[69] One of the English sailors, who had been taken prisoner. "The pirates frequently obliged my men to go on shore and fight with the muskets, which did great execution; the Chinese principally using bows and arrows. They have match-locks, but use them very unskilfully."--See Appendix. [70] A shih, or stone, contains four keun: a keun thirty kin or catty, the well known Chinese weight: a catty is equal to one pound and a third English. [71] _Nan hae hëen._ Its area amounts to 278 le, and it pays 63,731 leang. The European factories in Canton lie in this district, and the monastery opposite to the factories is usually from the name of the district called the _Hae nan sze_, the temple of Hae nan. The district of every place is called by the name of the place, and we must therefore speak of the town and district Nan hae. [72] This simple note of the Chinese author better illustrates the religion of China than many learned dissertations. All the deities, those of Greece and Rome, of China and India, are derived from two sources; both the powers of nature and highly gifted human beings were deified. These powers of nature, and the virtues and vices of men being in every community nearly similar, the same gods and goddesses are found everywhere; only their external form and shape is different. Every province, every town, and every village of China has its particular tutulary saint, or god, and on the day of his festival his effigy is carried in public. There is no essential difference in this respect between China and those countries where Roman Catholicism is yet in its highest vigour. The effigies of the Chinese gods and goddesses are all of the human shape; they have no monsters like India and Egypt, under which it was once the fashion to seek for extraordinary wisdom and astonishing science. Lucian has already taken the liberty of laughing at these deities, and at the writers, the prophets, and sophists, who try to find some sense in all this vulgar display of nonsense, by which the people are deluded. Lucian de Sacreficiis s. f. where he laughs at the Jupiter with a ram's head, at the good fellow Mercurius with the countenance of a dog, etc. [Greek: Krioprosôpon men ton Dia, chynoprosôpon de ton beltison Ermên chai ton Pana holon tragon], etc. See the pleasant story of Jupiter with the ram's head in Herodotus, II. 42. [73] The strong winds (Tay fung) in the Chinese sea begin about the middle of September, or just before the equinox. [74] It is not stated in the Chinese text, whose father rushed forward, whether it was the father of the lady, or of Wei tang chow. [75] I must again remark that there is a false character in our text: it should be Në[)e], 7974 in the Tonical Dictionary of Dr. M.