Page:Through China with a camera.pdf/136

 their stamp upon the curious structures that adorned it. I first made my way up Sulphur Creek, which sweeps round to the west of the city, and passed many a strange-looking edifice rising above the dull water and bending over a frail wooden jetty which divided it from the stream. Women are washing and children sit upon the steps and jetties in a way that makes one tremble for their safety. Dogs bark and snarl at the door- ways, domesticated pigs or fowls look out upon the throng of boats, while the men are busy dipping dark blue cotton fabrics into the stream. A three-storied pagoda marks the site of Pun-ting-qua's garden, which we enter through a gateway in the outer wall. Once arrived inside, we seem for the first time to realise the China pictured to us in our schoolboy days. Here we see model Chinese gardening; drooping willows, shady walks and sunny lotus-pools, on which gilded barges float. Here, too, spanning a lake, stands the well-known willow-pat- tern bridge, with a pavilion hard by. But we miss the two love-birds; there is no dutiful parent, with the fish-tail feet, leisurely and with lamp in hand pursuing his unfilial daughter as she, with equal leisure, makes her way after the shepherd with the crook. I photographed this willow-pattern bridge, but when I look at my picture, I find it falls far short of the scene on our soup-plates. Where, for example, is the pavilion which is all ornaments, the tree above it which grows nothing but foot-balls, and that other tree, too, on which only feathers bloom .?^ Where is the fence that meanders across the platform in the fore-ground? And yet these gardens have a quaintness all their own. Their winding paths conduct to cleverly con- trived retreats ; and tunnels cut through mossy fern-covered rocks, land us in some pavilion or theatre, on the edge of a glassy pool, where gold-fish sport in the sunshine, and glistening