Two thousand years of worship and sacrifice here at this one altar in Ch'u Fu of the ancient Land of Lu. The tourist pauses to gaze at the bronze tripods of the Chou days, and the vestments of silk which the little Duke K'ung has worn for his state receptions on his garden fetes. He sits within the blue-clothed, bumpy, dusty, two-wheeled cart catching glimpses of aged pailou or moss-covered cypress tress or bits of gardens where once a ducal palace stood. And then, stepping reverently under the cool shade of the evergreens and the junipers, he approaches the holy of holies. There behind the granite incense altar is the tall bare mound of earth which they call the grave of Confucius. There are little house where the beloved disciple, Tzukung, spent six long years thus doubly honouring the master who taught the worth of propriety in life and death.

And here is the resting-place of the filial grandson, the Transmitting Scholar Tzu-ssu, says the guide. Over there is the little kiosk, gift of the Emperor K'ang-hsi; while those little saplings are just planted, the offering of China's modern sage, K'ang Yu Wei, who has done so much to repair this shrine. We pass the newly laquered gateway, cross the marble bridge over the stream of Chu, and are back within the dusty, blue-covered cart once again, jogging back to civilization and everyday China.

But little do we know, as we roll across the plain of Ch'u Fu or rumble over the new stone structure that spans the historic River Ssu, of the story of those clustering hills on either side. If we have seen the mother temple of the Confucians, if we have trod the earth before the grave of the mostwise Sage " our zeal is abated. Furthermore, our limbs ache. And supper is waiting for us at the railway hotel, after which the Blue Express and Shanghai. And yet some more thoughtful pilgrim may pause in glancing over these hoary pei which announce the benevolence and majesty of China's worshipping monarchs of the past. He may raise his eyes to the blue hills where once dwelt great men, the men who became the sages friends, the seventy-two most honoured of the Sage of Lu. For it is all a holy land, this Valley of Lu. And Ch'u Fu, the modern, does not hold a tenth of its treasures. One must dig into the rock-ribbed hills of Yi and Ni, he must follow the windings of the streams of Ssu and Wen, until he inadvertently comes on some unsung tale, some unknown spot, where an ancient worthy of Lu once lived or died. And yet the vale is not wide and the way is not so long, for within the radius of a score or so of miles the visitor will find at least a dozen of classic fanes, worthy many days of pondering study.

Beginning his tour within the walls of the modern town which is Ch'u Fu, he will first of all visit the great temple to Confucius, with its Apricot Pavilion where the Master taught, with its Dew Well where he drew his water and its pathetic stump of a holy tree planted by his hands, with its scores of monuments, big and little, recording imperial favours of the splendid past.

Then he may tread the way to the North Gate, beyond which lies the grove of thuyas and the grave of the Sage. But before the gate is reached he will enter the large temple on the right, the shrine sacred to the Yen family .

There, in a somewhat dilapidated courtyard stands the Hall of Yen Hui, the Favourite Scholar. He died prematurely, and was mourned sincerely by the Master, but he has risen to the high rank of first of all Confucians because of his good example in the achievement of the high virtues set forth in the Analects. "Admirable indeed was the virtue of ilul," said the Master. "With a single bamboo dish of rice, a single gourd dish of drink, and living in his mean narrow lane, while others could not have endured the distress, he did not allow his joy to be affected by it." And so as the pilgrim stands upon the stones, fiat and smooth, of the little pavilion known as the Kiosk of Yen-tzu's Joy, he can marshal before his eyes the details of this scene: the Saint Francis of Lu rejoicing with his eight brethren of poverty, and partaking of the sparing repast spread out on the pavement which would one day be one of the twelve precious sights of Lu.

The sentimental journey would next lead to another sanctuary, the temple of the Duke of Chon, lying outside the eastern gate of this city which once was Ch'ueh Li It is the inspiration of many a Chinese bard, for it reminds one that here, on this very ground, in those thrilling epic days when King Wen and King Wu drove from China's throne the tyrant of Yin, began the glorious annals of the marquisate of Lu. It was here that the great statesman and scion of the ascendant house of Chou ruled his new feudal appenage, some thirty centuries ago. This Lu was then but border march and swamp and the barbarians, Huai and Lai, kept the border wardens in alarums.

