beautified by some magician’s wand. It is admirably suited to the calm pastoral landscapes in which it rests, and seems a part of Nature itself, and is never out of keeping with its surroundings!
Wherever available, in the grounds of the Summer Palace, flowers are planted, and they succeed each other almost the whole year round, for the Chinese are wonderful gardeners. The extensive grounds are, however, not given up entirely to flowers and beautiful constructions; there are great fields of grain. Wheat and millet, and even vegetables, are raised in these pleasure grounds. It was curious to me to see how picturesque so prosaic a thing as a field of turnips might become, when properly placed in a large pleasure domain. By the planting of these useful crops, a great deal of fertile land is utilized, without any detriment to the landscape, and the utilitarian spirit, so strong in the Chinese, is satisfied.
There is one terraced hillside in the grounds of the Summer Palace, called the “Flowery Mountain.” In the season of the peonies, which the Chinese call “The King of Flowers,” this is really a flowery mountain—one mass of blooms of exquisitely blended colors and faint evanescent perfume. The China Aster is also brought to great perfection by the Chinese gardeners, and in the time of the chrysanthemum the grounds fairly blaze with this autumnal glory. The Chinese do not go in for the cultivation of the chrysanthemum of extraordinary size. Her Majesty does not care much for these; but her gardeners arrive at some wonderful combinations of colors and some most curious shapes. The year I was in the Palace, Her Majesty was delighted with a beautiful green variety, that the gardeners had succeeded in getting, and that year there was also a new variety whose petals were like threads, they were so thin and hairlike.
Old Ruins in the Summer Palace
The Temple of the Ten Thousand Buddhas is so-called from its being built in glazed yellow tiles, each representing a niche, in which is seated a