THE HISTORY OF HWA-SHAN 37 



easy, and the wild raspberries of the lower slopes 

 give place to masses of delicious little sweet- 

 flavoured strawberries. 



There are three or four summits ; the mountain 

 does not rise in one peerless cone like Fuji. From 

 them a sea of jagged green peaks stretches away 

 on every side, knife-edged and precipitous. The 

 nearer tops are crowned with temples. From the 

 " Southern Gate to Heaven " one sees upon a 

 neighbouring peak a tiny shrine which is closely 

 connected with the history of the mountain. Six 

 hundred years ago a certain Emperor, by name 

 Chao Kwang Yui, was playing chess with a Taoist 

 priest. He lost far more than he could afford, 

 and by way of payment gave Hwa-Shan to his 

 opponent. The little shrine marks the site of the 

 game. An agreement was drawn up which was 

 engraved on a certain inaccessible slab of rock 

 opposite the mountain as a perpetual memorial. 

 The tablet, though certainly there, is quite blank. 

 It is apparently of sandstone, set in the granite 

 cliff and much exposed to the weather, which may 

 have defaced the characters. 



There hangs below the summit a terrifying 

 arrangement of chains and sticks by which the 

 more adventurous defy the face of a sheer thousand- 

 foot precipice. At the end of a nerve-racking 

 span of rotten saplings is another rock-hewn temple, 

 and in an impossible position in the rocks above 

 are cut a number of Chinese characters. 



To the north it was possible to see hundreds of 

 li. The plain lay sweltering in a purple haze ; the 

 willow avenue which in olden days, consequent on 

 a dream, a former viceroy planted from Tungkwan 



