Viewing page 118 of 469

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

[[start page]]
[[underlined]] Chapter VI.  [[/underlined]]      100.

For some time after leaving Hsi-an we traversed a slightly undulating cultivated plain studded with grave-mounds, a little to the east of the site of Old Ch'ang-an, already described.  At several points along the somewhat sunken road, embedded in its nearly vertical sides at various depths down to about a meter and a half below the present surface I noticed fragments of that coarse gray unglazed pottery which we had come to know so well.  The lower of these [[underlined]] may [[/underlined]] have been Neolithic in date, although as we have seen (pp. 29, 64), not necessarily so.  At all events the entire basin of the Wei has been inhabited continuously from remote prehistoric times down to the present day, and ancient remains of all sorts occur everywhere.
  As we rode along, we began to see far ahead of us, on the plateau beyond the river, several earthen mounds, apparently of very large size; these, our guides told us, marked the tombs of certain emperors of the Former or Western Han Dynasty (206-B.C.-7 A.D.).  Still farther away in the distance were mountains of very irregular profile, extending range beyond range to the northward. [[superscript]] (72) [[/superscript]]
-------------------------
[[superscript]] (72) [[/superscript]] Chinese mountains, unlike those of northern Europe and North America, have never been subjected to the smoothing and rounding effects of glacial action; hence the irregular and even precipitous shapes which they often display.  The seemingly fantastic pinnacles frequently seen in Chinese landscape paintings are by no means merely exuberant flights of fancy on the part of the artists, but portray actual forms, albeit in somewhat stylized fashion.
---------------------------------
[[underlined]] Tombs of the Western Han Emperors. [[/underlined]]

  Presently we reached the Wei, now very low and easily fordable by our horses save for the abysmal mudflats left bare along its banks.  We then continued north for another mile or so, climbing the steep scarps of two successive river-terraces and at length attaining our immediate goal, the loess plateau above.  Here we found confronting us, 
[[end page]]