Note 8 — III.—DAYS AND SEASONS.

and I need not more particularly allude to the legend concerning him—how the violation of his grave was followed by the “40 days rain.” A correspondent of the Shanghai Courier and China Gazette thus writes on the 5th March 1875:—“The first prediction as to the fortunes of the New Year rested on the state of the weather on the first day of spring, which coincided with our February the 3rd. ‘Heaven grant that it may not rain a drop to-morrow,’ said a boatman to me on the evening of February 2nd. ‘If it does,’ he continued, ‘the crops will be below average for a certainty; and the price of rice will go up.’ ‘Why so?’ I asked. ‘Don’t you know,’ he replied, ‘that if it rains on “lih chʻing,”’ (the first day of spring) ‘it will rain more or less for forty days afterwards.’ A curious coincidence this with our St. Swithin’s Day; and it is observable that the Chinese prophets, as well as the authors of the memorial prophecies of the irate Saint Swithin, make their predictions sufficiently elastic to save their credit—‘more or less for forty days.’ ” It is noteworthy that the Chinese prediction is seldom verified, and that our own popular prediction is almost equally sure to be false, special observations taken at Greenwich for twenty years having shewn that rain fell in the largest number of days when St. Swithin’s Day was dry! With amusing agreement there were more wet days than dry ones following the recent 3rd February in China, although that day was distinguished by “a bright sun and a cloudless sky!” Weather predictions in either country are evidently of equal value.8 The Hakkas (and also many Puntis) believe that if in the night of the 15th day of the 8th month (mid-autumn) there are clouds obscuring the moon before midnight, it is a sign that oil and salt will become very dear. If, however, there are clouds obscuring the moon after midnight, the price of rice will, it is supposed, undergo a similar change.