nging shrubs and grasses almost hide it from sight.
There is an interesting monastery on the summit of the hill, called the
"Monastery of the Voice of the Waters." Here I spent a delightful hour
wandering through the neglected garden and looking over the treasures of
the place, a rather remarkable collection of drawings and inscriptions
engraved on slate, the work of distinguished visitors of past times,
some dating back even to the Sung period. There were landscapes
extremely well done, others were merely a flower or branch of a blooming
shrub, but all bore some classic quotation in ornamental Chinese
character. I bought of the priest for a dollar a bundle of really fine
rubbings of these engravings. At another monastery a gallery full of
images of the "Lo-han," the worthiest of Buddha's disciples, was being
tidied up. The variety of pose and expression in these fifty-odd
life-size images was extraordinary, and some of them were wonderfully
good, but the workmen handled them without respect as they cleaned and
painted. It is a Chinese proverb that says, "The image-maker does not
worship the gods; he knows what they are made of."

There is one drawback to the delights of Chia-ting, and that is the
climate. To live and work in the damp heat that prevails much of the
time must test the strength, and I imagine the Europeans stationed here
find it so. Chia-ting boasts two strong Protestant missions, American
Baptist and Canadian Methodist, well equipped with schools and a
hospital, and they are hard at work making Chia-ting over, body and
soul. At the time of my visit they were engaged in a strenuous contest
with the representatives of the British American Tobacco Company, and
both sides were placarding the town with posters setting forth the evils
or the benefits of cigarette-smoking.

Chia-ting is the great point of departure for Mount Omei, thirty miles
away, and I stayed only long enough to rearrange my kit and hire coolies
for the trip. Again I had a chance to see the strength that the Chinese
have through organization. Each quarter of Chia-ting has its coolie
hong, and woe betide you if you fall out with your own; you will have
difficulty in getting served elsewhere. Fortunately my host was on good
terms with his proper hong, and after a good-humored, long-drawn-out
discussion I secured the men I wanted.

It was raining when we started from Chia-ting and it kept on all day.
Nevertheless, as soon as I was outside the