Page:The Annual Register 1758.djvu/335

Rh ; an artificial rock; and many other such inventions.

Their rivers are seldom straight, but serpentine, and broken into many irregular points; sometimes they are narrow, noisy, and rapid; at other times deep, broad, and slow. Both in their rivers and lakes are seen reeds, with other aquatic plants and flowers; particularly the lyen hoa, of which they are very fond. They frequently erect mills, and other hydraulic machines, the motions of which enliven the scene. They have also a great number of vessels of different forms and sizes. In their lakes they intersperse islands; some of them barren, and surrounded with rocks and shoals; others enriched with every thing that art and nature can furnish most perfect. They likewise form artificial rocks; and in compositions of this kind the Chinese surpass all other nations. The making them is a distinct profession: and there are at Canton, and probably in most other cities of China, numbers of artificers constantly employed in this business. The stone they are made of comes from the southern coasts of China: it is of a bluish cast, and worn into irregular forms by the action of the waves. The Chinese are exceeding nice in the choice of this stone, insomuch that I have seen several tael given for a bit no bigger than a man's fist, when it happened to be of a beautiful form, and lively colour. But these select pieces they use in landscapes for their apartments; in gardens they employ a coarser sort, which they join with a bluish cement, and form rocks of a considerable size. I have seen some of these exquisitely fine, and such as discovered an uncommon elegance of taste in the contriver. When they are large they make in them caves and grottos, with openings, through which you discover distant prospects. They cover them in different places with trees, shrubs, briars, and moss; placing on their tops little temples, or other buildings, to which you ascend by rugged and irregular steps cut in the rock.

When there is a sufficient supply of water, and proper ground, the Chinese never fail to form cascades in their gardens. They avoid all regularity in these works, observing nature according to her operations in that mountainous country. The waters burst out from among the caverns and windings of the rocks. In some places a large and impetuous cataract appears; in others are seen many lesser falls. Sometimes the view of the cascade is intercepted by trees, whose leaves and branches only leave room to discover the waters, in some places, as they fall down the sides of the mountain. They frequently throw rough wooden bridges from one rock to another, over the steepest part of the cataract; and often intercept its passage by trees and heaps of stones, that seem to have been brought down by the violence of the torrent.

In their plantations they vary the forms and colours of their trees, mixing such as have large and spreading branches with those of pyramidical figures, and dark greens with brighter, interspersing among them such as produce flowers, of which they have some that flourish a great part of the year. The weeping willow is one of their favourite trees, and always among Vol, I.