These Buddhist temples and monasteries are thickly scattered over China. They are often buildings of great size, and afford the best resting-place for travellers, but usually the staff of priests is very small indeed, and these bear no very good name among the people. This one of the Icy Cloud had not so much as a dozen rooms of various sizes, but it was compact and well built. The walls had a few frescoes of non-perspective landscapes, with grotesque devils in the foreground; there were also statues of Buddha, of Kiu-tsaang-keun, or the “Heavenly General,” and of Koon Yum, the Hearer of Cries, or Goddess of Grace, to whom it was specially dedicated. Worshippers were very rarely to be seen in it. Many inscriptions, of which the following are examples, were hung upon the walls:— “It is easy to leave the world; but if the heart is gross, and you cannot cease thinking of the mud and trouble of life, your living in a deep hill is vain.” “To be a Buddhist is easy, but to keep the regulations is difficult.” “It is easy to preach doctrines (_taali_), but to apprehend principles is difficult.” “If you do not put forth your works, but only preach, your strength is emptily wasted; and if you talk till you break your teeth, even then it will be in vain.” “If you are entirely without belief and desire (will), and do not attend to the prohibitions, then your strength will have been uselessly wasted, and your head shaved to no purpose.” “May the precious ground (of the monastery) be renewed.” “To be intimate, and not divided, consists in the virtuous roots being gathered in a place.” “When the image was asked why it turned round and fell backward, it said, ‘Because the people of the time would not turn their heads;’” [they probably being a stiff-necked generation, like the people of many other times and places.] “Peacefully seclude and regulate yourselves.”