Its walls are unscalable.

Good influences are directed over the city from a lofty pagoda on the topmost hill in the vicinity.

Temples abound, and spacious yamens and rich buildings, the crowning edifice of all being the Temple to the God of Literature.

Distances are prodigious in Chungking, and the streets so steep and hilly, with flights of stairs cut from the solid rock, that only a mountaineer can live here in comfort.

All who can afford it go in chairs; stands of sedan chairs are at every important street corner.
[Illustration: A TEMPLE THEATRE IN CHUNGKING.] During the day the city vibrates with teeming traffic; at night the streets are deserted and dead, the stillness only disturbed by a distant watchman springing his bamboo rattle to keep himself awake and warn robbers of his approach.