went to Canton in his yonth and rose to be senior member of the ^^hoDg merchants*' or intermediaries under the old system between the Chinese officials and foreign traders. He amassed a fortune estimated at about £ 4,000,000; and this in spite of large sums contributed to Government enterprises, such as the war in Turkestan and the repair of the public dikes around Canton. He was much esteemed by all foreigners, to whom he was popularly known as ^^Howqua.** EUs house and grounds still form one of the sights well worth the attention of the tourist, and his personal name survives in E-too, the Chinese style of Messrs. Jardine Matheson's hong. Wu Kang ^ p||| . A magician of old, who for some offence against 2337 the gods was banished to the moon and condemned to hew down the cassia which grows there. But this is an impossible task, as every cut closes up again at once.
Wu K'ong ^^. Born A.D. 730. A Buddhist priest, whose 2338 name in the world had been ]^ ^ ^ Ch^d Fdng-ch^ao. He was bom at ^ ^ Hsiang-i in Shensi, and in 751 he was attached to the retinue of the eunuch ^ ^ ^t Chang T^ao-kuang, who was accredited to the Court of the king of ^^ Chi-pin, in response to an invitation from the latter to the Emperor of China to enter into friendly alliance. He proceeded as far as GandhHra, where is the eastern capital of Chi-pin and the summer residence of the king; and there, when the object of the embassy was accomplished, he fell ill and was unable to return home. As soon as his health began to improve, he made a vow to dedicate his life to Buddha; and subsequently took the vows, and received the religious name of j^ ^ 1^ ^ Dharmadatu , translated into Chinese by Q^ ^ . He then spent no less than forty years wandering through the countries of Central Asia and India, learning Sanskrit and collecting books and relics. At length he returned to China, by land as he had gone, to find the trees at his parents* grave
