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[[underlined]] Chapter III. [[/underlined]] 37.

Shan, [[strikethrough]] (see page 26), [[/strikethrough]] and he feared that when their spies reported our presence in Hsin Chêng, they would attack the town with a view to seizing us for ransom. We promised to expedite our work, and before we left Mr. Yao presented us with his personal copy of the local history and detailed two soldiers and two yamên runners to attend us during our stay.

[[underlined]] Further Excavation [[/underlined]]
Early the next morning we proceded to make a plane-table survey of the site and its vicinity (see [[strikethrough]] pl. XXI [[/strikethrough]] ^[[fig. 6).]] The four vertical shafts seen on our previous visit had been extended to form a single large pit, already partially filled in. Digging had also been carried on in the northern and western portions of the site, not yet touched at the time of our former visit. A vast amount of interesting and valuable archaeological material had of course been destroyed forever; but we were told that nothing more of consequence had been found.
Among their new excavations, the workmen had dug a short north-by-south trench something like 6 or 7 meters west of the spot once occupied by the body. The original position of the latter we could only ascertain indirectly and approximately, through reference to a fixed point---the center of the well-shaft whose sinking had led to the discovery in the first place.
The new trench was about a meter and a half in width by two in depth. In its eastern wall we saw what appeared once to have been the entrance to a corridor or passage leading directly eastward toward the site of the burial (see pl. [[strikethrough]] XXIV [[/strikethrough]] ^[[10, fig. 1).]] Its dimensions we were unable to determine with any exactness, for it was still almost entirely filled with earth. In height, however, it extended upward to within half a meter or so of the existing surface; while its width was somewhere be-