The supernatural qualities ascribed to these by various nations must be considered merely the embroidery of fancy, designed to enrich and adorn an article esteemed rare and valuable. CHAPTER XI. THE CHINESE PHŒNIX. From the date of the earliest examination of the literature of China, it has been customary among Sinologues to trace a fancied resemblance between a somewhat remarkable bird, which occupies an important position in the early traditions of that Empire, and the phœnix of Western authors. Some mythologists have even subsequently concluded that the Fung Hwang of the Chinese, the phœnix of the Greeks, the Roc of the Arabs, and the Garuda of the Hindoos, are merely national modifications of the same myth. I do not hold this opinion, and, in opposing it, purpose, in the future, to discuss each of these birds in detail, although in the present volume I treat only of the Fung Hwang. [Illustration: FIG. 90.--TEMPLE MEDALS FROM CHINA: DRAGON AND PHŒNIX.] The earliest notice of it is contained in the _'Rh Ya_, which, with its usual brevity, simply informs us that the male is called Fung and the female Hwang; the commentator, Kwoh P‘oh, adding that the Shui Ying bird (felicitous and perfect--a synonym for it) has a cock's head, a snake's neck, a swallow's beak, a tortoise's back, is of five different colours, and more than six feet high. The _'Rh Ya Chen I_, a later and supplementary edition of the former work, quotes the _Shwoh Wan_ to the effect that the united name of the male and female bird is Fung Hwang, and that Tso's commentary on the 17th year of the Chao, says one appeared in the time of the Emperor Che (dynastic title, Shaou Haou). The original passage in the _Tso Chuen_ is so interesting that I quote _in extenso_ Dr. Legge's translation of it:-- "When my ancestor, Shaou-Haou Che, succeeded to the kingdom, there appeared at that time a phœnix, and therefore he arranged his government under the nomenclature of birds, making bird officers, and naming them after birds. There were so and so Phœnix bird, minister of the calendar; so and so Dark bird [the swallow], master of the equinoxes; so and so Pih Chaou [the shrike], master of the solstices; so and so Green bird [a kind of sparrow], master of the beginning (of spring and autumn); and so and so Carnation bird [the golden pheasant], master of the close (of spring and autumn).... The five Che [Pheasants] presided over the five classes of mechanics. "So in previous reigns there had been cloud officers, fire officers, water officers, and dragon officers, according to omens." I think there is some connection between this old usage and the present or late system of tribe totems among the North American Indians. Thus we have Snake, Tortoise, Hare Indians, &c., and I hope some day to explain some of the obscure and apparently impossible passages of the _Shan Hai King_, in reference to strange tribes, upon what I may call the totem theory.