. New China and old : personal recollections and observations of thirty years. o-shan ; and after three miles morereached the terminus of the canal at Si-hing. Thesethree miles of canal are lined on either bank, and morethickly on the western shore, by a remarkable and, Iimagine, unique succession of pai-lows, or honoraryportals. Such cannot be erected without direct Imperialsanction ; and the holy will, that is the Emperors per-mission, is cut or painted on the topmost horizontalstone. There must be hundreds of these near Siao-shan,many of them being of great age, and in various stagesof pict
. New China and old : personal recollections and observations of thirty years. o-shan ; and after three miles morereached the terminus of the canal at Si-hing. Thesethree miles of canal are lined on either bank, and morethickly on the western shore, by a remarkable and, Iimagine, unique succession of pai-lows, or honoraryportals. Such cannot be erected without direct Imperialsanction ; and the holy will, that is the Emperors per-mission, is cut or painted on the topmost horizontalstone. There must be hundreds of these near Siao-shan,many of them being of great age, and in various stagesof picturesque decay. Virtuous widows ; or girls whowere betrothed, and whose affianced husbands diedbefore marriage, and who refused to marry again andchange the name of the deceased ; or men distinguishedfor filial piety ; or old men of high character living on toan advanced age—all are celebrated in this strange open-air sanctuary. Some years ago I made the acquaintanceof an old couple near Ningpo, who lived to the ages ofninety-nine and ninety-five respectively. The Emperors. Honorary Portals. 39 permission for the erection of a pai-low to my oldfriends memory was being negotiated, when he diedbefore he had actually reached the required of the chief reasons for the Emperors glance ofapproval was the fact that the old people had managedto keep their whole family of four generations togetheras one ; living indeed in separate houses, but all underone long roof and in one compound. The Peking Gazetteof Sept. 15, 1890, contains a memorial to the Thronefrom the acting governor of Turkestan. He requestspermission for the erection of an honorary portal incommemoration of the virtuous conduct of two agedwidows. They were both over sixty years of age ; andfor more than thirty years they had remained faithfulto the memory of their deceased husbands ; supportingtheir families by needlework till the children were allestablished in life, and carefully tending their respectivemothe
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