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46
U-tsien District.

cash for the best of Carolus dollars, some little is obtained by them in the way of legitimate business. Of the priests here there is one who has been on the eastablishment twenty nine years, and from the age of ten served a novitiate of ten years at one of the Monasteries on the adjacent mountains. Another, the Guest Chancellor, has been nine years a priest, and yet so ignorant is he that he cannot write the name of the Monastery in which he serves. A short distance N. W. of the Vok-hing Monastery is a public cemetery and receptacle for dead children. Not many, however, appear to be deposited in it;—those who can afford it burying the remains of their friends under brick tombs. Some of these tombs are large enough for two or three coffins (15).

Chi-ling-jow W. N. W. of the Monastery is distant 5 from it, and boasts of 40 families; whilst Che-ching-way-loo, 8 N.W. registers 30 families. At Chi-ling-jow characters painted on the walls point the traveller to the proper roads either to the eastern or the western Teen-muh,—the rule with Chinese being directly opposite to that followed by the English in their finger posts. The women in this quarter dress their hair modestly, simply tying it up behind and confining with a small silver ornament.

The road to the Eastern Teen-muh is very beautiful, through groves of lofty firs and shrubbery;—though cultivation here is not so luxuriant as in other parts of the province; nor do the loftier mountains bear that profusely studded appearance so characteristic generally of the hill scenery of Che-kiang.

Ten N. by W. from Che-ching-way-loo is the hamlet of Le-chin of 50 families; and a little further on a comfortable Monastery or Caravansera called