Chau Ju-Kua - University of Oregon Libraries

11,38-39 kingfishers' featheks. 235
cit.), show tliat it was found in the Sea of Korea, the Eastern Sea, and down to the Malay
Penmsnla, where, according to Li Sfln (^ i^) of the Tang, „the K'un-Iun people (W, "#
^) shot It with arrows, remoyed its outer scrotum (;J?f» ^) a nddried it in the shadi for^
hundred days. Its perfume was sweet and very strong... In view of the above, there seems no
5 vahd reason for supposing that the drug supplied by the sea-dog, and known by the name of
wu-na-tst, may not have been principally procured from the coast of Borneo, as stated by our
author, although it
to that region.
is remarkable that he makes no mention of the fact in the chapter devoted
At the time the Pon-ts'au-kang-mu was written, in the latter part of the sixteenth cen-
10 tury, genuine vm-na-ts'i must have nearly disappeared from the Chinese market — as had
long before an-si-hiang, su-ho-yu, and other drugs originally brought from the West — in
comp^ion with similar but cheaper products from nearer countries, and hai-Jcou-shon (vg
•" «sea-dog scrotum.., had taken its place in the Chinese pharmacopoeia, where it has
since remained as the identical substance known in olden times as wu-na-ts'i. See Bretschnei-
15 der. Ancient Chinese and Arabs, 12, and Mediaeval Researches, 1, 149—150, also Porter Smith,
Chinese materia medica, 54.
Our author's reference to wu-na-ts'i being procured from K'ie-li-ki, which there seems good
^RI W)'
reason to identify with the important mediaeval port of Kalhat on the Oman coast, is interesting,
for Abyssinia and Arabia had long been the principal centres of production of civet. In the
20 sixteenth century, and probably for centuries before, civet was one of the principal articles of
export from Zeila on the Somali coast, Chan's Pi-p'a-lo. See Portuguese expedition to Abyssinia
in 1541—1543, pp. 140, 232 (Hakluyt Soc. edit.).
39.
KINGFISHERS' FEATHERS (^ ^).
25 Tsui-mau, or kingfisliers' featliers, are got in great quantities in Chon-la,
where (the birds) are brought forth in nests built by the side of lakes or ponds in
the depths of the hills. Each pond is the home of just one male and one female
bird; the intrusion of a third bird always ends in a duel to the death. The natives
taking advantage of this peculiarity, rear decoy birds, and walk about with
30 one sitting on the left hand raised. The birds in their nests noticing the in-
truder, make for the (bird on the) hand to fight it, quite ignoring the presence
of the man, who, with his right hand, covers them with a net, and thus makes
them prisoners without fail.
The river Ku in Yung-ch6u(^ ^[>| "]^)?Il)is also the habitat of a bird called
35 jung-ts'ui (j^ ^ downy kingfisher), covered with soft blue feathers all over the
.
back, which are used by luxurious people as an ornament, ihe feathers being
twisted and woven into each other so as to resemble long nap satin (^ g).
Although, of late years, the use of this luxury has been strictly forbidden
by the govemmeiit, the well-to-do classes still continue to add it to their dress,
40 for which reason foreign traders, in defiance of the law, manage to smuggle
it in by concealing it in the cotton lining of their clothes.