Not alone the Manchester, but the Bath or Cheltenham of China, this city is also famous for its scholars, and as being the residence of the fashionables, if such a term may be used to a people who are proverbial for having kept in manners, customs, laws, religion, and dress, and even ideas, with little exception, to the pattern men and women, fashioned and shaped by their early Emperors, Yaou and Yu, some four thousand years ago; for the latter perhaps Hang-tcheou is chiefly indebted to its vicinage to the celebrated lake See-ho. The waters are so clear that the smallest pebbles may be seen shining like crystals from the bottom. In the middle are two islands adorned with temples and houses, wherein water parties, after taking their pleasure upon the lake, resort for rest and refreshment. Upon piles driven into the bed of the lake are large stone walks or pathways for pedestrians, which stretch from the banks to the islands, with openings for boats, across which are thrown fancifully wrought bridges. The banks are studded with temples, mansions, monasteries, for the bonzes or priests of Buddah, as also a small but beautiful palace for the use of the Emperor, when he makes a tour through his southern provinces. Near to this lake, and reposing in a valley beneath the foot of a mountain, upon the summit of which, as if in guard over the dead for the past forty centuries, the huge Lui-fung-ta, or tower of thundering winds, is the great cemetery, or vale of tombs, a city in size, which is kept reverentially clean, and strewn at stated periods with fresh flowers, over which forests of willows weep for the departed. One of the chief beauties of this famous lake I had almost forgotten to mention. Its sides, where the water is shallow, are covered with the clustering and rare flowers, lien-hoa, a plant so choice that it is fostered in the innermost recesses of the houses of the great and wealthy. Not unlike our own tulips, the Lien-hoa has a little ball supported by a small filament similar to that formed in lilies; its color varies, being at times violet, white, or a mixture of red and white; it emits a fragrant odor; the fruit is as big as a small nut, and the kernel is white and of good taste. The physicians esteem it, and prescribe it for weak patients. The leaves are long, and swim upon the water, communicating with the root by long strings. The dense population, which has rendered it necessary to turn every atom to account, has led the busy-bee genius of the people to make every particle of this plant useful. The before-mentioned strings are used by the gardeners to wrap round their goods, and the white and pulpy root is eaten in summer for its cooling properties.