Chap. XIII. 



ASCENT OF THE HILL. 



225 



remained until night had shut out the scene from my 

 view, but my chairbearers, who were now near the 

 end of their journey, intimated that they were ready 

 to proceed, so we went onwards. 



The distance from Tsong-gan-hien to Woo-e-shan 

 is only about 40 or 50 le. This is, however, only 

 to the bottom of the hills, and we intended to take 

 up our quarters in one of the principal temples near 

 the top. The distance we had to travel was therefore 

 much greater than this. When we arrived at the 

 foot of the hill we inquired our way to the temple. 

 " Which temple do you wish to go to ? " was the 

 answer; " there are nearly a thousand temples on 

 Woo-e-shan." Sing-Hoo explained that we were 

 unacquainted with the names of the different temples, 

 but our object was to reach one of the largest. We 

 were directed, at last, to the foot of some perpen- 

 dicular rocks. When we reached the spot I expected 

 to get a glimpse of the temple we were in search of 

 somewhere on the hill side above us, but there was 

 nothing of the kind. A small footpath, cut out of 

 the rock, and leading over almost inaccessible places, 

 was all I could see. It was now necessary for me to 

 get out of my chair, and to scramble up the pathway 

 — often on my hands and knees. Several times the 

 coolies stopped, and declared that it was impossible 

 to get the chair any further. I pressed on, however, 

 and they were obliged to scramble after me with it. 



It was now about two o'clock in the afternoon ; 

 there was scarcely a cloud in the sky, and the day 

 was fearfully hot. As I climbed up the rugged steep, 



Q 



