1880.
Notice of Japan in the Hái-kwoh Tú Chí.
219
the whole place is a heap of ruins. The spiritual sovereign lives in the metropolis (Miako). This is a region of temples and monasteries; priests of Budha and Táu are densely congregated in retired spots. There are not a few seaports, the most considerable being that of Tá-chí,
Skun-hiảng Chui-psh. The Postscript of Shun-hiáng.
[The word hiảng, a village, is printed king, an official title, in both the earlier and later editions of the Hải-kwoh Tủ Chi. Shun is an edible water- plant, said to grow only at one place in Kiángsú, thence named Shun-hiáng. The work entitled Shun-hiáng Chui-peh is by Tunghan of Hwáting in Kiangsu, who is believed to have flourished in the reign Kienlung (1735– 95). The whole of it is contained in the cotemporaneous miscellany known as the Shwok-ling, reference to which shows that the following extract ia imperfectly quoted.]
At the time that the Regent,* Prince Lú was at sea, his minister, Yuentsin, dispatched an envoy to Japan with presents of Budhistic works, in the hopes of obtaining some troops from that country.—A bonze named Chán-wei, who had come thence was accordingly sent on board the same ship [as the envoy]. Yuentsint arrived at Japan, and the joy of the people when informed of the books from Tibet was excessive, but as soon as they heard the name of Chan-wei, they were greatly astonished, and exclaimed, “If this bonze be come back, let him die immediately." As they would not receive the imperial letters, the books were taken home again. The reason assigned for the con- duct of the Japanese is that Chán-wei had been converted there to Christianity, and had escaped home from the persecution.
In former times the Portuguese enticed the people of this country to become Christians, communicated to them their secret doctrines, and debauched great numbers of their women. Once they had be- come Christians, there was no change for them, alive or dead. The
* When the last monarch of the Ming hung himself, 1643, Chú, one of the imperial family, who had been made a prince of the highest order with the title Lú, fled before the Tartar invaders to Fuhkien, and was slain in the 7th or 8th year of Shunchí (1650-1).
+ This sentence is not in the text of Tunghán as given in the Shwoh Ling. The original story is much longer, and makes mention of two ships, one of which made a fair passage: but the other, which carried the ritual of Budha and the priest, encountered a terrific storm, wherein there appeared two huge red marine monsters and with them all the fish in the sea, in such numbers as to impede the way of the ressel. After being driven far out of her course, however, she
too made the land.
The teachers consider this passage to signify that a convert to Christianity was of necessity enlisted as a Christian for ever, whether living or dead.