What impressed us at the Ming tombs Boon after passing through the gigantic Pailou, which forms the sole strong" entrance to all the tombs, was the view of the whole extensive grounds where we could count even those graves nestling in the gradually ascending curves of the hills like links of a chain, in short which make up to the eye the uniformity of the whole cemetery which is entirely lacking to the western tombs. "But it seeming want which is the great super-ferity of the Hsiung over the Ming -tombs. 'These latter Ife' in the open on desolate stony, plains, therefore the builders themselves must have thought they could be protected from evil powers by the famous avenue of stone figures, for they ave hidden in the darkness of a forest a mile long, like a sacred grove into whose slumberous depths ud breadth of the world can penetrate, nor foreign influence disturb. the sleep, of the great who have escaped it in the repose of death.
'The graves lie on the slope of a very rugged mountain side running from east west, The whole.arrangement reminds one very much of the. design' of the Ming tombs and follows. the typical Chinese burying-groind exactly. On the jarge: embroidered coverlets enwrapping the sides, of the sedamchaje, which, 2ccording to the rites of the funeral of a AVENUE OF Sroxe Moxuments rich man. hides the' coffin, there is a jcture always repeated of two dragons playing with a pearl, which, entrusted to nature: alone, according to ancient Chinese belief, can bestow a favourable place of undisturbed tranquility to the dead. According to this, the last resting place of a great man is immediately protected by a hillock as round. as possible, from which ina half-circle on.both sides is always erected a flatter long-extended mound completely surrounding the tomb Proper on three sides, The round hillock represents the pearl and the two side mounds the dragons. The front of the grave must always lie towards the south and must be protected from evil influences by an entrance made as difficult as possible, which, proceeding from the grave, begins according to rule with several gates, then along a winding path, and lastly through an avenue of stone figures, which, according to the pattern of the famous avenue of the graves at Nanking, must have the most important figures nearest to the grave. Those are representations of proceeding away from the grave—first, a pair of civil mandarins next a pair of military mandarins, then the different animals exactly graduated after Chinese notions, amongst which horses take the first pla The whole is closed by one or more the end of this avenue. This typical ari agement of the tomb is fol lowed with the greatest possible exactitude in the West Imperial tombs also, It is best seen to advantage in the largest of the graves, that of Tailing.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.