68
W. SCHOFIELD
east side of the inscribed rock. Here it bends at an obtuse angle and reaches a large boulder east of the rock, thus providing flanking fire in support of the defenders of the bank to south (see Plate 4). Beyond the boulder its course is less easy to follow, but it probably runs north-west about 30 metres, and then north again, past the inscribed boulder, and following the steep edge of the hill, for some 70 metres. Here it bends west at a right angle and becomes a large earth rampart, with a front face to north about 5 metres high protected by a ditch, now partly silted up, about 1 metre deep at its outer edge, where the counterscarp rises; the throw-out from the ditch forms a short glacis in front merging into the hill slope.
The rampart and ditch run about 55 metres across the north declivity of the hill ridge, cut at two points by modern paths (see Plate 6). At intervals of 20 metres behind it two smaller banks, parallel to it, cross the hill, both ending where the slope steepens to west: the more northern one has a short length of bank running north and south at its west end, which represents the only discoverable trace of the hill's western defences, for field terraces of later date appear to have destroyed the rest of them.
The Inscriptions*
1. The well-known principal inscription on the hill, today standing in the Sung Wong T'oi park, needs no further notice here, as Professor Lo has dealt with it.
2. On a small stone on the north side of the hill crest is an almost illegible inscription of seven, possibly more, characters, which the writer copied as follows:
宋(or本)
£
?
公
??
+
It may be conjectured that this was part of an earlier commemorative inscription.
3. On a squared pillar of local granite standing on the west side of the hill, facing a rocky hill a mile away, about 85 metres high;
泰山石敢當
This was probably put up by someone in an effort to correct the Fung Shui of a grave.
The next three inscriptions noted are certainly grave inscriptions, showing the hill was used for burials up to recent times.
*The approximate whereabouts of each inscription is shown by its number on the sketch plan.