V), or of cypress (IV. ii. IV. 9). They were cut and planed. The frames of the doors were also made of wood (IV. iii. V. 6). The poor made their cabins of rough planks (II. iv. IV.).3 In the 14th century before our era, the inhabitants of western China had no houses, but lived in caverns or grottos, a hole at the top of the vault serving as an outlet for the smoke. Such was the first abode of T'an-foo, called also the ancient duke, the grandfather of king Wăn, who inhabited the country of Pin, a district at the present day of the department of Fung-ts'ëang, Shen-se (III. i. III.).4 'T'an-foo,' says that ode, 'lived in a cavern like a potter's kiln; there were then no houses.' Another ode, however (III. ii. VI. 3, 4) attributes to duke Lew, a preceding chief of the same country, buildings considerably extensive, such as large stables and sheep-folds. According to the She-king (III. i. III.), and Mencius (I. Pt. ii. XV. 1, 2) the first establishments of the Chinese in the western regions were destroyed by the Tartars.5 T'an-foo, the descendant of duke Lew, was obliged to retire, and to transport his tribe to the south of his earlier settlement. Then he established the new city of which III. i. III. gives the description, and resumed with his people the agricultural labours which had been interrupted by the ravages of the enemy.

The doors of the houses faced the south or the west (II. iv. V. 2), or mid-wise the south-west. They gave them their position by observing the shadow of the sun at noon, or by the culminating of a well-known star (I. iv. VI. 1).6 In winter the husbandmen ordinarily plastered the doors (I. xv. I. 5) to keep out the cold.

The floor of the house was levelled by beating it, and it was then covered with a coarse kind of dried grass, on which were placed mats of bamboo which served as beds (II. iv. V. 6).7 People in easy circumstances placed at the south-east corner of their houses a special chamber, called the Hall of ancestors (I. ii. IV. 3). It was adorned with pillars of wood like the entrance-hall. The sovereign, the princes, and the great officers alone had the right of erecting a building dedicated especially to the performance of the ceremonies in honour of their ancestors (III. i. VI. 3: IV. i. [ii.] VIII.; ii. IV.; iii. V.). A path conducted to this building (I. xii. VII. 2), and the approaches to it were required to be carefully cleared of thorns (I. xii. VI.).8

The cities were surrounded with a wall of earth, and with a ditch which was dug out first, and furnished the materials for the wall (III. iii. VII. 6; i. X. 3). We read in the Yih king, 'The wall falls back into the moat, if it be badly founded (Diagram, par. 7).'9

THE CHASE.

In those times of nascent civilization the chase was an important means of subsistence for the pioneers who were clearing the forests. The habitual arm of the chase was the bow and arrow. The bows were of carved wood (III. ii. II. 3), and adorned with green silk (IV. ii. IV. 5), probably to preserve them from the damp.

3 II. iv. V. says nothing of this. 4 The ancient Pin was not in Fung-ts'ëang dept. T'anfoo came from Pin to K‘e-chow in Fung-ts'ëang. See the notes on the title of Pt. I., and on III. i. III. 5 Let it not be thought that these Chinese settlers were pushing westwards from the east. They were advancing eastwards from the west, and pushed on by tribes behind them. 6 The mention of the star in I. iv. VI. 1 does not have the meaning here given to it. 7 No. They slept on couches or stands raised from the ground. The mats spread on the ground or floor served as tables, where the meal was set out. 8 Of course a path conducted to the building;-L. xii. VII. 2 describes the tiles with which it was laid. I. xii. VI. speaks of the cemetery, or place of tombs; and not of the temple. 9 The words 'if it be badly founded' are not in the Yih. Biot seems to have misunderstood the text.

They kept them in leather cases (I. vii. IV. 3: II. viii. II. 3). Those of the princes of the blood were painted red, the Chow colour. At certain periods of the year, they observed the ceremony of archery, each archer having four arrows which he discharged at the target (III. ii. II. 3). To aid him in drawing the bow and discharging the arrow, the hunter or archer had a ring of metal on the thumb of his right hand, and threw back his coat upon the other arm (II. iii. V. 5).1

Solitary hunters pursued the goose or the wild-duck (I. vii. VIII. 1), the boar (I. ii. XIV.: II. iii. VI. 4), the wolf (I. viii. II. 3), the fox (I. xv. I. 4) in the first month, or at the commencement of our year, the hare (II. v. III. 6; IV. 4).2 In the chase they used dogs (I. viii. VIII.: II. v. IV. 4).

