Races, vol. i., pp. 115, 147, sqq. But it would not be worth while to spend much time in looking for this fabled land, had not the idea got abroad that its location would aid in identifying Fu-sang with some part of Americ'a. SECT. xix. WAN SHAN (^ j|p), OR PICTURED BODIES. During the Liang dynasty (A. D. 502-556), it was reported that about seven thousand li to the northeast of Japan there was a coun try whose inhabitants had marks on their bodies such as are on animals. They had three marks on their foreheads. Those whose marks were large and straight belonged to the honorable class, while the lower sort of people had small and crooked marks. It is a custom among this people to collect a great variety of things of a very poor sort to amuse themselves. Those who travel or peddle do not carry any provision with them. They have houses of various kinds, but no walled towns. The palace of the king is adorned with gold, silver, and jewels in a sumptuous manner. The buildings are surrounded with a moat over ten feet broad. When it is filled with quicksilver, and the rain is allowed to flow off from the quicksilver, the water is then regarded in the markets as a precious rarity. It is not certain whether marking and painting the body, or tattooing is intended by this term wan shdn ; but as the Chi nese have a technical term king Jg(, used in this extract to denote the process, it proves that tattooing must be here in tended. This practice is less common among the islanders in the North Pacific than in the South, where a warmer climate enables them to show off their pretty colors and figures. The courses and distances from Japan here given would land us in Alaska, but no weight can be attached to them in this quota tion from the Liang Kecords. The distinction of rank indicated by the different lines de scribed in this extract is like that in force among the Eskimo VOL. XI. 14 20 Ma Twan- Lin's tribes near Icy Cape, as described by Armstrong : " At Point Barrow the women have on the chin a vertical line about half an inch broad in the center, extending from the lip, with a parallel but narrower one on either side of it, a little apart. Some had two vertical lines protruding from either angle of the mouth, which is a mark of their high position in the tribe" (Bancroft, vol. i., page 48). The practice of tattooing has been so common at various times among the Chinese, Japans-, and other inhabitants of Eastern Asia, that nothing can be in ferred regarding the country here intended. The singular no tice of filling the moat with quicksilver may be paralleled by Sz'ma Tsien's description of the wonderful subterranean tomb of the great conqueror Tsin Chi Hwangti (B. C. 270) in Shensi, wherein he tells us that "rivers, lakes, and seas were imitated by means of quicksilver caused to flow in constant circulation bv mechanism." SECT. xx. TA HAN ( ! spears in fighting, and would tie a string to the weapon, a hun dred feet long or more, so as to pull it back to them, so highly did they prize the iron, and could not bear to throw it away. They used no boats or oars, but sailed about on bamboo rafts ; these could be piled up on each other like screens ; if an emergency arose, the whole company would lift them up, set them afloat, and thus escape. This account probably confounds the inhabitants of Lewchew and Formosa in several particulars, yet it possesses historical interest as one of the earliest references to those islands. The details bear internal evidences of being the actual observations of travelers, who had remained there long enough to learn about the people and furnish some account of them. In this respect it is far more satisfactory than the priest Hwui-shin's report about Fu-sang. The names given to the countries near Lewchew of Kao-wa (flf ff), Yuen-pi ( f| f|), and Pi-she-ye (tt & BB)' which I have identified as the Madjico-sima group, Kirrima Islands, and Formosa, must be received with some hesitation, as I have no means of verifying them ; and their resemblance in sound to any actual localities cannot now be expected. Ma Twan-lin names no authorities for this notice of the Lew- chewans; but as the allusion to the descent of a band of rovers from Formosa, in 1174, during the reign of the emperor Hiao- tsung, speaks of an event which took place only about seventy- five years before his own birth, there is reason for concluding Notices of Fu-sang. 29 that the section was made up from documents and books compiled during the reign of Li-tsung, under whom his father held high office. The names he gives to the king and queen of Lewchew and his residence, as Kwan-sz ({ft Jjf) and Ho-lah- M (ffi M 5S), Ko-lao-yang (pf 5g ) and To pah-tu (% ft 3?), with Po-lo-tan tung ($ jjfc ^ flpj) for the capital, cannot, at this interval, be at all recognized from any books to which I have access. In concluding these extracts from Ma Twan-lin's