Before reaching the closed gate lead: ing into the burial vault one must cross yet two other canals, spanned by marble bridges between which stands a smaller pavilion with inscribed pillars, Marble steps lead up to the gate which opens on a large quadrangular court, In this is a tempieslike building with marble te races in the wide hall of which the tablet relating to the entombed personage, in this ease the Emperor Yung-cheng, rests a throne covered with yellow silk, and Vefore it a large table with incense-burners and dishes for receiving the blood of the sacrifices. Passing through a wider triple doorway built of yellow and glazed tiles, one comes to a large court on a considerably higher level than the first. In this is a small pavilion be fore which is an altar for sacr lamented with rich sculpturing, reserved for the Emperor's offering, alone.
Lastly on the north side of this court rises the high tower-like building in the first floor of which the immense memorial tablet bearing the name of the Emperor is. plac the perpendicularly-hewn face of the hillock rising behind it, a coll built in the wall of richly-ornamented yellow tiles shows the resting place of the sarcophagus of the Emperor in the int of the.mound. As to whether the na rative of my Chinese guide is true, that the bearers of the coffin have been inferred in the hill together with the coffin in order that no mortal should learn the resting-place of the Son of Heaven, I ca not decide. But this is certain, that after the entombment no man has been able to see even the coffin, This arrangement I have described is repented, only with the omission of a few details, in the Tai tung-ling, the tomb of the deceased wife of Yung-cheng, and in the Chang-ling, the grave of the Emperor Chia Ching, as well as in the Chang-Hsi-ling lying to the West of it, the grave of the latter's Consort.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.