Page:Ling-Nam; or, Interior views of southern China, including explorations in the hitherto untraversed island of Hainan (IA cu31924023225307).pdf/165

 lhe Gorges of the Lien-Chow River. 161

Pushing up the river a short distance further, we come opposite the “ Fortified Cliffs,” to which a well- worn path up the mountain side leads us after a half- hours climb. We enter a walled euclosure, a hollow space between two cliffs of unequal size. These cliffs look as if at some time, ages ago, they might have been one, and by some rude couvulsion been rent asunder, leaving the face of the higher one white, bare, and precipitous, and causing the other to remain for ever incomplete, a mere fragment of a cliff. This smaller cliff is perforated with caverns, and, being fortified to the top, forms a safe and excellent look-out in times of danger, its isolated position giving it a fuller command of the valley below. In the higher cliff are several caves, the larger of which descends to a great depth into the bosom of the mountain, It is filled with a luxuriant growth of ferns, begonias, and a vine very much like the English ivy. The space between the cliffs is about one hundred yards square, filled more or less with rocks and boulders. In this mountain fortress the people of the plain have, from time to time, found a refuge from the attacks of hostile soldiers and robber bands. At one time, in the fourth year of the reign of Him Fung, it is said that 20,000 people fled to this place for shelter, bringing with them their cattle, household goods, ete. It is now much out of repair, the gates are gone, and the walls are crumbling; the enclosure has been turned into a field for the cultivation of maize. Only foxes now inhabit the caverns, while pheasants haunt the maize field. Along the foot of thes> cliffs the rocks project, and on the mois: banks under these projections

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