Those who admire pretty women take advantage of this custom to come and stare at the ladies.
The monastery is reached in sedan-chairs. The ladies go down again backwards. I never could understand the reason of this strange custom until chance brought under my notice these two lines, written in the seventeenth century by a woman:
“I go down stepping backwards, and you follow me face to face, So that it is not necessary for me to turn my head round at each step.”
There are even more celebrated places at Hang-Tcheou. In the first place, there is Si-Hou, mentioned above. An avenue of weeping willows surrounds the whole lake, and the branches of the trees droop down into the water. Behind is an immense panorama of mountains—the Phœnix Mountain, the Mountains of the Screen of Stone, the Solitary Mountain, and the Mountain of the Pumpkin, which was the favourite walk of Emperor Tchin-Sse-Houang. This destroyer of books used often to land at the foot of this mountain, leaving his boat on the lake while he made his excursion. Then there are the Mountain of Music, against which the current breaks and is driven back with terrible noise; the Mountain of the White Dragon, the Mountain of Sans-Souci, where may still be found the utensils in which the immortals, according to the legend, used to prepare their magic remedies in the old days. I may also name the Celestial Pillar, the Fist, the Eye of Heaven, and the Marble Mirror, which is formed of a huge round rock so smooth and polished, that one can see his reflection in it as in a mirror. Emperor Tchiao-Tchung, of the Thang family, used often to give dinners on this marble table. The guests used to spread their cloaks out on the rocks which stand around, and on this account the Emperor called these rocks Marechal-I-King, which means the embroidered garment. The following story is told about the Flying Mountain: “An Indian priest, seeing it for the first time, appeared quite dumfounded with astonishment. He was asked what was the matter. ‘This mountain,’ he answered, ‘belongs to my country. I do not know when it can have flown here.’”
Beyond the summit of the Ten Thousand Pine Trees, we see the Mountain of the Red Twilight, so called because in the spring the peach-trees, with which it is covered, blossom with their pink flowers, and give this mountain the appearance of being bathed in the ruddy glow of dawn or twilight.