562 ANNUAL KEPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1911. 



Niagara Falls, and probably had a similar origin — from a waterfall. 

 Pilgrims visit this place only once a year, but then in large numbers. 

 The few priests generally live alone, shut in from the world, and thus 

 become hermits. Many of them live in small huts or caves some 

 distance from the monastery, as is still done to-day all over China 

 (pi. 8, fig. 1). 



It therefore seemed natural that the eighteen disciples of Buddha, 

 the Lohan, should be represented as a type of anchorets, in one of the 

 temples at Omeishan. This is a celebrated type of these images 

 modeled after those in a temple in Nanking. It occurs more fre- 

 quently in the marble pagoda of a temple on the West Lake of Hang- 

 choufu, that fortunately escaped being destroyed in the Taiping re- 

 bellion. This has sixteen sides, agreeing with the original number 

 of Buddha's disciples. It is vigorously decorated and tastefully com- 

 posed ; the images of the disciples are carved into the panels and con- 

 ceived as anchorets. 



The tombs, in view of the association with the sacred earth, are in- 

 variably located on the slopes of hills, where least liable to be de- 

 stroyed by natural causes. This mode of building is suggestive of 

 the idea that the dead have returned to the mountain from which 

 all life emanates. In China the tombs have the finest architecture, 

 occupy the most conspicuous sites, and are built with most extrava- 

 gant art. The facade of a family tomb in western Szech'uan is an 

 example of an effective artistic arrangement in imitation of wood 

 architecture. Tombstones are placed in front of the facade, and in 

 front of these they have the genii tables of eight stone seats to serve 

 for the feast of the spirits on certain sacred days (pi. 8, fig. 2). 



In this vicinity I discovered the remains of a tomb that was built 

 in the period of the Han dynasty. . Tombs of the Han dynasty were 

 described by Chavannes and hitherto were not known outside of 

 Shantung. The pillars of the tombs are similar, but the difference 

 in art between Szech'uan and Shantung 2,000 years ago, was consider- 

 able. An earnest and severe art characterizes Shantung, while here 

 the need for genre and life is revealed by the crouching figures in 

 the corners and the lively, relief designs between the consoles. The 

 difference in the art in the different Provinces can here but briefly 

 be alluded to in this one instance. 



The much praised beauty of Szech'uan is revealed in many of the 

 landscapes of burial grounds that are emphasized by arrangements 

 of cypress, cane, and the terraced slopes forcibly accentuated by 

 a single tree at the summit. 



The Pailous, or honorary gateways, are memorials of the departed 

 that are to be seen on all the highways in China, chiefly in Shantung 

 and Szech'uan; in the latter they are generally built of red sand- 



