The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-08-09
CHINA A VAST GRAVEYARD.

The face of all nature is pimpled with graves.
No farm is so small that it cannot afrord at
least one: no hill is so high Il speak OF the
Garden provinces of China that it is not dotted
with them to the top. No city lacks them,
within and without its walls; only the COM
pactest parts of the compact cities are without
them. They vary in shape and form, as every
thing varies in China. The saying is that sin
ten miles everything is different" and it GER
tainly is so with the graves. Near Shanghai
this eruption on the face of nature took the
form of shapeless mounds of earth, perhaps
six feet long by three feet wide and three
or four feet high. There the collins had
been put on the ground and covered over
with dirt. Farther along, toward Soochow ana
the Grand canal, the graves were brick anal[s,
Handicapped and square at the ends In
the other direction, at and near Cha-pu, on the
coast, they were often vaults OF earth raced
with stone and surrounded by horseshoe OF
broken circle of earthwork. Some of these had
three doorways and looked like triple bake
ovens. But down Cha-pu way many OF the
graves were perfect little houses of brick, with
tile roofs, and even with roots whose corners
were bent up in grand style. There are grave
yards in China, family or village grayeyards,
that look like mere disturbances OF the
earth, where acres have been turned up
into mounds or covered with brick ovens,
and there are graveyards that are Solemnly
planted with rows of trees. But, as rule, the
farmers bury their dead in their rice or cotton
fields or among their mulberry trees, and the
poor buy or lease resting place for their de-
parted upon the acres OF some weather. man.
don't know whether it be true or not, but
was told that the graves are kept, or let alone,
until a change of dynasty occurs, when they
are razed, and China begins over again to
pre-empt q great fraction OF her surface for
her dead. If so, 1t is time for a change of
dynasty, because vast portion of the soil is
lost to the farmers, who otherwise cultivate
almost every foot of it. And the graves are in
all stages of rack and ruin and disorder. At
one time you see scores OF tombs whose ends
have been worn down by the elements or have
fallen out SO as to show the CONN ENDS
or an outbreak of skulls and bones. There is
nothing that is possible that you do not see,
even to disclosures of great earthen jars full of
bones, where the original graves and collins
have worn away. There the bones have been
reinterred in pots. and these in turn have been
exposed by the careless hand of time. You
see bare collins set out in the rice fields be-
cause the mournerS were too poor TO Dr1ck
them over, and you see tens OF thousands OF
collins merely covered over with matched
straw. You see the grand tombs OF man.
darins taking up half q mile of the earth.
First there are the granite steps leading up to
q splendid triple arch all beautifully carved.
Then follows the stately approach to the
tomb - wide avenue bordered by trees
and get with lions and warriors. horses
and sages, all hewn out of stone. Finally the
tomb itself, on a hillside ii possible, stares
down the avenue at all these costly ornaments.
But it must be that most of these monuments
are to men long dead-perhaps to men of dis
tant ages. Therefore most of them are falling
to pieces. Some are merely beginning to crum-
bic, some are waste places, with broken sug-
gestions of what they were, and some have
been invaded by farmers and by the populace,
with the result that you see portions OF the
once grand arch set in a nearby bridge. or
used as steps to waterside teahouse.-From
Everyday Scenes in China" by Julian
Ralph in "Harper's Magazine" for August.