The rude diagrams, Figs. 64, 65, 66, are facsimiles from a manuscript of folio size in the possession of J. Haas, Esq., Imperial Austro-Hungarian Vice-Consul for Shanghai, which he kindly placed at my disposal. This unique volume is at present, unfortunately, unintelligible. It comes from the western confines of China, and is believed to be an example of the written Lolo language, that is, of the language of the aboriginal tribes of China. They suffice to show that the same respect for the dragon is shown among these people as in China; but no opinion can be offered as to whether this belief and respect is original or imported, until their literature has been examined. [Illustration: FIG. 66.] I regret that I am unable to give in this volume, as I had wished, an account of the Persian dragon, which, I am informed, is contained in a rare Persian work. In conclusion, I must hope that the reader who has had the patience to wade through the medley of extracts which I have selected, and to analyse the suggestive reasoning of the introductory chapters, will agree with me that there is nothing impossible in the ordinary notion of the traditional dragon; that such being the case, it is more likely to have once had a real existence than to be a mere offspring of fancy; and that from the accident of direct transmission of delineations of it on robes and standards, we have probably a not very incorrect notion of it in the depicted dragon of the Chinese. We may infer that it was a long terrestrial lizard, hibernating, and carnivorous, with the power of constricting with its snake-like body and tail; possibly furnished with wing-like expansions of its integument, after the fashion of _Draco volans_, and capable of occasional progress on its hind legs alone, when excited in attack. It appears to have been protected by armour and projecting spikes, like those found in _Moloch horridus_ and _Megalania prisca_, and was possibly more nearly allied to this last form than to any other which has yet come to our knowledge. Probably it preferred sandy, open country to forest land, its habitat was the highlands of Central Asia, and the time of its disappearance about that of the Biblical Deluge discussed in a previous chapter. Although terrestrial, it probably, in common with most reptiles, enjoyed frequent bathing, and when not so engaged, or basking in the sun, secluded itself under some overhanging bank or cavern. The idea of its fondness for swallows, and power of attracting them, mentioned in some traditions, may not impossibly have been derived from these birds hawking round and through its open jaws in the pursuit of the flies attracted by the viscid humours of its mouth. We know that at the present day a bird, the trochilus of the ancients, freely enters the open mouth of the crocodile, and rids it of the parasites affecting its teeth and jaws. CHAPTER IX. THE SEA-SERPENT.