A Woman's Journey Round The World, From Vienna To Brazil, Chili, Tahiti, China, Hindostan, Persia, And Asia Minor By Ida Pfeiffer
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After Threading Our Way For At Least Two Miles Through A Succession
Of Narrow Streets, We At Length Emerged Into
The open space, where
we obtained a full view of the city walls, and from the summit of a
small
Hill which was situated near them, a tolerably extensive one
over the town itself. The city walls are about sixty feet high,
and, for the most part, so overgrown with grass, creeping plants,
and underwood, that they resemble a magnificent mass of living
vegetation. The town resembles a chaos of small houses, with now
and then a solitary tree, but we saw neither fine streets nor
squares, nor any remarkable buildings, temples, or pagodas. A
single pagoda, five stories high, reminded us of the peculiar
character of Chinese architecture.
Our road now lay over fertile eminences, varied with fields and
meadows in a high state of cultivation. Many of the hills are used
as cemeteries, and are dotted over with small mounds of earth,
walled in with stone flags, or rough hewn stones two feet high,
frequently covered with inscriptions. Family tombs were also to be
seen, dug in the hill, and enclosed with stone walls of the shape of
a horse-shoe. All the entrances were built up with stone.
The Chinese do not, however, bury all their dead: they have a
remarkable way of preserving them in small stone chambers,
consisting of two stone walls and a roof, while the two other sides
are left open. In these places, there are never more than from two
to four coffins, which are placed upon wooden benches two feet high:
the coffins themselves consist of massive trunks of trees hollowed
out.
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