PEHLING AND FANQUI.
P. 41.
The footnote here, which says ' Pehling is the Chinese for Englishmen, Fan-qui for Frenchmen,' needs correction. Fan-Kwei is simply the term usually rendered 'foreign devils,' and is applied to Europeans generally. Pe-ling appears to be a corruption of the Western Asiatic Firingi, i.e. ' a Frank,' a term which in some older Chinese notices appears in the form Fu-lang. Pe-ling, or philing, we know from Huc,[1] Hodgson, and Edgar[2] is the name which the Chinese at Lhassa give to the English in India, and it perhaps came to them through the Kashmiris and other Mahommedan traders to Lhassa.
'Peh-ling Fan-qui' in the comprador's utterance quoted, means, I imagine, 'the Frank foreigners' who come by sea, in contradistinction to the Russ foreigners who come by land, and with whom the Chinese perhaps recognise something more of affinity.—[Y.]
KUMIZ AND DARÁSUN.
P. 54.
Col. Prejevalsky makes these two drinks identical, but he is surely wrong. Darásun is the Chinese rice-wine, or something analogous. Kovalefsky gives 'Darasoun, Chinese hoang-tsieou . . . des boisson fortes; vin ordinaire fait avec des grains; vin jaune.' William de Rubruk gives a catalogue of Mongol drinks in the following words:—'Tunc ipse fecit a nobis queri quid vellemus bibere, utrum vinum vel terracinam [darásun], hoc est cervisiam de risio, vel caracosmos [kara-kumiz] hoc est clarum lac jumenti, vel bal, hoc est medonem de melle. Istis enim quatuor potibus utuntur in hyeme' (p. 305-6).—[Y.]
