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wall at the end of the garden, just under the main temple gate, had been partially faced with the fantastic rockery work familiar in Chinese gardens, and from the pool at the bottom, to the wutung trees in their niches, to the temple gate at the top, it made a perfect picture. Within the temple comfortable chairs were set out and the two old priests both over sixty, immediately set about preparing tea for us. There is nothing of note about the place except for a well said to be one of thirty-six dug about 320 A.D. by Ko Hung, the inventor of the dyeing process. The whole place was repaired about five years ago by a merchant who grew wealthy in the war, and most of the bells and censers, of quaint old design, bear the date "ninth year of the Chinese Republic." After resting a bit we went on to the top of the hill, the highest point along the north shore of the lake, where there is a pavilion and monument marking the spot from which Ko Hung used daily to greet the rising sun. After another good look around the countryside we continued on our westward way down toward the Cave of the Purple Cloud.

Up a bamboo shaded path we went to the gate of the little temple from which entrance to the cave is gained. There we descended a flight of steps into the damp and cool interior of the fairly good-sized cave, a cave which has been made artificially with the clever semblance of naturalness that is apparent in so much of the Chinese landscape work, a naturalness which has its best qualities in its artificiality. Probably because of the difference in temperature and humidity between the cave and the outer world, the cavern was full of a thin purple mist which justifies if it does not give the name of the place. We proceeded through a passage and a small room and another ascending passage to the shrine cave where, carved out of the rock, were images, elaborately painted and gilded, of the Buddhist trinity. We sat for quite a while in the cool dampness watching the images in the sunlight that came down from the opening at the side near the roof of the cave, and then went back as we had come to the stage overlooking the first hall. There were tables and benches in front of a shrine to Kuan-yin, and we ate our lunch and drank tea. 
^[[Inscription on doors and door posts and by the side of the images. [Chinese characters] ]]