And hospitals for the
diseased and destitute were found by Fahian at Palibothra, whilst Hiuen
Tsang speaks of the distribution of food and medicine at the Punyasalas
or "Houses of Beneficence," in the Panjab. Various examples of a
charitable spirit in Chinese Institutions will be found in a letter by
Pere d'Entrecolles in the XVth Recueil of Lettres Edifiantes; and a
similar detail in Nevius's China and the Chinese, ch. xv. (See
Prinsep's Essays, II. 15; Beal's Fah-hian, 107; Pel. Boudd. II.
190.) The Tartar sentiment towards the poor survives on the Arctic
shores: - "The Yakuts regard the rich as favoured by the gods; the poor as
rejected and cast out by them." (Billings, Fr. Tranls. I. 233.)
[1] As rendered by J. Prinsep. But I see that Professor H. H. Wilson did
not admit the passage to bear that meaning.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
[CONCERNING THE ASTROLOGERS IN THE CITY OF CAMBALUC.]
[There are in the city of Cambaluc, what with Christians, Saracens, and
Cathayans, some five thousand astrologers and soothsayers, whom the Great
Kaan provides with annual maintenance and clothing, just as he provides
the poor of whom we have spoken, and they are in the constant exercise of
their art in this city.
They have a kind of astrolabe on which are inscribed the planetary signs,
the hours and critical points of the whole year.
