birthday of the God Ta This fete is The 16th July is, popularly, called the celebrated at Yangchow in great style; a principal feature being the wonderful performances of the miracle-workers called locally, BB BE ma-p'i "*horse-hides." Hold: ing an iron whip in their hands, they dance before the idol's sedan-chair making terrible grimaces, and touching with the end of their bdfon persons whom they thus matism as impure," but who do not dare to argue the point with them. They are the terror of the women who turn out in flocks to sve the idol processions, but try to hide behind the crowd when the dreaded ma-p'i comes along with his tell-tale wand. They have a way of heating this poker red-hot, and then grasping it till the contact produces a loud hissing sound; but whether they really have, by long practice, hides as tough as horses, or whether they employ supernatural means, as the vulgar believe, to protect themselves from the pain, it is certain that they feel none from this feat, any more than from the cognate one of wearing skewers really or apparently run through their cheeks from one side of the face to the other.—Shén Pav.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.