Directory_and_Chronicle_1845 — Page 804

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and explosion of the ship Chesapeake, on which and the raft before it, the Cantonese had fondly trusted for defense against the invaders. South, the barren hills about the Bogue shut out most of the prospect; but on the west and southwest, a plain stretched farther than the eye could reach, rendered picturesque by a succession of rice-grounds and other fields, villages embosomed in groves, and canals and rivulets run- ning in every direction, whose course was apparent in many cases only by the masts and sails of boats peeping out of the rice fields; the whole showing the industry and thrift of the people. Hills bounded the horizon on the north, affording a pleasing transition from the plains in the other direction. Probably more than a hundred villages were in sight, and it was a melancholy reflection that all their industrious inhabitants were ignorant of the God who had spread out this fair expanse of fertility and beauty for their use.

"The stillness around us was the more pleasant in contrast to the noise of the Factories at Canton, and the feeling of repose which this quiet induced was deepened by the sight of the deserted citadel just below us, suggesting the toil and cares of its former human inmates— now all gone. Curiosity was excited to learn something of this ruin, and on since looking into a local topography, I find a few notes respecting it and the pagoda, (usually called the Lien-hwá táh, or Water Lily pagoda,) which may interest other visitors, as they have me.

“The Shih Li (Stone Whetstone) hill is about a li east of Golden Goose hill; it is 2000 cubits or so high, 10) li broad each way, and surrounded by water, which runs by it on each side, this hill rising abruptly in the centre. Below it is the Sea of Lions, and on its east is a stone precipice, rising high and steep, which resembles a lion in its form; in its bosom is a cave in which tix or seven men can be seated, and a rill runs many hundred feet down it; shis hill thus forms the defense of the Bogne. At this place there is a cliff called Kin-láng, or the Variegated Porch, because it can be paced along like a corridor for a hundred paces or more, and visitors go there and sit, sometimes getting their garments wet by the spray of the streamlet. The geomancers say that it is by five [hills like] beasts which here lock up and obstruct the flow of the waters, that the great sea is warded off from the entrance—a circumstance of great importance to the good luck of the capital. In the time of the Ming dynasty, Páng and Koh, two scholars in the district of Nánhái, took upon then to require rental of this hill, and invited traders to come and cut stone, which wounded the pulse of the ground, and caused sorrow and evil to the literary people around. In the year 15€6, five küjin of the district, named Li, Liú, Lin, Liáng, and Tsui petitioned the government to prohibit the quarrying of stone, and then they erected a pogoda of nine stories on the summit, called Shih-lior Stone Whetstone pagoda ; it is situated below Whampoa I. and above Tiger I. In the days of Kanghi,