remarkable monument in this portion of the town; but, as it is stuck on the summit of one of the hills up which the ramparts climb, you can perceive it quite as well from any elevated spot as if you were on the ground which surrounds it. This edifice, called Ou-tsen-Lann, and generally supposed to be a pagoda, is an historical monument that is carefully preserved: it was the villa of one of the kings of the country.
"The temples in the space within the walls are not architecturally more elegant and grandiose than those in the suburbs. The most spacious and most beautiful is that of Kouan-heaou-Tze; it stands in the Tartar town, at the north-west point. Like nearly all religious edifices, it is surrounded by grounds, let out to persons who cultivate them, and the revenue of which is devoted to maintaining the bonzes. These large cultivated plots, where rice, pe-tsaï, pai-taou, and various other vegetables, grow in the open air, lend these bonzeries the appearance of those solitary places where sages formerly went to meditate. But, as soon as you pass the gate, you perceive you are in the centre of a corrupt city. The court-yards are filled with dirty beggars, worn to the bones by misery, playing cards, quarrelling, or asleep on the ground, waiting for the alms the priests give them. If such are the scenes of which you are in search, you will witness a similar spectacle in the
