This principal temple is surrounded by numerous smaller sanctuaries, each
decorated with images of deities, rudely wrought, but glowing with gilt
and vivid colours. Special reverence seems to be accorded to Kwanfootse,
a demigod of War, and the four-and-twenty gods of Mercy. These latter
have four, six, and even eight arms. In the Temple of Mercy Madame
Pfeiffer met with an unpleasant adventure. A Bonze had offered her and
her companions a couple of wax tapers to light in honour of the god. They
were on the point of complying, as a matter of civility, when an American
missionary, who made one of the party, snatched them roughly from their
hands, and gave them back to the priests, protesting that such compliance
was idolatrous. The Bonze, in high indignation, closed the door, and
summoned his brethren, who hurried in from all sides, and jostled and
pushed and pressed, while using the most violent language. It was not
without difficulty they forced their way through the crowd, and escaped
from the temple.

The guide next led the curiosity-hunters to the so-called House of the
Sacred Swine. The greatest attention is paid to these porcine treasures,
and they reside in a spacious stone hall; but not the less is the
atmosphere heavy with odours that are not exactly those of Araby the
Blest. Throughout their sluggish existence the swine are carefully fed
and cherished, and no cruel knife cuts short the thread of their destiny.
At the time of Madame Pfeiffer's visit only one pair were enjoying their
_otium cum dignitate_, and the number rarely exceeds three pairs.

Peeping into the interior of a Bonze's house, the company came upon an
opium-smoker. He lay stretched upon a mat, with small tea-cups beside
him, some fruit, a tiny lamp, and several miniature-headed pipes, from
one of which he was inhaling the intoxicating smoke. It is said that
some of the Chinese opium-smokers consume as much as twenty or thirty