18422.
Topography of Kiungsu.
215
simple archway, thirty-five paces broad, the height of the wall forty feet, and its width seventeen. Mr. Ellis, and three of the other gen- tlemen of the embassy, succeeded in passing completely through the uninhabited part of the city, which at present seems to comprise much more than half of the whole area within the walls. The outline of the city, as marked by the walls, is very irregular, approaching to a right angled triangle, the southern wall being the base, and the western the perpendicular, nearly twice the length of the base. Mr. Ellis and his friends visited one of the vapor-baths, "where," he says, "dirty Chinese may be stewed clean for ten tsien, or three farthings each: the bath is a small room of one hundred feet area, divided into compartments, and paved with coarse marble: the heat is con- siderable; and as the number admitted into the bath has no limits, but the capacity of the area, the stench is excessive.” Another
gen- tleman of the embassy, Mr. Poole, says the outermost of the three compartments was lined with closets for the reception of the clothes of bathers, who undressed in this division of the establishment. The closets were all ticketed. One was called the bath of fragrant waters. The two other divisions of the buildings were beyond the first: the largest, on the right hand, containing three baths, about six feet in length, and three in width and depth. “At the time of our visit, they were filled with Chinese, rather washing than bathing themselves, who stood upright in the water, which was only a few inches deep, and threw it by turns over each other's backs. There appeared no intention of renewing the water, thus become saturated with dirt, for the use of many other Chinese who waited their turn in the outer apartment. The steam arising from it, however fragrant to the senses of the Chinese, was to mine really intolerable, and drove me away before I could ascertain in what manner the baths were heated. I just looked into the adjoining room, and found it furnished with mat- ted benches, and that it was used by the bathers to dry themselves in before going to dress in the outer apartment." The walls of Nan- king, judging from a specimen carried away by Abel, are built of grey compact limestone, which he says frequently occurs in quarries in its neighborhood. Mr. Davis speaks of a striking resemblance be- tween the city of Nánking, with the area within the walls but par- tially inhabited, and ruins of buildings lying here and there, and that of Rome. Le Comte's account of the Porcelain pagoda may be found in the first volume of the Repository, at page 257.
II. The department of Suchau is nearly square; it lies on the south of the Great river, and extends southward from it to the pro