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the British American Tobacco Company I reached the grottoes of Lungmen which had so long been my goal.

The multitudinous sculptures of this group of chapels have become well-known through the publications of M. Chavannes, (1) and I shall not pause here to discuss them. They are the main source of our knowledge of Buddhist art in China during the fifth, sixth and seventh centuries. Here in the North Wei capital, on a confluent of the Hoang river, centred the culture of the times; scholars from Korea and Japan flocked to the place, and pilgrims came and went over the heart-breaking trails from India to Lungmen. The lesser centre at Tat'ungfu and the small island of the same culture reported by me in Manchuria can be read only in the light of what is know about Lungmen. Chavannes' report does not exhaust the subject; our School will find plenty of work still to be done on the same spot.

As had been predicted, there was no possibility of my spending even one night at Lungmen. The troops quartered in the caves went out every evening for an encounter with the robbers who generally ended by penetrating the area between the city and the grottoes where they were regularly scattered by a troop of the city cavalry. No stranger could stay on the spot, much less pursue the peaceful trade of archeology.

My return by rail from Honanfu to Cheng Chow was delayed a day by the mutiny of some of the Government troops encamped about the railroad platform. That Sianfu must be left out of my itinerary was amply demonstrated by the fact that no carters would undertake the journey and no native merchandise or foreign tobacco had been shipped there for some weeks. White Wolf was

(1) Mission Archeologique dans la Chine Septentrionale; Pl. CLXI-CCLXIV