In a country where painting is at so low an ebb, it would be in vain to expect much execution from the chissel. Grotesque images of ideal beings, and monstrous distortions of nature, are sometimes seen upon the ballustrades of bridges, and in their temples, where the niches are filled with gigantic gods of baked clay, sometimes painted with gaudy colours, and sometimes plastered over with gold leaf, or covered with a coat of varnish. They are as little able to model as to draw the human figure with any degree of correctness. In the whole empire there is not a statue, a hewn pillar, or a column that deserves to be mentioned. Large four-sided blocks of stone or wood are frequently erected near the gates of cities, with inscriptions upon them, meant to perpetuate the memory of certain distinguished characters; but they are neither objects of grandeur nor ornament, having a much closer resemblance to a gallows than to triumphal arches, as the missionaries, for what reason I know not, have thought fit to call them. The intention of these monumental erections will appear from some of their inscriptions. I. _Honour granted by the Emperor._ _The grateful odour of one hundred years._ _Retirement._ _Tranquillity._ II. _Emperor's order._ _Peace and Happiness,_ _The balm of Life._ _On a fortunate day, in the 8th month of the 50th year of the reign of Kien-Long, this monument was erected by the Emperor's order, in honour of Liang-tien-pe, aged 102 years._ The two following are inscriptions on monuments that have been erected to chaste women, a description of ladies whom the Chinese consider to be rarely met with. III. _Honour granted by the Emperor._ _Icy coldness._ _Hard frost._ IV. _The Emperor's order._ _The sweet fragrance of piety and virginity._ _Sublime chastity._ _Pure morals._