ART. V. Sin pun keën yang yen, 'A new paper remonstrating against the use of opium, rehearsed by a blind Chinese. THE present age connot be compared with those which are past! Why is it that recently the practice of smoking opium has become so prevalent? This thing is a dire calamity, planted among us by foreigners. It has destroyed, of the sons of our flowery land, tens of thousands. Why do you, dear husband, while so cheerful and active, run into the snare? Some, forsooth, tell you it is fashionable and can be enjoyed secretly in blithesome conversation Others may tell you the drug is the quintessence of poison, consisting chiefly of the exuvia of birds and beasts, compounded with arsenic. This, being done far off in the other hemisphere, I have not seen with my own eyes. Yet I know the use of it destroys the body and dissipates money to no advantage. On it many have squandered all their patrimony, and so changed their visages, that, ere they have have put off this earthy frame, they become just like the ghost of Le, with his iron staff. As they go in and out you may always see their faces covered with pimples like musquito bites. Their secretions too are all dried up; and posterity will surely fail them. Their kindred look to them in vain for help, and it is with great difficulty they can move a single step.

Now on you, my dear husband, a father and a mother place all their hopes. A wife and little children look up to you alone for support. If you cannot break from its use entirely, try to diminish it a little. Ah, the heart needs to be changed! Could you break from the habit entirely and cease to smoke, gladly for that purpose would I, your wife, have my own life dwindle to a span!

Note. The preceding paper, in the original, occupies two pages, and was sold for one cash, or about one tenth of a cent. Blind people may often be seen seated on the ground in the streets, with a group of men and boys drawn around them, listening to the rehearsal of papers like this one. They are written in rhyme, and abound with allusions to local customs. The far-famed She King was, it is not unlikely, made up of similar pieces, first written for temporary purposes. These ballads are rehearsed sometimes with a great deal of spirit and to the great amusement of the auditors.

ART VI. An accurate description of Lincoln Island, by Mr. Reynolds, first lieutenant of H. B. M. sloop Larne. With an engraving. From the Canton Register, Oct 30th, 1838. LENGTH 3 miles E. to W. and 24 miles N. to S., covered with green herbage all over, and appears rather higher in the centre when made in a S. b. W. direction. At the distance of four mlies it looks very low, raised in the middle, and is very dangerous to approach in the night, and it is most probable a ship

would strike before her situation could be discovered from the breaking water. The reef of the islet extends a much greater distance in that direction than laid down by Ross. The Larne, when passing to the S. E. about 3 miles off, sounded in 23 fins.; centre part of the islet then bore N.W. Larne tacked to eastward, and had 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 fms. to no bottom, standing out E.N.E. The water is discolored on the reef. Larne went nearly round the island, and had no soundings at 75 fms., bearing E S E. distant 34 miles. The letters F S., in the following engraving indicate some fishing stakes in a small bay on the north side. Lat. of the centre 10° 30′ N. long. 112° 40′ E. The islet is surrounded by reefs, trending to the northward, eastward, and westward, and extending, as before observed, to the S.E., probably to the distance of 6 or 7 miles from the S.E. point.

ART. VII. Journal of Occurrences. The emperor; opium; tea, rhubarb, and silk; departure of the French ship L'Artemise; the Hingtae hong; return of the governor.

THE EMPEROR, viewing the near approach of his sixtieth year (he is now 57), has recently taken a review of the peaceful reign he has enjoyed-refering to his continued health and that of her august majesty the empress dowager-alluding to the pardons and examinations extraordinary granted by him when he attained his fiftieth year-and ordering such arrangements in regard to the regular examinations as will leave the year 1841 open for a 'gracious examination."

Opium, opium dealers and smokers, with their apparatus for smoking, have been recently seized in various parts of the empire; and, if report be true, the singular punishment of cutting out a portion of the upper lip, to prevent smoking, has been resorted to in Hoopih.

Tea, silk, and rhubarb, are not to be sold only at fixed prices, as recently suggested. The report sent up to the emperor by the local authorities was of such a tenor, that the whole matter has been stopped in embryo.

The French ship of war, L'Artemise, captain LaPlace, has proceed on her cruise southward. The creditors of the Hingtae hong received their first installment on the 26th. His excellency governor Tang returned to the provincial city, from the military reviews, on the 27th.

THE

CHINESE REPOSITORY.

VOL. VII.-DECEMBER, 1838.— No. 8.

ART. I.

Notices in Natural History: 1, the ma or horse; 2, the loo or ass; 3, the lo or mule; and 4, the lo or kumiss. Selected from Chinese authors.

SEVENTEEN pages of the Pun Tsaou are filled with an account of the horse, treating of the uses of the various internal and external parts of his body in medicine, and the mode of their exhibition in diseases. The manner in which the subject is here treated affords a good instance of the usual order pursued by the compilers of that work, in their descriptions of the numerous articles included in Chinese materia medica, and we will for once follow them, as well to show our readers this order, as to tell them what the Chinese say of that favorite and noble animal. To do this, it will not, however, be necessary to enter into all their minutiæ regarding pills, boluses, &c., but simply to give the principal points under each section.

