Travels in Tartary, Thibet, and China During the years 1844-5-6 Volume II Part 19

Cicero attributes the same custom to the Hyrcanians, in his "Tusculan Questions," (Lib. i. -- 45): "In Hyrcania plebs publicos alit canes; optimates, domesticos. n.o.bile autem genus canum illud scimus esse. Sed pro sua quisque facultate parat, a quibus lanietur: eamque optimam illi esse censent sepulturam."

Justin also says of the Parthians: "Sepultura vulg aut avium aut canum aniatus est. Nuda demum ossa terra obruunt."

{203a} "Asia," vol. v., p. 800, German edition, 18331837.

{203b} See "Asiatic Journal of London," vol. xxi., p. 786, and vol.

xxii., p. 596. A notice of Moorcroft's ma.n.u.scripts was inserted in the "Journal of the Geographical Society of London," 1831.

{203c} Vol. xii, No. 9, p. 120.

{203d} M. Gabet.

{219} In the province of Oui there are three thousand.

{227} Ki-Chan, in fact, is now viceroy of the province of Sse-Tchouen.

{235} _Nouveau Journal Asiatique_, 1st series, tome iv. and vi.

{245} We had for a long time a small Mongol treatise on natural history, for the use of children, in which a unicorn formed one of the pictorial ill.u.s.trations.

{246} A centimetre is 33100 of an inch.

{248} The unicorn antelope of Thibet is probably the oryx-capra of the ancients. It is still found in the deserts of Upper Nubia, where it is called Ariel. The unicorn (Hebrew, reem; Greek, monoceros), that is represented in the Bible, and in Pliny's "Natural History," cannot be identified with the oryx capra. The unicorn of holy writ would appear rather to be a pachydermous creature, of great strength and formidable ferocity. According to travellers, it still exists in Central Africa, and the Arabs call it Aboukarn.

{251} Kouang-Ti, was a celebrated general who lived in the third century of our era, and who, after many and famous victories, was put to death with his son. The Chinese, indeed, say that he did not really die, but that he ascended to heaven, and took his place among the G.o.ds. The Mantchous, who now reign in China, have named Kouang-Ti the tutelary spirit of their dynasty, and raised a great number of temples in his honour. He is ordinarily represented seated, having on his left hand his son Kouang-Ping, standing, and on his right, his squire, a man with a face so very dark, as to be almost black.

{264} The Kiang-Kian are the highest dignitaries of the military hierarchy in China; they are decorated with the red b.u.t.ton. Each province has a Kiang-Kian, who is its military governor, and a Tsoung-Tou, or viceroy, who is its chief literary Mandarin.

{268} On Andriveau-Goujon's map, this place is called Chamiton.

{292} Bathang signifies in Thibetian, plain of cows.