REMARKABLE MONUMENT IN WESTERN CHINA 561 



One would suppose Buddhist ambition to be satisfied with an undertaking of 

 this magnitude, but we are told by a Russian traveler that it is a mere infant 

 beside one a few days' journey distant. There he found a mountain — a small 

 one, of course — fashioned by the hand of man into the form of Buddha. 



Yet it does not appear from Hart's narrative that he made any 

 attempt to visit and describe so remarkable a wonder. 



In 1892, Archibald Little, English merchant, explorer and author, 

 driven out of Chungking by the cholera epidemic, arrived at Jah-ding 

 on his way to Mt. Omei, where he spent several weeks, afterwards em- 

 bodying his experiences in a book, " Mt. Omei and Beyond." He made 

 no attempt to locate the Eussian traveler's find, although his wife 

 secured an excellent photograph of the image on the river bank. 



In 1906, R. F. Johnston, while collecting material for his work, 

 '' From Peking to Mandalay," arrived at Jah-ding, ascended Mt. Omei, 

 and described its temples and antiquities in the most thorough guide- 

 book style. Yet he seems never to have thought of seeking out the 

 Russian travelers gi'eat Buddha. 



Early in 1908, the Count d'Ollone traveled in the same region. His 

 experiences have appeared in a recent volume, " In Forbidden China," 

 so called because most of his time was spent among the savage and 

 independent Lolos. On page 188 of that volume, he says : 



Eaating possesses one of the most astonishing, though not the most admirable, 

 works of art ever produced by human hands. In a cliff overhanging the con- 

 fluence of the Yah, the Ta-Tu-Ho and the Min, there is a Buddha, cut out of the 

 solid rock, no less than one hundred and eighty feet in height. It is by far the 

 largest statue in the world. It occupies a recess some sixty feet in width and 

 depth. The god is represented sitting in European fashion. 



It must be confessed, however, that this great statue is no longer effective. 

 Under the action of the weather, the contours are worn and crumbling; great 

 blocks have fallen away, and the vegetation — mosses, bushes and even trees — has 

 attacked and is disfiguring what remains. Without being able to see how Colborne 

 Baber failed to discover, except in the face, any trace of the sculptor's hand, we 

 must admit no traces of actual art are now visible. It looks as though the hewers 

 of stone had roughed out of the rock a rudimentary statue, like a snow man, 

 which the artist never completed. 



On the next page he goes on to describe the search for rock sculp- 

 tures which his part}* conducted in the grottoes surrounding the city, 

 where they had the good fortune to discover a group some miles to the 

 north. On page 193 we find the statement: 



Our unexpected discovery, that of rock sculpture of great antiquity and per- 

 taining to a vanished art, filled us with delight, for it revealed a past which was 

 practically unknown. The reader may imagine that we were always on the alert 

 for anything that might put us on the track of fresh discoveries, but I must own 

 that the results were constantly negative. 



He then tells how his party was put on several false trails, but 

 finally learned (p. 196) that there was a 



very fine Buddha at Yong-hien, some fifty miles to the southeast, Yong-hien 

 was too far from our route, and we had no intention of going in search of its 

 Colossus. Xo doubt, had we gone, we should have been directed to another. 



