Page:Ningpo to Shanghai.djvu/75

Rh tablets of the honored ones being locked up in the plinths. Two or three minutes walk farther on is another temple, with an idol in front of a tomb as ancient as that just described. Some very fine firs are to be seen here; one by the Woh-mai-mew, at five feet above the soil, measuring 23 feet in girth, the spreading base covering space enough to give a table-top ten feet square. A Plant in this locality emits a peculiar gas-like scent, so strong that it is unpleasant. Here among the peaks, uninterrupted even by the chirp of birds, the silence in a stilly day is most solemn, the rustle of the leaves and the silent dripping of water being the only sounds.&mdash;Between the temple last mentioned and a few minutes further walk to the monastery, the traveller passes several monumental relics, and will pause on the edge of some cliffs to take a comprehensive gaze at the scenery beneath; far in the distance running a chain of mountains from E. by N. to West by South apparently&mdash;the proportion of valley to mountain seeming less than one to ten&mdash;the Choey-yen-sze, in full proportion below, bearing S. S. E.

Three goddesses seated on lotus leaves are also the favoured divinities at the upper Teen-muh sze, or monastery on the western mountain; but after seeing so much of Bhuddism at the grander establishment just left, there is no great attraction in the services, and the traveller turns his observation to the devotees, from great distances, continually arriving, resting for the night and then proceeding to one or the other of the more important shrines. These pilgrims are generally dressed in new clothes, and wear hats which foreigners in the south of China are accustomed to call mandarin caps&mdash;but which, in the north, decorated with a gilt button or other 