Yiheyuan (New Imperial Summer Palace), Peking: Zhihuihai temple, at Wanshoushan. Photograph by John Thomson, 1871.

Zhihuihai: "Sea of Perfect Wisdom". Wanshoushan: "Hill of Longevity". A tall building seen through and above trees, with a dilapidated wall at right and three people sitting in the centre. The Sea of Wisdom Temple, also known as the 'hall without beams', is a religious building on top of Longevity Hill. Its name indicates that the Buddha's wisdom is as wide as the sea. First built in the latter half of the 18th century, its construction was undertaken without the use of either columns or beams, and it is faced entirely with glazed tiles. The original external decoration also included 1,100 small, glazed Buddhist sculptured tiles, but although the Temple survived the looting of 1860, many of the golden Buddhist sculptures swathed in the tiles were damaged