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seamen, through which they sometimes pass to shorten their way in going up to Canton. This pagoda is surrounded by fields and habita- tions, and has not the neglected air of the other two, though like them its brick walls are crumbling, and low shrubbery on the projecting rooflets shows the progress of dilapidation. Its stairways are built like the Whampoa pagoda, and it is about the same height. I also subjoin a short extract concerning the Chik Káng táh from the same work which has furnished the preceding :-
“The Red Stone Knoll is more than ten li south of Canton ; it is red like cinnabar. The geomancers says there is a precious thing below it. In the days of the Tang dynasty, a man from the Fú-nán kingdom
(Annám ?) wished to buy it for ten thousand pieces of money, but the prefect replied, ‘It is the hill which protects the southern region, and can not be parted with.' In the reign of Tienki of the Ming dynasty (A.D. 1621-28), Li Shi-wan, a scholar of the district of Nánhái, took the lead in building a pagoda on the top of it in order to protect the river entrance to the prefecture and city; it is commonly called the Chih Kang tahor Red Knoll pagoda. There was once a Budhist temple and pavilion to the God of Lite- rature near it, and scholars often collected there to study and write, but these are now all destroyed.'
“In 1837, the gentry of Canton circulated a subscription paper for the purpose of raising funds to repair and beautify this and the Wham- poa Pagoda, but all their zeal only about a thousand dollars were rais- ed, with which the progress of decay was somewhat delayed. The reasons for this appeal to the piety of their countrymen are set forth in the following circular issued at the time :-
"Fellow-countrymen! The region of country southeast of the provincial city, on account of its water-courses, has an important influence on the for- tunes of the inhabitants. From an examination of old records it appears, that the pagoda on Pachau, and the adjacent temple dedicated to the mon- sters of the sea, were built in the twenty-fifth year of Wanleih (1598); and that the pagoda at Chihkáng, and the temple there consecrated to the god of letters, were founded in the reign of Tienki (about 1621); all these structures have had a most happy influence on everything around them, causing the number of literati to be very numerous, and the productions of the soil most abundant. Recently, however, the winds and the rains, driving furiously, have broken down the tops of the pagodas, and laid the temples in ruins, and injur- ed even their foundations. Their appearance now is very unsightly; they ought to be repaired, in order to secure the return of happy and prosperous times. The pagoda on the north of the city, which rises five stories high and has its walls painted red, a color which is from its very nature productive of fire, ought also to be repaired, and painted with some other color. Already we have obtained the permission of their excellencies, the governor in council,