KAOU- YEN-CHOW. X51 
the consequences that would ensue by the giving way of the banks of 
the canal. 
On the 9th the Embassy arrived, early in the morning, at the 
suburbs of Kaou-yen-chow. Several gentlemen with some difficulty 
obtained an entrance to a large temple, and found two or three 
hundred miserable wretches who had been confined in it all night. 
An attendant mandarin stated, that the boats having been expected 
the night before, these poor fellows had been pressed to track them ; 
and from the apprehension that they would not come back if per- 
mitted to return to their homes, had been put in confinement the 
preceding evening. 
The temple is dedicated to the Ming-keen-ship-wang, or “ ten judges 
in- Hades,” consisted of ten apartments ; a judge presided in each, 
surrounded by the ministers of punishment in the form of demons 
made of clay, variously coloured and distorted into hideous forms. 
Before him appeared the former inhabitants of this world, awaiting 
their doom. The visit was too hasty to permit a more minute exa- 
mination of this interesting edifice. 
On the night of the 10th, the Embassy passed the city of Yang- 
chou-fou, and anchored, on the morning of the 11th, before the 
pagoda of Kao-ming-tsee. From the top of this pagoda a delightful 
prospect was obtained of the surrounding country. To the north- 
ward was seen the walls and pagodas of Yang-tchoo-foo, and the 
canal winding in one place through a fertile country, in another 
through a succession of lakes ; to the southward appeared the city 
of Kwa-tchow, and the celebrated Yang-tse-kiang stretching from 
east to west, covered with a multitude of vessels, and receiving the 
waters of numerous streams. 
The Embassy remained at Kao-ming-tsee till the 14th, when, 
having changed the boats in which they had navigated the still surface 
of the canal, for others more adapted to the sea-like waves of the 
Yang-tse-kiang, dropped down to the city of Qua-tchow, situated 
at the entrance of that river. 
A short distance above Qua-tchow, Mr. Cook and other gentlemen 
