680 CHINESE ARCHITECTURE. 



and the stone drums, as described above, are installed. The Emperor 

 o-oes there in state on certain occasions to expound the classics, seated 

 upon the large throne within the hall, which is backed by a screen 

 fashioned in the form of the live sacred mountains. It is a loft}^ 

 square buildino- with a four-sided roof covered with tiles enameled 

 imperial yelloAV, and surmounted by a large gilded ball, encircled by 

 a jMllared veranda under a second projecting roof of yellow tiles. 

 The four sides consist each one of seven jxiirs of folding doors with 

 tracery panels. It is surrounded by a circular moat with marble 

 balustrades, crossed by four bridges leading to the central doors. On 

 the sides of the courtyard in which it stands are two long cloistered 

 buildings, shehering about '200 upright stone stela> covered with in- 

 scriptions over the front or back. The inscriptions comprise the 

 complete text of the "nine classics," and were engraved by the 

 Emperor Ch'ien Lung, in emulation of the Han and T'ang dynasties, 

 both of which had the canonical l)ooks cut in stone at Si An Fu, the 

 capital of China in their times. The text is divided on the face of 

 the stone into pages of convenient size, so that rubbings may be taken 

 on paper and l)ound up in the form of books. It was the custom as 

 early as the Han dynasty to take such impressions, a practice Avhich 

 may possibly have first suggested the idea of block printing. 



A sundial of antique form is seen mounted on a stone pedestal in 

 the foreground of the picture. On the other side of the hall, the 

 south, stands a magnificent "porcelain" pailou, resembling the one 

 illustrated in plate iii, Avhich spans the avenue leading to Wo Fo Ssu. 

 the " temple of the sleeping Buddha," in the western hills near 

 Peking. The pedestals and three arches are built of sculptured mar- 

 ble, separated by walls of vermilion stucco from the paneled facing 

 of faience covering the rest of the structure, which is enameled in 

 three colors — yellow, green, and blue — and forms an elaborate frame- 

 work for the inscribed tablet of white marble enshrined in the center. 

 This tablet, the motive of the erection, displays a short dedicatoi-y 

 formula, composed and presented by the Emperor, which is chiseled 

 and filled in with red in the actual lines of his original brush work. 

 These archways, which are a characteristic feature of Chinese archi- 

 tecture, are only erected by special authority. They are generally 

 made of wood with tiled roof, and are usually intended as memorials 

 of distinguished men and women. Some, however, are built entirely 

 of stone, like the innnense gateway with five portals at the avenue 

 of the Ming tombs. The stone toran of Indian stupas is doubtless 

 the original form from which the Chinese pailou, as well as the 

 Japanese tori, is derived. 



One of the grandest and most interesting sights of Peking is the 

 Temple of Heaven, which is within the southei'u or Chinese city, sur- 

 rounded by stately cypress trees in the midst of a walled park over 



