quadrangle of the yamên, surrounded by a carved stone balustrade and crossed by a bridge. It contains several very large fresh-water tortoises which, like the fish just mentioned, are usually eager for a chance feed. The popular belief is that they are kept in the pool to deter bold thieves from the attempt, otherwise possible, to reach the treasure-vaults by diving through the pool. The Fantai's yamên is at the northern foot of the Capitoline Hill of Hangchow, the Ch'enghuang Shan, hardly less famous in China than the West Lake. Picturesque in itself, with its groups of building combined with fine trees, it is an admirable point of view from which to view at once the huge city within its twelve-mile wall; the suburbs north and south only less extensive than itself; the broad river, some two miles wide as it passes the city, from its sources in the mountains of the south-west, to Haining and the bay; and the lovely little lake, which washes the city wall on the east, but on all other sides is shut in by lofty hills, crowned and studded with the temples and towers of Buddhist or Taouist monasteries.

The High Street (Takiai) of Hangchow, running northward from the river suburb through the Fengshan Gate, bends round the eastern spur of the hill and thence proceeds nearly due north some two miles towards the Wulin Gate. It makes one more angle at a point a quarter of a mile within the gate just beyond the already venerable Roman Catholic Mission. The great Jesuits of the sixteenth and seventeenth century, of whom M. Ricei was the most conspicuous, settled here early in the latter century. The first Manchu Emperor gave his sacred sanction to the title their mission house still bears as Tienchu Tang (God's Hall). Trigault, the companion and the biographer of Ricei, was prior here; and his ashes are preserved under a Chinese inscription at Fangtsin, where, under beautiful hills some five miles northwest of the city, the fathers have a small cemetery. They are no longer Jesuits. but of the society of St. Vincent de Paul, to which the Mission was transferred during one of the temporary eclipses of the Jesuits. Early in the eighteenth century, in the persecution under Yungching the missionaries were expelled; the church and other buildings being confiscated and dedicated as a temple to T'ienhow, the Heavenly Empress. They were restored, a mass of ruins in 1862 after more than a century of desecration; but have been since rebuilt and extended.

One other object of interest must be mentioned before our list closes-namely, the Kungyuen or Examination Office, which is found not far to the east of the Roman mission just mentioned. This is the scene of the examinations, held on an average once in three years, at which the graduates of the whole province competes for the second literary degree of Kujin. Some ten thousand Siutsai (baccalaurei) usually assemble, for whose accommodation as many brickwork cells are provided, ranged parallel rows facing south, and the whole bisected by the broad central avenue of the enclosure.

Within the walls are also found quarters for the Imperial Examiners and the high Mandarins who are their assessors; for several literary aspirants all of official rank; for some hundreds of copying clerks, since no essay is examined in the autograph; a staff of block-cutters and printers, a troop of cooks and servants; besides a temple to the patron of literature standing at the centre of the great quadrangle. As a literary province Chehkeang stands high,-third or fourth, perhaps, of the eighteen.

The tidal "bore" is best seen at Haining, some 30 miles from Hangchow, and easily accessible direct from Shanghai. It is at its highest usually soon after the equinoxes; but a tidal wave of some height is to be seen frequently throughout the year. The phenomenon has been elaborately described by Captain Moore, R.N., in a paper read before the North-China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (Journal, Vol. xxiii, No. 3.)

The river is the highway of communication with the south and south-west of Chehkeang, as well as with the provinces beyond the border. Before steamers were known and appreciated by the Chinese it was a favourite route for travellers to Canton. The other great highway, by which the north and east are reached, is the Grand Canal. From the earliest times a chain of inland waters seems to have connected Hangchow with the Yangtze, and so with the north and Peking. Kublai's principal achievement seems to have consisted in perfecting the northern part of the great system, in Shantung and Chihli. The last southern link, uniting Hangchow with Dongsi, which had been the terminus till then, was completed some 40 years after his death by an insurgent chief who held Soochow under the last Mongol sovereign.

Hangchow became famous for its wealth and the beauty of its scenery long before the Mongol, in the ninth century. In the eleventh and twelfth, under the magnificent house of Sung, it was almost at the zenith of its splendour and fame, when Su Tiengp'o ruled it as Prefect and sung the praises of its lake and hills. In the following century it became the capital of the Southern Dynasty; and under effeminate monarchs shorn of half their empire it nevertheless shone with yet greater magnificence. Its vast extent at that time suggested to Marco Polo's memory the well known hundred miles of wall and bridges over intramural canals reckoned by the thousand. The real extent seems to have been about 20 miles of wall; though, if the persistent tradition could be verified which places Su's yamên to the west of the Sihu, a much larger area was enclosed.

