Page:Ling-Nam; or, Interior views of southern China, including explorations in the hitherto untraversed island of Hainan (IA cu31924023225307).pdf/140

 136 Ling-Nam.

bamboo that produce edible sprouts; more than a dozen kinds of melons and squashes, lotus roots, water caltrops, water chestnuts, and other more common productions. Among the fruits we find plums, the best in the province, first cultivated by the priests at Nam-wa, peaches, pome- granates, jujubes, oranges, citrons, rose-apples, bananas, whampes, lichees, longugans, arbutus, pears, lo-kwats, (Chinese medlar), and pomelons. The rich variety of bamboos is seen in the following list, given according to their native designation: “ hairy,” “ yellow,” “ purple,” “variegated,” “red” (the kind from whieh cloth was made, the Chinese and Aborigines using this cloth for garments as late as the ninth and tenth centuries), “ivory,” “sweet,” “hemp,” “silken,” “square,” “oily,” “thorny,” “big thorn,” “big-head,” “crooked joint,” and a dozen others. Among the trees are those on which the wax insects are nourished—oaks, chestnuts, castanopsis, liquid-amber, pine, eunninghamia, camphor, tallow-tree, ete.

The domestic animals found are cows of two kinds, horses in small numbers, sheep-and goats, also pigs, dogs, and cats, with ducks, geese, and other fowls. Among the birds are pigeons, doves, cormorants, pheasants, thrushes, larks, partridges, francolin, minahs, quail, kingfishers, eagles, owls, blackbirds, and crows innumerable. Wild animals are also plentiful. Deer abound, and are highly prized. They shed their horns in June, and as the new ones appear they are caught, the young, tender horns being worth their weight in gold as medicine. There are several kinds of large deer, also antelopes and gazelles, wild dogs and jackals are found, wild boar, poreupine,