Written annals were few, for men had only the bones and stray slips of bamboo for a record of the centuries of Yin and Hsia. Here are relics of the third great dynasty and the dawn of culture on the hills of Lu, while up on the slopes of the misty, mystic mount of the East, T'ai Shan, are others of this wise old Duke of Chou, and Kings Wen and Wu of the western Chou domain, who offered royal sacrifice to the Ruler of Heaven and Earth and the Four Sacred Peaks. The Duke of Chou said, "Oh, there likewise were King T'ai and King Chi of our own Chou, who attained to humility and reverential awe. King Wen dressed meanly, and gave himself to the work of tranquilization and to that of husbandry. From morning to midday and from midday to sundown he did not allow himself time to eat, thus seeking to secure the happy harmony of the myriads of the people." And so here on Chon's altars the traveller from the four seas bares his head at the thought of these busy, joyous days of thirty centuries ago, when the land was young and this Temple of the Duke Chon was a palace and a college, when, too, the tribes of the Aegean and the Adriatic far away were still unlettered pastors. Fitting indeed is the site, among the trees of the courts of Chou, for the new Chueh Li University which is to be.

But tarry no longer, for there are miles to cover. Just a gentle stroll of eight Zi toward the hills in the north-east and the pilgrim is brought to still more wonderful fantasies in stone. Here by the road- side is the striking little pyramidical tomb of Shao Hao, that western king of the Mystic Five who ruled primitive China. It is a huge mound encased in blocks of stone, and a kiosk at its apex bears a small stone likeness of the apotheosized son of the Yellow Emperor, "the Less Luminous" monarch. But this brief, severe story in stones tells us of those still more pristine days of yore, when the floods pressed them in from the Eastern Sea, and the inroads of cruel Huns pushed them on from the heights of K'uenlun in the West, till at last the black-haired people found their nests in the sheltering hills of Lu and 'Ts'i, and primitive culture began its hardy development in the midst of the wilderness that was to be the Flowery Kingdom. Shao Hao, the father of Lu, the patriarch of the children of men in this Far East. Shao Hao! Shao ILao! how great was Shao Hao, White Emperor of the West!

But onward pilgrim, toward the twilight east, for one must reach the village over the hillside before dark! It is a steep ascent, and the naked cliffs of shale loom out like skeletons of the past years of time. And, too, the peasants look strange, for they are not the modern every- day folk of the railway village back on the wide brown plain below. The iron road is out of the range of our vision now and the yellow roofs of the palace of the most holy in Ch'u Fu are scarcely noticeable through the trees and shrubs. We are in a rude rugged land, a land full of bandits and briers. But that genial spirit of Chuang-tsu must be walking these paths, for he preferred them to shrines of the heroes. "It was the appearances of sages," said Chuang-tsu, "which caused the appearance of robbers. Drive out the sages and leave the robbers alone- then only will the Empire be governed. As when the stream ceases the gully dries up, and when the hill is levelled the chasm is filled; so when sages are extinct, there will be no more robbers, but the Empire will rest in peace." What a hair-brained Taoist devotee he was, breathes the orthodox guide of the K'ung tribe, as you recite these heresies of the mountain recluse-poet.

But it is a fitting premonition, that thought of the Lincheng bandits who live in the deep hollows of these hills, not many li away even now. Even they are classic rogues for they claim their ancestors came down, no not from our famous William the First, but from just his ilk, the hundred odd robbers of Mount Liang, whose deeds, tamely read by day from the printed page of Shui Hu, are nightly sung on the lips of country- folk of Lu. And it was no sage, but a doughty warrior, this father of Confucius the wise, whose grave is before the dusty pilgrim. True, they offer him incense now, and title him Revealing Holy Prince, for none but such, they say, could have sired the exemplar of all ages. But brave and leal he was withal, wielding the sword to more advantage than the scholar's brush, and he fought these arrogant knaves of the borders full two score years right valiantly, so that the Annals of Spring and Fall have reference to his deeds and knightly conduct in the wars of three various dukes of Lu. The Father of Confucius! Great was the Father of Confucius!

