CHAPTER FOUR

THE GROTTO OF THE SLEEPLESS DRAGON

Few spectacles are ever given for man to witness more melancholy than the dissolution of an ancient dynasty; an end inevitably tragic and often leaving its solemn sign, as did the dissipation of the Mings, forever upon the people.

For two centuries and a half had this family of the acolyte ruled over a wide portion of earth and then did it go out, tragically, but in a manner befitting a dynasty whose past had been so filled with greatness.

When Tongshing—the last of his race to rule from the Dragon Throne—found that the east gate of his capital was invested by besieging armies, he retraced his steps to the Palace and sounded the gong to summon his courtiers. None appeared. Then alone with the eunuch, Wen Chenan, the old monarch sought his favourite spot on Wansui Hill, and there beneath its solitary tree wrote this, his final protest:

“For seventeen years I have reigned from the Dragon Throne and now even rebels come to insult me in my capital. Evidently this is a punishment sent by Heaven. But I am not alone guilty. My ministers are worse than myself. They have ruined me by concealing the true condition of affairs.

“With what countenance shall I after death be able to appear before my forefathers? You, who have brought me to this unhappy end, take my body and hack it to pieces. I shall not protest. But spare my people and refrain from doing them injury.”

Then this old man, who was a monarch, hung himself on the solitary juniper tree.

After the Emperor’s death the Ming officials in the south of China crowned one kinsman after another as his successor, but each, oppressed by the curse of his race, died in a manner not less tragic than the melancholy end of Tongshing. In the course of this Imperial extinction the choice at last fell upon the Prince Yu Ngao, who was proclaimed Emperor in the old city of Yingching.

Shortly after Yu Ngao had been crowned the city was besieged by the Manchus and captured on the 26th of November, 1650, more than one-half million of its inhabitants perishing in the assault. It was supposed that upon this day the young Emperor also died, but such was not the case, for on the night before the final attack, the Emperor and three hundred of his most devoted followers, taking with them the Imperial treasure, escaped from the city by means of a water-gate situated between the Gate of Eternal Rest and the southwest corner of the city walls, through which a large canal runs from the river into the city.

It was the intention of the fugitives to make their way into Kwangsi and join the Ming forces in that Province; their flight being up the Chu Kiang to the North River, thence to the Lien Chau River and across the mountains into Kwangsi. But after the capture of the city, their escape being discovered, a large force set out in pursuit, the fugitives having but one day and two nights’ start. On arriving at the gorge of the Blind Boy, less than one-third the distance of their journey, they found themselves but a half day’s march ahead of their pursuers and feeling that the end had come they selected for their last stand a high shelf of rock in the mouth of the gorge.

From this point, looking up the cañon, there is seen with great distinctness on a perpendicular wall of rock about two hundred feet above the water, the “Blind Boy,” which gives the gorge its name. Looking at the image from this angle, the form, features and sad blind expression of the eyes is vividly seen. The Emperor with his little army standing upon this high shelf peering through the purple shadows of this great gorge perceived the image of the Blind Boy and as they looked—it is so related—the eyes opened and gazed benignly, Buddha-like, down upon them. Then as the eyes closed slowly and reluctantly a peasant appeared upon the shelf and prostrating himself before the Emperor begged to lead him to a place of safety. Receiving imperial sanction he took the force by a circuitous route above the gorge to a cavern whose secret recesses were apparently alone known to him.

Yu Ngao’s small regiment had scarcely arrived in the vicinity of the cavern when their tireless foe appeared. It was with difficulty that part of the men defended the approach until the Emperor and the remainder of his force, carrying the imperial treasure, retired in safety. Again and again the enemy attempted to capture the cavern but owing to the ease of its defence they were repulsed. After a number of months’ close watch they attacked again. This time there was no combat and they entered—entered to be seen no more.

Years passed and other forces went into the cavern, to return never. After this, during long intervals of time, adventurous persons have gone in to search for the great treasure, but none of them by man were ever seen again.

Thus the people call this the Grotto of the Sleepless Dragon and—avoid it. They have surrounded it with a halo of mysticism and a semi-sacredness clings to it. The country around abounds with marvellous tales told of its dragon, which guards, sleepless and relentless, its treasure of gold and jade, of pearls and priceless rubies, until again the Mings shall come to their own.

The word holds no more wonderful scene than when after having ascended a fjord that opens into the North River, and upon whose jade-green waters the sun shines but a moment each day, a turn is made and this marvellous white precipice rises overhead sheer out of the water. Four caves are to be seen half-veiled with vines and from out of a great fissure a third way up the cliff falls a cataract in a broad, heavy sheet of glittering silver. When it strikes against the rocks, it then comes down like snow or is blown upward a veiling mist. These falls are broken four times by projecting shelves, the last drop being the longest. Just below the second shelf to the right of the falls and almost invisible from the stream are stone steps cut diagonally across the face of the cliff, beginning in some shrubs and disappearing under the falling waters, while above them hangs a rusted chain suspended in two long folds. Under this projecting shelf, hid by the veil of waters, entered by these stone steps and rusted chain, is the Grotto of the Sleepless Dragon.

The formation of the cliff is a calciferous, conglomerate mass of fantastic beauty. The upper right hand side has the appearance of the façade of some vast age-eroded cathedral; serrated pinnacles and slender spires point skyward in irregular rising series. Here complete a flying buttress; there one half hid in ruins. In one place arches, in another cavernous recesses, that might have been windows; pillars, gargoyles and angels are scattered from top to bottom; while around each spire and buttress, arch and pillar, gargoyle and angel, twine crepe myrtle and festoons of vinnig, whose clusters of blossoms sweeten the air of the shadowed cañon.

These vines and cavities have become the homes of innumerable birds: doves, thrushes, cormorants and francolins, mimahs, kingfishers, owls, ospreys and eagles, while at dusk the hundred-footed fox and spirit-cat creep about its broken face, in and out of its columns and creepers.

One day these birds fluttered and screamed, the fox and spirit-cat peeped out of their dens for a boat had crept into their solitude and lingered in the emerald lake.

Presently two men got out of it, followed with difficulty the narrow, vine-covered path, crossed the stones and disappeared under the falling waters. All day the birds watched them go back and forth, bearing their loads into the cavern whence no man ever returns.

So the day passed and along toward the latter part of the afternoon one of the men went down to the boat and remained there, smoking peacefully. The other climbed up the face of the cliff until he reached a narrow shelf near the far end of the fissure from which the cataract burst. Bright little birds with blue wings and brown breasts, a-tilting on the vines, francolins perched on the crags or fluttering in circles, looked wonderingly at this man standing silently upon that perilous projection and gazing contentedly over the lower cliffs to the westward.

With the setting of the sun came the gorgeous afterglow of this latitude, burning the cloud banks above the purple-misted mountains with gold, alternating with amethyst and lilac and shafting over this solitude their exquisite hues and lavishing them unseen upon the man pressed against the cliff. At last a purple veil rose from the gorge: eagles and companies of ospreys soaring majestically above and below him now began to wheel, scream, poise, and dart. The spirit-cat and hundred-footed fox came to look at him, meditatively, fearlessly, knowingly, for it was dusk.

When the man clinging to the vines and the crags descended the birds returned to their accustomed roosts and night brooded gently over all.