186 
WANDERINGS IN CHINA. Chap. XII. 
CHAPTER XII. 
AVoo-e-shan — Ascent of the Hill — Arrive at a Buddliist Temple 
— Description of tlie Temple and the Scenery — Strange Eocks 
— My Rece[)tion — Our Dinner and its Ceremonies — An in- 
teresting Conversation — An Evening Stroll — Formation of the 
Rocks — Soil — View from the Top of Woo-e-shan — A Priest's 
Grave — A View by Moonlight — Chinese Wine — Cultivation 
of the Tea-shrub — Cliains and Monkeys used in gathering it 
— Tea-merchants — Happiness and Contentment of the Pea- 
santry. 
As soon as I was fairly out of the suburbs of Tsong-gan- 
hien I had my first glimpse of the far-famed Woo-e- 
shan. It stands in the midst of the plain which I have 
noticed in the previous chapter, and is a collection of 
little hills, none of which appear to be more than a 
thousand feet high. They have a singular appearance. 
Their faces are nearly all perpendicular rock. It ap- 
pears as if they had been thrown up by some great 
convulsion of nature to a certain height, and as if some 
other force had then drawn the tops of the whole mass 
slightly backwards, breaking it up into a thousand hills. 
By some agency of this kind it might have assumed the 
strange forms which were now before me. 
Woo-e-shan is considered by the Chinese to be one of 
the most wonderful, as well as one of the most sacred, 
spots in the empire. One of their manuscripts, quoted 
