But like charges of cannibalism are brought against both Chinese and Tartars very positively.  Thus, without going back to the Anthropophagous Scythians of Ptolemy and Mela, we read in the Relations of the Arab travellers of the ninth century:  “In China it occurs sometimes that the governor of a province revolts from his duty to the emperor.  In such a case he is slaughtered and eaten. In fact, the Chinese eat the flesh of all men who are executed by the sword.”  Dr. Rennie mentions a superstitious practice, the continued existence of which in our own day he has himself witnessed, and which might perhaps have given rise to some such statement as that of the Arab travellers, if it be not indeed a relic, in a mitigated form, of the very practice they assert to have prevailed.  After an execution at Peking certain large pith balls are steeped in the blood, and under the name of blood-bread are sold as a medicine for consumption. It is only to the blood of decapitated criminals that any such healing power is attributed.  It has been asserted in the annals of the Propagation de la Foi that the Chinese executioners of M. Chapdelaine, a missionary who was martyred in Kwang-si in 1856 (28th February), were seen to eat the heart of their victim; and M. Huot, a missionary in the Yun-nan province, recounts a case of cannibalism which he witnessed.  Bishop Chauveau, at Ta Ts’ien-lu, told Mr. Cooper that he had seen men in one of the cities of Yun-nan eating the heart and brains of a celebrated robber who had been executed.  Dr. Carstairs Douglas of Amoy also tells me that the like practices have occurred at Amoy and Swatau.

[With reference to cannibalism in China see Medical Superstitions an Incentive to Anti-Foreign Riots in China, by D.  J. Macgowan, North China Herald, 8th July, 1892, pp. 60-62.  Mr. E. H. Parker (China Review, February-March, 1901, 136) relates that the inhabitants of a part of Kwang-si boiled and ate a Chinese officer who had been sent to pacify them.  “The idea underlying this horrible act [cannibalism] is, that by eating a portion of the victim, especially the heart, one acquires the valour with which he was endowed.” (Dennys’ Folk-lore of China, 67.)—­H.  C.]

Hayton, the Armenian, after relating the treason of a Saracen, called Parwana (he was an Iconian Turk), against Abaka Khan, says:  “He was taken and cut in two, and orders were issued that in all the food eaten by Abaka there should be put a portion of the traitor’s flesh.  Of this Abaka himself ate, and caused all his barons to partake. And this was in accordance with the custom of the Tartars.”  The same story is related independently and differently by Friar Ricold, thus:  “When the army of Abaga ran away from the Saracens in Syria, a certain great Tartar baron was arrested who had been guilty of treason.  And when the Emperor Khan was giving the order for his execution the Tartar ladies and women