ver; and
the officer above mentioned, thinking that this could not be very large,
acceded to their request. A carpet was accordingly laid down, big enough
for about two people to stand on; but by dint of stretching, it was
soon able to accommodate four or five; and so the foreigners went on,
stretching and stretching, until at last it covered about an acre, and
by and by, with the help of their knives, they had filched a piece of
ground several miles in extent."

* * * * *

These two stories must have sprung from one and the same source. It is
not, however, always so simple a matter to see how other Western
incidents found their way into Chinese literature. For instance, there
is a popular anecdote to be found in a Chinese jest-book, which is
almost word for word with another anecdote in Greek literature:--

A soldier, who was escorting a Buddhist priest, charged with some crime,
to a prison at a distance, being very anxious not to forget anything,
kept saying over and over the four things he had to think about, viz.:
himself, his bundle, his umbrella, and the priest. At night he got
drunk, and the Buddhist priest, after first shaving the soldier's head,
ran away. When the soldier awaked, he began his formula, "Myself,
bundle, umbrella--O dear!" cried he, putting his hands to his head, "the
priest has gone. Stop a moment," he added, finding his hands in contact
with a bald head, "here's the priest; it is I who have run away."

* * * * *

As found in Greek literature, the story, attributed to Hierocles, but
probably much later, says that the prisoner was a bald-headed man, a
condition which is suggested to the Chinese reader by the introduction
of a Buddhist priest.

Whether the Chinese got this story from the Greeks, or the Greeks got it
from the Chinese, I do not pretend to know. The fact is that we students
of Chinese at the present day know very little beyond the vague outlines
of what there is to be known. Students of Greek have long since divided
up their subject under such heads as pure scholarship, history,
philosophy, archaeology, and then again have made subdivisions of these.
In the Chinese field nothing of the kind has yet been done. The
consequence is that the labourers in that field, compelled to work over
a large superficies, are only able to turn out more or less superficial
work. The cry is for more students, practical students of the wr