The Hunting Park Pagoda
H E STORY of Peking would remain only half told were we to forget the glorious range of mountains that encompass it on the west and on the north. These far-famed Western Hills form the outer bul | S w arks of a huge sierra "which separates the plain of northeast China from the Mongolian Plateau, and stretch back over a hundred 30 miles to the Gobi Desert." But why are the Western Hills so intimately associated with Peking and her age-old prestige as the center of the world's oldest and most populous empire? The place chosen for the site of the capital seems to be an odd one indeed. "Tucked away in this northert comer of the empire," comments G. E. Hubbard, "far from sea or river, and farther still from the centers of population and wealth which congregate on the Yangtze, it seems a strange position for the old emperors to have chosen. The key to the mystery lies, how ever, in these very hills and the mountains lying beyond, which through all the centuries have been the bulwark of China against her principal enemies. The threat of Tartar and Mongol invasion was so persistent till modern times that the only safe place for the sovereign power of China was here close behind the barrier which separated it from the dreaded 'hordes.' The strategic center lay at the focal point of the great amphitheater of moun tains which commanded the exits of the various passes, and from which the tribesmen, if they broke through, could be attacked in force before they were clear of the foothills." Behind the outer ridge of the Western Hills the "ranges mount gradually to a series of peaks 4,000 to 5,000 feet, possessed of a ruggedness of outline which gives them a grandeur out of all proportion to their actual height. Along the sky line, invisible from the capital except through powerful glasses, runs the Great Wall of China." In these Vestera Hills, twenty miles and more from the capital, we find the famous Imperial Hunting Park. Here, amid the rugged yet beautiful surroundings of these fascinating hills, the old emperors gave themselves up to the joys of the chase, and here from age to age they erected fine temples and splendid pagodas. Within the walls of this ancient hunting park, "which runs like a huge coil of rope flung across ridge and valley," and set in the midst of fine groves of cypress and pine, is the beautiful spire known as the "Hunting Park Pagoda" In ages past it used to grace the entrance to a fine old temple, but all traces of this sanctuary have vanished, and now only the ting, tinkling bells, drooping like pomegranates from green and gold pagoda eaves remain to tell us of past glories of the chase. The lower portion of this interesting old "Idol Tower"- the part constructed of brick and mortar-is fast falling into decay, but the encaustic green and gold tiles of the upper portion are as bright and as fresh as though constructed only yesterday.
