shing, or rather horrible, custom, for, when any one's father is
about to give up the ghost, all the relatives meet together, and they eat
him, as was told to me for certain." Mr. Rockhill (_Rubruck_, p. 152,
note) writes: "So far as I am aware, this charge [of cannibalism] is not
made by any Oriental writer against the Tibetans, though both Arab
travellers to China in the ninth century and Armenian historians of the
thirteenth century say the Chinese practised cannibalism. The Armenians
designate China by the name _Nankas_, which I take to be Chinese
_Nan-kuo_, 'southern country,' the _Manzi_ country of Marco Polo."--H. C.]

But like charges of cannibalism are brought against both Chinese and
Tartars very positively. Thus, without going back to the Anthropophagous
Scythians of Ptolemy and Mela, we read in the _Relations_ of the Arab
travellers of the ninth century: "In China it occurs sometimes that the
governor of a province revolts from his duty to the emperor. In such a
case he is slaughtered and eaten. _In fact, the Chinese eat the flesh of
all men who are executed by the sword_." Dr. Rennie mentions a
superstitious practice, the continued existence of which in our own day he
has himself witnessed, and which might perhaps have given rise to some
such statement as that of the Arab travellers, if it be not indeed a
relic, in a mitigated form, of the very practice they assert to have
prevailed. After an execution at Peking certain large pith balls are
steeped in the blood, and under the name of _blood-bread_ are sold as a
medicine for consumption. _It is only to the blood of decapitated
criminals that any such healing power is attributed_. It has been asserted
in the annals of the _Propagation de la Foi_ that the Chinese executioners
of M. Chapdelaine, a missionary who was martyred in Kwang-si in 1856 (28th
February), were seen to eat the heart of their victim; and M. Huot, a
missionary in the Yun-nan province, recounts a case of cannibalism which
he witnessed. Bishop Chauveau, at Ta Ts'ien-lu, told Mr. Cooper that he
had seen men in one of the cities of Yun-nan eating the heart and brains
of a celebrated robber who had been executed. Dr. Carstairs Douglas of
Amoy also tells me that the like practices have occurred at Amoy and
Swatau.

[With reference to cannibalism in China see _Medical Superstitions an
Incentive to Anti-Foreign Riots in China_, by _D. J. Macgowan, North China
Herald_, 8th July, 1892, pp. 60-62. Mr.