Taoist Monastery and City of Refuge 47 



cash to their servants, kindly observing I should need all I 

 had before I got back. 



We went on by an ascending path behind the house, and 

 continued our route up the valley. The paddy-fields, 

 terraced up the course of the mountain streams, the smallest 

 and highest terrace containing only a few square yards of 

 land, were covered with a thin coating of ice ; the air was 

 fresh and bracing ; until by nine or half-past, the rising sun 

 had climbed over the mountain-tops. After an hour and a 

 half s walking, we reached a pine wood, through which the 

 ascent was steep and difificult. Here I found some wood- 

 cutters, resting and smoking their pipes round a log fire. I 

 joined them, and having had a smoke with them, prevailed 

 on one of them to act as guide to the top of Yun wu Shan, 

 now at last visible, its white temple towering up, like a doll's 

 house, on the cliff above. The climb frdm this point was 

 exceedingly steep, and it was only with the best will that my 

 coolie, laden with my bed, managed slowly to clamber up 

 after us. At length the long-expected summit was reached, 

 a small Taoist temple, with balustraded terrace in front 

 occupying the whole of the available ground. The daily 

 weather here is extraordinarily regular, dead calm up to 

 noon, when a light breeze sets in up river (S.E.), analogous 

 to a sea breeze, increasing to a fresh breeze towards sunset, 

 when it dies away again altogether. By going up in the 

 morning, I avoided the cold gale, which meets one on these 

 mountain-tops later in the day. It was a beautiful calm 

 sunny morning, but unfortunately misty, and the view only 

 extended over an endless succession of steep momitain 

 peaks with rich valleys between. Most of these limestone 

 mountains are crowned by a " chai," somewhat analogous to 

 the Maori " pah ; " bare limestone precipices form the last 

 hundred feet, and the rest of the mountain exterior is 



