102 EXPOSURE OF THE DEAD. (Cnar. VI. 
immense population of the country. In travelling 
from Ning-po to the hills, I could not account for 
the vast number of tombs which I met with on my 
way; but when I reached the summit of the hills, 
and looked down upon the wide-spreading plain, 
covered with towns and villages in all directions, 
densely peopled with human beings, it was easily 
accounted for. Here, as at Chusan and Shanghae, 
the traveller is continually coming upon coffins 
placed on the surface of the ground, and in many 
instances decaying, and exposing the skeleton re- 
mains of the dead. I was much struck by fre- 
quently meeting with large numbers of coffins 
piled one above another, in heaps of from thirty to 
forty, chiefly those of young children. I was told 
that they are buried periodically, but from their 
appearance many of them must have remained in 
the same place for years, and their tenants must 
long ago have mouldered into dust. 
