A Curious and Interesting Study Docs or Cutxa.anp Japan, by V, W.
Collier; illustrated. London, Heinemann (1921). (Mex. $25.)
There is nothing to. show that the writer of this work is either a dog-lover or a dog-owner. It would rather appear that living in China and looking round for a subject of study he took up this one from the outside, so to speak, collected notes with the aid of his teacher and pot whom Ener ach Display of Uiteraly sil, With more enthusiasm for the book than for dogs. The book suffers thus in being somewhat lifeless.
But if not strictly scientific or very literary, the work has its value as being the first on its sub-It traverses much ground which will not need to be explored again by future writers; and to the reader who does not want to hunt the dog through all the regions of philology and ancient history' yet can be interested in the relation of Chinese dogs to the outside dog-world, the book will be very welcome and give great pleasure. Many curious passages are trans lated, many strange questions are raised, some of them are answered too and many descriptions and details are given which the ordinary animals caused the Imperial children to sicken and die; or that Kublai Khan used 5,000 dogs when hunting; or that Zoroastrians for the murder of a water dog imposed penalty of which 20,000 stripes was only the beginning.
Tue Lion or LamaisM.
But while we have valuable information about the evolution of the. Pekinese dog and the pug, the author has also entered regions of religious symbolism. Our attention is called for example to the connexion between the little ball shining like snow between Buddha's eyebrows and the white spot on the Pekinese dog's forehead. The most ambitious part of the book, however, connects the lion-dog' and other toy-dogs with the lion of ism. Why Buddhism should favour a beast which is so fierce a destroyer of life seems strange and requires a good deal of explaining. But the fact is evidenced on every hand before our eyes. The real connexion is, of course, in the subjugation of passions by Buddhist teaching; but symbolism and the transfiguration of symbols requires a gocd deal of reference to Egyptian and other influences permeate ing Central Asia through Greek and Scythian channels. The evolution of the "spirit-lion" produced that conventional lion with which we are all in China so familiar, The signification of such symbols as the ball beneath the paw of our bronze or stone lions is more or less completely explained and a good dea) of lion lore connects the high spiritual teaching of a great religious system with the toy-dogs of China and Japan.
We need only mention such question as the eating of dog-flesh, the use of dogs in hunting, the trade in dog-shina, the origin of the Tibetan mastiff, the dog's place in art as seen on Han pottery or on snuff-bottles, the dog in sacrifice, the dog ae causing an eclipse, and the relation between Pekinese dogs andi King Charles' spaniels and Blenhelm dogs, ete., and readers will see at once what a wide and varied range of interesting matter is put Yoefore them im this volume.
From some polys of view tha wark may be criticized as distinctly faulty. Where a scholar like Lanfer would discuss a mass of accumulated evidence and decide clearly (whether rightly or wrongly). we have. here to be content with a "possibly? or "probably" or "it may be suggested." But this will only affect the serious student of Chinese, while the majority of dog-lovers will appreciate what is given without wishing -for more learning. Students, again, will be irritated by the lack of all accents, by the irregularity of Romanization, and by far too large a number of typographical errors. But the general reader will more or less ignore such faults and cannot but derive real pleasure from such work.
S.C.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.