.]

[Footnote 158: J. Ferguson. _Op. cit._; W. D. Snooke, _Brief
Astronomical Tables for the Expeditious Calculation of Eclipses_,
8vo. Lond. 1852.]

CHAPTER XVIII.

STRANGE ECLIPSE CUSTOMS.

I had intended heading this chapter "Eclipse Customs amongst Barbarous
Nations," but in these days it is dangerous to talk of barbarians or to
speak one's mind on points of social etiquette so I have thought it well
to tone down the original title, otherwise I should have the partisans
of the "Heathen Chinee" holding me up to scorn as a reviler of the
brethren.

Did space permit a very interesting record might be furnished of eclipse
customs in foreign parts.

An eclipse happened during Lord Macartney's embassy to China[160] which
kept the Emperor and his Mandarins for a whole day devoutly praying the
gods that the Moon might not be eaten up by the great dragon which was
hovering about her. The next day a pantomime was performed, exhibiting
the battle of the dragon and the Moon, and in which two or three hundred
priests, bearing lanterns at the end of long sticks, dancing and
capering about, sometimes over the plain, and then over chairs and
tables, bore no mean part.

Professor Russell, who is quoted elsewhere in this work with respect to
Chinese eclipses, makes the following remarks in regard to what happens
now in China when eclipses occur:--"It will be interesting here to note
that, even at present, by Imperial command, special rites are performed
during solar and lunar eclipses. A president from each of the six
boards, with two inferior officials, dressed in their official clothes,
proceed to the T'ai-Ch'ang-Ssu. When the eclipse begins they change
their robes for common garments made of plain black material, and
kneeling down, burn incense. The president then beats one stroke on a
gong, and the ceremony is taken up by all the attendant officials."

A writer in _Chambers's Journal_[161] in an article entitled "The Hindu
view of the late Eclipse," gives an interesting and original account of
divers Hindu superstitions and ceremonies which came under his notice in
connection with the total eclipse of the Sun of Aug. 18, 1868. He
remarks that "European science has as yet produced but little effect
upon the minds of the superstitious masses of India. Of the many
millions who witnessed the eclipse of the 18th of August last there were
comparatively few