T passed on the road to Sanyusn what are possibly the oldest human monuments extant in China, These are the earth pyramids which mark the graves of the Chow (some say Shang) sovereigns. I was told on all hands that the trunoited mounds, which still contrive to maintain their pyramidal outlines, were 3,000 years old. But all figures regarding them must be as vague and uncertain as the history and memory of the potentates whose ashes they cover. Nevertheless it is interesting to remember when standing before these tumuli, that Chinese producte—notably silks—have been found at early Egyptian tombs, proving at least indirect traffic between remote corners of the East in very early times. And one might assume, without much for of contradiction, that the pyramids which cover the Chows were modelled after the more substantial ones that weigh down the Pharoahs. About 30 li from Heian I passed a mound which 649 in its excellent preservation of the pyramidal lines and its great size was really worthy of a place among the lesser Egyptian monuments. Without measuring it I estimated at the time that it was at least 250 square at the base, and though truncated by rain, nearly 100 ft. high.
'Another city of heroic memories in the Hsian district is Hsienyang, 50 li west of the capital by a ford of the Wei River. There, in a little temple, are preserved the very hefty sword, mace snd spear of Chang Fei.' He was the swom brother of Liu Pei and Kuan Ts, God of War, both of whom usually figure in any Chinese theatrical performance thit the foreigner likely to witness, When I had viewed these huge relics with awe, had peered pret them at the black faced statue of the national hero, hid read a placard telling how two men who touched the sacro-sanct weapons went mad, and how from the city wall they had quelled dangerous risings of the Wei, I almost forgot that, besides being the repository of this rusty hardware, poo: Hsienyang was once China's proudest capital. For here lived and ruled Chin Shibhuang of mingled praise and infamy.
Here he built his palace thousand apartments, so thet he could weep in a different room every night and escape his familiar demons. Here, perhaps, he burned the Confucian classics and mssacred the scholars. From this little city of wattle and mud he directed his conquering armies and the 600,000 slaves who built the Great Wall of China. In Huienyang he perfected his system of government which crushed Chinese feudalism 2,900 years and shaped for the first time homogeneous China.
During the two days that I languished in Hsienyang, vainly probing for some faint memory of all this volatile grandeur, I never got further back than Chang Fei and seldom got deeper into conversation the drowsy natives than the price of opium. There one must reconstruct his own memories and expect no help from the moderns, but every incipient archeologist must also speculate upon what a few picks and shovels might turn up from the broad, dusty plain in which Hsienyang dozoa in filth and futility.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.