Page:Through China with a camera.pdf/93

 river from an opening in the upper face of the rock, which serves the purpose of a window. As we see them with the sun at their backs they appear like a row of badly preserved dolls, so motionless do they sit, and so unconscious, to all seeming, of the presence of foreigners. But when we confront them and display a bright coin, they wake up and manifest an unholy zeal to appropriate it.

The money is offered and accepted, and then a venerable member of the order shows us through the interior of the cave. A number of smaller idols, the attendants of Kwan-yin, are ranged along niches in the rock ; a little lighted taper burns in front of each, while cups of sam-shu and votive offerings of food are spread out before them. A group of stalactites hangs in front of the window ; above and around them hover a num- ber of pure white doves, that descend at the call of the aged priest and feed out of his hand. It was interesting to notice the outstretched hand of the old man ; it was withered, shrunk- en, and encumbered by a set of long yellow nails, that looked dead, and were already partly buried beneath the unwashed encrustation of a lifetime.

It is harvest-time, and the grain in many places is already cut, and has been piled up in farm-yards in stacks, to be thrash- ed with flails, or trodden beneath the heavy-footed ox. The season has been a plenteous one, and the farmers are full of joy, praising the god of agriculture for the abundance of this their second crop from a soil which has yielded produce during centuries of constantly recurring harvests. The Chinese are careful farmers, and were probably the first to understand that their land requires as much consideration as their oxen or their asses; that the substance which it gives up to a crop has to be replaced by manure, and that it requires a time of rest