We spent the afternoon on the Great Wall. The Chinese name for this most marvellous work is Wan-Li-Cha̔ng-Che̔ng—literally the myriad-li-long wall. Calculating the li at a third of a mile, this name would give it a length of nearly 3400 miles, but the English books estimate it at 1250 miles. It was built by the Emperor Shih of the Chi̔n dynasty about 230 years b.c. as a barrier against the northern tribes, or more probably as an evidence of power. He was the same Emperor who burnt the books of the sages, thus rendering himself famous by two works—one of construction, the other of destruction. The wall near Ku-Pei-Ko̔u is for the most part in very good repair, but in other places it is little more than a heap of rubbish; where we saw it, it is built of large blocks of granite, huge bricks and cement, and the centre filled in with rubble and concrete. It is some fifteen feet broad and twenty feet high; at regular intervals are quadrilateral towers about forty feet high, built of granite with embrasures—some of these are quite perfect, others in ruin; wild vines, asparagus, bluebells, low shrubs, and other plants grow in profusion among the débris, and the towers are covered with silver-backed ferns and mosses. For miles and miles as far as our eyes could stretch, up hill and down dale, up precipices almost perpendicular, and over the highest peaks, we traced the course of the wall; when we thought we had fairly lost sight of it our glasses would light on some distant crag carrying it on still farther. How so much material could have been got together in such wild and inaccessible spots is a marvel.
Even without the attraction of the Great Wall, the height on which we stood would have been well worth visiting. Range above range of hills rose all round us; on one side were the wilds of Mongolia, on the other the plains of China. At our feet lay the little town with its absurd fortification and ditches and cannon, and the river flowing past it. The mountain view was only bounded by the limits of our sight.
We lingered long on the wall, looking and wondering at the beauty of the scene. We gathered some ferns and mosses, of which I send you some, and by dint of hardish work, for it was no light weight to carry under a broiling sun, I managed to bring off a trophy in the shape of one of the big bricks. I have got it safe in my room here, after many vicissitudes, for it was often nearly left behind, and some day I hope to take it home.
We left Ku-Pei-Ko̔u the next morning, going our several ways—Saurin and Frater to Mongolia, Murray and I to the Tombs of the Mings, which I must tell you about in another letter.
As you interest yourself about Chinese curiosities and antiquities, I will add a few words about the Yang and Yin, to which I alluded in the early part of my letter.
You may have noticed on old porcelain and other ornaments this device. It is the symbol of Yang and Yin, the universal male and female principle of creation to which everything is referred. The celestial principle is male, the terrestrial female; even plants are male and female, without reference, of course, to the sexual system of Linnæus; odd numbers are male, even numbers female. Day and the sun male, night and the moon female. Parts of the body, the lungs, the heart, the liver, etc., each have a sex. Sir John Davis compares with this the Egyptian and Brahmin mythologies (The Chinese, vol. ii. p. 67).
LETTER XIV
Peking, 25th Sept. 1865.
In my last letter I told you how we went to Ku-Pei-Ko̔u. We turned homewards (that I should talk of Peking as home!) on the 29th of August. I began my backward journey unluckily. My horse had a sore back, which no nostrum in the pharmacopœia of a dirty old Chinese veterinary surgeon could heal in time for me to ride him, so I had to go in a cart. Our first day’s journey was back over the road by which we had arrived as far as Mi-Yün-Hsien, a distance of five-and-thirty miles—no great things, to be sure; but the average pace was three miles an hour; the road was full of deep ruts, and rendered doubly uneven by rocky passages and big stones. The carts have no springs; at every jolt I was banged up against the hard sides, and by the evening my back was as sore as my horse’s. After ten hours of a Chinese cart a man is fit for little else than to be sold at an old rag and bone shop. Misfortunes never come single; when I arrived at Mi-Yün-Hsien, jaded and aching in every bone, the inns refused to take us in; this was of very small account, for persuasion and threats soon brought the people to reason. The only cause they had to give for their reluctance to house us, was that last year some foreigners had stayed there, and instead of paying for their night’s lodging had beaten the landlord when he asked for his money; such are some of the travellers who come to these parts, and who defeat all our efforts to conciliate the people. However, we convinced the host that we neither wished to cheat nor to beat him, and he, when he felt safe on both scores, was willing enough to be civil. But during the altercation, which had attracted a great crowd, my pocket-book was picked out of my pocket, which was a serious loss, for it contained a heap of notes, rough sketches, and plans, that I had made on different excursions, and our passport. We offered a reward for its recovery, and sent to the Chih-hsien, or governor of the town, to ask his help, which he sent in the shape of two officers, who came and knelt before us very humbly, but offered no suggestions for getting back my book, which I shall now certainly never see again.