same, the ordinary Triad of the Buddhist mythology. Each shady nook about these shrines was the resort and at times the sleeping-place of wayfarers; and there too vendors of fruit and other provisions had set up their stalls, ready either to sell the traveller his daily food, or to gamble with him for it, if he preferred that plan. The wandering minstrel and the story-teller were not absent from the scene, beguiling the mid-day repast with quaint ballads or with some tale from the stores which the folklore of the country has to supply. At one of these halting-places, while the coolies were tossing dice with an aged hawker, a Chinese pedlar laid down his burden for a rest. He had been carrying two baskets slung on a pole, and from these there issued such an incessant pattering and ceaseless chirping, that my curiosity induced me to open one of them and have a look inside. There I found about a hundred fluffy little ducklings, all of an age, flapping their rudimentary wings and opening their capacious mouths, clamorous for food. They were of our friend's own hatching and but one or two days old. Hatching poultry by artificial heat has reached great perfection in China.
The plain which we were crossing was dotted with little grave-mounds crowned with shrubs. And here and there a farm-house could be seen peeping out amid the groves, or a haystack clinging round the trunk of a tree and propped six feet clear above the ground.
The ascent to the monastery of the *' Snowy Crevice" afforded a succession of the finest views to be met with in the province of Cheh-kiang. The azaleas, for which this place is celebrated, were now in full bloom, mantling the hills and valleys with rosy hues, and throwing out their blossoms in clusters of surprising brilliancy against the deep green foliage which bound the edges of the path. The mountains themselves were tossed
