“Doomed as we are, our native dust, To meet with many a bitter shower, It ill befits us to disdain The altar, to deride the fane Where simple sufferers bend, in trust To win a happier hour.” At the same time, it must be admitted that there is a great deal of confusion and contradiction in Chinese ideas as to the state of the dead. While they speak of the departed spirit as still retaining a full personality of its own, they also, or at least many of them, believe in the separation and return to the primal elements of the various spirits of which the human being is composed. Thus the animal spirit, for instance, would return to and be lost in the great reservoir of animal existence, just as a drop of water in the ocean, and the mind or intellect return to that of mind. Yet their ideas on this subject, however contradictory, and all their feelings, point to death as not an evil in itself, or an event to be dreaded. Hence, in fact, their indifference to life and extreme fondness for suicide. Almost every Chinaman lives in the spirit of their proverb, “The hero does not ask if there be evil omens; he views death as going home.” At Ma-hum I had a letter of introduction to one of the elders, and found that village small, much impoverished, and greatly dilapidated. Long warfare with Schan-tsun had exhausted its resources; many habitations were empty; the temple and schoolhouse were in ruins; there were very few women—some, I fear, having been sold from distress—and the people had a crushed, desponding air. These clan-fights in the south of China are rather curious, and attention has not been called to them. I never could master all their intricacies, but they occur sometimes between people of different family names, and sometimes between those of different villages and districts. Two villages having the same patronymic sometimes fight, but most usually it is the clanship which determines and guides the quarrel. People of another name visiting the parties are very seldom interfered with, unless it is by the hired combatants, who are generally bad characters, and are sometimes employed by wealthy villages. At one place to which I came, the elders sent out word they would not allow us to enter, as they had more than a thousand mercenary soldiers there, and they could not insure our safety. It is no unusual thing for notice to be given when a battle is to come off, and on these occasions I have seen the hills lined with hundreds of spectators from other places, who entertained no fears for their own safety, were not interfered with, and applauded both parties impartially according to the valour or energy displayed. I say energy, because at one of the most vigorous fights I have seen there was no enemy in sight, or within several miles. Files of men gathered in groups and stretched into line; they ran down hills and up hills again, waving huge flags;