are 4 gigantic images, three of which are each crushing a crawling, miniature human being beneath their feet.
In the town, close to the south wall, there are two old — or rather, three —temples shut in by the surrounding houses. One is dedicated to the god Vu Jiang je, who sits enthroned, richly gilded (even his face), surrounded by Lui shynje, the god o f thunder with a bird's beak, Ling Kuan je with his red beard and a couple of other gods of terrifying appearance. The other temple is called Tcheng Huang miao, but nobody could explain who Tcheng Huang was. I was only told that, if you were a mandarin in this world, you would become one in another world and so on, and I imagine that this fortunate arrangement is the work of Tcheng Huang and that he is worshipped in order to induce him to intervene in this manner, but I may have misunderstood my interpreter. The third temple is quite small, and lies at the end of a narrow passage between two houses. The antique door, decorated with the heads of large nails, framed in a very narrow gateway, looks attractive.
A little temple leaning against the northern town wall towers above it and overlooks the town and its surroundings. A broad stairway with shallow, easy steps leads up to the temple. Inside everything is shiny and bright owing to recent repairs that have deprived this attractive temple of all its old-world atmosphere. It goes by the name of Kuan Shyn Ti Tjyn. There is one more larger temple, but I was unable to see it, as the caretaker was absent.
In the evening my new German-speaking acquaintance paid me another visit. He had been so kind as to write out quite a hundred visiting cards for me in very large letters. They bore the legend »The learned Finn Ma-nu-ör-hei-mu». When a foreigner travels in the interior of China, he is accompanied by a document (besides his passport) which is carried by a »jai» or »tsei-rin» from the last district mandarin to the next. In the document
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