better illustrates the effect of an
exotic fancy upon the sober and methodical authorship of the Chinese,
or which has left a more enduring mark upon the language, than the
little tale which is given in translation in the following pages.

The _Nan k'o meng_, or _Dream of the South Branch_ (as the title,
literally translated, should read), is the work of a writer named
Li Kung-tso, who, from an incidental mention of his own experiences
in Kiangsi which appears in another of his tales, is ascertained
to have lived at the beginning of the ninth century of our era. The
_nan k'o_, or South Branch, is the portion of a _huai_ tree (_Sophora
Japdonica_, a tree well known in China, and somewhat resembling the
American locust-tree) in which the adventures narrated in the story
are supposed to have occurred; and from this narrative of a dream,
recalling more than one of the incidents recounted in the Arabian
Nights, the Chinese have borrowed a metaphor to enrich the vocabulary
of their literature. The equivalent of our own phrase "the baseless
fabric of a vision" is in Chinese _nan k'o chih meng_--a dream of
the south branch.

Ch'un-yue Fen enters the Locust-tree

Ch'un-yue Fen, a native of Tung-p'ing, was by nature a gallant who
had little regard for the proprieties of life, and whose principal
enjoyment was found in indulgence in wine-bibbing in the society
of boon-companions. At one time he held a commission in the army,
but this he lost through his dissipated conduct, and from that time
he more than ever gave himself up to the pleasures of the wine-cup.

One day--it was in the ninth moon of the seventh year of Cheng Yuean
(A.D. 791)--after drinking heavily with a party of friends under a
wide-spreading old locust-tree near his house, he had to be carried
to bed and there left to recover, his friends saying that they would
leave him while they went to bathe their feet. The moment he laid down
his head he fell into a deep slumber. In his dream appeared to him two
men clothed in purple, who kneeling down informed him that they had
been sent by their master the King of Huai-an ('Locust-tree Peace') to
request his presence. Unconsciously he rose, and, arranging his dress,
followed his visitors to the door, where he saw a varnished chariot
drawn by a white horse. On each side were ranged seven attendants,
by whom he was assisted to mount, whereupon the carriage drove off,
and, going out of the garden gate, passed through a h