preceded by stately build- 

 ings. There are no less 

 than five imperial Man- 

 chu burial places. The 

 original is at Hsin-king. 

 eastern Manchuria, and 

 is called the Yung Ling. 

 Two are at Mukden and 

 two in the region of 

 Peking. 



THE fore;st of tabli;ts 



The most widely dis- 

 tributed and most numer- 

 ous of all monuments in 

 China is the tablet called 

 by the Chinese "Pei." 

 Architecturally insignifi- 

 cant, it is yet to the his- 

 torian the most valuable 

 and to the antiquarian 

 the most satisfactory of 

 all. It is the kernel with- 

 in the nut of Chinese 

 archaeology, commemo- 

 rating every kind of deed, 

 doing honor to deity, ful- 

 filling the offices of the 

 library, preserving his- 

 tory, and directing the 

 wayfarer. 



The usual form and 

 structure of the tablet is 

 that of a single slab of 

 stone, with its crest of 

 the heads and curved 

 backs of four dragons 

 and mounted on the back 

 of a tortoise carved from 

 a separate stone (see 

 page 1014). Three hun- 

 dred of these stone tab- 

 lets in the Hall of Class- 

 ics at Peking preserve 

 the authorized texts of 

 the Chinese classics. 



To Christendom the 

 most interesting and fa- 

 mous of the tablets of 

 China is the Nestorian 

 at Hsi-ngan. It gives in 

 2,000 Chinese characters, 

 only one of which is il- 

 legible, a record of the 

 earliest known Christian 

 mission in China, and is 

 dated A. D. 781. It has 