Colonel Yule's edition of Marco Polo is a repository of glaring sketches by medieval writers of the wealth and beauty of Hangchow, enriching his quaintly graceful rendering of the Venetian's old French.

CHAPTER XV.

SOOCHOW NOTES.

BY THE REV. H. Du BOSE, D.D.

KIANGSU'S CAPITAL.

PN the United States of Brazil, Rio is the capital of eleven millions; in Eastern China, Soochow of twenty-one millions. Throughout the eighteen provinces, "Above is Heaven; below, Soochow and Hangchow" is a familiar proverb. The Buddhists point their votaries to the Western Heaven; the Taoists Isles of the Immortals in the East; but the practical Celestials consider it a sufficiently high privilege to pass their three-score-and-ten in "Beautiful Soo."

This is an ancient city. Could we go back two millenniums and walk along these same streets we now tread we would see the father pointing the son to halls and palaces covered with the ivy of centuries. Twenty-four hundred years have these walls stood, and on these cobble-stone pavements eighty generations of men have passed to and fro. Founded B.C. 500, it was laid out only 250 years after Romulus traced the walls of the ancient mistress of the world whose glory for fifteen centuries has consisted in the broken monuments of former grandeur, while during these latter fifteen hundred years Soochow has been a literary and commercial centre. It was built during the life-time of Confucius and synchronous with the completion of the second temple at Jerusalem in the time of Ezra. Its founder was Wu Tsezsü, who advised King Hoh Tü to build "a large and influential city where his subjects could dwell in time of danger and where his government stores could be protected from the enemies that constantly menaced his kingdom." The Prime Minister traced the foundation of the walls, laid out the streets, opened the canals, built the bridges and perhaps sold the "corner lots."

Our city is situated in the fertile and well-watered plain which lies between the Yangtze and the Hangchow Ray. To the east the country is perfectly level and entirely bereft of trees except a few at the hamlets. To the south-east are the hundred lakes, each from one to three miles across, and the region so much like an archipelago that we do not know whether it pertains to the domain of land or water. To the west is a range of mountains which from the parapets and towers of the city give a pleasing diversity to the eye. Beyond the mountains is the Great Lake, an inland sea from 60 to 80 miles across, and in it there are mountain islands, 20 miles in length, covered with groves of yangméi and pepo, orange and lemon, peach and apricot, the plum and some pomegranate-where the grapes of Eschol and honey sipped from the olea fragrans, are found; and with the perfume of flowers in the spring they seem like the enchanted isles.

Soochow is about four miles from north to south, nearly three in breadth, the wall being 13 or 14 miles in length. The wall is faced with large brick, 14x6 inches, and the walk on the broad parapet, with the hills, lakes, fields and city all in sight, is a delightful one. The streets were laid out

originally 8 feet in width, but shopmen put their counters and railings forward, so on the main streets the space is narrowed to 5 or 6 feet. Along these narrow defiles pass riders on horses, mandarins in chairs, with their official retinues, funeral processions a quarter of a mile long, workmen carrying the framework of a building, chair-bearers, burden-bearers, loads of straw, men with bundles and women with baskets, the aged tottering on a staff and the blind feeling their way with a cane, the water carrier with quick step and the scholar with the snail's pace,-you wonder how you can thread your way through this tangled thicket of pedestrians.

The moat around the wall is from 50 to 100 yards wide and very deep. The city is bisected and intersected with about 30 miles of narrow canals faced with stone, which are spanned by near 200 bridges. In these are moored hundreds of quick pleasure-boats which with their bright varnish, clear glass and fine carving furnish charming accommodations for those wishing to go to the hills or the lakes. There are for hire hundreds of small cargo-boats which transport grain, goods, fuel, building materials, furniture and water from one part of the city to the other. To live on a canal is considered very convenient for laundry and culinary purposes. When the waters are high and fresh boating is a pleasant mode of city travelling, but when the water turns green and then black and the boats get jammed for a couple of hours amidst odours not from "Araby the blest," the poor shut-in-prisoner wishes he were 2,000 miles from the Venice of the Orient.

As the tourist from Shanghai approaches the provincial capital the eye rests upon the tall towers, first built with reference to the relics of Buddha but now kept up by wealthy Confucianists to regulate the fungshuey. There are five in the city and three perched upon the hills. The Methuselah is the South Gate Pagoda, built A.D. 248, aged 1644 years or nearly twice as old as the Antediluvian. The Tiger Hill Pagoda, the "leaning tower" of Soochow, stands second among the patriarchs and bears upon its spiral crown the weight of thirteen centuries. The Twin Pagodas, standing near the Examination Hall and exerting a fine influence upon the aspiring genius of the candidates for literary honours, are models of architectural beauty, and seem, as a pair to be unique in the Yangtze plain. They were erected about A.D. 1000. The Ink Pagoda is in its infancy,-only 300 years of age.

