Page:Essays on the Chinese Language (1889).djvu/169

Rh is a highway to Lu. In this sense tao is sometimes replaced by hsing (行), and we find chou-hsing also used to denote a highway to Chou. Then chou-tao comes to mean any long, wide road, and a poem in the "Shi-ching" begins, "Riding on and on in my four-horse chariot, the highway (chou-tao) winding a weary distance." The term chou-hang (周行) is sometimes used, notably in the "Shi-ching" as equivalent to chou-tao in the sense of highway, and is so interpreted. There are also other terms for a highway (via, such as ta (大)-tao and k'ung (孔)-tao, each meaning simply great road. Thus we hear of nan-pei-wang-lai-ta-tao (南北往來大道) a highway for travellers northwards and southwards. A ta-tao is not of necessity a great, wide road. It may be only a narrow path, but it is the chief one, and the right road to a place—the path by which everybody goes. With it are contrasted the hsiao (小)-tao and the ching (徑), the by-way or semita. In the popular language at present, a common term for a highroad is kuan (官)-tao official road, the recognized one by which officials travel.

The term t'ung (通)-tao denotes a thoroughfare, an open passage between two places or objects, and thence it comes to mean also to make such a passage, to open a tunnel. It is often used to signify a trade-route, as between China and barbarian peoples, and also to express the opening of such a route, or clearing it of obstructions caused by brigands or otherwise. A long, narrow, winding road over mountains is called a yang-ch'ang-niao (羊腸 or 脹鳥)-tao, "Sheep's entrails bird way," that is, a mountain so bad and intricate that it is to be flown over rather than walked along. Such a path is also often called shortly a niao-tao or bird-way. A term with a somewhat similar meaning is chü (曲)-tao which is used to denote any narrow, winding road. The sloping passages by which city walls and like structures are ascended are called ma-tao or "horse-way." This term, which will appear again, is also applied to the channel along which horse-archers gallop when practising or