It Is Hardly Ever Level For Ten Yards,
But Follows The Inequalities Of The Ground, And Has Picturesque Towers
Which Occur Frequently.
It is everywhere draped with ferns, which do
not help to keep it in repair.
The "Five-storied Pagoda" which flames
in red at one of its angles, is a striking feature in the view. As we
sat on stone seats by stone tables in what might be called its shadow,
under the cloudless heaven, with the pure Orientalism of the Tartar
city spread out at our feet, that unimaginable Orientalism which takes
one captive at once, and, like the first sight of a palm or a banana,
satisfies a longing of which one had not previously been conscious, a
mundane disappointment was severely felt. We had been, as the Americans
say, "exercising" for five hours in the bracing air, and I had long
been conscious of a craving for solid food which no Orientalism could
satisfy; and our dismay was great not only to find that the cook had
put up lunch for two when there were three hungry persons, but that the
chicken was so underdone that we could not eat it, and as we were not
starving enough to go and feed at a cat and dog or any other Chinese
restaurant, my hosts at least, who had not learned that bananas are
sustenance for men as well as "food for gods," were famished. As we ate
"clem pie" or "dined with Duke Humphrey," two water buffaloes, dark
gray ungainly forms, with little more hair than elephants, recurved
horns, and muzzles like deer, watched us closely, until a Tartar drove
them off.
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