The glory of Beautiful Soo" is the Great Pagoda, the highest in China, and so the highest on terra firma, and one of the great wonders of the world. It was built 700 years ago. A quarry of hewn stone supports the pile of masonry which rises to 250 feet in height. The name of the architect who planned this tower has not come down to us, but we can admire the skill of the master hand which drew the lines. 60 feet in diameter at the base, it tapers to 45 feet on the upper floor; each story slightly lower as you ascend, each door smaller, each verandah narrower. The walls are octagonal, one wall within

and one without, or a pagoda within a pagoda, each wall 10 feet thick and the stairway between. Each verandah has eight doors and the cross passages are full of light. In the afternoon sunlight the Great Lake is a brilliant mirror, and the view of the hills and distant cities, the silvery canals and crystal lakes, the busy market towns and hamlets embowered in green, is superb. Philanthropist reflects, there are five million people within the range of the eye.

The centre of religious worship in the Kiangsu province is the Uön Miao Kwan, or the City Temple. As there are fourteen temples within the sacred precincts it is a city of the gods. Among these are the 36 ministers of Heaven, 56 star deities, 72 doctors and 60 cycle gods. From the heads of the latter, Minerva-like, jump out cocks, squirrels and monkeys, rats and snakes, the priests considering

the Godhead like unto "corruptible beasts and creeping things." On the third floor of the chief temple, whose roof is ornamented with dragons sits the Pearly Emperor, the ruler of gods and men; while the gilded throne, the handsome shrines, the ornate decorations and the rows of gods are such as to impress the heathen imagination with ideas of majesty.

Around the Temple of the Three Pure Ones is the famous picture gallery of the city, with pictures of gods and goddesses, mountains and trees, gardens and flowers, ladies and children, "fine specimens of decorative art" as a young American artist pronounces them to be.

The City Temple is a "Vanity Fair," for it is the central rendezvous of pleasure-seekers. Beggars, thieves and pick-pockets are a marked feature of the assembly that convenes here. There are Punch and Judy, peep-shows, puppet-shows, bear-shows and rope-dancers, jugglers and sleight-of-hand performers. Along the south side of the city alone there are 50 temples and nunneries, and the whole number within the walls is several hundred. The "bonzes" number five or six thousand and Taoist priests are legion; so there are abundant opportunities for pagan worship.

There are four noted gardens in Soochow, some of them said to have cost two or three hundred thousand dollars. The charge for entrance is five cents. The Chinese landscape-gardeners provide a surprising diversity within a limited space. There is the lake with its winding bridges, the blooming lotus, the gold-fish playing "hide and seek," the rockeries with their labyrinthine caves, the pavilions capping their summits, the handsome tea-houses, the meandering galleries, the hundred roses and blossoming trees of the "Flowery Kingdom" and all that the Chinese can devise to delight the eye and please the taste.

The glory of "Beautiful Soo" is her literature. The city was founded during the latter years of Confucius, "the throneless king," and though his foot never trod these streets yet he made Soochow his literary capital, the centre of his domain of letters; and so, for twenty centuries, to the four hundred millions she has been what Athens was to the Grecians. Proud scholars have crowded the examination halls, authors have filled the shelves of the book-stores and poets have sung of the old landmarks. Oftener than any other city has the first literary graduate of the Empire-"a flower that blooms but once in three years and which is plucked by the hand of Majesty "--been a resident of this city, as in 1874 the present Minister to Germany was recipient of the honour. Perhaps the most illustrious name in the annals of Soochow is Fan Wen Chenkung who flourished 1000 years ago. His ancestral hall is in the centre of the city and his grave at the foot of a beautiful hill. He was a mandarin of sterling integrity and noble character. He wrote the history of Soochow which has now grown to 150 volumes.

The gentry of the city form a large and distinct class. Many of these have landed estates and roll in wealth while the poor peasant is ground to poverty. As many of the aristocracy out-rent the local officials they do not allow the latter to recline upon a bed of roses. When out of office a Chinese mandarin cannot engage in business or act as president of a railway, mining or manufacturing company; so he must live off the sqeezes of his former term of office. There are 2,500 "expectant mandarins" in the capital, who with their retainers-all told, 40,000-constitute an idle class of the population.

The Criminal Judge resides here, and his jail is the "hell" for the poor prisoner. All the robbers, murderers and pirates in the province are brought to this place, and during the last few months an exceptionally large number of heads have tumbled on the execution ground. Perhaps one reason of the proverbial badness of the men is that they so frequently witness the stroke of the executioner's sword.