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Photos by Percival Tattersfield 

 ANCIENT SACK ANCIKNT SOLDIER 



Two prominent figures in the avenue of marble animals leading to the Ming Tombs 



height of graves for all classes. By its 

 provisions graves may range in height 

 from 4 feet for the common people to 

 i6 feet for officials of the first rank. 

 This was a reduction in height of graves 

 from previous times. The Mings thought 

 the matter very important, and this can 

 be readily understood from the fact that 

 in China the dead have from the re- 

 motest times received at least imperial 

 consideration on an equality with the 

 living. 



China is a country of practical immor- 

 tality, where, in a sense, men never die 

 and tombs are the habitations of the 

 living. What their tombs have meant 

 to the Chinese can best be comprehended 

 when it is remembered that this is the 

 people of ancestral worship, where the 

 desecration of a tomb is the most ter- 

 rible and heinous of all offenses. 



In the matter of tomb-building, the 

 Emperor of the "Three Kingdoms," 220- 

 265 A. D., greatly exceeded the Mings. 

 He ordered his son to build for him 72 

 tombs, so that his enemies would not know 

 which contained his tablet. The achieve- 



ment may be noted of another ancient 

 emperor who constructed his tomb and 

 then built, peopled, and garrisoned a city 

 near by for its protection. Perhaps the 

 Chinese, who have performed the great- 

 est of engineering feats, have surpassed 

 the Egyptians. Persians, and Greeks in 

 this direction also. 



Older than these, and what may be 

 called the one shrine in all China green 

 with the devotion of the people, is the 

 tomb of Confucius in Shantung. Here 

 worship continues through the ages, under 

 the patronage of all dynasties, since the 

 fifth century A. D., when the Emperor 

 Kao Ti set the example of imperial sac- 

 rifice there. 



As time went on the different dynasties 

 neglected the tombs of their predecessors, 

 so that now the tombs of the Manchus 

 are the best specimens of mausolea in 

 China. 



The IManchus followed the Chinese 

 custom and law in respect to their an- 

 cestors. Solemn juniper forests inclose 

 their sepulchers, which are approached 

 through magnificent p'ai-lous and are 



ion 



