Page:Ling-Nam; or, Interior views of southern China, including explorations in the hitherto untraversed island of Hainan (IA cu31924023225307).pdf/155

 The Gorges of the Lien-Chow River, 151

struggles in the past, while the decay and disuse of these means of defence point to the peace and quiet that has come to them in these later years. The people are civil and even polite to the stranger. They listen with evident interest to the preaching of the missionary, and buy Christian books with great readiness.

Descending from the pass the road leads us along the base of some wonderful hills that rise abruptly to a height of several hundred feet, the whole sides of some of them being covered with a tangled mass of vines and shrubs, with ferns of rare beauty hanging gracefully from the crevices. Turning into a side path that leads up a depression in the hillside, from which a mountain brook tumbles, we find a fort still kept in good repair. A pre- cipitous wall of rock on one side and a broad ditch on the other make it comparatively secure. Its white walls render it a conspicuous object for a long distance, and give it the appearance of a temple rather than a fort. A short distance beyond this fort, on the main path, we come to an opening in the hills from which a small brook issues. Entering the valley that extends to the south- east at this point, we soon come to the “Clear Cloud Cave,” which opens on the southern side of the hill, and extends nearly one hundred yards into the solid rock of which the hill is composed. Whatever charms it may once have possessed have been obscured by the smoke and débris of idolatrous worship. The people evidently regard the cave with superstitious reverence ; for on each of the two occasions when I visited it, we had seareely reached the place before a crowd of people, warned of our approach by some one on the look-out, had gathered, and