As we came back, there were about four miles of little lanterns floating down the great river, sped in honour of the dead by a rich Chinese in mourning for his parents. Talleyrand's somewhat brutal "Il faut oublier les morts, et s'occuper des vivants" often recurs to me in China, where there are more grave-mounds round the city than living men inside it. The very handsome old Italian Bishop used to hate these grave-mounds, which he said oppressed him the more the longer he looked at them, and among which, alas! he was doomed to live and die.
It was near Ningpo I first assisted at a Chinese Buddhist service. We had been straying over hills pink and red and orange and mauve with azaleas in their full delicate bloom and perfect beauty. The most exquisite bush of pink azaleas hung over the great waterfall there, and caught some of the spray upon its blossoms, as the stream turned over the edge for its first leap, the flowers constantly wavering with the breeze the rushing waters brought. Wandering by lovely Windermere's side in the English Lake District, I had read Miss Gordon Cumming's description of hillsides striped and banded in colour with azaleas, and thought some day I too must see them. The seasons had rolled round but twice, and now here was I already tired of pink azaleas, which I decided looked too smart on a mountain-side, and preferring the big orange flowers or the deep red, or revelling in the long clusters of sweet-scented wistaria, that hung about like lovely ringlets; looking with exultation at osmundias curving their opening fronds with the full vigour and health imparted to them by the spring, and delighting in the clumps of feathery bamboos, golden stemmed old friends of my childhood; yet admiring almost equally _Cunninghamia sinensis_ on its native heath. We plant little saplings of this last in our gardens, and boast with them even then. Here they were tall and vigorous, and everywhere giving an Oriental character to the ferns and the azaleas, the bamboos and fan-palms.
Then the rich, sweet tones of the Buddhist bell summoned us, and we slept, as it were prisoned, within the dark precincts of the monastery, not even through latticed windows catching any glimpse of outside glories, till solemn sounds roused me in the early dawning, and I stole in at the back of the dark temple, and could hardly believe I was not in one of the Portuguese churches of my childhood. There knelt the priests, with close-shaven heads, and long cloaks broached across the left breast, leaving the right arm bare, and formed of little oblong bits of old gold or ashen grey linen, neatly stitched together, thus symbolising at some expenditure of pains the poverty of rags. They prostrated themselves three times, touching their foreheads to the ground--before the altar, was it not? They bowed and knelt before the _altar_! They elevated the Host, or at least a cup, one ringing a bell meanwhile, the others prostrate in adoration. Could the resemblance be more perfect? They chanted a monotonous chant--it sounded to me just like a Gregorian--and after many bowings and prostrations and beatings of a dull wooden gong in the form of a skull, processioned round and round before the altar, bowing as they passed, each a rosary at his side, and solemnly chanting. There seemed to be no doubt about the words; I heard them quite distinctly: "Domine, ora pro nobis, ora, ora." Then "Gloria! gloria!" swelled out. And meanwhile, though passing me at intervals so closely I almost felt the _frou-frou_ of their robes, not a priest there seemed to perceive my presence, but all went by with eyes on the ground, fingers and palms close pressed together. A strange feeling came over me, as if I were dreaming. Had the azaleas intoxicated me? Was I in far-away Madeira of my childhood? Were those not Portuguese Roman Catholic priests, not Chinese Buddhists? Were they praying really? To our Father in heaven? Or are there more gods than one? If not, they were worshipping, and I was not. And had this worship gone on after this fashion for thousands of years, before even Christ walked the earth, and lived and died for man? I knelt in prayer behind the Buddhist priests. And then I saw the figure of the Virgin with the Holy Child upon her knee. They call her Kwanyin (Goddess of Mercy).