In and out across the sands winds the classic stream of Ssu, like a huge old Chinese dragon shedding his yellow scales at every curve of his sinuous back. If the wanderer's zeal still runs apace he may descend from those rugged hills where rests the evergreen grove of the Warrior K'ung, and tramp along these historic river banks for forty li until at last he sees the low-lymg parapets of the little town of Ssu Water, which was once the far-eastern fortress of this vale of Lu. Close about it crowd the ever-watchful hills, and somewhere therein was the rural home of the Confucian who wore the sword. It was Tzu-lu, the bold, who gained emoluments and high office in the feudal states of Chou, and it was he who saluted his Master, clad in chain armour befitting his courtly rank-only to be reproved by the gentle Confucius for his lack of sincere trust in his true friends, the common folk. And Tzu-lu blushed, for his blood was as their blood, and he was reminded of that day when he was but a stripling boy, and he had walked all the way to the fortress of Ssu Water to beg at the doors for a little rice to feed his hungry sire. "If one's family be poor and one's parents old, one does not choose emoluments, but takes office. Formerly when I, Yu, served my parents I constantly ate the wild beans. But for my parents I carried rice for more than a hundred ii." And here, just without the eastern gate of Ssu Water, and beside the dust-strewn road to the hills, stands the simple stone monument to hallow the place where Tzu-lu once sat down on his rice-bag and taught boys and girls about filialty. Within the new built walls hard by there is a green-tiled temple of Tzu-lu. The tiles are strange too, for one notes a pair of swords protrude from above the roof-beams. It is the symbol of Confucius' faithful follower, the Saint Peter of these peripatetic brethren of Lu, who died bravely defending his feudal lord on the field of battle in the West.

And then the road, another friendly road of Lu, beckons on, to the blustering, breezy bluffs of the south, where the map tells us we may find new treasure, but deep buried and scarcely touched treasure even in this modern day. That is the five-peaked summit of Ni which greets us from afar. It truly requires the trusty dragon stick of the seasoned pi]grim, if one would scale these rocky heights. But at last the lofty goal is reached and the gates of the Grove of Literary Virtue. This is the mate to that other grove, where the knightly K'ung lies buried. This is the maternal temple of the K'ungs. It is here that a woman of the clan of Yen brought forth, upon the soft, caressing, ruddy grass of the mountain slopes, a baby whom she called Ni, because of the strangeness of this birth-place. And now today, the intelligentsia of Shangtung make spring pilgrimages to the picturesque little temple that graces the greensward. Three counties have vied for the honours of being the native heath of Confucius, but the Tsou Hsien, which represents the ancient dependancy of Tsou has now well established its claims. And thus we have reached the next stage of the pilgrimage in Lu. We are in the land of Mencius, man of Tsou. Below the Temple of the Sage, the keepers will lead to the Cave of the Maternal Spirit from whose depths the infant first saw the light. Nearby flows the tiny Stream of the Spring of Wisdom, the most honoured of the many tributaries which turbulently flow down to meet the I Water in the land of the Huai Barbarians. A stone pavilion here beside the Stream View affords a breathing place, and, like the Pilgrim of Bunyan, one may fall asleep and dream of his ancient host, the man who was born on the ruddy grass of Ni Shan. But by no means let him lose the well thumbed copy of the Family Sayings which tells of the boyhood life of this Confucius the sage : how his mother was astonished at his youthful zeal for the proprieties and decided that the rustic environment of the mountain villlage was unfitted for her precocious offspring; how the aged father died when the lad was three, and the widow then left this native heath, and found shelter with her relatives in Ch'ueh Li, which is now Ch'u Fu ; how there she supervised his training under good and classic masters of Chou learning, until she, too, died just as her boy reached manhood and began to accept emoluments from the Duke of Lu.

