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[[underlined]] Chapter VII. [[/underlined]] 121. A group of three much smaller mounds, all of approximately the same size and standing in a row east and west (pl. [[strikethrough]] LVIII LIX[[/strikethrough]] 21, fig. 1). These seemed once to have been truncated pyramids of a single stage, but were now much weathered and rounded off. According to Mr. Li they were those of Han Wu Ti's famous minister Wei Ch'ing [[3 Chinese characters]] and the latter's two nephews, Ho Ch'ü-ping and Ho Kuang [[2 Chinese characters]]. It was the central mound of these three that we wished particularly to examine---the one believed to have been erected by Han Wu Ti as a memorial to his brilliant young cavalry leader Ho Ch'ü-ping, famous for his victories over the predatory Hsiung-nu [[2 Chinese characters]] inhabiting the steppe regions to the north and northwest of China (the modern Mongolia). [[superscript]] (108) [[/superscript]] Ho's actual grave-mound, our friend the magistrate informed --------------------------- (108) Ho Ch'ü-ping died in 117 B.C. at the age of twenty-four. The Hsiung-nu against whom he warred so successfully were pretty certainly the ancestors of the Huns who a few centuries later ravaged Europe so terribly. ----------------------------- us, was according to local tradition a much smaller and quite inconspicuous heap of earth about 100 yards directly north and which, with three others much like it, formed a group of four. The question whether it or the larger mound just mentioned was his real tomb, while not devoid of interest, was immaterial to our immediate purpose; it could indeed only be solved, if at all, by actual excavation. The two flanking mounds in the row of three [[strikethrough]] (see preceding paragraph) [[/strikethrough]] ---those ascribed to Wei Ch'ing and Ho Kuang---displayed no unusual features. With the one between them, however, it was quite otherwise. Its height, of about 50 feet, was not exceptional; but in certain other respects it differed notably from any other tumulus that I have seen. At its apex stood a small Taoist shrine of gray brick, fronting to the north; this was evidently of no great age, and was, so far as I could ascertain, wholly unconnected with any cult or worship of the dead hero. [[end of page]]
Transcription Notes:
line 1 in the original has a misspelling of the word 'of' as 'pf' not noted, an I have not changed the transcription.