Sec. I. "Name explained. Le Shechin says, 'Gan Heu remarks, the horse is a warlike animal; the character ma represents its figure, head, mane, tail, and legs.' What was originally written, in outline thus

is now reduced to

馬

ma. Different naines are ap

plied to stallions and mares, and to colts of various ages and colors, which are very numerous; for which see the Urh Ya.

Sec. II. "Gan King says, 'There are horses of many colors, but for medicine the pure white is the best; though if the animal has a few spots, as in his eyes, mouth, and hoofs, they need not be regarded.' Le Shechin says, ' Wild horses are found in Yunnan and Shanse; generally speaking those found in the north and west are superior

VOL VII. NO. VIII.

50

to those in the south and east, which are small and weak. The age is known by the teeth, which at first are small, but increase as the animal grows older. Its eye reflects the full length image of a man. If he eats rice, his feet will become heavy if rats' dung, his belly will grow long; if his teeth be rubbed with dead silkworms or black plums, he will not eat, but this is removed by rubbing them with mulberry leaves; if the skin of a rat or wolf be hung in his manger, he will not eat. He should not be allowed to eat from a hog's trough, lest he contract disease; if a monkey is kept in the stable, he will not fall sick.'

Sec. II. "The flesh of a pure white stallion is the most wholesome; if it is bitter or cold it is noxious." Many authors are quoted with regard to the wholesomeness of horse-flesh, whose opinions differ. One says, "that of those who eat the flesh of diseased horses, nine out of ten die; it should be roasted and eaten with ginger and pork." Another remarks, "To eat the flesh of a black horse and not drink wine with it, will surely produce death." Le Shechin recommends eating almonds, and taking a rush broth, if one feels uncomfortable after a meal of horse-flesh.-It may here be added, that we have seen this article of food for sale in the shambles of Canton, and it is probably eaten more frequently in the northern provinces than in this region.

Sec. IV.

"The fat lying on the top of the head is sweet, and unwholesome in only a slight degree. It will cause the hair to grow ; brighten a dark visage, and cure flabby skin on the hands and feet." It is a general principle in Chinese pharmacy, of which this is an illustration, that any part taken from an animal affects the same part in the patient.

Sec. v. "Le Shechin says, 'In the Han dynasty, a spirit was made from mare's milk.' The milk is sweet and cooling; when made into kumiss its nature is bland; and drinking it reduces the flesh.

Sec. VI.

"The heart of a white horse, or that of a hog, cow, or hen, when dried and rasped into spirit, and so taken, cures forgetfulness: if the patient hears one thing he knows ten.'"

"The

Sec. VII-VIII. The lungs, and liver, are here described. liver is very poisonous. Woote of the Han dynasty says, 'When eating horse-flesh, do not eat the liver.' He who eats liver of a horse will die,' says another." The Chinese ascribe the noxious properties of the liver to the want of a gall-bladder, which is known to be wanting in the anatomy of the horse. The gallbladder they suppose to

be the seat of courage; and in ridicule say to a poltroon, "I'll send you to buy a horse's gallbladder." In Kanghe's dictionary there is a mode of demonstrating the noxious properties of a horse's liver, peculiarly Chinese: "The horse corresponds to fire, and as fire canHot produce wood, (which is the province of water,) therefore the horse has a liver without any gallbladder; and as the gallbladder is the effluence of wood, (which corresponds to the liver,) and is not complete in the liver, therefore if one eat it he will die."

Sec. IX-XI. "The kidnies," says Le Shechin, "contain an inky fluid which is allied to the bezoar of the cow, and calculi of the dog, but its properties were unknown to the ancients." The placenta of the colt as a remedy in obstructed menstruation.

Sec. XII.

"Above the knees, the horse has night eyes [warts], which enable him to go in the night. They are useful in the toothache."

Sec. XIII. "The teeth and grinders are to be burned to ashes, and if mixed with spittle and administered to children, the dose will cure their shivering fits."

Sec. XIV-XVII. "The bones of the body, head, and legs, and the hoofs are efficacious." "If a man is restless and jolly when he wishes to sleep, and it is required to put him to rest, let the ashes of a skull be mingled with water and given him, and let him have a skull for a pillow, and it will cure him." The same preservative virtues appear to be ascribed by the Chinese to a horse's hoof hung up in a house, as were supposed by our ancestors to belong to a horse shoe when nailed upon the door.

Sec. XVIII-XX. "The skin of a bay horse will hasten dilvery."

The mane and tail are useful.

Sec. XXI-XXIV. The brains, blood, perspiration and excrements, are prescribed; the first three are highly poisonous. "Whoever has any of the blood of the living horse enter his flesh, in one or two days it will become a large swelling, and gradually joining his heart, kill him; if in cutting a horse, he wounds his hand, and the blood enters his flesh, that same night he will die."

In this manner are the various subjects, treated of in the Pun Tsaou, discussed; and by means of general indices, and the use of different sizes of type, the student can quickly refer to any topic he is investigating. Wild horses are said to exist in Kansuh and Leaoutung, and also beyond the western frontiers; they are smaller than the domesticated animal. The skin is in demand for making garments, and its flesh (so the Chinese say) has the same flavor as that of the common horse.