The merchants were in doubt what to do, and did not venture on severe measures. The sky continued thickly overcast, and the embarrassment of the mariners increased.

They were seventy days on the voyage. Provisions and water began to fail. The cooks took sea water to use in cooking food, the good water they kept for drinking. Two pints were assigned to each. As the water came near its

end, the merchants consulted together, and said that the voyage to Canton ought not to have been more than fifty days. They were long past this time, and ought now to change their course to the north-west, and make for the coast.

In twelve days and nights they reached Lau-shan, on the south shore of the Shan-tung promontory, and found there good water and beans. After so dangerous a voyage, with such fatigues and so many fears, they arrived at last at this unknown shore. On seeing a plant called Li-ho-ts'ai, they were convinced that they were indeed in China. This plant was a proof of it, although they met no men nor any traces of men. Some thought they were all near Canton. Others thought Canton was long passed. No one knew what part of the coast they had reached.

Going ashore in a boat they met two hunters, and Fa-hien was employed to interpret. From them they found that they were in Ts'ing-cheu in the province now known as Shan-tung, and on the north side of the promontory in the Gulf of Pe-chi-li. From this point the merchants found their way to Yang-cheu, and Fa-hien to the capital, Ch'ang-an. This was in the year A.D. 414.

The student has also at his command--A Catena of Buddhist Scriptures front the Chinese, by Samuel Beal; and The Romantic Legend of Sakya Buddha, by the same.

The work of Schott, Uber den Buddhaismus in Hoch Asien und in China, contains much valuable information on the contents of Chinese Buddhist books. Written in 1846, it was anterior to the clear drawing of the boundary between Northern and Southern Buddhism by Burnouf, and also preceded by several years the publication of Spence Hardy's works on Singhalese Buddhism, viz., Eastern Monachism (1840), and Manual of Buddhism (1843).

He says of Nirvana that it is the emptiness which every intellectual object will include in itself when liberated.

In so far the Nirvana is like the original being, before each creative act; but it differs from the original essence in this, that all forms of life and matter come out of the original essence, but cannot come from the Nirvana; because nothing can come from it, and it is incapable of having in it any individuality, mental or material.

To the genuine disciple of the Buddhist teaching, to put himself under the mystic and heaven-sent guide to the Nirvana, is the alpha and omega of his efforts. Just so to the genuine follower of Confucius, to hold office, to serve the emperor, and become a cabinet minister or censor, constitute his great earthly aim.