CHILDREN OF CHINA.
OMEI-HSIEN
The people of Omei-hsien, however, are unusually amiable. Many of them earn their living by attending to the wants of pilgrims to the great mountain, and vie with each other in their efforts to show civility to the stranger within their gates. Not many Chinese venture to climb Mount Omei so early in the year as March, as it is still covered with snow for several thousand feet of its height; but I observed a large number of Tibetan pilgrims on their way to and from the mountain, and ascertained from them that there was no great difficulty in the ascent. On the morning of the 7th March, therefore, I left my servant (who was appalled by the mere shadow of the mountain) to look after my baggage in Omei-hsien, and started the ascent in the company of the two soldiers of my escort. The town of Omei-hsien lies at 1,500 feet above sea-level: the summit of the mountain is about 9,500 feet higher.
[CHAPTER VI]
MOUNT OMEI AND CHINESE BUDDHISM
The forests and ravines of Mount Omei[23] teem with mystery and marvel, for there are legends that carry its story far back into the dim days when the threads of history meet together in the knots of myth. There is hardly a peak un-garlanded with the flowers of romance, hardly a moss-grown boulder that is not the centre of an old-world legend. The many stories of wonderful visions and wizard sounds that have come to the eyes and ears of the pilgrims to the shrines of Omei may raise a smile of amusement at human credulity, yet they are easily enough explained when we remember how strangely both sights and sounds may be affected by mountain-mists; and it is seldom that the giant bulk of Omei is bathed from peak to base in clear sunshine.
"The swimming vapour slopes athwart the glen,
Puts forth an arm, and creeps from pine to pine,
And loiters, slowly drawn."