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Show Tai Shan, Sacred Mountain of the East 701 Richard M. VanderLwrnh With Fruits and Sales Cries, Peddlers Besiege a Pilgrim Train to Taian Several carry white offerings resembling sticks of rock candy. These are crab apples, spitted on chopsticks and dipped in sweet syrup. When they all press the same line on a customer, a small riot ensues. when, in February and March, the pilgrimage is in full swing-as many as ten thousand pilgrims a day-such an eruption of new life seems to have taken place. Human insects in swarms spread up the mountain. There is a shuffle of feet in soft shoes and a chatter of amiable and excited voices, with the sputter of firecrackers at every important stage of the Way. There are not only pilgrims, on foot or in chairs, but also beggars, peddlers, carriers with poles on their shoulders; the permanent residents- farmers, teahouse keepers, hermits, priests and nuns, sellers of incense, charms, and paper money, and all others who hope to reap reward by or from pilgrimage. One seems to be carried up on a tide of enthusiasm. Despite their ancient lineage, the Chinese are the least blase of people, and their religious festivals rival in verve the fish fry in The Green Pastures. They are businesslike, however, and expect a substantial return from the gods at whose shrines they make offerings. Among the visitors are many modern Chinese, come not as worshipers but as sight-seers, with knowledge of the historic and national importance of what they see. More or less permanent residents live in huts or houses of rough stone, built for safety and convenience close to the Pilgrim Way. Farmers in the lower regions herd goats and sheep and tend farms and orchards. Blooming apricot and peach trees in the spring, and ripening persimmons in the fall, add beauty to the Way. One charm of the Pilgrim Way is the teahouses, shaded by matting awnings and trellises of wistaria or gourd. Very popular in season are fried cakes made from wistaria blossoms; and the gourd, useful as cricket cage or dipper or traveler's flask, is a recognized symbol of pilgrimage. There are always gay potted flowers on the steps and parapets and caged larks singing. Climbers Need Not Go Hungry There are piles of incense gaily wrapped in red-and-yellow paper and stacks of gilded paper money to pay the gods, made in the boat-shaped form of the old tael "shoe." Big cakes of a sort of hardtack and white mo-mo, steamed bread rolls, are displayed temptingly. In season, cucumbers, radishes, apricots, melons, and persimmons are favorite additions to the climber's food supplies. Huge caldrons, built into brick stoves, keep water always steaming for the tea guest. A smaller device is a long tin tube which, plunged into a bed of coals, produces boiling water |