The Sacred Mountain of China 



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that look like malachite, bright purple stones, red stones, and 

 brown stones. Many of them seem to be varieties of granite and 

 are very hard, for the steps, which are very old, are hardly 

 worn at all. 



The vegetation consists mainly of a few scraggly evergreens 

 and Japanesy pines, although on the lower reaches there are 

 little cultivated patches, only a few feet square, where the beg- 

 gars who live on the steep slopes raise vegetables and a little 

 grain. 



The usual way to go up Tai Shan is to start from Taian Fu, 

 a town of about 30,000 people, and go up in bearer-chairs, little 

 wicker seats swung between two poles and carried on the shoul- 

 ders of two smiling, grunting, dirty coolies. Each chair has 

 four men, two to carry and two who rest. A coolie receives for 

 such a day's work the whole sum of sixty cents "mex," a little 

 over a quarter. 



The peculiar charm of a trip up Tai Shan lies in the combi- 

 nation of the pleasure of climbing for its own sake with the fas- 

 cination of the Orient. After you have passed the arched gate- 

 way that begins the trail you pass an old, half-ruined temple, 

 where you are shown a dried man, infinitely old and withered, 

 ninety- four years old he was when he died, who sits in silk and 

 solemnity in the temple courtyard. All the way along you pass 

 at intervals similar temples, perched in crannies in the rock, 

 where dwell Buddhist nuns with shaved heads, or little tea- 

 houses with strange names. "Tiger Lying Hall" was, I remem- 

 ber, the place where we ate our lunch. Part way up you pass a 

 gateway inscribed "Horse Return Precipice," where presum- 

 ably you part with your steed, though we saw nothing resem- 

 bling a horse on the way. The temples also have charming 

 names, "First Heaven Gate," "Half Heaven Gate," and, at the 

 top of the steep rocky gorge which the trail follows all the lat- 

 ter part of the way, "South Heaven Gate." 



The sides of the gorge are carved at frequent intervals with 

 characters and inscriptions, in commemoration of pilgrimages 

 made by a contemporary of Cleopatra, or a pious emperor of 

 the Middle Ages, or even a wealthy silk merchant of today. 

 "Where there is prayer there is answer," "Piety," and other re- 

 ligious sentiments are everywhere. One inscription reads: 