"While reading the works of Confucius," said the great historian Ssu Ma Ch'ien, "I have always fancied I could see the man as he was in life, and when I went to Lu, I actually beheld his carriage, his robes, and the material parts of his ceremonial usages. There were his descendants practising the old rites in their ancestral homes, and I lingered on, unable to tear myself away. Many are the princes and prophets that the world has seen in its time, glorious in life, forgotten in death. But Confucius, though only a humble member of the cotton-clothed masses, remains among us after many generations. He is the model for such as would be wise." This Ssu Ma Ch'ien in those pre-Christian years of the Han period came here too, and perchance he dropped that roll of the classics from which you read, my modern friend. The Hall of Nurture they call this, the site sacred to the mother. And great, too, was the mother of Confucius!

But now hasten on. You must retrace your steps over the stony road of Ni Shan, for we will go back to the west and more convcntional scenes. Due west into the setting sun which breaks through the twisty, gnarled branches of these cypress and thuyas of such fantastic shapes. It may be they are the tree sprites of the bygone patriarchs of Tsou. This Tsou soil too has a rich and patriarchal look, as compared with the rockbound valley of Lu just north. It is a ripe and mellow land, and right proud of its clan of Mencius, the Second sage. Within a few ii we halt before the stone pailou which opens upon an avenue of spreading, leafy guardians of holy ground.

Much more fitting this, than the ugly squatty stone dogs and men which bedeck the tombs at Malanyn and Hsiling. It is the grave of Mencius, far up there on the warm south slope of the Mount of Four Corners, as they term it. And the market town which presses close upon this beautiful avenue of trees is Shan T'ou, the modern counterpart of that market town where the boy Meng began to take on the rude airs of a country marketteer. And then, we learn, his mother broke her precious loom in bits; he was sent out to labour for himself and learn the value of diligent industry in his poor home. The village of Mencius and the tomb! It is somehow more impressive than that gorgeous setting of temple and grove in Ch'u Fu. It is on the mountain height, and then it is enveloped in the simple old-time atmosphere which must at one time have been the true Confucianism. None of the elaborate emperor worship, the swaying of the plumes and the mounting of the smoky incense, as the choir boys sing How Great is Confucius." Neither Mencius nor his Master cared for the elaborate speculations of the religions of their day. And little did they think of the honours that would be heaped upon their apotheosized bodies by imperial Chen Tsung and all his like. But Mencius rests apart from the crowds that throng the beaten roads. The iron trail has not desecrated his boyhood home, and it is thus that the traveller may imperceptibly go back into the realities of the past as he seeks out this little- known hillock in Tsou. Just a simple red gate-house, and a hall of a few old stone tablets; while within the small enclosure to the rear is the severe and stately mound which is kept in its original condition, untouched and undecorated by well-meaning worshippers. The large stone behind the tripod vessel says simply "This is the grave of the First Teacher, a Duke of Tsou. Great indeed was Mencius the Teacher of Tsou!

Over the hills and dales by the road that leads from Lu to Tsou. It was about here methinks that Mu, the Duke, was so disastrously defeated by the brawny troops of the neighbour state of the north. While he mourned the loss of his thirty-three knights, and vented his wrath on the disheartened peasants of Tsou, the courtier Meng read a lesson on love. "In calamitous years and years of famine the old and weak of your people, who have been found lying in the ditches and water- channels, and the able bodied who have been scattered about to the four quarters have amounted to several thousands. And all the while your granaries, 0 Prince, have been stored with grain, your treasuries and arsenals have been full, and not one of your officers has told you of the distress." Yes, it is a land of plenty, this Tsou, but a land of wars and famines too. And the iron road, which we tramp along as we enter Tsou City, has failed to stop the hungriness of the poor; even as the advent of this modern learning and the decease of the classic sages has failed to account for the lessening of the bandit wars hereabout. They are twin ogres which stalk over the darkening hills at our backs, those rock-ribbed hills of classic name and story.

