Another very striking bridge, which spans a stream flowing into the lake, is called the Camel's Hump, and has only one very steep arch, about forty feet high. What makes this look so very peculiar is the fact that the banks on either side are almost level with the stream, so the elevation is purely fanciful. The bridge also has a beautiful marble balustrade.
A third, very similar to this last, crosses another winding of the stream, where it flows through flooded rice-fields, and so appears like an extension of the lake. Along this stream there is a fine avenue of willow-trees fully a mile in length.
Ascending a wooded hill, which is dotted all over with only partially destroyed buildings, we thence had a most lovely view of all the park, looking down on the blue lake, the winding streams, the various bridges, the blue mountain range, and the distant city of Peking with a foreground of most picturesque temple buildings and fine Scotch firs, dark rocks and green creepers.
Though the general feeling is one of desolation (as one climbs stairways, passing between numberless mounds of rubble, entirely composed of beautifully glazed tiles of every color of the rainbow, and all in fragments), there are, nevertheless, some isolated buildings which happily have quite escaped. Among these are several most beautiful seven-story pagodas. Of one, which is octagonal, the lower story is adorned with finely sculptured Indian gods. Two others are entirely faced and roofed with the loveliest porcelain tiles—yellow gold, bright green, and deep blue. They are exquisitely delicate and are quite intact; even the tremulous bells suspended from the leaves still tinkling with every breath of air.
Another building, which is still almost perfect, is a beautiful little bronze temple, near to which is a fine triple pai-low, or commemorative arch, and there are others of indescribable form, such as a little globe resting on a great one, and the whole surmounted by a spire representing fourteen canopies. But nothing save colored sketches (of which I secured a few) could really give any idea of this strange place or of these singular buildings.
On the summit of the hill there still stands a very large two-storied brick building, entirely faced with glittering glazed tiles of dazzling yellow, emerald green, and blue, with a double roof of yellow porcelain tiles; among its decorations are a multitude of images of Buddha in brown china. It is approached by a grand triple gateway of white marble and colored tiles, like one we saw at the Confucian temple in the city of Peking.
There are also a great variety of huge stone pillars and tablets, all highly sculptured; the dragon and other mythical animals appearing in all directions. There are bronze beasts and marble beasts, but only those of such size and weight as to have baulked all efforts of thieving visitors, whether native or foreign, whose combined efforts have long since removed every portable image and ornament.
To me the most interesting group of ruins is a cluster of very ornamental small temple buildings, some with conical, others, with tent-shaped roofs, but all glazed with the most brilliantly green tiles, and all the pillars and other woodwork painted deep red. On either side of the principal building are two very ornamental pagoda-shaped temples, exactly alike, except that the green roof of one is surmounted by a dark-blue china ornament, the other by a similar ornament in bright yellow.
Each is built to contain a large rotatory cylinder on the prayer-wheel principle, with niches for a multitude of images. In fact they are small editions of two revolving cylinders with five hundred disciples of Buddha, which attracted me at the great Lama temple as being the first link to Japanese Scripture-wheels, or Thibetan prayer-wheels which I have seen in China, and the existence of which has apparently passed unnoticed. It is needless to add that of course every image has been stolen, and only the revolving stands now remain in a most rickety condition.
When we could no longer endure the blazing heat, we descended past what appears to have been the principal temple, of which absolutely nothing remains standing—only a vast mound of brilliant fragments of broken tiles, lying on a great platform; steep zigzag stairs brought us to the foot of the hill, where great bronze lions still guard the forsaken courts.