Here are 9 few excerpts from Mitford of Rife at 'Tuehuehssu those far-off days, nearly 80. years yor=—"This ty certainly. the prettiest temple and the most charming sum= mer' Fesidence that I have seen near Poking, The temple stands in a nest of trees, cedars, pines, firs and poplars; a perpetual fountain runs through all ite courts, and. there seems always to be a cool breeze blowing... Just behind the Hon of the Reposing Clouds, in which We" live, is a most beautiful rock work, all covered with tufts of Teathery grass, mosses, ferns and "Down this and into an artifieiat basin, which is screened from the sun hy- a" network of fir branches, comes tumbling deliciously cool fountain. Scented. with. pine" needles, which alves us a famous shower-bath twice Adaya veal luxury. Close by my fountain. is a_ tittle summer-house called "The Pavilion of the Understanding of Important Matters. T'wonder whether 1 have given you lea of what avery pretty place his is? Tt is almost enough to tempt aman to turn Buddhist priest...
The surrounding country, too, found most faseinating="The neb Dourhood round abort here is charming ax the ploce itself. "the fields are flobly—cultivated; there 12 plenty of hedgerow timber, and the Villages are very picturesque and well shaded, The hills are beautifully shaped, of an evening tug. ig. water, which is missing. over this part of China. Nothing can Ye prettier than the cottages of the with their long, low caves hedged in ice OF tall millet, over which on the top of a great eminence so steep that it is called by the Chinese the Wall Mountain. 1 found a most charming monastery built in tiers, Should have said terraces had it not been so tiny, which reminded me' the Wiers of' the Rhenish vineyards, The monks had all gone off to Peking con a lark, but T was hospitably ente-* {nined with tea by two lay attendants, for whose benefit I in return emptied my cigar case, "What a queer existence these people lead perched up on the top of a high hill! "They are so stay-at-home that they hardly seem to care even to Ko down. on to the plain. 'And as t0 going to Peking, none bul the better-to-do monks dream of stich "dissipation... Monks and Taymen alike—all our' neighbours—vie with one another in civility to us. They all stop one to have chat, and ax for tea, 1 might drown myself ina butt of it, " Thad mind. The women, however—and in tone. village" there are. some. very Drelty ones—are as farouches as wild deer. As T ride in at one end of the village T sce them scuttling off into their houses, with their Babes on their backs, as fast as their poor deformed fect will let them.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.