It was oppressive in there too, for the blank walls towered up four sides square, the bright blue sky was above and the sun was shining beyond, but the mountain breezes for at least one hundred and fifty years have not been able to get in here, and it was hot, close, and airless. Once there were more steps that led up to the very top of the wall, but they are broken and dangerous now, crumbling to ruin, and as far as I could make out from Tuan's imperfect English no one has been up them for many a long day. There was nothing to be done but to go away from this airless temple and make my way down, down to the platform where are its foundations, and thence down, down, by the little plateaux where the pine-trees grow, by the rough and broken paths to the floor of the valley again.
Sightseeing always wearies me. I want to see these places, I want to know what they are like, I want to be in a position to talk about them to people who have also been there—they are the people who are most interested in one's doings—but the actual doing of the sightseeing I always find burdensome. Now having done so much I was tempted to go back and say I had had enough, for the time being, at any rate, but then I remembered I could not indefinitely trespass upon the kindness of my hosts, I must go soon, and I should never, never come back to this valley. Still I was desperately tired and sorely tempted to give up, and then I remembered the two frogs who fell into a pitcher of milk. I don't think Aesop told the story, but he ought to have done so. They swam round and round hopelessly, for there was no possibility of getting out, and one said to the other, “It's no good, we may as well give in. It'll save trouble in the end,” and he curled up his legs and sank to the bottom of the milk and was drowned. But the other frog was made of sterner stuff.
“I think I'll just hustle round a bit,” said he, needless to say he was an American frog, “who knows what may happen.” So he swam round and round, and sure enough when they looked into that pitcher in the morning there he was sitting on a little pat of butter!
I thought of that frog as I sat at the door of the next temple we drove up to, and I, weary and tired and a little cross, had to wait some time, for the priest who had the keys was not there. Of course I had sent no word that I was coming and it was unreasonable of me to expect that the priest should wait from dawn till dark for my arrival. With me waited a little crowd of people, men, women, and children, that gradually grew in numbers, and when the custodian at last arrived it was evident they all intended to take advantage of my presence and go in and see the temple too. I had not the least objection, neither, it seemed, had the priest. They were holiday-makers from the fair, and they probably gave him some small trifle. Tuan decided that we should give eighty cents, roughly about one and eightpence, or forty cents American money. And glad indeed was I that I had waited. Not that the temple differed much inside the courtyard and the sanctuary from the other temples I have seen, all was the same ruin and desolation, only after I had climbed up many steps, roughly made of stones and earth, we came upon a platform from which the roof was visible. The Emperor's Palace, they call this, or the Bright-roofed Temple, and truly it is well-named. Its roof, with dragons running up all four corners, is of bronze covered with gold, and gleams and glitters in the sunshine. Solomon's Temple, in all its glory, could not have been more wonderful, and as I tried to photograph it, though no photograph can give any idea of its beauty, some girls, Manchu by their head-dresses, with flowers in their hair, giggled and pointed, and evidently discussed me. I thought they would come in well—a contrast to that gorgeous roof, but a well-dressed Chinese—not in foreign clothes, I imagine the General's secretary is the only man up among these hills who could indulge in such luxuries, drove them away and then came and apologised, through Tuan, for their behaviour. I said, truly enough, that I did not mind in the least, but he said, as far as I. could make out, that their behaviour was unpardonable, so I am afraid they hadn't admired me, which was unkind, considering I had taken them in.
The next temple, a mass of golden brown and green tiled roofs, looked loveliest of all in its setting, against the hill-side. The roofs, broken and irregular, peeped out from among the firs and pines, and there was a soft melody in the air as we approached, for a wind, a gentle wind had arisen, and every bell hanging at the corners of the many roofs was chiming musically. I do not know any sweeter sound than the sound of those temple bells as the evening falls. This was an extensive place of many courtyards, climbing up the hill like the lamaserie, the Ta Fo Hu they call it or “Great Buddha Temple,” for in one of the temples, swept and garnished better than any temples I had seen before, was a colossal figure seventy feet high with many arms outstretched and an eye in the palm of every hand. It is surely a very debased Buddhism, but I see the symbolism, the hand which bestows and the eye which sees all things. But for all the beauty of the symbolism it was ugly, as all the manifestations of the Deity, as conceived by man, are apt to be. The stone flooring was swept, but the gold is falling from the central figure, the lacquer is perished, the hangings are torn and dust-laden beyond description, and the only things of any beauty are walls which are covered with little niches in which are seated tiny golden Buddhas, hundreds of them. I wanted to buy one but the priests shook their heads, and it would have been a shame to despoil the temple. Even if they had said, “Yes,” I don't know that I would have taken it.
There were many priests here, shaven-headed old men and tiny children in brilliant yellow and purplish red, but they were all as shabby and poverty-stricken as the temple itself. I had tea on one of the many platforms overlooking many roofs, and a young monk made me a seat from the broken yellow tiles that lay on the ground, and the little boy priests looked so eagerly at the cakes I had brought with me—the priests gave me tea—that I gave some to them and they gobbled them up like small boys all the world over. Tuan pointed out to me some dark steps in the wall. If I went up there I should reach the Great Buddha's head; but I shook my head, not even the recollection of the frog who gave up so easily could have made me climb those steps. I am not even sorry now that I didn't.
I was very tired by this time, and very thankful that there was only one more temple to see. There were really eight in all, but I was suffering from a surfeit of temples, only I could not miss this one, for every day when I went for a walk I could see its glorious golden brown tiled roof amid the dark green of the surrounding mountain pines. It was unlike any Chinese roof I have seen, but it is one of the temples of this valley. It is the Yuan T'ing, a temple built by Ch'ien Lung, not for his mother but for a Tibetan wife, after the style of her country, that she might not feel so lonely in a strange land.