Note 1 — XII.—LEGENDS OF LOCALITY, HOUSEHOLD TALES, &c.

Most nations have, or have had, a reputed gate of Purgatory or Hell situated somewhere within their borders, more especially if the country they inhabit include vast tracts of mountainous country, amongst whose gloomy recesses popular superstition finds it easy to locate an entrance to the nether world, unchecked by the ridicule of educated visitors. Thus the Hörselloch cavern in the Hörselberg, between Eisenach and Gotha, was supposed by the peasantry of Thuringia to be the entrance to Purgatory, and moans and shrieks were believed in former times to be nightly heard issuing from its ghostly portals.1 I need scarcely refer classical scholars to the legend of the cave of Acherusia, nor will most students of ethnology be unaware how widespread is the belief that a door to the infernal regions is accessible to mortal gaze. But the fact of a similar belief existing in China may be new to many. The location of this entrance to the Chinese purgatory is by native writers placed not far from Têng Chow, of which Chefoo is the Treaty Port, celebrated throughout the length and breadth of the Empire from its proximity to the birth-place of Confucius. The demons of Têng Chow are classed, according to a Chinese proverb, as one of the wonders of the world—as well they might be, did they exist. Popular tradition avers that at stated periods the ghosts of the departed, who are sent to Têng Chow to await judgment, are allowed to again revisit their earthly haunts; which, as the native chronicles naively observe, fully accounts for the mysterious doings common in the neighbourhood.