CHINESE ARCHITECTURE—-BOERSCHMANN. 557 
of one of these small temples there is a representation of the pilgrims 
with pious zeal striving to make the weary journey to the summit, to 
reach the sanctuary of the goddess. The masses of pilgrims who to 
this day make these ascents bear out the realistic truth of this scene. 
Most pilgrims walk; the rich are carried in sedan chairs. <A little 
below the summit of this mountain the southern gate of heaven is 
reached by means of steep steps known as heaven’s ladder. The 
mountain has four such approaches in the four cardinal directions, 
and thereby reflects the totality of the sacred mountain with the 
world order. The bald rocky peak is 1,500 meters high and is covered 
with temples, ancient inscriptions, and religious curiosities. T passed 
a wretched October night, unprepared for inclement weather, in the 
highest temple, where broken windows on opposite sides permitted 
the cold storm to blow through uncomfortably. 
The main hall of the temple of the southern sacred mountain 
Héngshan, in Hunan, shows the elegant slender proportions of the 
Province of Hunan, where they always use their favorite long slender 
stone columns. 
The serrated cylindrical mountain of western Huashan, in Shen- 
si, is seen projecting from the mountain masses two days’ journey 
distant. The ascent is really dangerous; nevertheless thousands of 
pilgrims annually ascend it. Tron chains are fastened to it to safe- 
guard from falling from the precipice. I measured this precipice, 
which is 560 meters high in a vertical line. In June one finds a splen- 
did forest and beautiful flowers in bloom at the summit, 2,000 meters 
high. 
The flying clouds appear whitest at the highest peaks, and the 
Chinese associate them with their conception of the departed spirits. 
From these heights one looks down over the famous bend of the 
Huang or Yellow River, that appears quite as distinctly as that 
delineated on the map. 
The four sacred Buddhist mountains were obviously regarded as 
sacred in ancient China already before the advent of Buddhism, and 
traces of the ancient sanctity are still seen on Wut’aishan and 
Omeishan. The Buddhists then drave the old Taoists away, as they 
are now doing gradually in the southern mountain Héngshan. The 
four mountains are dedicated to the great Bodhisatvas of wisdom, 
efficiency, the goddess of mercy, and the god of the nether regions, 
that mercifully guides the soul. This sacred mountain is located in a 
geologically famous region near Nganking and is of voleanic origin. 
The sacred Buddhist mountain Wut’aishan, in Shansi, is an excep- 
tion to the other sacred mountains, inasmuch as the monastery build- 
ings do not gradually extend up and connect with the summit to 
reach the holiest sanctuary, but, seventy in number, are distributed 
over the elevated plateau at a height of 1,800 meters, and surround 
