He threw down bis axe and watched their game, and one of the boys gave him something like a date-stone to eat, which prevented him from feeling hungry or thirsty. At length one of them said, "You have been here some time; you had better go home." So he stooped to pick up his axe, but the handle had mouldered into dust; and when he got home, he found that all his friends and kinsmen were dead, for he had been absent several hundred years. Thereupon he returned to the hills, and lived as a Taoist recluse, subsequently attaining to immortality.
2156 Wang Chih 王質 (T. 子野 and 景文). 10th and 11th cent. A.D. A scholar and official of the Sung dynasty. After studying under Yang I, he graduated as chin shih and entered upon a public career. He served in various important provincial posts, and earned a wide reputation for justice and probity. On one occasion he rebuked the Governor of Soochow for rejoicing that he had captured some hundred coiners of cash; "for these men," said he, "will be done to death. Is it in accordance with the principles of a humane administration to rejoice over that?" When Fan Chung- yen was banished, he alone of all the officials at Court went to see him off. It was pointed out to him that this was a dangerous proceeding, and that he might fall under suspicion of being one of Fan's party. "Fan Chung-yen," he replied, "is of all men in the empire the most worthy. I dare not raise my face to his. Were he to regard me as one of his party, I should be honoured indeed.? To hear him discourse on antiquity was said to be like reading a famous passage by 酈道元 Li Tao-yüan in his commentary to 水經 Water Classic where "every drop of spittle turns to pearls."
2157 Wang Chih 汪直. 15th cent. A.D. One of the 猺 Yao aborigines of Kuangtang, who gained favour as a eunuch in the household of the Imperial concubine 萬 Wan. In 1477 he was
