Directory_and_Chronicle_1845 — Page 802

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The number of pagodas in China is unknown, and there is some variety in their height and mode of construction, while their general aspect is marked with the same uniformity that attaches to everything architectural in this country. De Gaignes has given drawings of seven, which he visited in his journey to Peking; the highest among them was near Káutáng chau in Shantung, and was eleven stories high. This writer seems at a loss to account for the fact that those erected. near small towns are lower and smaller than those in cities, and sup- poses there may be some proportion demanded by usage between the size of the pagoda and the town; but the difference is owing probably entirely to the greater wealth of the city. This author mentions one of seven stories near Yángchau fú in Kiangsú nearly uniform in size to the top, the stories of which were merely divided by three rows of black bricks. He also speaks of many pagodas of five and seven stories in height :-indeed no district town or prefecture is considered to be complete without one of these felicitous structures, and they are probably as numerous as the district towns, though in many cases a cheap brick edifice of five stories is made to insure whatever of good luck the táh can bring. According to the Chinese local topography. of Kwangchau fú, there is a pagoda in very district in this prefecture, except Hwa hien.

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The following account of the pagodas in the vicinity of Canton by à visiter to one or two of them, we introduce in connection with the preceding general observations, assured that our readers will be in- terested in its notices of these structures, which are such prominent objects of sight and curiosity to every one who comes up the Pearl river to the City of Rams.

"It was a cloudy fresh morning in the month of May, when I left Whampoa in company with a friend to visit the Second Bar Pagoda. The tide was in our favor, and as we rapidly drifted by the ships, and found ourselves beyond Blenheim Reach and going down the river,. the boatmen began to throw out hints of the proximity of pirates, river thieves, and other evilminded people; but not a word would we hear of all their misgivings; after a couple of hours' rowing we left the boat in a creek at the foot of the hill on which the pagoda stands, and went ashore at a farmhouse. The workmen in this establishment were a hearty set of fellows, and received us with loud protestations of good- will, asking us a variety of questions, and replying to our inquiries with much good humor. Their dwellings and the buildings for stor- ing the grain, and the farming utensils, were arranged on two sides of a well made threshing-floor, about two hundred feet long. Many