Page:History of Indian and Eastern Architecture Vol 2.djvu/570

 4 68 CHINESE ARCHITECTURE. BOOK IX. subdivided into three, of which the middle part has a gradual slope carved with dragons and clouds in relief. In the further corner is the great altar with the five sacred vessels. Occasionally, however, the Chinese do erect tombs, which, though ornamental, are far from being in such good taste as the two forms just quoted. A tumulus is considered appropriate for this purpose all the world over, and so is the horseshoe form under the circumstances in which the Chinese employ it ; but what can be said in favour of such an array of objects as those shown in the preceding Woodcut No. 498? Judged by the standard of taste which prevails in China at the present day, they may be considered by the natives as both elegant and ornamental, but it would be difficult to conceive anything which spoke less of the sepulchre, even from a Chinaman's point of view ; while, on the other hand, their dimensions are such as to deprive them of all dignity as architectural objects. T'AIS OR PAGODAS. The objects of Chinese architecture with which the European eye is most familiar are the fais or pagodas. In the south they generally have nine storeys, but not always, and in the north they range from three to thirteen. It has usually been assumed that they owe their origin to the religion of Fo or Buddha, being nothing more than exaggerated dagabas, but there are two ancient Chinese drawings in the National Library, Paris, reproduced in Paleologue 1 which represent the taas or fats of the Imperial Palace at Pekin, one of them shows a square tower in three storeys, each receding behind the other, so as to leave a terrace round and a pavilion, or shrine, at the top ; the other has a circular tower in five storeys, diminishing in diameter as it rises with a spiral pathway round, which recalls that of the ziggurat at Khorsabad. According to Terrien de Lacouperie, 2 in his work on the western origin of early Chinese civilisation, the relations of Chaldea and China date back to the 23rd century B.C., when the Bak tribes migrated east from Elam and Babylonia into China, bringing with them the custom of building in brick, the erection of lofty towers for astronomical purposes, the cutting of canals, embanking of rivers, and other elements of their western civilisation. Of later date, but showing how the traditional form of these towers was handed down in the East, at Samara on the Tigris, 60 miles north of Baghdad and 1 * L'Art Chinois,' pp. 101 and 103. 2 Terrien de Lacouperie, 'Western Origin of Chinese Civilisation,' 1894,