Excerpt from Sketches of China, Partly During an Inland Journey of Four Months, Between Peking, Nanking, and Canton, Vol. 2: With Notices and Observations Relative to the Present War This picturesque place is celebrated all over China, and we were fortunate to have such a view of it, as our course up the Keang, in the op posits direction, prevented our passing it on the journey. The priests of Budha always contrive to fix their temples and pagodas in the most advantageous and beautiful spots, and no doubt find it politic to do so, as they in this manner become the haunts of travellers and curious people, who perform a willing pilgrimage to the shrines which they contain. From the great breadth of the river, which at this place is not less than two miles across, the islet was at a considerable distance from us, but we would willingly have crossed to inspect it had not the mandarin made so many difficulties that 'the point was given up. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.