This Tea House, or Hu-sing-ting, which is situated inside the Native City, not far from the Boulevard des Deux Republiques, has been given its foreign name from its resemblance to the pavilions on the familiar blue ware. Although commonly regarded as the original of the design for the willow pattern porcelain, the present building' does not resemble the pavilion of the China ware as closely as do various other edifices, and of course is of much later date than the porcelain. The wooden "spirit bridge" which appears in the illustration is said to have been 1,500 years old, much more of an antique than the building. It has since been replaced by a similar conerete structure. Visitors to the tea house love to provide themselves with rice cakes, sold for two coppers, and to throw them to the fishes and tortoises with which the pond teems.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.