"In the Northern Sea there was a fish, whose name was _kw‘ên_. It is not known how many thousand _li_ this fish was in length. It was afterwards transformed into a bird called _p‘êng_, the size of whose back is uncertain by some thousands of _li_. Suddenly it would dart upwards with rapid flight, its wings overspreading the sky like clouds. When the waters were agitated [in the sixth moon] the bird moved its abode to the Southern Sea, the Pool of Heaven. In the book called _Ts‘i Hieh_, which treats of strange and marvellous things, it is said that when the _p‘êng_ flew south, it first rushed over three thousand _li_ of water, and then mounted to the height of ninety thousand _li_, riding upon the wind that blows in the sixth moon. The wild horses, _i.e._ the clouds and dust of heaven, were driven along by the zephyrs. The colour of the sky was blue; yet, is that the real colour of the sky, or only the appearance produced by infinite, illimitable depths? For the bird, as it looked downwards, the view was just the same as it is to us when we look upwards." On the screens decorating the Chi-on-in monastery in Kioto, are depicted several composite creatures, half-dragon, half-bird, which appear to represent the Japanese rendering of the Chinese Ying Lung or winged dragon. They have dragons' heads, plumose wings, and birds' claws, and have been variously designated to me by Japanese as the _Hai Riyo_ (Fig. 62), the _Tobi Tatsu_, and the _Schachi Hoko_. [Illustration: FIG. 63.--JAPANESE DRAGON (BRONZE).] CONCLUSION OF DRAGON CHAPTERS. The numerous quotations given in the above pages, or in the Appendix, are merely a selection, and by no means profess to be so extensive as they should be were this work a monograph on the dragon alone. Having a special object in view, I have forborne to diverge into those interesting speculations which relate to its religious significance; these I leave to those who deal specially with this portion of its history. I therefore pass over the many traditions and legends regarding it contained in the pages of the _Memoirs of Hiouen-Thsang_,[250] of _Foĕ Kouĕ Ki_,[251] and similar narratives, and omit quoting folk-lore from the pages of Dennys, Eitel, and others who have written on the subject. [Illustration: FIG. 64.] For my purpose it would be profitless to collate legends such as that given in the Apocrypha, in the story of Bel and the Dragon, and reappearing in the pages of El Edrisi as an Arab legend, with Alexander the Great as the hero, and the Canaries as the scene, or to dwell on the Corean and Japanese versions of dragon stories, which are merely borrowed, and corrupted in borrowing, from the Chinese. Nor shall I do more than allude to the fact that dragons are represented in the Brahminical caves at Ellora, and among the sculptures of Ancoar Wat in Cambodia. [Illustration: FIG. 65.]