and is supported by rows of pillars, each formed of a single stick of
teak timber eleven feet in circumference. These sticks were brought
for this purpose from the south of China. Though they have been in
position over nine hundred years, they appear as sound as when first
posed, nor has the austere splendor of the structure suffered in any
degree.

The sombre obscurity well befits these sepulchral dwellings, and the
dull sound of the deadened gongs struck by the guardians makes the
vaults reverberate in a singular and impressive way. Behind the
memorial temple rises an artificial mound about fifty feet high,
access to the top of which is given by a rising arched passage
built of white marble. On the top of the mound is an imposing marble
structure consisting of a double arch, beneath which is the imperial
tablet, a large slab, upon which is carved a dragon standing on the
back of a gigantic tortoise. The remains of the emperor are buried
somewhere within this mound, though the exact spot is not known: this
precaution, it is said, was taken to preserve the remains from being
desecrated in a search for the treasures which were buried with him,
while the persons who performed this last office were killed upon the
spot, in order further to preserve the secret.

[Illustration: CHAPEL OF THE SUMMER PALACE.]

From this gigantic effort to preserve the memory of the dead our party
hastened to the Great Wall, an equally immense work to preserve the
living from the incursions of their neighboring enemies. Perhaps
nowhere in the world are to be found in such close proximity two such
striking evidences of the waste of human labor when undirected by
scientific knowledge. The wall is to-day, and was from the first, as