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                                                        111.
[[underline]] Chapter VI. [[/underline]]

above, we found a group of ruinous gray brick buildings evidently of no great age [[superscript]] (89) [[/superscript]]-----the approaches to the Chao Ling 昭陵, the tomb of
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     [[superscript]] (89) [[/superscript]] We were told in fact that they had been erected no longer ago than the latter half of the 19th century.
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T'ang T'ai-tsung.  Its magnificent site, the records tell us, was chosen by that monarch in person, that from it his spirit might survey the world spread out before him.  We were struck by the fact that it faced north, like the gigantic tumulus of Ch'in Shih Huang Ti (see frontispiece and pp. 139 [[underline]] sqq. [[/underline]]), instead of south, the more usual direction for tombs in China.  The distance from Li-ch'uan by the road which we had followed was said to be [[strikethrough]] 38 [[/strikethrough]] 35 [[underline]] li [[/underline]] (rather under 12 of our miles); in a direct airline, however, it was probably less than half that figure.
     The buildings were surrounded by a gray brick wall now partly fallen.  Entrance to the enclosure, about 100 yards long north by south and a little more than 60 in width east by west, was through a brick gateway with three arched openings.  Inside we found four successive terraces, the uppermost, to the south, bearing a ruined shrine.  Along the fronts of two of the others stood stone stelae with now much defaced inscriptions.  Leading through the gateway and so southward up each successive terrace to the above-mentioned shrine at the far end of the enclosure was an avenue of approach.  The shrine itself was flanked by two smaller buildings now fallen into ruin (see plan, [[strikethrough]] pl. LVI). [[/strikethrough]] fig. 23).  In these latter until a few years previously, the magistrate told us, had been kept the famous sculptured slabs showing the six war-horses ridden by T'ang T'ai-tsung in his campaigns.  Four we had already seen, in badly damaged condition, at the very interesting Provincial Museum in Hsi-an Fu. [[strikethrough]] ([[underline]] cf. [[/underline]] page 80 and footnote 52). [[/strikethrough]]  The two others, I was told when I was in