North- Bank Suhtrb 133 



cultivated with poppy, tobacco, barley, and beans, on the right. 

 We nooned for the men's dinner at the foot of a romantic- 

 looking temple, called " Ta Fo Sze," or " Great Buddha's 

 Hall," situated in a large, walled enclosure of bamboo groves, 

 orange, camellia, and other trees. Outside was a colossal 

 stone Buddha, gilt, sitting in a stone pavilion open to the 

 river, and approached by a long flight of stone steps, before 

 which our boatmen, as is the invariable custom with the 

 crews of upward bound junks from Ichang, thankful to have 

 concluded their perilous voyage, reverently kotowed. 



I landed and inspected the temple, in one court of which 

 are five more colossal stone Buddhas, the grounds in front 

 being prettily laid out in stone terraces, gardens, and fish- 

 ponds, all in a fair state of repair. I then walked on along 

 the right bank, until, on rounding a point on the left, a high- 

 peaked range was visible to the south, and between this and 

 the point I stood on extended an amphitheatre of rocky 

 cliffs and hills, entirely covered with shining-white houses 

 as far as the eye could reach; while the river at its foot, 

 divided by rocks into several arms, was crowded with 

 thousands of junks of all shapes and sizes securely moored 

 in every bight and backwater. This was the walled city of 

 " Li-min fu," usually known as " Chiang-peh Ting," or " North- 

 bank Suburb '' of the great metropolis higher up. This town 

 is situated on the left bank of the Yang-tse, and immediately 

 below the mouth of an affluent, the " Kia-ling Ho," which 

 here flows in from the north-west. On the opposite or right 

 bank of this affluent, and built on a lofty sandstone peninsula, 

 formed by its junction with the main river, stands the sister- 

 city of Chung-king (both, in the Mandarin language and 

 locally, known as Chung-ching) — the commerical metropolis 

 of Szechuan. The shore on which I was standing — the right 

 or south-east bank of the Great River — is also covered with a 



