Whether it is their training that has developed the artistic element in these geomancers or not it is impossible to declare definitely. There is one thing, however, that one may be quite sure of, and that is, they have the keenest instinct in at once pitching upon the most romantic and the most exquisite spots in a landscape as the places where they declare the dead may alone with safety be buried. As a result of this, one continually is struck with the way in which the graves have been constructed on points of a hill or a mountain, where the widest outlook may be observed from them. They may be looking over a wide expanse of fertile plains, or peering along some mighty ravines, or catching a vision of a far-stretching sea, but in each case they are there not by any accident, but in obedience to the decision of the geomancers, who selected them with a special view to the beauties of the location where the dead were to be buried.
There is one point on which all geomancers are agreed, and that is that wherever any natural object has the shape or appearance, say, of a man or of some of the more intelligent or powerful of the brute creation, you have there a collection of the strongest forces of nature which will all work for the welfare of everything that lies within their influence. Such objects as these make the finest Fung-Shuy, for there is nothing in the whole range of natural scenery that can in any way be compared to them.
On one occasion there was a civil war being carried on between two powerful clans. Scores on each side armed with guns and pitchforks, and any deadly weapon that could be got hold of, made fierce forays against each other, and inflamed with passion risked their lives in their mad desire to kill their enemies. In one of the houses that lay on the borderland of the fight a man had recently died, and fearful lest the attacking party should set fire to the building and so burn the coffin with the corpse inside, a number of the relatives made a rush with it from the house, and in a cleft of the rock that went by the name of the "Crow's Beak," they placed the coffin in the narrow opening. It was so called because in the distance it exactly resembled the mouth of a crow as it looks when it is perched motionless on a branch. Hastily thrusting it into the very mouth of the bird, they flew down the narrow path that led to the village, and taking up their arms they again joined in the battle that was going on.