The next day the sea had calmed down to almost normal and the captain discovered that we had been driven five hundred miles out of our course. He headed the bow of his ship towards Manila and, on the morning of the sixth day, we pulled into port. We were all intact, but the faithful ship was a dismantled wreck. The Manila authorities had given us up as lost and our experiences took up a column on the front page of each of the daily papers.
RURAL CHINA BY CART
Richardson was en route to Peking as a third-class passenger. He had just been discharged—with thanks—from his position of physics teacher at the Tientsin Middle School. After his dismissal it took him about ten minutes to gather his meagre belongings together and get out of town.
In the Chinese capital he stayed at the native Y.M.C.A. which was conducted by Americans and where his travelling comrade had put up a few weeks before. His bill was one dollar, Chinese money, a day. The Young Men's Christian Association is found in nearly every large city in the Orient. Many of its plants are housed in substantial and well-equipped buildings and it does a most valuable work. The men in charge of these institutions are a fine lot and are representative of the best type of Americans. Without exception, they received us with the greatest cordiality possible and the recollection of their hospitality will long remain with us. The many secretaries we met were often invaluable to us for the advice they gave us, their suggestions and the courtesies they extended to us, and we were always welcomed to their accommodations at very reasonable prices.
In many ways Peking was the most interesting and fascinating city of our travels. It is different from any other place in the world. Richardson circled this oriental capital on foot. He walked along the top of the twelve miles of huge walls which surround it. Peking has a population of over a million people and is divided into four cities, viz.: The Tartar City, inhabited by the middle classes; the Imperial City, within the Tartar City, where reside most of the government officials; the Forbidden City, in the centre of the Imperial City, in which the Emperors lived and where the President of the Republic of China now has his residence; and the Chinese City where the lower classes live. Surrounding the entire metropolis is a great wall forty feet high and sixty-two feet wide at the base.
The Imperial City occupies a space of nearly two square miles and is enclosed by a wall twenty feet high. There are four spacious entrances, each with three gateways, the middle one being opened only for the Emperor or President. The Forbidden City is laid out on a grand scale and is surrounded by massive pink-tinted walls thirty feet high and thirty feet thick. Within are many palaces, private residences, apartments for visitors and government officials and the necessary quarters for an enormous retinue of domestics of various rank. Foreigners without permits or the Chinese, except high officials, are not allowed in this city.
Connecting the Tartar and Chinese cities is the immense and imposing Chien-Mien Gate with its four oriental towers. The view from the top of this gate is one of the most wonderful metropolitan pictures in the world. Directly before one's eyes are the yellow-tiled palaces of the Forbidden City, whose roofs look like sheets of glittering gold under the rays of the oriental sun. To the right are the costly and substantial houses of the Legation Quarter. Far to the left the Bell and Drum Towers loom up like western skyscrapers. In a remote corner of the Chinese City the stately Temple of Heaven with its rich blue roof rests in the haze of the oriental atmosphere. Beneath one is a bee-hive of human beings. Tens of thousands pass through the Chien-Mien Gate each day. Nearly every means of conveyance that one can imagine, except roller skates and submarines, can be seen creeping through the arched openings of the huge gate. Camels, donkeys, rickshaws, the elaborate equipages of officials, carts, men, women and children on foot, form an endless stream from the time the gates are opened at six in the morning until they close at midnight. A touch of the West is added by the roar of trains whose tracks pierce the walls of the Chinese capital with their numerous tunnels.