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Marble Boat
Normally built near the shore , it is accessible by means of a stone bridge .Sightseers go aboard to appreciate the surrounding scenery, feeling as if they were gently water-borne on a real boat.
The present structure, rebuilt in 1893 during the reign of Guangxu, was supposed to be patterned after the cabin-house on a Western vessel ,the windows paned with stained glass and the floor paved with enameled tiles . It is generally believed that the powerful Empress Dowager Cixi watched from the Marble Boat the escise of naval units on the lake. It is now one of the tourist attractions in the past. Similar stone boats but of smaller size can be seen in the royal palace of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom (1851-1861) in Nanjing, in three private gardens of Suzhou and on Lake Shouxihu (Slandered West Lake) of Yangzhou.
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An ornamental structure in classical Chinese landscaping ,shifang ( marble boat) is also popularly known as shichuan (which means the same thing) or , in southern China ,hanchuan (land boat) .A marble boat usually has its underwater base and its body built of stone and its on-deck cabins of wood in the form of a pavilion (xuan,xie or lou¡ªsee previous articles); it may also have a cabin at the bow and at the stern, just like a model of the ¡°official boat¡± of ancient times.
The largest exiting marble boat in China is the one of 36 meters in the Summer Palace of Beijing.Popularly known as the Marble Boat, its official name Qingyanfang has long fallen into oblivion. First built in A.D.1755 completely of white stones during the reign of Emperor Qianlong ,it was meant to be water-surface belvedere for the imperial family as well as a symbol of the rock firm solidarity of the imperial power. The original wood cabin-house was burnt down by British and French troops in 1860.