THE NESTORIAN TABLET 41 



under severe restrictions. Had the population 

 been given a free hand they would have un- 

 doubtedly avenged their fellow countrymen far- 

 ther west and exterminated the Mohammedans 

 entirely. 



We remained a week here, as carts were no 

 longer practicable and we intended continuing our 

 journey with pack mules. These it is not always 

 easy to procure. During our stay we rode out to 

 see the Shiao-yien-ta and Ta-yien-ta pagodas to 

 the south of the city. The former is thirteen 

 stories, the latter nine stories in height, for these 

 characteristic structures have never an even number. 

 The taller cannot be ascended, as it has a large 

 crack down the middle, but the other is in a good 

 state of preservation, and a fine view of the city is 

 obtained from its summit. Large barracks lie just 

 outside the walls to the west, built about ten years 

 ago and capable of holding thirty thousand troops. 

 It was these men who, a few weeks later, captured 

 the city, when ten thousand Manchus were 

 massacred. 



The Nestorian tablet carefully preserved here is 

 of great interest, so great that perhaps a brief 

 account may be forgiven me. The Nestorians 

 entered China by Canton. To quote Gibbon, 

 " after a short vicissitude of favour and persecution 

 the foreign sect expired in ignorance and oblivion." 

 The tablet sets forth in Syriac and Chinese charac- 

 ters the early fortunes of the Church from the first 

 mission A.D. 636, a list of its bishops and the pro- 

 tection and indulgence it received from different 

 emperors. It was discovered by Alvarez Semedo, 

 a Jesuit priest at Sian, in 1623 under an old wall. 



