Page:Scented isles and coral gardens- Torres Straits, German New Guinea and the Dutch East Indies, by C.D. Mackellar, 1912.pdf/396

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CHINA AND JAPAN

and all, not forgetting the two most welcome little gold-necked bottles! I had forgotten lunch altogether—and proud and delighted were our attendants at the effect produced by this welcome sight.

This pagoda on the wall is at the extreme north of the city, and was erected over five hundred years ago. The view was extensive, the White Cloud Mountains and the river visible. The town was just a sea of roofs with the R.C. Cathedral and the towers of the pawnshops rising above it.

By the" Tartar General's Yamen " is the Flowery Pagoda, nine-storied, 300 feet high, a little off the perpendicular, and founded fourteen hundred years ago! China is no parvenu empire.

The north portion of this Yamen was formerly the British Consulate, and is surrounded by high walls. In 1859 it was used as a hospital for sick members of the British contingent. Through disuse it became the home of quantities of bats, which were destroyed by the allied Commissioners. The bat being of good omen, the Chinese regarded this as sacrilege, and when later it was destroyed by fire, they were sure it was a judgment.

We went to the temple of Confucius. He was born 550 B.C., and was descended from the Imperial house of Shang, which once ruled over China. He selected seventy-two disciples, whom he divided into four bodies: the first to study morals; the second reasoning; the third jurisprudence and government; and the fourth teaching and preaching his doctrines.

Another temple is dedicated to the five genii who, mounted on rams, visited Canton two thousand years ago, and must have been worth seeing. As they passed through the market they said, "May famine never visit this place," and then vanished. So Canton is called the " City of the