writings, I need hardly draw attention to the vagueness which marks them, when we look for any definite information. His long chapter on Japan bears more marks of well digested information than any of those which are here given, and indicates constant intercourse between it and China. Mr. Leland quotes from several authors whatever will elucidate and uphold his theory respecting Fu-sang, and deserves thanks for his research in this interesting question. He has, however, been led astray by a similarity, or an error, in spelling to confound Kamchatka with Lewchew, in the following extract, made up from Steller, a German writer of 1734: "Lieu-kuei (Loo-choo) or Hing-goci, as the Kamchatdales of the present day term their fellow countrymen dwelling on the Penshinish Bay, is situated, according to the Chinese Year Books, 15,000 Chinese miles distant from the capital, which, according to the measurement of the celebrated astronomer Than, in the time of Tang, gives about 338 to one of our grades the Chinese grades being rather smaller than our geographical. Now Si-gan, the capital of China during the dvnasty of Tang, lies in the district Schensi, lat. 34 15' 34" N. and long. 106 34' E. from Paris. Petropaulowski (Peter and Paul's Haven), on the contrary, according to Preuss, lies lat. 53 0' 59" N. and long. 153 19' 56" E. from Paris. These are differences which the accounts of the Chinese Year Books establish in an astonishing manner, and leave no doubt whatever as to the identity of Kamchatka with Lieu-kuei ; for it is certainly satisfactory, if estimates of such great distances, drawn in all probability from the accounts of half-savage sailors, or quite savage natives, should agree within two or three grades with accurate astronomic results." Fusang, page 15. It is impossible and needless to analyze this melange, for it has nothing to do with Fu-sang or its locality; but it led me to add this translation of Ma Twan-lin's section on Lewchew. Mr. Leland has a note in which he says, "it is evidently bor rowed from the Tang-schu, but is much better arranged, and con tains some original incidents, on which account I have freely availed mvself of it." I have no means of verifying this state ment, and therefore am unable to say how far Ma quoted from the History of the Tang, and also to explain whether Kam- 30 Ma Twan- Lin's Notices of Fu-sang. chatka was ever called Lieu-kuei, and what the Chinese char acters for this name are ; or whether Lieu-kuei is a misprint for Liu-kiu or Lewchew. The name of this insulin- kingdom has been written a dozen ways by foreigners ; it is called Riu- kiu by the Japanese, Doo-choo by the inhabitants, Low-kow by the Cantonese, and Lewchew by the Ningpo people; but it could never have been confounded with Kamchatka by either of them. Since Commodore Perry's visit in 1853 and 1854, and the residence of missionaries ut Napa, these islanders have become better known ; and the halo cast around them by Basil Hall and Lieut. Clifford, in their narratives of the visit of the frigate Alceste in 1816, has been dissipated. They began to have official intercourse with China in 1373, when Zai-to, the king of Chung-shan, sent an envoy to the Emperor Hungwu at Nanking, who five years before had expelled the Mongols. In 1609, they came under the control of the prince of Satzuma ; but during the interval of 236 years they became well ac quainted with Chinese literature and usages, retaining their own spoken dialect of the Japanese. The kingdom has latterly, with all the dependent islands, been incorporated into the Japanese empire, under the name of Okinawa ken, and the royal family recently removed to Tokio. There are several points in this notice of Lewchew which tally with what is now seen among the people. The manu facture of salt from sea-water is largely carried on, as the trav eler can see on landing at Napa or Pu-tsung, where the salt vats employ many workmen. The custom of married women staining their hands with a dye, so as to resemble tattooing, is still observed. When I visited Napa, in 1837, the islanders had not seen Europeans for twenty years, and those on board the ship Morrison were strange to most of them. Among the party which landed one evening for a stroll, were Mr. and Mrs. C. W. King. We were surrounded by an eager crowd as soon as we stepped ashore, and took our way towards a hamlet not far off. Seeing a woman standing by herself near a door, Mrs. King went alone towards her, and held out a hand in token of friendliness, while the rest of us looked on until the inter view had disclosed her feelings. The woman presently came forward and showed Mrs. King the blue mark on the back of her hand to indicate that she was married ; but her amaze ment at seeing Mrs. King begin to pull off a glove to show her that she was not thus marked was a study to the rest of us, for the woman thought it was a second skin.