Page:Chinese Life in the Tibetan Foothills.djvu/219

 frighten away the evil dog. All the temple drums and gongs are lustily beaten till the eclipse is ended.

The year that the Emperor Kuang Hsü died, the people declared that the sun had become red like blood, which indicated that the dynasty had come to an end, or that some great change was about to take place.

A comet is a very unlucky omen; and the appearance of Halley's comet in 1910–11 brought with it a great deal of unrest and fear. The people believe that it indicates calamity such as war, fire, pestilence, and a change of dynasty. In some places on certain days the doors were unopened for half a day, no water was carried and many did not even drink water as it was rumoured that pestilential vapour was being poured down upon the earth from the comet.

Along with eclipses and comets comes a third herald of change, namely, the bird called the white-tailed swallow. It is said that when the Manchus took China this bird came and killed the canaries and took possession of their cages. In 1911 it is reported to have made its appearance in Ssŭch‘uan, and when possible it was caught, beheaded, dismembered and thrown to the four winds, as it indicated another foreign invasion of the country.

( 龍), shê lung

The snake is an object both of loathing and reverence among the Chinese. In Ssŭch‘uan there are many kinds, of different colours and sizes. It is said that the small are snakes (蛇), the medium serpents (蟒), and the large are dragons (龍). A few of the different kinds of snakes as known by the Chinese are herewith given:—

Sang kên tzŭ ( 紫), or ch‘êng kan shê, the steelyard snake, is red with spots and is very deadly.

Ts‘ai hua, the rape-flower snake, a yellowish coloured snake from four to eight feet long and very poisonous.

Ch‘ing chu piao, the green snake, just the colour of a green bamboo stem. It is from four to eight feet long and less poisonous than the former ones.