several other methods, but perhaps this one will be found to answer
the purpose.

Further on we find a most practicable way for pedestrians of
discovering the right direction to pursue at a cross road. "Carry with
you a live tortoise, and when you come to a cross road and do not know
which one to choose, put down the tortoise and follow it. Thus you
will not go wrong." For people who are afraid of seeing bogies at
night, the following is recommended:--"With the middle finger of the
right hand trace on the palm of the left hand the words _I am a
devil_, and close your hand up tight. You will then be able to travel
without fear." Sea-sickness may be prevented by drinking the drippings
from a bamboo punt-pole mixed with boiling water, or by inserting a
lump of burnt mortar from a stove into the hair, without letting
anybody know it is there; also by writing the character _earth_ on the
palm of the hand previous to going on board ship. Ivory may be cleaned
to look like new by using the whey of bean-curd, and rice may be
protected from weevils and maggots by inserting the shell of a crab in
the place where it is kept. The presence of bad air in wells may be
detected by letting a fowl's feather drop down; if it falls straight,
the air is pure; if it circles round and round, poisonous. Danger may
be averted by throwing in a quantity of hot vinegar before descending.
A fire may be kept alight from three to five days without additional
fuel by merely putting a walnut among the live ashes; and a method is
also given to make a candle burn many hours with hardly any
perceptible decrease in size.

We close Dr Wang's "New Collection of Tried Prescriptions" with
mingled feelings of admiration and regret: admiration, not indeed for
the genius of its author, or any new light which may have been let in