Tsou City, and the Temple of Mencius at last. We have cheered our foot-sore companions along the winding road to the Pagoda of Heaven and Earth, which points like a big brown needle out from the nest of sandy, brown pillows which block the road to Lu. The resting place of past glories too, these shaggy mounds which show threadbare streaks here and there. Much in need are they of the celestial needle of Tsou, for the wind and rain are rough bed-fellows for such delicate offsprings of Time. The exotic Sanskrit charms, out of sutras from the land of spices and the Buddha, are there beside the highway, a]l shrinking and cracking with the unwonted heat and cold of an alien clime. But then, says our guide, there are the rubbings. Yes we will purchase the rubbings and stow them away in a suitcase when we board that Blue Express and roll out of Tsou to-night.

But the temple, the temple of the wise Teacher of Tsou ! Crossing a marble bridge beyond the southern gate, we stop just a moment to pay our respects to that youngest of the galaxy, the Sage's grandson Tzu-ssu, who sits in a little shrine to the left of the road. Then we pass under the gateways of Nurturing Talents (for it was Mencius who nurtured virtue in the courts of kings) and we are welcomed within by the coolness and the shadows of the lofty sentinel pines, planted by Confucian worthies of old. They are quiet, scholarly trees, and more graceful than those of Ch'u Fu. But they are also strangely musical. In their hospitable branches there live birds of Eastern Seas, say the natives and they come to honour the shrine of Mencius alone, for they do not dwell in other precincts, sacred or secular. But their gentle cooing is heard here by night and by day, at the Temple of the Man of Tsou.

The stone work and the laquer in these halls bear the impress of antiquity. No Manchu cloisonne of gaudy yellow hues breaks into the rich colour scheme. Even the stone pei are allowed to grow green and mossy, for few mortals come to blacken them with paper and mallet. Two ancient crumbling ones date back to the Han reigns and indicate that there was a cult of Mencius even in pre-Christian days. And from other fresher ones we learn that Hung Chih of the house of Ming gave to the enlargement of his shrine. A special kiosk there holds the poetic engraving of the Emperor Ch'ien lung.

Within the hall, there to the north, is Mencius and by his side his most wise follower, Yueh Cheng-tsu. In the side temples are the seven- teen faithful exponents of Mencius, poets and statesmen who have made his name glorified in the annals of the Flowery Kingdom. If we wish to see their faces we may peer at the epitome in stone, just below the marble terraces. There are Mencius and his mother, at the Loom King, Hul of Liang learning about government, King Hsuan of Ts'i and his sacrificial beasts, the disciple Kung Sun Ch'ou and the whole of the band of learned Confucians who once graced this college. Like their revered Confucius they remain with us after many generations, for they are "the models for such as would be wise." Mencius ! Mencius ! Great was Mencius!

Mencius said, "Confucius ascended the Eastern Hill (where his father and mother lay buried), and Lu appeared to him small. He ascended T'ai Shan (where the ancients had bowed) and all beneath the heavens appeared to him small. So, he who has contemplated the sea finds it difficult to think anything of other waters, and he who has wandered into the Gate of the Sage, finds it difficult to think anything of the words of others."

"Nay," the pilgrim says," for I have worshipped at more holy gates, beyond the Four Seas. And I have seen the Star of Bethlehem, which never did they see; and the Mount of Calvary there towers far above these peaks of man-made lore." True, pilgrim, but among men these were great ; and as great men so let us crown them, the uncrowned kings from the cotton-clothed masses which surge in myriads round these gates of the Sage of old Cathay.

"Severe and stately scholar of the Past,
Transmitter of an ancient people's higher thought,
Around thy sombre visage still there glows,
Undimmed, resplendent, through the ages vast,
The lustrous halo by the cycles wrought.
No earth-born conqueror raging at his foes
Shall burn thy page to dust! No scorching flame
Nor time himself may match the laurels of thy fame!
A sage, thy wisdom speaks as first it saw
Humanity, and right deep anchored in the soul,
The five-fold spectrum of the primal Law,
Eternal harmony with heaven its hidden goal.

Ah! Princely man, uncrowned and yet a king,

Age after age to thee its loyal gifts shall bring !"

(Quotation from the Chinese Recorder, 1887, p.356)

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