Directory_and_Chronicle_1850 — Page 579

1350.

Pagodus in and near Cunton.

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objects of sight and curiosity to every one who comes up the Pearl river to the City of Rams. A notice of an attempt to repair two of them will be found in Vol. IV., page 189, to which we refer the reader in connection with these notices.

"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 dristed by the ships, and found ourselves beyond Blenheim Reach and going down the river, the boatmen began to throw out hiuts 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, above two hundred feet long. Many boats, apparently connected with the farmstead, lay in the creek, pro- tected by a stout fence of wattles from marauders going up and down the river. The whole boat population came into the floor, and after a few friendly words, we left them to proceed on our way. In passing through an avenue of fine plantain trees, which lay between the floor and the hill, I was led to observe the sagacity of the Chinese in planting this succulent vegetable in a spot where it would have plenty of nourishinent in the driest weather, at the same time that its roots served to strengthen the bank, and its fallen leaves manure the adja- cent fields.

"The pagoda stands on a bluff hill of old red sandstone; the side towards the river is quite precipitous, a narrow path leading up to the top. About half the way up this path, we reached a ledge a rod or more broad, and came to more quarries similar to those at the base, but much more extensive. These excavations showed that the Chi- nese were well acquainted with cutting out freestone. Myriads of tons had been removed, and the walls had been in most cases left perpen- dicular; in their general aspect, they strongly reminded me of those at Silsilis on the Nile, though here the effects of moisture and vegetation had concealed most of the rubbish.

"As we mounted the brow of the hill, the landscape began to open upon us, and to increase in beauty as well as extent, so that by the

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