The great hunts of the chiefs were conducted en battue. They surrounded the woods with large nets, fixed to the ground by stakes, and intended specially to catch the hares, which the beaters forced to throw themselves into them (I. i. VII.),3 They set fire also to the grass and bushes of a large plain, to collect the game in a place determined on, where they killed it easily with the arrow. We have the description of such a hunt in I. vii. III. and IV. The chief mounted in a carriage and four kills at his ease the game thus collected. The ode eulogizes his courage, and says that he fought against tigers with bare breast.

When they had a considerable number of men, or when the ground was not covered with vegetation high enough to raise a conflagration, they arranged the men in a circle, and made them all march towards a single point, beating back the game (I. xi. II. 2 ; xv. I. 4: II. iii. V. and VI.). They often formed several circles of beaters, one within another (the Yih, diagram, par. 9).4 These grand hunts took place principally in the second moon, corresponding to our month of February (I. xv. I. 4). They hunted also herds of deer (II. iii. VI 2), of boars (I. ii. XIV.; xi. II.), of wild oxen (II. iii. VI. 3).5 The hunters offered to their prince the boars of three years, and kept for themselves the smallest, which were only one year old. To preserve the carcases of the killed deer, they covered them up with straw (I. ii. XII.).6

The grand hunts en battue were entirely similar to those which the missionary Gerbillon saw in the 18th century, when accompanying the emperor K'ang-he to Tartary (Duhalde, vol. IV., p. 293, folio edition). At the times described in the She-king, they celebrated them on the two sides of the valley of the Yellow river, about the 35th parallel of latitude, in Ho-nan, in the eastern part of Shen-se, where much of the country was still uncultivated.

FISHING.

Fishing formed also an important means of subsistence. They fished with the line (I. v. V. 1: II. viii. II. 4); but the ordinary method was with nets (I. v. III. 4; viii. IX.). On the banks of large rivers they formed a stockade of wood, in front of which they arranged the nets (I. viii. IX: II. v. III. 8). The English traveller Lay,

1 There is nothing in the ode about the vesture being thrown on the other arm. The poet speaks at once of the ring which was on the thumb of the right hand, and of an armlet of leather which was on the left arm. 2 They hunted also the badger, the deer, the tiger, the panther, the rhinoceros, &c. Some of the odes referred to describe grand hunts, and not those of solitary or isolated individuals. 3 This ode speaks of a solitary hunter or trapper. 4 Biot has misunderstood this passage of the Yih. 5 These wild oxen would seem to be rhinoceroses.

6 This ode has nothing to do with hunting, and the fact of the dead antelope wrapt up with the grass is an inappropriate illustration in this place.

whom I have already quoted, describes, in his visit to Hongkong, the fishing net as it is made in the neighbourhood of Canton. He says that on the borders of the islands in the gulf they form a wooden frame with a wheel and axle to lower and raise the nets which remain under the water. Such appears to have been the kind of apparatus of the She-king. It is said, in II. v. III. 8,

'Do not approach my dam,

Do not loose my nets.'

Like those which

The nets were made of fine bamboo (I. viii. IX.: II. ii. III.). were used to take hares, they were fitted with bags (I. xv. VI.), which the fish entered and so was taken. II. ii. III. names several kinds of fish, among which the carp is mentioned (see also I. xii. III.). We find also (IV. i. [ii.] VI.: II. iv. VIII II) a certain number of fish given as pond-fish.

The habit of fishing had made them construct boats which they directed with oars (II. v. I. 6). The boats were of cypress-wood (I. iii. I. 1; iv. I. 1), and of willow (II. iii. II. 4).2 III. i. II. 5 mentions a bridge of boats, made by king Woo3 to pass the river Wei in Shen-se.

AGRICULTURE AND PASTURAGE.

According to the data furnished by different odes, the system of cultivation with irrigation was established in the vast plain which forms the lower valley of the Yellow river, from the gorge of the Dragon's-gate (in Shan-se) to the gulf of Pihchih-le, into which this great river then emptied itself (I. iii. XVII.):1 (II. viii. V.; vi. VIII.: IV. i. [iii.] V. and VI.). Every space of ground assigned to a family of husbandmen was surrounded by a trench for irrigating it, and which formed its boundary (II. vi. VI.); and these trenches communicated with larger canals which were conducted to rejoin the river. The complete system adopted for the purpose of irrigation is expounded in detail in the Chow Le, (Bk. XV. art., which confirms the indications in the She-king.

