lustration: ON THE MAIN ROAD TO SUIFU.]

Fu-to-kuan four miles from Chungking is a powerful hill-fort that guards
the isthmus where the Yangtse and the Little River come nearly together
before encircling Chungking. Set in the face of the cliff is a gigantic
image of Buddha. Massive stone portals, elaborately carved, and huge
commemorative tablets cut from single blocks of stone and deeply
engraved, here adorn the highway. The archways have been erected by
command of the Emperor, but at the expense of their relatives, to the
memory of virtuous widows who have refused to remarry, or who have
sacrificed their lives on the death of their husbands. Happy are those
whose names are thus recorded, for not only do they obtain ten thousand
merits in heaven, as well as the Imperial recognition of the Son of
Heaven on earth; but as an additional reward their souls may, on
entering the world a second time, enjoy the indescribable felicity of
inhabiting the bodies of men.

Cases where the widow has thus brought honour to the family are
constantly recorded in the pages of the _Peking Gazette_. One of more
than usual merit is described in the _Peking Gazette_ of June 10th,
1892. The story runs:--

"The Governor of Shansi narrates the story of a virtuous wife who
destroyed herself after the death of her husband. The lady was a native
of T'ienmen, in Hupeh, and both her father and grandfather were
officials who attained the rank of Taotai. When she was little more than
ten years old her mother fell ill. The child cut flesh from her body and
mixed it with the medicines and thus cured her parent. The year before
last she was married to an expectant magistrate. Last autumn, just after
he had obtained an appointment, he was taken violently ill. She mixed
her flesh with the medicine but it was in vain, and he died shortly
afterwards. Overcome with grief, and without parents or children to
demand her care, she determined that she would not live. Only waiting
till she had completed the arrangements for her husband's interment, she
swallowed gold and powder of lead. She handed her trousseau to her
relatives to defray her funeral expenses, and made presents to the
younger members of the family and the servants, after which, draped in
her state robes, she sat waiting her end. The poison began to work and
soon all was over. The memorialist thinks that the case is one which
should be recorded in the erection of a memorial arch, and he asks the
Em