wall adjacent stones are fastened together by heavy iron mortises in the shape of a double wedge (
) four or five inches broad, two linking each pair of stones. Whether the lower layers of blocks are mortised in the same way we were unable to determine, though a friend has reported that he has observed these links also in the slabs forming the footing-platform, but we saw none in the part we examined.
On the top of the bunding from Hangchow to beyond Haining, about forty-five miles, there is a broad earth roadway, suitable for riding or even driving, though the latter might be risky, a unique country road. Back of the roadway there is a further embankment some ten feet high and about fifteen or twenty feet thick, which completes the barrier to the encroachment of the boisterous tides. Practically all of the houses near the river are built on levels lower than this bank.
The Haining Pagoda, which has been mentioned already, is apparently not very old and was probably built by a Buddhistic believer in fung shui as a protection to the bund and the city against the ravages of the "serpent's head." It is a fair specimen of its class, and certainly forms the most prominent eminence on that section of the wall, and, together with the more recently constructed pavilion just below it, serves well to mark a vantage point from which to view the approach and passage of the wonderful wave which sweeps past at every tide.
