246 A NATURALIST IN WESTERN CHINA 



upper storey of this most imposing mountain is a series of twelve 

 or fourteen precipices, rising one above another, each not much 

 less than 200 feet high, and receding very slightly on all four 

 sides from the one next below it. Every individual precipice 

 is regularly continued all round the four sides. Or it may be 

 considered as a flight of thirteen steps, each 180 feet high and 

 30 feet broad. Or, again, it may be described as thirteen layers 

 of square, or slightly oblong, limestone slabs, each 180 feet thick 

 and about a mile on each side, piled with careful regularity 

 and exact levelling upon a base 8000 feet high. Or, perhaps, it 

 may be compared to a cubic crystal, stuck amid a row of 

 irregular gems. Or, perhaps, it is beyond compare. Some day 

 the tourist will go there and compose ' fine EngHsh ' ; he could 

 not choose a better place for a bad purpose ; but if he is wiser 

 than his kind he will look and wonder, say very little, and 

 pass on." 



It was on the afternoon of 30th June 1903 that I arrived 

 at the scattered hamlet of Ta-t'ien-ch'ih, from whence the 

 ascent can be made. This tiny hamlet is situated in an oval 

 depression, locked in by high mountains on all sides. The 

 depression is about a mile long and rather less than half a mile 

 broad at its widest point, a small lake surrounded by a luxuriant 

 greensward occupies the lower end. A species of Delphinium, 

 with lovely blue flowers, is very abundant. The Chinese call it 

 " Wu-tzu," and say that it is poisonous to man and cattle alike. 

 Around the farmhouses, maize, peas, beans, buckwheat, and 

 Irish potato are cultivated. The people here mostly profess 

 Christianity, and a Roman Catholic mission-house is the only 

 decent building in the hamlet. 



Having procured a guide, I left the inn at 5.45 a.m. on ist 

 July, to ascend the mountain. Mists obscured everything as 

 we set out, and it felt very raw and cold. The path is the merest 

 track — very sinuous, steep, and difficult. Rain commenced at 

 2.30 p.m., and continued dming the whole of the descent. 

 We reached our inn at 6.30 p.m., drenched through and through. 



At one time a dense forest of Silver Fir covered the mountain, 

 but this has long since been felled, and the majority of the trees 

 still lie rotting where they fell. It is a common sight to see 

 bushes of Rhododendrons, 20 feet or more tall, growing on the 



