It was an easy transition from alchemy and the elixir of life to magic and the black art in general. Those Taoists who, by their manner of life, or their reputed successes in the above two fields of research, attracted public attention, came to be regarded as magicians or wizards, in communication with, and in control of, the unseen powers of darkness. The accounts of their combats with evil spirits, to be found in many of the lower-class novels, are eagerly devoured by the Chinese, who even now frequently call in Taoist priests to exorcise some demon which is supposed to be exerting an evil influence on the family. As a specimen, there is a story of a young man who had fallen under the influence of a beautiful young girl, when he met a Taoist priest in the street, who started on seeing him, and said that his face showed signs that he had been bewitched. Hurrying home, the young man found his door locked; and on creeping softly up to the window and looking in, he saw a hideous devil, with a green face and jagged teeth like a saw, spreading a human skin on the bed, and painting it with a paint-brush. The devil then threw aside the brush, and giving the skin a shake-out, just as you would a coat, cast it over its shoulders, when lo! there stood the girl. The story goes on to say that the devil-girl killed the young man, ripping him open and tearing out his heart; after which the priest engaged in terrible conflict with her. Finally—and here we seem to be suddenly transported to the story of the fisherman in the _Arabian Nights_—she became a dense column of smoke curling up from the ground, and then the priest took from his vest an uncorked gourd, and threw it right into the midst of the smoke. A sucking noise was heard, and the whole column was drawn into the gourd; after which the priest corked it up closely, and carried it away with him. The search for the elixir of life was too fascinating to be readily given up. It was carried on with more or less vigour for centuries, as we learn from the following Memorial to the Throne, dating from the ninth century A.D., presented by an aggrieved Confucianist:— "Of late years the court has been overrun by a host of 'professors,' who pretend to have the secret of immortality. "Now supposing that such beings as immortals really did exist—would they not be likely to hide themselves in deep mountain recesses, far from the ken of man? On the other hand, persons who hang about the vestibules of the rich and great, and brag of their wonderful powers in big words,—what are they more than common adventurers in search of pelf? How should their nonsense be credited, and their drugs devoured? Besides, even medicines to cure bodily ailments are not to be swallowed casually, morning, noon, and night. How much less, then, this poisonous, fiery gold-stone, which the viscera of man must be utterly unable to digest?"