ON CHINESE GARDENS. 63 



tants. Bats, owls, vultures, and every bird of prey nutter in the 

 groves ; wolves, tigers and jackatls howl in the forests; half-fa- 

 mished animals wander upon the plains; gibbets, crosses, wheels, 

 and the whole apparatus of torture, are seen from the roads ; and 

 in the most dismal recesses of the woods, where the ways are 

 rugged and overgrown with poisonous weeds, and where every 

 object bears the marks of depopulation, are temples dedicated 

 to the king of vengeance, deep caverns in the rocks, and de- 

 scents to gloomy subterraneous, habitations, overgrown with 

 brushwood and brambles; near which are inscribed, on pillars 

 of stone, pathetic descriptions of tragical events, and many hor- 

 rid acts of cruelty, perpetrated there by outlaws and robbers of 

 former times; and to add both to the horror and sublimity of these 

 scenes, they sometimes conceal in cavities, on the summits of 

 the highest mountains, founderies, limekilns, and glass-works, 

 which send forth large volumes of flame, and continued clouds 

 of thick smoke, that give to these mountains the appearance of 

 volcanoes. 



Their surprizing or supernatural scenes are of the romantic 

 kind, and abound in the marvellous, being calculated to excite 

 in the mind of the spectator, quick successions of opposite and 

 violent sensations. Sometimes the passenger is hurried by steep 

 descending paths to subterraneous vaults, divided into stately 

 apartments, where lamps which yield a faint and glimmering li^ht 

 discover the pale images of ancient kings and heroes, reclinino- 

 on beds of state; their heads are crowned with garlands of stars, 

 and in their hands are tablets of moral sentences ; flutes, and soft 

 harmonious organs, impelled by subterraneous waters, interrupt 

 at stated intervals, the silence of the place, and fill the air with 

 solemn sacred melody. 



Sometimes the traveller, after having wandered in the dusk of 

 the forest, finds himself on the edge of precipices in the glare of 

 day-light, with cataracts falling from the mountains around and 

 torrents raging in the depths beneath him; or at the foot of im- 

 pending rocks, in gloomy vallies overhung with woods ; or on the 

 banks of dull moving rivers, whose shores are covered with sepul- 

 chral monuments, under the shade of willow, laurel, and other 

 plants sacred to Manchew, the genius of sorrow. 



His way now lies through dark passages cut in the rocks, on the 

 sides of which are recesses, filled with colossal figures of dragons 

 infernal furies, and other horrid forms, which hold in their mon- 



