THE END OF THE JOURNEY. 315 



intelligible or interesting to mankind other than as 

 an archaic curiosity." ^ If he be imbued with a pleas- 

 ing imagination, it will be beneath the shadow of the 

 pagoda, or in view of the gaudeous outlines of the 

 Temple of Heaven, or listening perhaps to the rolling 

 sound of the Buddhist litanies, chanted in unison by 

 the yellow -robed inmates of the great Lama temple, 

 that he will wish me farewell, rather than, as truth 

 might compel me to admit, ploughing my way along 

 those " receptacles of indescribable abominations, where 

 the dust is acrid to nose and eyes, from the dessicated 

 refuse of generations," ^ which serve for streets in a 

 " wilderness of garbage." ^ Let it be so. It is as the 

 home of sunshine and romance, of temples and palaces, 

 of dazzling colour and bewildering animation, of men 

 and manners that set soaring the imagination, of mys- 

 terious priests and titled kings, rather than as the 

 seat of poverty and vice, of squalor and sordid mate- 

 rialism — of all, in fact, that is of the earth earthy — 

 that I prefer to look back upon the cities of the East. 



^ The Englishman in China. Alexander Michie. 

 2 Ibid. ^ Ibid. 



