PORCELAIN PAGODA. 
159 
finished in the sixth year of Scun-tih, having been nineteen years in 
building ; and that it cost more than two millions, four hundred thou- 
sand of taels of silver, or above eight hundred thousand pounds. 
They add a legend, that the God of Thunder, in pursuing demons 
to the Pagoda and there destroying them, has injured the fabric: 
it has probably suffered by lightning. 
In visiting the suburbs of Nankin, the Embassy found little to 
interest their attention, excepting some public hot baths near the 
gates of the city. To Mr. Poole, whose journal has often been of 
great use to me, I am indebted for the following description : — 
“ We entered a square building divided into three compartments ; 
the outermost lined with closets for the reception of the clothes 
of the bathers who undressed in this division of the establishment. 
The closets were all ticketed, perhaps with the names of their 
proprietors, or with some recommendatory sentence : Mr. Morrison 
read on one, 4 The Bath of fragrant Waters.’ The two other divi- 
sions of the building were beyond the first : the large, on the right 
hand, containing three baths, about six feet in length, and 
three in width and depth. At the time of our visit, they were filled 
with Chinese, who, rather washing than bathing themselves, stood 
upright in the water, which was only a few inches deep, and 
threw it by turns over each other’s backs. There appeared no inten- 
tion of renewing the water thus become saturated with dirt, for the 
use of many other Chinese who waited their turn in the outer 
apartment. The steam arising from it, however fragrant to the 
senses of the Chinese, was to mine really intolerable, and drove me 
away before I could ascertain in what manner the baths were heated. 
I just looked into the adjoining room, and found it furnished with 
matted benches, and that it was used by the bathers to dry them- 
selves in before going to dress in the outer apartment.” 
Baths, it would appear, are by no means in common use amongst 
the Chinese, as we met with no others in our journey through the 
empire. Neither are they often mentioned in the accounts published 
