agodas
at certain spots and of the proper height, to pile up a heap of
stones, or round off the peak of some hill to which nature's rude hand
has imparted a square and inharmonious aspect. The scenery round any
spot required for building or burial purposes must be in accordance
with certain principles evolved from the brains of the imaginative
founders of the science. It is the business of the geomancer to
discover such sites, to say if a given locality is or is not all that
could be desired on this head, sometimes to correct errors which
ignorant quacks have committed, or rectify inaccuracies which have
escaped the notice even of the most celebrated among the fraternity.
There may be too many trees, so that some must be cut down; or there
may be too few, and it becomes necessary to plant more. Water-courses
may not flow in proper curves; hills may be too high, too low, and of
baleful shapes, or their relative positions one with another may be
radically bad. Any one of these causes may be sufficient in the eyes
of a disciple of Feng-shui to account for the sudden outbreak of a
plague, the gradual or rapid decay of a once flourishing town. The
Feng-shui of a house influences not only the pecuniary fortunes of its
inmates, but determines their general happiness and longevity. There
was a room in the British Legation at Peking in which two persons died
with no great interval of time between each event; and subsequently
one of the students lay there _in articulo mortis_ for many days. The
Chinese then pointed out that a tall chimney had been built opposite
the door leading into this room, thereby vitiating the Feng-shui, and
making the place uninhabitable by mortal man.

From the above most meagre sketch it is easy to understand that if the
natural or artificial configuration of surrounding objects is really
believed by the Chinese to influence the fortunes of a city, a family,
or an individual, they are only reasonably averse to the introduction
of such novelties as railways and telegraph poles, which must
inevitably sweep away their darling superstition--never to rise again.
And they _do_ believe; there can be no doubt of it in the mind of any
one who has taken the trouble to watch. The endless inconvenience a
Chinaman will suffer without a murmur rather than lay the bones of a
dear one in a spot unhallowed by the fiat of the geomancer; the sums
he will subscribe to build a protecting pagoda or destroy some harmful
combi