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inner wall, but exhibiting no characters of any peculiarity. They 
were prevented entering it, partly by the representation of the 
soldiers, but chiefly by a numberless crowd that assembled about 
them. Their disappointment was the greater, as they had hoped 
to reach the porcelain tower, which was not more than two miles 
off. Its appearance, at this distance, accorded with the description 
given of it by different writers. 
Of all the describers of the Porcelain Pagoda, Le Comte, copied by 
Du Halde, and referred to by other authors, is the most authentic.* 
From his account, it appears that it is an octagonal tower two hun- 
dred feet high, divided into nine stories, the base resting on a massy 
foundation of brick-work raised ten feet from the ground, and sur- 
rounded by a flight of twelve steps ; that the lowest story, which 
is the largest, has a circumference of one hundred and twenty feet, 
giving to each face fifteen feet ; that the other stories are of smaller 
dimensions, and decrease in breadth as they ascend, but are of 
equal height throughout ; that the whole building is terminated by 
a large pole, which, rising from the centre of the eighth story, 
passes through the ninth, which it exceeds thirty feet ; that this is sur- 
rounded at the distance of three or four feet by the convolutions of 
an immense iron hoop, sufficiently remote to appear in the distance 
like rings, diminishing as they ascend, in the manner of a cone, and 
surmounted by a gilded ball ; that each story has projecting roofs, 
with tiles of a green colour highly varnished; that the walls are 
faced with coarse porcelain slabs ; that in the interior, one hun- 
dred and ninety steps lead through its different compartments, 
which are filled with gilded idols, placed in niches of the walls. 
Drawings of the Pagoda, with descriptions annexed, were sold in 
the suburbs of the city. These state that it was begun in the 
sixteenth year of the reign of Yung-lo, of the last dynasty, and 
* See Le Comte. 
