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| Suzhou Tiger Hill Photo Tour |
| Suzhou Tiger Hill Photo Tour |
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Once through the entrance gate you start trudging up the hill past a host of poetically-named sights such as the Mountain Villa of Luxurious Verdure, the Tomb of the Virtuous Lady, and the Sword Testing Stone.
The sword testing stone is said to have been used by King He, the monarch who is believed to have been buried here, to test his collection of three thousand swords on. The split in the center of the stone is the only evidence that these swords existed. According to legend, the swords were buried along with the king, and 1,000 builders were killed after building the tomb so that their location would never be revealed.
Close by the Sword Testing Stone are a couple of other interesting-looking rocks that have been called the Pillow Stone (above) and Peach Stone (below) because of their resemblance to these objects.
About half way up the hill you reach Thousand Man Rock, where the scenery opens up to reveal a quite stunning view littered with large terraces of boulders jutting out of the bare rock. This is the true center of Tiger Hill and surrounding it are the Pavilion of Two Immortals, the Swords Pool, and the White Lotus Pond.
This is the Pavilion of the Two Immortals, which are celebrated as part of the Taoist faith.
Next to the Pavilion of the Two Immortals is the Swords Pool, which is one of the places where King He Lu is reputed to have been buried. In fact, it is said that both Qin Shihuang, the first emperor of the Qin Dynasty (221-207 B.C.), and Sun Quan of the Three Kingdoms Period (220-280) both sent people to look for the king’s swords at this spot and thus created the pool through their digging.
No matter whether these stories are true or not, the Swords Pool certainly has a mysterious air about it, with the sheer cliffs of rock crashing down into the water and a splashing waterfall at its rear.
Over the centuries many famous calligraphers have braved the cliffs to carve inscriptions on them. The two characters in red are heavily stylized versions of the Chinese characters for “sword” and “pool”.
