ne of the Confucian period was like the wine of to-day in China,
an ardent spirit distilled from rice. There is no grape-wine in China
now, although grapes are plentiful and good. But we know from the poetry
which has been preserved to us, as well as from the researches of
Chinese archaeologists, that grape-wine was largely used in China for
many centuries subsequent to the date of Chang Ch'ien; in fact, down to
the beginning of the fifteenth century, if not later.

One writer says it was brought, together with the "heavenly horse," from
Persia, when the extreme West was opened up, a century or so before the
Christian era, as already mentioned.

I must now make what may well appear to be an uncalled-for digression;
but it will only be a temporary digression, and will bring us back in a
few minutes to the grape, the heavenly horse, and to Persia.

Mirrors seem to have been known to the Chinese from the earliest ages.
One authority places them so far back as 2500 B.C. They are at any rate
mentioned in the _Odes_, say 800 B.C., and were made of polished copper,
being in shape, according to the earliest dictionary, like a large
basin.

About one hundred years B.C., a new kind of mirror comes into vogue,
called by an entirely new name, not before used. In common with the word
previously employed, its indicator is "metal," showing under which
kingdom it falls,--_i.e._ a mirror of metal. These new mirrors were
small disks of melted metal, highly polished on one side and profusely
decorated with carvings on the other,--a description which exactly
tallies with that of the ancient Greek mirror. Specimens survived to
comparatively recent times, and it is even alleged that many of these
old mirrors are in existence still. A large number of illustrations of
them are given in the great encyclopaedia of the eighteenth century, and
the fifth of these, in chronological order, second century B.C., is
remarkable as being ornamented with the well-known "key," or Greek
pattern, so common in Chinese decoration.

Another is covered with birds flying about among branches of pomegranate
laden with fruit cut in halves to show the seeds.

Shortly afterward we come to a mirror so lavishly decorated with bunches
of grapes and vine-leaves that the eye is arrested at once. Interspersed
with these are several animals, among others the lion, which is unknown
in China. The Chinese word for "lion," as I stated in my first lecture,
is _shih_, an imi