A beautiful little story is connected with the "Ballad of the Great Wall," the poem which appears above these notes. Shih Hwang-ti, founder and first em-his efforts to build the Great Wall error of the Tsin Dynasty, in
to keep out the barbarian enemies. ordered his subordinates to find 10,000 actors and actresses to be buried alive underneath the Wall as otherwise it could not be sitecessfully completed. The Ministers dared not oppose this royal order but they said that, while such a task would be extremely difficult, they vould suggest to the Emperor that his leading enemy, Mang Hsi-liang, who was himself an actor, would be sufficient to take the full responsibility for the 10,000 actors required. Smiling with pleasure, the hard-hearted. Emperor signed the Imperial Edict and men were sent out in search of Mang Hsi-liang.
Mang and his mother heard of the infamous plot and arrangements were immediately made for the young man to flee. On his flight from home, Mang Hsi-liang went into a beautiful garden, which belonged to the father of one of the country's most famous beauties, Chiang-yue. Climbing a tree, he saw the girl who was fated to be his bride, fanning herself beside the well. Carelessly, she laid the fan aside, with the result that a little push knocked it into the well. She took off her coat. and tried to fish it up, but Mang Hsi-liang j promptly slid down from the tree in which he was hiding and gallantly offered to get her fan.
After he had hidden in the girl's henie for a time, the pair were happily married, but as and wife, the searchers came and soon as they were declared man arrested the young bridegroom, to the grief of the bride, who was heart-broken and who sang one of the verses given above each month on condition that her husband was returned to her. This, however, was not to be, and the girl was robbed of her husband, who was buried underneath the Great Wall in order that the foundations might be strengthen-
Another story has it that immediately after the marriage, the young husband; who was a faith. ful Minister of the King, led his armies into the war against the barbarians and was killed. Mang Chiang-nyne went out in search of her husband, weeping as she went. The heavens pitied her so much that, as she wept, a city wall fell and she soon afterwards found her husband's corpse.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.