ss 
A, 8, Bickmore—Journey through China. 3 
They form such striking objects in the surrounding plain as 
~ the “Little Orphan” does in the waters of the Yangtse, and, 
4 
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like it, abound in groups of little temples placed in the natu- 
niches in their sides. Larger temples are ranged at their 
feet, and one which we entered contained in the principal hall 
three images in bronze six or seven feet in height. In another 
room I noticed an idol with six arms. The whole building was 
feet had worn in the steps of the solid rock. we, entrance to 
the temple was through a crazy gate-way or portal of loosened 
bricks, that leans over the precipice, and threatens to fall with 
the first person who sets foot within it and immolate him to a 
heathen god. This temple we were informed was built some 
two hundred years ago when Shauking was a great and flour- 
ishing city, but now the monks can scarcely beg enough from | 
their poor neighbors to answer their immediate necessities, and 
their once splendid temples are rapidly becoming only unsightly 
heaps of ruins. 
Here, as is frequently the case in masses of limestone, are 
several- caves, We entered one of a bell shape, Its floor was 
mostly covered with water, and a bridge led us to a platform 
seem to be approaching the regions over which Cerberus pre- 
with a crest so t. ear 
it exactly describes it, Northwest of this, ina small plain, is 
