Lion and Dragon in Northern China. Sir Reginald Fleming Johnston

to pick up the neighbouring mountains and throw them into the sea. He was not without valuable assistance from persons who possessed powers even more remarkable than his own. A certain spirit helped him by summoning a number of hills to contribute their building-stone. At the spirit's summons, so the story goes, thirteen hills obediently sent their stones rolling down eastwards towards the sea. On came the boulders, big and little, one after another, just as if they were so many live things walking. When they went too slowly or showed signs of laziness the spirit flogged them with a whip until the blood came.

      

The truth of this story, in the opinion of the people, is sufficiently attested by the facts that one of the mountains is still known as Chao-shih-shan or "Summon-the-rocks hill," and that many of the stones on its slopes and at its base are reddish in hue.[11] The Emperor was also helped by certain Spirits of the Ocean (hai-shên), who did useful work in establishing the piers of his bridge in deep water.[12] The Emperor, according to the story, was deeply grateful to these Ocean Spirits for their assistance, and begged for a personal interview with them so that he might express his thanks in proper form. "We are horribly ugly," replied the modest Spirits, "and you must not pay us a visit unless you will promise not to draw pictures of us." The Emperor promised, and rode along the bridge to pay his visit. When he had gone a distance of forty li he was met by the Spirits, who received him with due ceremony. During the interview, the Emperor, who like Odysseus was a man of many wiles, furtively drew his hosts' portraits on the ground with his foot. As luck would have it the Spirits discovered what he was doing, and naturally became highly indignant. "Your Majesty has broken faith with us," they said. "Begone!" The Emperor mounted his horse and tried to ride back the way he had come, but lo! the animal remained rigid and immovable, for the Spirits had bewitched it and turned it into a rock; and his Majesty had to go all the way back to the shore on foot.[13]

      THE TEMPLE AT THE SHANTUNG PROMONTORY (see p. 23).

      This regrettable incident did not cause the cessation of work on the bridge, though the Emperor presumably received no more help from the Spirits of the Ocean. But on one unlucky day the Emperor's wife presumed without invitation to pay her industrious husband a visit, and brought with her such savoury dishes as she thought would tempt the imperial appetite. Now the presence of women, say the Chinese, is utterly destructive of all magical influences. The alchemists, for example, cannot compound the elixir of life in the presence of women, chickens, or cats. The lady had no sooner made her appearance at Ch'êng Shan than the bridge, which was all but finished, instantaneously crumbled to pieces. So furious was her imperial spouse at the ruin of his work that he immediately tore the unhappy dame to pieces and scattered her limbs over the sea-shore, where they can be seen in rock-form to this day. The treacherous rocks that stretch out seawards in a line from the Promontory are the ruins of the famous bridge, and still bear the name of the imperial magician.

      Legends say that a successor of the First Emperor, namely Han Wu Ti (140–87 B.C.), who also made a journey to eastern Shantung, was ill-advised enough to make an attempt to continue the construction of the mythical bridge; but he only went so far as to set up two great pillars. These are still to be seen at ebb-tide, though the uninitiated would take them to be mere shapeless rocks. Han Wu Ti's exploits were but a faint copy of those of the First Emperor. Ch'êng Shan Tsui has for many centuries been dedicated to that ruler's memory, and on its slopes his temple may still be visited. The original temple, we are told, was built out of part of the ruins of the great bridge. In 1512 it was destroyed by fire and rebuilt on a smaller scale. Since then it has been restored more than once, and the present building is comparatively new.

There is no legend, apparently, which associates the First Emperor with the territory at present directly administered by Great Britain, but there is a foolish story that connects him with Wên-têng Shan, a hill from which the Wên-têng district takes its name. It is said that having arrived at this hill the Emperor summoned his civil officials (wên) to ascend (têng) the hill in question and there proclaim to a marvelling world his own great exploits and virtues; but this story is evidently a late invention to account for the name Wên-têng. Among other localities associated with this Emperor may be mentioned a terrace, which he visited for the sake of a sea-view, and a pond (near Jung-ch'êng city) at which His Majesty's horses were watered: hence the name Yin-ma-ch'ih (Drink-horse-pool). But the Chinese are always ready to invent stories to suit place-names, and seeing that every Chinese syllable (whether part of a name or not) has several meanings, the strain on the imaginative faculties is not severe.

      The feat performed by the Emperor close to the modern treaty-port of Chefoo—only a couple of hours' steaming from Weihaiwei—may be slightly more worthy of record than the Wên-têng legend. His first visit to Chih-fu (Chefoo) Hill—by which is meant one of the islands off the coast—is said to have taken place in 218 B.C., when he left a record of himself in a rock-inscription which—if it ever existed—has doubtless long ago disappeared. In 210, the last year of his busy life, he sent a certain Hsü Fu to gather medicinal herbs (or rather the herbs out of which the drug of immortality was made) at the Chefoo Hill. In his journeys across the waters to and from the hill Hsü Fu was much harassed by the attacks of a mighty fish, and gave his imperial master a full account of the perils which constantly menaced him owing to this monster's disagreeable attentions. The Emperor, always ready for an adventure, immediately started for Chefoo, climbed the hill, caught sight of the great fish wallowing in the waters, and promptly shot it dead with his bow and arrow.

It is natural that the Shantung Promontory and the eastern peninsula in general should have become the centre of legend and myth. We know from classical tradition that to the people of Europe the western ocean—the Atlantic—was a region of marvel. There—beyond the ken of ships made or manned by ordinary mortals—lay the Fortunate Islands, the Isles of the Blest. The Chinese have similar legends, but their Fairy Isles—P'êng-lai and Fu-sang—lay, as a matter of course, somewhere in the undiscovered east, about the shimmering region of the rising sun. Many and many are the Chinese dreamers and poets who have yearned for those islands, and have longed to pluck the wondrous fruit that ripened only once in three thousand years and then imparted a golden lustre to him who tasted of it. The Shantung Promontory became a region of marvel because it formed the borderland between the known and the unknown, the stepping-stone from the realm of prosaic fact to that of fancy and romance.

      The coast-line from the Promontory to Weihaiwei possesses no features of outstanding interest. It consists of long sandy beaches broken by occasional rocks and cliffs. The villages are small and, from the sea, almost invisible. Undulating hills, seldom rising above a thousand feet in height, but sometimes bold and rugged in outline, form a pleasant background. There are a few islets, of which one of the most conspicuous is Chi-ming-tao—"Cock-crow Island"—lying ten miles from the most easterly point of the Weihaiwei harbour. All the mainland from here onwards lies within the territory directly ruled by Great Britain. On the port side of the steamer as she enters the harbour will be seen a line of low cliffs crowned by a lighthouse; on the starboard side lies Liukungtao, the island of Liukung.

As in the case of Hongkong, it is the island that creates the harbour; and, similarly, the position of the island provides two entrances available at all times for the largest ships. The island is two and a quarter miles long and has a maximum breadth of seven-eighths of a mile and a circumference of five and a half miles. The eastern harbour entrance is two miles broad, the western entrance only three-quarters of a mile. The total superficial area of the harbour is estimated at eleven square miles. Under the lee of the island, which might be described as a miniature Hongkong, is the deep-water anchorage for warships, and it is here that the British China Squadron lies when it pays its annual summer visit to north China. On the island are situated the headquarters of the permanent naval establishment,