A terday to the "Great Temple" revealed "extensive porporations being made for the delectation, and incidentally for the ileecins, of the pilgrims who are beginning to flock here from all quarters. This "Great Temple" (T'ai Miao) is the rendezvous for all comers. Consequently hawkers of all kinds, fortune-tellers, mountebanks, jugglers, puppet shows, pantomimes—i word every thinkable Catchpenny,—congregare here. The elamour of drums, the screech of reed pipes, the sharp clang of kangs, the shouti screaming of voices, make a combination almost deafenings The crowds of pilgrims wander around among these confusing clements, tramping up clouds of dust from the parched soil.
The spacious temple grotinds are almost entirely covered with groves of stately arbor view, some of which have attained a cum ference of ten feet. Few of the once stately buildings are in even tolerable re~ pair, and many of them are leaking dreadfully, and others are tumbling to pieces. Most of the fine and extensive porches which lined the sides of the court in front of the main hall are quite fallen down, What becomes of the fine timbers and the yellow tiles [have been unable to find out. On one oF two of the tall buildings the tiles are piled in confused heaps, ready to crash to the ground in the first heavy storm that comes, It seems a pity that they could not in some way be saved." There they lie, glittering in the sun, as bright as they were when they were put on, no-one knows how many years ago.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.