Sierra Club Bulletin 



is inevitably mixed with local superstitions and vagaries. Tai 

 Shan has a god, of course. His name seems to be simply that of 

 the mountain itself, Tai Shan. He is the rain-god, and, oddly 

 enough to a western mind, the god of the stability of the earth's 

 surface. But his daughter, the Goddess Pi-hsia-yuan-ch'un, 

 Princess of Colored Clouds, is now more important than he. 

 She is a Buddhist deity, the thousand-handed goddess of the 

 dawn, and she has two acolytes, the "Goddess of Family In- 

 crease" and the "Goddess of Good Sight." It is to the latter 

 that the Chinese women pray to prevent the dreaded ophthal- 

 mic blindness in their children. 



The beautiful temple with the golden roofs which crowns the 

 summit — the rock which by nature was the highest point juts 

 up in the center of a small courtyard — is dedicated to this god- 

 dess, and it is typical of the mixture of religions in China that, 

 while the temple itself is Buddhist, the priests who serve in it 

 today are Taoist. This temple is a modern affair, hardly two 

 hundred years old, but some sort of an altar has been there for 

 many centuries. The temple is now open only one day in the 

 year, for the spring festival, and on that day the steep steps 

 swarm with thousands of pilgrims of all stations in life. Many 

 emperors have been among them, and the humblest is not for- 

 bidden. 



From the standpoint of an experienced mountain-climber the 

 ascent itself is insignificant, the height of the summit above the 

 plain being hardly more than forty-five hundred feet, and the 

 actual height between five and six thousand feet. Information 

 of precision is very hard to find in China, but everyone is agreed 

 that the distance along the trail is forty-two li, about fourteen 

 miles. 



This trail is really a small highway, about ten feet wide dur- 

 ing the entire distance, and decorously paved. The latter part of 

 the way, however, one is glad to walk on it, as it is cut out of 

 the solid rock and climbs otherwise very difficult places. It con- 

 tains six thousand steps. 



The foundation of the rock seems to be blue granite, which 

 predominates largely, broken by ledges of white and pink 

 quartz. But there are many colors among the stones that are 

 built into the steps and line the trail. There are green stones 



