DESCRIPTION OF MOUNT WA 119 
world. The mails, as far as Kia-ting-fu, are forwarded 
by the Chinese post, but the dates of their arrivals are 
very uncertain. 
I took several photographs while at this place, one of 
the mission house being here reproduced. I also took 
one of Mount Wa, which unfortunately got spoiled by the 
light getting to it. I regretted this very much, as it is 
such a peculiarly shaped and interesting mountain. It 
has been so well described by Mr. Baber in his valuable 
book that I cannot do better than quote from it. ‘The 
upper story of this most imposing mountain is a series of 
twelve or fourteen precipices rising one above another, 
each not much less than 200 feet high, and receding 
very slightly on all four sides from the one next below 
it. Every individual precipice is regularly continued 
all round the four sides. Or it may be considered as:a 
flight of thirteen steps, each 180 feet high and thirty 
feet broad. Or, again, it may be described as thirteen 
layers of square, or slightly oblong, limestone slabs, 
180 feet thick and about a mile on each side, piled 
with careful regularity and exact levelling upon a base 
8,000 feet high. Or perhaps it may be compared to a 
cubic crystal stuck amid a row of irregular gems. Or 
perhaps it is beyond compare.’ 
