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 "The Confucian Pailou"

MONG the most beautiful specimens of purely Chinese architecture within the walls of the Capital are its picturesque memorial arches or inscription towers commonly called pailous. A lou in Chinese means a tower or structure; while a p'ai is a tablet or inscription. A pailou, therefore, is a tower containing an inscription. Many of these artistic pailous, built by the emperors of China, still grace the streets and the courtyards of the city. The graceful and brilliantly colored "Confucian Pailou," shown in our photo, stands in the famous Hall of Classics inclosure, just within the entrance gateway. It was erected by Chien Lung in honor of Learning, and the inscriptions, one on each face, were written by the emperor-builder himself. Therefore, some say that the name "Confucian Pailou" is inaccurate; but this slight misnomer does not detract in the least from the glory of its green and yellow and blue encaustic tiles, or the exquisite grace of its splendid propor tions. As can readily be seen from the picture, it is constructed partly of sculptured marble blocks; partly of bricks which are faced with porcelain glazed tile, and partly of a reddish stucco. The triple roof is of Imperial yellow glaze such as we find on the roofs of all the palaces and the temples under the patronage of the emperors. Because of the preponderance of glazed tile in its decoration, the Chinese call it the Liv-li, or "glazed pailou." This celebrated monument stands to-day in almost pristine splendor, with the possible exception of the slight loss of a few of the queer little gargoyles, or roof animals. la the Western Hills we find two replicas of this fine Memorial Arch-one in the Hsiang Shan Hunting Park, and another at the entrance to the famous old Wo Fu Ssū. The Pei Hai gardens can also boast of one or more of these gorgeous Imperial inscription tovers, all of which were probably erected in Ch'ien Lung's day (A.D. 1736-1796). There are many other interesting old relics to be found within the grounds of the Hall of Classics and its adjoining temple courtyard. Chiefest among these are ten stone drums, which are kept within glass cases under cover of the great inner gateway to the temple. These hoary relics of a distant age and civilization are supposed to have come down to us from the Chou dynasty (1122-255 B.C.). "The records of these monoliths," writes a noted scholar of Chinese history, "have always been of the most profound interest to archaeologists. Chiseled in the primitive seal characters, they are said by scholars to be the oldest relics of Chinese writing extant, but were probably copied from ideographs on still more ancient bronze vessels. The inscriptions comprise a series of ten odes, a complete one being cut on each drum, and their stanzas in irregular verse celebrate the hunting expedition of a feudal prince about 1000 B.C., when the Aryans were conquering India, when David reigned in Israel, and Homer sang in Greece." [See paqe 140.1