Page:Ningpo to Shanghai.djvu/59

Rh the distance W. by N. is one mile.

The number of pilgrims passing this way to the Monasteries on the eastern and western Teen-muh sans, give to the occupation of the priests the character of Hotel keepers. The Szes, indeed, should be called Caravansaries, not Monasteries. The Vok-hing Monastery (Carvansera)is a two storied building about a hundred feet square, in the midst of a garden of mulberry trees. On the upper floor, the front rooms, with a south-eastern aspect, are in the centre left open for travellers' baggage, whilst each wing contains three large rooms, with standing bed places covered with straw for the lower order of travellers, of whom they could accommodate a hundred or so;&mdash;musquito curtained beds (Oh, the Fleas!) being for the better class;&mdash;the Abbot having a room to himself, and four resident priests another.&mdash;The back rooms, commanding a view of the Eastern Teen-muh, are filled with lumber, winnowing machines and such like farming implements. Below, in the centre, is an open court yard,–the front hall, with an idol or two in it, being given to the use of devotees;&mdash;the back and side rooms to the accommodation of guests, as refreshment rooms, &c, whilst on the north stands the kitchen, decorated with the bamboo flogger for the refractories upon whom judgment has been passed.&mdash;Outside, again, is the bath room, in which travellers, for the cost of the fern that lights the fire, can indulge in the luxury of a hot bath, contrived simply enough in the large iron pan in which the water is boiled;&mdash;the fire being lit from the outside.

It is customary for the European traveller to give the priests a small present, say half a dollar a night for the use of the rooms;&mdash;and as the priests are money changers, giving on the average only 980 