The highest of the hills in the park of the Summer Palace is crowned by the Great Temple of the Ten Thousand Buddhas. This is approached by hundreds of steps, which lead up from the broadest part of the marble terrace over the lake. Beautiful Palaces are built along this terraced height. Picturesque pai-lou (memorial arches) are built at such beautiful points, that Nature herself seems to have designed these positions for them. A fair, verdure-clad island lies peacefully on the bosom of the lake, and the Palace and temple built thereon seem a part of the natural formation of stone out of which they rise. A graceful seventeen-arched bridge of white marble connects this island with the northern bank of the lake. The canal from Peking, which feeds the lake, winds in and out of the grounds in such graceful meanderings as to seem some fair mountain stream. The outlets to the lakes are spanned by the graceful camel-backed bridges that only the Chinese architects build. Nature and art are everywhere so blended, so harmonized, it is difficult to tell which is which. The simple lines and beautiful proportions and harmonious colors of the one-storied Chinese buildings make even these seem almost a part of the landscape. Chinese architecture--and one grows to admire it very much when studied in its own environment--is tent-building, carried to its greatest perfection and made enduring by the use of materials that last. The grouping of the Chinese buildings is on the same order as the congregation of tents of some roving tribe of Nomads. The downward curve and upturned tilt of their roofs is but the natural slope of the canvas and its uplifting by the tent-poles. These slender tent-poles have developed into the supporting pillars of the verandah, and the raised canvas door of the tent has grown into its buoyantly curved roof. The ornamental eaves are but the solidified silken fringes and embroidered valances of the tents of old. The curious roof ornamentations of the modern Chinese house replace the weights that held the tent-canvas steady. These weights, from rough stones, have now become carven images, cunningly wrought. The Chinese even erect their houses as their ancestors raised their tents. The builder places the columns and puts on the roof before the walls are built. Except the pagoda--and this even seems like so many superposed tents--the Chinese building remains to-day, in spite of its elaborate roofs, its lacquered pillars, and elaborate ornamentation, like some splendid tent, grown into greater fixity and beautified by some magician’s wand. It is admirably suited to the calm pastoral landscapes in which it rests, and seems a part of Nature itself, and is never out of keeping with its surroundings!