Page:Ningpo to Shanghai.djvu/76

62 wise, are worn on what may be called state occasions&mdash;such as worshipping at the tombs of ancestors, on pilgrimages to temples, or other superstitious performances.

A good walker can reach the top of the western Teen-muh-san in about 50 minutes from the monastery; but it is a tiresome ascent, and, unless the day is clear, hardly repays the labour it costs. The ground sounds hollow to the feet,&mdash;the path being laid with rough slabs of the hill strata.

On top of the mountain is what is termed the cave&mdash;a collection of large rocks on end, or across, a-la Stonehenge.&mdash;One of these is a slab of about 12 feet long and five feet wide, length ways, and resting on a rough upright, so forming a square aperture not unlike a door way.&mdash;This is the cave. From this point, about a mile and a quarter above the Sea, the vallies below appear to diverge like streams from a common centre (24).  After leaving the old Monastery the roughly laid path takes up and away to the southward and westward&mdash;the huge mountain being literally skirted round for a distance of about seven miles, when, with the cave crowned peak bearing East, the road runs down a precipitous flight of steps to the N. N. W, ascending as sharply to an arched Ding on a road side opposite. In some parts of the road, before it branches off as descirbed, the side of the mountain is so nearly perpendicular that travelling in a chair is out of the question to any one keeping his eyes open. And here (singular circumstance for the province of Che-kiang,) the hand of man has nought to do with the growth of the straggling brush wood and wild grass, left to luxuriate, die, and grown again without interference. About five miles from the Monastery, at a point 