ined one of the most famous Buddhist libraries in
China. This was in the hands of our troops during the first China war,
and, as it was intended to remove the books, there was no haste made in
examining their contents. Meanwhile peace came, and the library was
restored. It is a pity _now_ that the _jus belli_ had not been exercised
promptly, for the whole establishment was destroyed by the T'ai-P'ings in
1860, and, with the exception of the Pagoda at the top of the hill, which
was left in a dilapidated state, not one stone of the buildings remained
upon another. The rock had also then ceased to be an island; and the site
of what not many years before had been a channel with four fathoms of
water separating it from the southern shore, was covered by flourishing
cabbage-gardens. (_Guetzlaff_ in _J.R.A.S._ XII. 87; _Mid. Kingd._ I.
84, 86; _Oliphant's Narrative_, II. 301; _N. and Q. Ch. and Jap._ No. 5,
p. 58.)

CHAPTER LXXIII.

OF THE CITY OF CHINGHIANFU.

Chinghianfu is a city of Manzi. The people are Idolaters and subject to
the Great Kaan, and have paper-money, and live by handicrafts and trade.
They have plenty of silk, from which they make sundry kinds of stuffs of
silk and gold. There are great and wealthy merchants in the place; plenty
of game is to be had, and of all kinds of victual.

[Illustration: West Gate of Chin-kiang fu in 1842.]

There are in this city two churches of Nestorian Christians which were
established in the year of our Lord 1278; and I will tell you how that
happened. You see, in the year just named, the Great Kaan sent a Baron of
his whose name was MAR SARGHIS, a Nestorian Christian, to be governor of
this city for three years. And during the three years that he abode there
he caused these two Christian churches to be built, and since then there
they are. But before his time there was no church, neither were there any
Christians.[NOTE 1]

NOTE 1.--CHIN-KIANG FU retains its name unchanged. It is one which became
well known in the war of 1842. On its capture on the 21st July in that
year, the heroic Manchu commandant seated himself among his records and
then set fire to the building, making it his funeral pyre. The city was
totally destroyed in the T'ai-P'ing wars, but is rapidly recovering its
position as a place of native commerce.

[Chen-kiang, "a name which may be translated 'River Guard,' stands at the
point where the Grand Canal is brought to a junction with the waters of