minent rock is crowned with pagoda
or pavilion. There are, however, some things which the slave of the
lamp is unable to produce even at the command of an empress--there
are no venerable oaks or tall pines to lend their majesty to the
scene.

Patachu, in the adjacent hills, used to be a favourite
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summer resort for the legations and other foreigners before the
seaside became accessible by rail. Its name, signifying the "eight
great places," denotes that number of Buddhist temples, built one
above another in a winding gorge on the hillside. In the highest,
called Pearl Grotto, 1,200 feet above the sea, I have found repose
for many a summer. I am there now (June, 1906), and there I expect
to write the closing chapters of this work. These temples are at my
feet; the great city is in full view. To that shrine the emperors
sometimes made excursions to obtain a distant prospect of the world.
One of them, Kien Lung, somewhat noted as a poet, has left, inscribed
on a rock, a few lines commemorative of his visit:

"Why have I scaled this dizzy height?
Why sought this mountain den?
I tread as on enchanted ground,
Unlike the abode of men.

"Beneath my feet my realm I see
As in a map unrolled,
Above my head a canopy
Adorned with clouds of gold."

The capital consists of two parts: the Tartar city, a square of
four miles; and the Chinese city, measuring five miles by three.
They are separated by imposing walls with lofty towers, the outer
wall being twenty-one miles in circuit. At present the subject
people are permitted to mingle freely with their conquerors; but
most of the business is done in the Chinese city. Resembling other
Chinese towns in its unsavoury condition, this section contains two
imperial temples of great sanctity. One of these, the Temple of Heaven,
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has a circular altar of fine white marble with an azure dome in
its centre in imitation of the celestial vault. Here the Emperor
announces his accession, prays for rain, and offers an ox as a burnt
sacrifice at the winter solstice--addressing himself to Shang-ti,
the supreme ruler, "by whom kings reign and princes decree justice."

The Temple of Agriculture, which stands at a short distance from
that just mentioned, was erected in honour of the first man who
cultivated the earth. In Chinese, he has no name, his title, Shin-nung
signifying the "divine husbandman"--a masculine Ceres. Might we not
call the place the Temple of Ca