Beyond the great valley, particularly towards the west in Shen-se, and eastwards about the T'ae mountains in Shan-tung, there existed vast forests. The first chiefs of the House of Chow, duke Lew and T'an-foo, began the clearing of the forests of Shen-se (III. i. III. 8; ii. VI.). We see in IV. ii. IV. that the people of the State of Loo drew materials for building from the neighbourhood of mount T'ae. II. iv. VI. mentions the great herds of cattle and sheep as the chief riches of powerful families;—a natural circumstance among a people still far from numerous, and spread over a vast territory. They fastened the feet of the horses with tethers while they were feeding (II. iv. II.).2

We can tell the principal kinds of cereals mentioned in the She-king, and point out the localities where they were cultivated. They were rice, wheat, barley, buckwheat, two sorts of millet, called shoo and tseih, which resembled the one the

1 I think that M. Biot is wrong in supposing that we have any fishing arrangement indicated in the She-king like that described by Mr. Tradescant Lay, and which is exceedingly common at the present day in China. The odes referred to do nothing more than describe the capture of fish in baskets placed at openings in dams thrown across streams. 2 Boats of pine also are mentioned (I. v. V. 4).

3 Should be king Wăn.

2 The large herds of horses,

1 This and the other passages adduced are little to the point. necessary for the war-chariots, fed at pleasure, without restraint of any kind, in the open territory assigned to them (IV. ii. I.). It was only in the neighbourhood of houses that the horses for use were tethered.

milium globosum, the other the holcus sorgho. The labours of cultivation of each month are described for the State of Pin in I. xv. I., and for the territory of the ancient royaume of Chang (eastern Ho-nan) in IV. i. [iii.] V. and VI.3

五

The rice and the millet were sown in spring, on which occasion there was a ceremony (IV. i. [ii.] I.),4 the celebrated ceremony of husbandry, the ritual of which is described in the Kwoh-yu ( art 5). II. vi. VI. mentions the furrows traced by the great Yu on the slope of the Nan-shan mountain in the territory of Se-gan dept.5 In autumn took place the ceremony of the ingathering (IV. i. [ii.] IV.). IV. i. [ii.] I. mentions at the beginning of the summer of Chow, i.e., about April, the first harvest of millet and of the winter barley.4

The principal instruments of cultivation, the plough with its share, the hoe or spade, the scythe or sickle, are mentioned in different odes (II. vi. VIII.: IV. i. [ii.] I.; [iii.] V. and VI.). Weeding is recommended in a special manner (III. vi. VIII. 2: IV. i. [iii.] V. and VI.). The weeds were gathered in heaps, and burned in honour of the Spirits who presided over the harvest (II. vi. VIII. 2).6 Their ashes nourished the soil. They prescribed also the destruction of insects or hurtful worms. The assiduous uprooting of weeds has always been recommended by the Chinese government to the cultivators of the ground. It is noted by Confucius and by Mencius as a necessity; and its continuation for twenty centuries is, no doubt, an essential cause of the astonishing fertility of the Chinese soil, from which parasitical herbs have disappeared.

In general they left the land fallow for one year, and then cultivated it for two years. If they still found weeds in it in the second year, they carefully uprooted them (II. iii. IV.). The harvest was a time of great labour and of much rejoicing, just as it is in our country (II. vi. VIII.). This ode says that the reapers left some ears of grain, and even small handfuls of it, for the poor widows who came to glean. The superintendent of agriculture came to the field, and rejoiced with the husbandmen. They then assigned over the share that was due to the State from the returns of the harvest.

We see in the She-king several indications of the agrarian laws established by the dynasty of Chow, and which are explained by Mencius (V. Pt. ii. II.). The division of the land in the tribe of its ancestor duke Lew is indicated in III. ii. VI. A husbandman in II. vi. VIII. says that the irrigation began with the field of the State (A), and thence proceeded to their private fields7;—in harmony with the ancient system described by Mencius, according to which eight families received a space of ground divided into nine equal portions, the central portion forming the field of the State. IV. i. [ii.] II.8 shows us Ch'ing, the second of the kings of Chow, naming the officers of agriculture, and ordering them to sow the fields. It mentions the large division of 30 le, or more exactly of 33 le, which covered a space of about 1,111 square le. It places there 10,000 individuals, labouring in pairs, which gives about of a le to an individual. As the le was generally of 300 paces, that would 3 No place is specified or indicated in these odes. What is said in them would apply to all the royal domain of Chow. I do not understand what State M. Biot intends by the kingdom of Chang.' 4 There is some confusion in the two references to this ode. See the notes on it. 5 Hardly so much as this. All which the ode says is that the country about Nan-shan was made cultivable by Yu. 6 No such burning ceremony is here described. The husbandmen only express their wish that the Spirit of husbandry would take the insects and commit them to the flames. 7 There is no reference to irrigation in this passage; but it implies the existence of the public field or fields, and a loyal wish is expressed that the rain might first descend on them. 8 See the notes on this ode.

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