CHAPTER XXI.

FENG-SHUI; OR, THE WIND AND WATER SUPERSTITION OF THE CHINESE.

An obstacle to civilisation--Meaning of Feng, "Wind"--Of Shui, "Water"--Use of cyclic characters--Meaning of Lung, "Dragon"--Names of the geomancers--Hindoo nomenclature--Sha-ch'i "Destructive vapour"--Dark arrow--Chen-wu, or "Protecting shield"--Feng-shui professedly based on the "Book of Changes"--Modern Feng-shui is based on the Han-lung-king--Buddhist element in Feng-shui--The four elements of the Greeks--The Hindoo "Air and water" is Feng-shui--Earth, water, fire, and air are creative forces, existing in successive kalpas, and forming successive worlds--Resemblance to the theories of the Ionian philosophers--Geomancy in the T'ang dynasty--Rahu and Ketu--The Feng-shui system grew out of Buddhism--Native element in Feng-shui--Nine fancied stars--Causes of the contour of hills and plains--Stars of the six houses--Feng-shui inconsistent with genuine Confucianism.

EVERYTHING can be made plainer by investigation. Everything can be understood better by the bringing together of facts. The Feng-shui of the Chinese deserves to be examined, for it is one of the great obstacles to the progress of civilisation.

It interferes with commercial enterprise. It checks the efforts of missionary zeal. It interrupts the free thought of the people, and keeps them wrapped in the mummy folds of ancient prejudices.

Within the last thirty years this peculiar system of native Geomancy has been made the ground for refusing

the establishment of the electric telegraph at Shanghai, of railways, of a road from Tientsin to the Chai-tang coalmines, and of I do not know how many more manifest and desirable improvements, all which would be of the greatest advantage to the people of the district. I begin with the explanation of terms. Feng, "Wind," is the first which occurs. It may be illustrated in this way.

A grave should not have a hollow near it. The wind will blow into the grave from that hollow and gradually disturb the bones and the coffin. In ten years they will be half turned over. In twenty years or so they may be entirely turned over. In that case the posterity of the dead will suffer by a kind of material necessity. Such a wind is called a wa-feng, from wa, "hollow." An outer wind must not be allowed to invade the chamber of the dead, for fear the family fortunes should be disturbed. Thus the filial piety which takes care of the tombs of parents has a material reward, and may be nothing beyond a coarse selfishness; on the other hand, the want of it is visited by a natural retribution, involving sickness, poverty, loss of descendants, and degradation in the social scale.