TOPOGEAPHICAL NOTES.— SOOCHOW. l53 



mountains which from the parapets and towers of the city give a pleasing diversity to the 

 eye. Beyond the mountains and yet only a few miles away, is the Great Lake, the Tai Hu 

 an inland sea some 50 miles across, in which are multitudinous mountain islands, miles 

 in length, covered with groves of yangmei and pepo, orange and lemon, peach and apricot, 

 the plum and some pomegranate — where the grapes of Eschol and honey sipped from the 

 oka fra^rans, are found; and which pregnant with the perfume of flowers in the spring 

 forcibly suggest the Enchanted Isles. 



Soochow is about four miles from north to south, nearly three in breadth, surrounded 

 by a wall 13 or 14 miles in length. The wall is faced with large brick, 14 x 6 inches, and the 

 walk on the broad parapet, with the hills, lakes, fields and city all in sight, is a delightful 

 one. The streets were laid out originally 8 feet in width, but shopmen put their counters 

 and railings forward, so on the main streets the space is narrowed to 5 or 6 feet. Along 

 these narrow defiles pass riders on horses, mandarins in chairs, with their official retinues, 

 funeral processions a quarter of a mile long, workmen carrying the framework of a building, 

 chair-bearers, burden-bearers, loads of straw, men with bundles and women with baskets, 

 the aged tottering on a staff and the blind feeling their way with a cane, the water carrier 

 with quick step and the scholar with the snail's pace,— you wonder how you can thread 

 your way through this tangled thicket of pedestrians. 



The moat around the wall is from 50 to 100 yards wide and very deep. The city is 

 bisected and intersected with about 30 miles of narrow canals faced with stone, which are 

 spanned by near 200 bridges. In these are moored hundreds of quick pleasure-boats which 

 with their bright varnish, clear glass and fine carving furnish charming accommodation 

 for those wishing to go to the hills or the lakes. There are for hire hundreds of small 

 cargo-boats which transport grain, goods, fuel, building materials, furniture and water from 

 one part of the city to the other. To live on a canal is considered very convenient for 

 laundry and culinary purposes. When the waters are high and fresh boating is a pleasant 

 mode of city travelling, but when the water turns green and then black and the boats get 

 jammed for a couple of hours amidst odours not from " Araby the blest," the poor shut-in- 

 prisoner wishes he were a thousand miles away from the Venice of the Orient. 



As the tourist from Shanghai approaches the provincial capital the eye rests upon the 

 tall towers, first built with reference to the relics of Buddha but now kept up by wealthy 

 Confucianists to regulate the fungshuey. There are five in the city and three perched upon 

 the hills. The Methuselah is the South Gate Pagoda, built A.D. 248, aged 1662 years or 

 nearly twice as old as the Antediluvian. The Tiger Hill Pagoda, the "leaning tower "of 

 Soochow, stands second among the patriarchs and bears upon its spiral crown the weight of 

 thirteen centuries. The Twin Pagodas, standing near the Examination Hall and exerting a 

 fine influence upon the aspiring genius of the candidates for literary honours, are models of 

 architectural beauty, and seem, as a pair, to be unique in the Yangtze plain. They were 

 erected about A.D. lOOO. The Ink Pagoda is in its infancy, — only 320 years of age. 



The glory of " Beautiful Soo " is the Great Pagoda, the highest in China, and so the 

 highest on terra firma, and one of the great wonders of the world. It was built 720 years 

 ago. A quarry of hewn stone supports the pile of masonry which rises to 250 feet in height. 

 The name of the architect who planned this tower has not come down to us, but we can 



