Legend of the birth of Ch'ien Lung—A valley of temples—Wells—A temple fair—Hawking—Suicide's rock—Five hundred and eight Buddhas—The Po-Ta-La—Supercilious elephants—Steep steps—Airless temple—The persevering frog—Bright-roofed Temple—Tea at the Temple of the great Buddha—The Yuan T'iing—Ming Temple outside Peking.
As we walked in the Manchu Park the amah told us a story, a legend, and the missionary translated it to me. It took a long while to tell, first she slipped on the rocky steps and we had to wait till she recovered, then the General's secretary joined us, and finally, when we were safe back at the missionary compound, she had to wait till we got by ourselves, because she thought it was improper!
And this was the story the amah told as we walked beneath the fir-trees.
Once upon a time in the valley of Jehol there was born a little girl who did not speak till she was three years old, then she opened her lips, looked at her grandfather, and called him by name. And her grandfather died. She did not speak again for a long time, but the next person she called by name also died and consternation reigned in the family. Her father and mother died, whether because she spoke to them the amah did not know, but she was left penniless and at last a farmer took compassion upon the girl, now just growing into womanhood, and told her she might have charge of the ducks, on condition she did not speak. So for her began a lonely, silent life among the mountains, herding the ducks.
One night as the dusk was falling and the duck pond and the hills beyond were wrapped in a mysterious haze that hid and glorified everything, there came along an old man riding a donkey and asked her the way to the Hunting Palace of the Manchus that was somewhere among these hills and valleys. He had lost his way, he said, and wanted to get back there. The girl looked at him with mournful eyes and shook her head without saying a word.
“What is your name?” cried the old man.
She turned away silently.
“I must find my way,” he added, and she took up a stick and gathered her ducks together.
“But I am the Emperor,” said he, “and I must get back. What manner of girl are you who will not speak to the Emperor?”
And she looked at him more gravely than ever out of her dark eyes, and drove off her ducks, taking no more notice of the greatest ruler in the world than if he had been a common coolie. So the Emperor found his own way to his Hunting Palace, and that night he dreamed a dream, a vivid dream, that an ancestor had come to him and told him he must marry a strange and mysterious woman.