The form of an Omega is chosen, placed flat against the hill-slope; and the semi-circle of stone, completed by the brace, surrounds the dead person, who makes a mount in the center like a sleeper under his coverings. It is thus that the earth, opening her arms, makes him her own and consecrates him to herself. In front is placed the tablet inscribed with the titles and names; because the Chinese believe that certain portions of the soul, that stop to read the name, linger above the tomb. This tablet forms the reredos of a stone altar on which are deposited the symmetrically arranged offerings. In front of this the tomb, by the formal arrangement of its terraces and balustrades, welcomes and receives the living family who go there on solemn days to honor the remains of the deceased ancestor. Primordial and testamentary hieroglyph! Facing it, the hemi-cycle reverberates the invocation. All earth which is above the level of mud is occupied by these vast low tombs, like the openings of pits crammed full. There are little ones, simple ones and elaborate, some new and others which seem as old as the rocks where they lean. The most important are high on the mountain, as if in the folds of its neck. A thousand men together could kneel in this tomb. I myself live in this country of sepulchers, and by a different road I regain my house on the summit of the hill. The town is below on the other side of the wide yellow river Min, which precipitates its deep and violent waters between the arches of the Bridge of Ten Thousand Ages. During the day one can see, like the copings of the tombs, the rampart of jagged mountains that enclose the city. The flying pigeons and the tower in the middle of a pagoda make one feel the immensity of this distance. And I can see the two-horned roofs, two wooded hills rising between the houses, and on the river a confusion of wooden rafts and junks whose poops are painted with pictures. But now it is too dark. Scarcely a fire pricks the dusk and the mist beneath me, and by a road I know, slipping into the funereal darkness of the pines, I gain my habitual post, this great triple tomb blackened with moss and age, oxidized like armor, which thrusts its frowning parapet obliquely into space. I come here to listen.