The guard at the gate, however, recks not of jade fountains but gives his entire mentality to watching the difference between "big" and "little"? money. Big"' money includes all silver coins stamped with the head of Yuan Shih-kai while "little"? money includes all tha rest. The guard may be old and enfeebled, with eyesight impaired and hearing well nigh gone but his unwashed finger-tips can sense the touch of "big" money like an_ electric spark. When the gentle reader goes to Peking let him take nothing with him but "big" money.
Of all the sights that impressed me most, surely, the Temple of Heaven stands first. Here again the Mings and Manchus joined hands to give the world this masterpiece of religious simplicity. The great altar surrounded by its woods and cloud-capped pillars is indeed a fitting "memorial to' high a worship. Recently some modern young men and women, Western trained and wholly up to date went there with Victrola to have a jazz dance on the altar in defiance of all their fathers taught them. I learn, however, that the remnants of the old guard bundled them out bag and baggy age. Grass grows over the walls; thie yellow tiles and blue are: being stripped snd stolen away. The empty hall and unused altar are indeed the mere habiliments China's soul long since departed, while the mad company with their jazz music are the seven black devils come to possess themselves of the house swept and garnished.
Among other religious haunts and halls well worth seeing is the Yellow Temple that lies beyond the North Gate of the city. Here Sir Hope Grant made his headquarters in 1860 while Parkes and Loch just over the wall were cooped up in the Kao Malo not knowing but that the first boom his cannon meant to" them heads off. In the same temple the Dalai Lamas lived and I believe died. To-day it is falling to Pieces, timbers rotting and roof giving way. The craft of priests who inhabit it, judging from the clothies they wear, are in the last stages of poverty. Evidently this Buddha, too, must go. Perhaps it is well. In Japan the Buddha suggests health and life and -pro-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.