Directory_and_Chronicle_1845 — Page 805

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when the coast people were removed into the interior, this place was fixed on as a limit, and a brick citadel was accordingly erected on the boundary line, with a camp and signal-fire tumuli; is now called the Lien-kwá ching, or Lily Flower citadel. Since the second year of Tsungching, in A.D. 1 330, for a period of a hundred and more years, the quarries in this hill had been repeatedly opened and shut up; but latterly miscreants of the place in combination with the traitorous merchant Láu, surreptitiously got stone there as they pleased, the underlings of government receiving bribes therefor, and preventing any one from interfering-thus making the leak in the dam still wider. But in the 29th year of Kienlung, A.D. 1765, Doctor Ling and others petitioned their excellencies the provincial officers, who ordered two tablets to be erected, one in the citadel on the hill and the other in the literary chancellor's office in Canton, prohibiting stone to be taken from the quarries.'

"From this it appears that this ruin is connected with one of the strangest freaks of despotism recorded in Chinese annals-that of ordering all the inhabitants of the coast to remove thirty miles into the interior to escape the ravages of a pirate from whom the imperial forces could not protect them. This event happened about 1665, so that this wall has stood not far from 180 years; not a vestige of the fire tumuli spoken of are to be seen, nor did we find the tablet ordering the quarries to be shut up, though perhaps a little search might bring it to light. The area inclosed by this wall is a few square rods, and several piles of brick in it, covered with weeds, show where buildings once stood. The pagoda is built of brick throughout; one beam stretches across the eighth story to support a pillar which once projected beyond the top several feet, and was intended to call dɔwn good influences from heaven. The total height is 150 feet. would be a difficult affair to reach the top, and I suspect none of the numerous visitors whosenames are cut in the walls at the lookout window have ever under taken it.

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"At the southern part of the hill is a small cave, and a solitary Budhist, in the true ascetic spirit of his faith, has taken up his abode in it with a number of gilded idols, whom he serves. The inhabitants of a small town on the southwest no doubt furnish him food and praise enough for his support and encouragement in addition to the produce of his own gardening, to make his life comfortable. Not far from his cell is a singular well or shaft sunk in the rock about forty feet, but though there is water in it, one can not be sure it was dug for a well perhaps this is the place where the stone cutters wounded the pulse of the ground,' as the preceding account mentions.

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"We returned to our boat by a path which wound around the inland : slope of the hill, enjoying the varied prospect before us. The frequent