DESCRIPTION OF MOUNT WA 119 



world. The mails, as far as Kia-ting-fu, are forwarded 

 by the Chmese post, but the dates of their arrivals are 

 very uncertain. 



I took several photographs while at this place, one of 

 the mission house being here reproduced. I also took 

 one of Mount Wa, which unfortunately got spoiled by the 

 light getting to it. I regretted this very much, as it is 

 such a peculiarly shaped and interesting mountain. It 

 has been so well described by Mr. Baber in his valuable 

 book that I cannot do better than quote from it. ' The 

 upper story of this most imposing mountain is a series of 

 twelve or fourteen precipices rising one above another, 

 each not much less than 200 feet high, and receding 

 very slightly on all four sides from the one next below 

 it. Every individual precipice is regularly continued 

 all round the four sides. Or it may be considered as a 

 flight of thirteen steps, each 180 feet high and thirty 

 feet broad. Or, again, it may be described as thirteen 

 layers of square, or slightly oblong, limestone slabs, 

 180 feet thick and about a mile on each side, piled 

 with careful regularity and exact levelling upon a base 

 8,000 feet high. Or perhaps it may be compared to a 

 culjic crystal stuck amid a row of irregular gems. Or 

 perhaps it is beyond compare.' 



