Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 1, 1890.djvu/366

360 residents abroad which is now so conspicuous by its absence, and which renders the study of comparative folk-lore so difficulty and unsatisfactory.

In Sui Pui, in the district of Shuntak, Kwangtung Province, there is a monumental gateway in an uninhabited part of the country which is said to resemble in shape a rat-trap. It is related that the crops in the neighbourhood having failed for several seasons in succession, the aid of the geomancers was invoked in order to discover the reason. After carefully considering the surroundings of the place, they found that the hills opposite to where the crops were grown presented the appearance of a rat. This rat, they said, devoured the crops, so they advised the construction of a rat-trap to prevent its depredations. No sooner was the rat-trap erected than the crops yielded grain in abundance.

In Lung Shan, Kwangtung Province, in front of the ancestral temple of the Wan family, is a fish and shrimp market, which omits an odour by no means pleasant to the nostrils. The geomancers say that the appearance of the country resembles a crane; that fish and shrimps are the food of cranes; and that, therefore, the prosperity of the inhabitants can be prognosticated from the prosperity or otherwise of the market.

In King-sai, if a pregnant woman dies before she has given birth to her offspring, it is supposed that the ghost of the unborn child returns to demand the life of a newly born infant. On this account, on the birth of the child, the mother is carefully watched by women inside her room, whilst males keep strict guard outside. At the same time a youth is made to stare with fixed eyes at the spot in which the ghost is supposed to be secreted, while others