His directions were disregarded, or we should not have these letters. There is a whole book full of them; but these few extracts will give some insight into the nature of a very exemplary Chinese father's admonitions, perhaps even more from what he leaves out than from what he says. The son thus carefully trained seems in every way to have done credit to his father. One of his sons, again a lad of singular charm and great promise, died early; another seems more pleasant than distinguished. His nephew and adopted son is one of the prominent, though possibly not leading, members of the party of progress in Shanghai.
CHAPTER XVII.
BUDDHIST MONASTERIES.
Monastery near Ichang.—For the Dead.—Near Ningpo.—Buddhist Service—T`ien Dong.—Omi Temples.—Sai King Shan.—Monastery of the Particoloured Cliff.
The country round Ichang has always some special beauty, and in autumn it is the tints, shown to especial advantage on the tallow-trees. But one day we gathered by the wayside lovely anemones, still lingering on in sheltered spots; large gentians, with their edges picked out into delicate feathery streamers such as one finds in picotees, the little yellow originator of all the garden chrysanthemums; China asters; China daisies; the cunningly placed red berries of the spindle-tree; and branches crowded with the fairylike red berries of the Chinese hawthorn. And yet we were in the weird, arid, conglomerate region, where, as the botanist of the party said, no flower would dream of growing that could grow anywhere else. The Cherokee roses were no longer in bloom. Are these innocent, white, large roses at the bottom of the American horror of Chinese immigration? It may be remembered that, originating from China, they spread over America with such rapidity that it was assumed they must be of native origin, and from their aggressive nature they were given the name, by which they are still known, of Cherokee.
We made our way to my first monastery, so conspicuous an object to every visitor to these regions, planted on a rocky spur of about fifteen hundred feet high, that not only overhangs precipitously the country beneath, but is separated by a chasm of some one thousand feet from the adjoining hills. Crossing this chasm on a rock bridge about three feet wide, and, as usual in China, railless, required more nerve than one of our party possessed, and the subsequent climb was more trying still up the steps cut out of the steep rock on to the Buddhist temple, that appropriately crowns the whole summit, and which, were it in any more accessible region, would have been "photographed like this and photographed like that," like any professional beauty. As it was, I had never seen a picture of it, and was quite eager to take my camera to photograph the mountain-top, as also the massive wall of conglomerate rock that builds up the col one has to climb in ascending, and from which one obtains one of those extraordinary desolate views characteristic of conglomerate country—a valley ending in an abrupt gully with dry waterbed, and dry waterfalls down precipices marked with pudding-holes, all scoring parallel horizontal lines across their stern surfaces. We came across brecciated conglomerate in which there were some bits of most exquisite glistening marble, and in which we again noticed the peculiarity, that at every fracture it was the marble and stones, of which it was formed, that were cleft through the middle, as evidently more breakable than the apparently soft-looking red cement that bound them together.
The way up was beautiful. We passed by picturesque farmsteads nestling in hollows, elegant shrines, and the grove the Reeves' pheasants particularly love. It is of pendulous cypress, called funebris, but suggesting anything but funereal associations by its pleasing grace. Palm-trees grew on the hillside, also bamboo, cunninghamia, ilex, and beautiful soap-trees, with the great long pods from which the soap is made, and tree-like thorns projecting from their stems, such as must effectually baffle any monkey-climbers. In four examples we saw these thorn branches had again other thorns projecting from them. The path is an easy one, carefully laid out by the priests for the convenience of pilgrims; and although there must be over five hundred steps, they do not come all together; so that few climbs of equal height can be so easily managed as that to the monastery of Yuen Ti Kuan, whose site, if paralleled, could hardly be surpassed. It is like that of some wild eyrie on which an eagle might be expected to build its nest, but where we should hardly expect practical, prosaic (so called) Chinamen to build a place of worship, simply to give themselves the further additional trouble of climbing so high. It seems that after all the Chinese have a religion of their own, which they deem holy, though it is often convenient to ignore this. There are many Shansi men in these parts, and one of our fellow-travellers, a man from Shansi, being asked why this was, when his province used formerly to be the granary of the empire, replied at once, "The hearts of the people have become corrupted."
As we came back, there were about four miles of little lanterns floating down the great river, sped in honour of the dead by a rich Chinese in mourning for his parents. Talleyrand's somewhat brutal "Il faut oublier les morts, et s'occuper des vivants" often recurs to me in China, where there are more grave-mounds round the city than living men inside it. The very handsome old Italian Bishop used to hate these grave-mounds, which he said oppressed him the more the longer he looked at them, and among which, alas! he was doomed to live and die.
It was near Ningpo I first assisted at a Chinese Buddhist service. We had been straying over hills pink and red and orange and mauve with azaleas in their full delicate bloom and perfect beauty. The most exquisite bush of pink azaleas hung over the great waterfall there, and caught some of the spray upon its blossoms, as the stream turned over the edge for its first leap, the flowers constantly wavering with the breeze the rushing waters brought. Wandering by lovely Windermere's side in the English Lake District, I had read Miss Gordon Cumming's description of hillsides striped and banded in colour with azaleas, and thought some day I too must see them. The seasons had rolled round but twice, and now here was I already tired of pink azaleas, which I decided looked too smart on a mountain-side, and preferring the big orange flowers or the deep red, or revelling in the long clusters of sweet-scented wistaria, that hung about like lovely ringlets; looking with exultation at osmundias curving their opening fronds with the full vigour and health imparted to them by the spring, and delighting in the clumps of feathery bamboos, golden stemmed old friends of my childhood; yet admiring almost equally Cunninghamia sinensis on its native heath. We plant little saplings of this last in our gardens, and boast with them even then. Here they were tall and vigorous, and everywhere giving an Oriental character to the ferns and the azaleas, the bamboos and fan-palms.
