148 WITH BOAT AND GUN IN THE YANGTZE VALLEY. 



though propped and repaired fifty years ago and looking as though a gentle earthquake 

 shock might overthrow it in final ruin. When seen from the neighbouring hills, its 

 pencil-like dark form, rising from the smoke and haze of the great city, is a familiar and 

 striking object. 



A legend, thirteen centuries old, lives on in some of the names and places of the city. 

 Near the site of the new bridge of boats there existed in ancient times a ferry, called 

 Dao-hwo-du, or " Peach-flower Ferry "; and twenty miles north-west of the city stretches 

 the fine range of hills separating the Ningpo plain from Saenpoh. One of the many passes 

 through these hills is called the "Peach-flower Pass." It was much used by the Taiping 

 rebels fifty years ago, but it is little frequented now. I imagine that the pass and the ferry 

 had an intimate connection in this legend even as they bear the same name. The events 

 of this strange story antedate the foundation of the city; but they may possibly have 

 combined to hasten its transference to its present site. The legend runs thus : — In ancient 

 times a dragon used periodically to emerge from the river, and unless appeased by the 

 yearly ofi'ering of a boy and girl it would ravage the banks of the river and terrify the 

 inhabitants. So this periodical sacrifice was a custom observed with agony by those whose 

 children were selected for this purpose, and with awe by the people generally. In the 

 year A.D. 6l8 a mandarin named ^ ^ was on his way up to the city to assume office, 

 coming, as I imagine, across the Peach-flower Pass. As he wended his way through the 

 great plain he caught up two country people, man and wife, with two little children, a boy 

 and girl, wailing and lamenting as they walked along. "What ails you?" asked the 

 magistrate; and they told him the sad and weird story. The magistrate's heart (large as 

 the proverbial heart of the Prime Minister himself, of capacity enough to float a ship) was 

 stirred with compassion and fired with indignation. On his arrival at the spot he mounted 

 a white horse, and armed with a sword made of rushes he plunged into the river and was 

 seen no more. Neither was the dragon seen from that day forward; only after a commotion 

 of the waters which became dyed as by the colour of the peach-blossom, doubtless with the 

 mingled blood of the dead dragon and of the victorious but dead champion. At nearly the 

 same moment, caused by the dying throes of the dragon, a pool welled up within the bounds 

 of the present city, which still remains, with a temple on its bank to the memory of the 

 ancient hero. This temple, standing within the Salt Gate, is called the ^ ^ HI. On the 

 anniversary of this event, in the month of May, every house in Ningpo has over its door a 

 cross of rushes in commemoration of the sword of the avenger. So runs the legend. I have 

 myself traversed the Peach-flower Pass, probably unchanged during these thirteen hundred 

 years. But the Peach-flower Ferry is no more ; and the hero's spirit must be somewhat 

 annoyed by the screeching of the siren of the little river-steamers moored close to the shore 

 from which he plunged ; and by the high chimney and growing works of an electric light 

 company close to the sacred site. 



These thirteen hundred years have not passed over Ningpo simply with the roll of 

 the seasons, the tranquil occurrence of births and deaths, with cold and heat and day and 

 night and summer and winter in featureless succession ; with the fair circling hills, now 

 capped or furrowed with snow, now all ablaze with azaleas, and later lit up with the light- 

 ning of summer storm and reverberating with its echoes ; its rich plains now covered with 



