still be made out quite clearly. Through the ruined gate in the centre of the southern wall face passed the main road towards a conspicuous temple ruin rising well above the débris-filled area and masking the north gate.
To the west of this road, and not far from the south gate, a small Ya-mên with a picturesque gateway still showed roofed rooms, but in a state approaching collapse. No timber had been removed here, and it looked' as if some petty magistrate had occupied these quarters after the town was deserted, perhaps some official supposed to re-colonize it. Auspicious sentences penned on scarlet paper and similar flimsy adornments of official quarters still stuck to walls and posts. In the mellow afternoon light it was quite a picture of quiescent extinction. All other buildings within the walls, the couple of temples excepted, had been reduced to heaps of brickwork or bare walls, their timber having been removed long ago.
The main temple was a massive structure of true Chinese style, built in hard bricks with plenty of terracotta relievo work. It had a second story, formed by a separate shrine which was raised on a massive base of sun -dried bricks, about twenty feet high, at the back of the other. The stucco images, though all badly broken by vandal hands, were manifestly still objects of worship, and a large bronze bell was left in situ in spite of Tungan wrecking. Probably the raiding bands had neither time nor use for melting it down. In a smaller temple, too, crowning the centre of the west wall, there were traces of worship still clinging to the images, though they were reduced to a mere heap of clay fragments. Indeed, local cult dies hard. As I walked over the débris area, crossing more than one rubbish heap, I thought of the rich deposits likely to await some successor, say two thousand years hence. What antiquarian dainties might be gathered here—if only they became ` high ' enough by the lapse of ages !
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