Note 136.
The immediately-arrived sun tips the "Immortal Palm."
The "Immortal Palm" was a very tall bronze pillar which the Emperor Wu of Han erected in the grounds of the Variegated Colours Palace. On the top was a colossal hand, with the fingers curled up so that the falling dew might be caught in the palm, for, of course, the ancient Chinese firmly believed that dew fell. As dew was the drinking-water of the Immortals, to drink it was to advance a step on the road to Immortality. The hand was brightly polished, and was one of the first objects about the Palace to glitter when the sun rose.
[SEEKING FOR THE HERMIT OF THE WEST HILL]
Note 137.
On the Nothing-Beyond Peak, a hut of red grass.
Huts were built of a certain hill grass, now very rare. It turns red in the Autumn, and is fine and strong like wire.
Note 138.
I look into the room. There is only the low table and the stand for the elbows.
Much of the furniture in the T'ang period was like that used now by the Japanese. It was customary to sit on the floor and write at a low table, and the use of the elbow-stand was general.