toise and another animal, which my guide informed me were placed there some two hundred years ago, by order of the reigning emperor, over the grave of one of his subjects, whom he "delighted to honour." I have remarked elsewhere that a tombstone placed upon a carved representation of an animal of this kind is a sign of a royal gift.

Near these royal tombstones I observed a species of Pine-tree, having a peculiar habit and most striking appearance. It had a thick trunk, which rose from the ground to the height of three or four feet only. At this point some eight or ten branches sprang out, not branching or bending in the usual way, but rising perpendicularly, as straight as a larch, to the height of 80 or 100 feet. The bark of the main-stem and the secondary stems was of a milky-white colour, peeling like that of the Arbutus, and the leaves, which were chiefly on the top of the tree, were of a lighter green than those of the common Pine. Altogether this tree had a very curious appearance, very symmetrical in form, and the different specimens which evidently occupied the most honourable places in the cemetery were as like one another as they could possibly be.

In all my wanderings in India, China, or Japan, What I had never seen a pine-tree like this one. could it be?-was it new ?-and had I at last found something to reward me for my journey to the far north? I went up to a spot where two of these

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trees were standing, like sentinels, one on each side of a grave. They were both covered with cones, and therefore were in a fit state for a critical examination of the species. But although almost unknown in Europe, the species is not new. It proved to be one already known under the name of Pinus Bungeana. I had formerly met with it in a young state in the country near Shanghae, and had already introduced it into England, although, until now, I had not the slightest idea of its extraordinary appearance when full grown.

I would therefore advise those

who have young plants of this curious tree in their collections to look carefully after them, as the species is doubtless perfectly hardy in our climate, and at some future day it will form a very remarkable object in our landscape. One of the trunks, which I measured at three feet from the ground, was 12 feet in circumference.

The country through which I was now passing, although comparatively flat, was gradually getting a little higher and more undulating in its general appearance. It was the harvest-time for the summer crops of millet, Indian corn, and oily grain, and the farmers were busy in all the fields gathering the crops into their barns. As I walked during the greater part of my journey, and did not always confine myself to the high road, many were the amusing adventures I met with by the way. Sometimes the simple villagers received me with a kind of vacant wondering

stare, or scarcely condescended to look up from the work with which they were engaged. At other times they gathered round me, and, when they found I was civilized enough to know a little of their language, put all sorts of questions, commencing, for politeness, with those in relation to my name, my age, and my country. On one occasion, as I was passing through a village, a solitary lady, rather past the middle age and not particularly fascinating, was engaged in rubbing out some corn in front of her door. I gave her the usual salutation. She looked up from her work, and when she saw who stood before her she gave me one long earnest stare, and whether she thought I was really "a foreign devil" or a being from some other world I cannot say, but after standing for a second or two, without speaking or moving, she suddenly turned round and fled across the fields. I watched her for a little while; she never appeared to slacken her pace or to look back, and for aught I know she may be still running away!

About noon I began to get near the foot of the mountains, and I could see in the distance a group of temples extending from the bottom to near the top of a hill, and nestling amongst trees. This looked like an oasis in the landscape, for all else round about was wild and barren. Shortly afterwards we left the main road, and another mile of a byway brought us to the bed of a mountain stream, dry at this season, and covered with boulders of granite, but no doubt filled with a