We have been away now for three months, and it seems like getting home, to be back in our beloved Peking. We reached the shabby old station, the other evening, worn out from the long two-days' journey up from Shanghai, and it was good to have the porter from the Wagons-Lits greet us and welcome us like old friends. It was pleasant to walk back along the long platform of the station, under the Water Gate, and to find ourselves, in a minute or two, in the warm, bright lobby of this precious hotel. The door-keeper knew us; the clerks at the desk knew us; and the various "boys," both in the dining-room and up-stairs in our corridor, all knew us and greeted us with what seemed to our tired souls real and satisfying cordiality. "Missy way long time. Glad Missy back," "Missy like Peking best?" And Missy certainly does. Moreover, if you have once lived in Peking, if you have ever stayed here long enough to fall under the charm and interest of this splendid barbaric capital, if you have once seen the temples and glorious monuments of Chili, all other parts of China seem dull and second rate. We began here, you see. If we had begun at the other end,—landed at Shanghai, for instance, and worked our way northward,—we should probably have been enthusiastic over the lesser towns. But we began at the top; and when you have seen the best there is, everything else is anticlimax.
We arrived the other evening in a tremendous dust-storm, the first real dust-storm we have experienced. We ran into it at Tientsin, where we changed trains to continue the last two hours of our journey north, and were uncomfortable beyond description. The Tientsin train was absolutely unheated, cold as a barn. The piercing wind from the plains penetrated every nook and crevice of the carriage, and the cracks were legion: the windows leaked, the closed ventilators overhead leaked, the doors at each end of the carriage leaked, and we wrapped ourselves in our ulsters and traveling-rugs and sat huddled up, miserable and shivering. But it wasn't wind alone that blew in through the numerous holes. There was wind, of course, in plenty, but it carried in it a soft, powdery red dust, a fine, thin dust, able as the wind that bore it to sift through every crack and opening. It filled the carriage, it filled the compartment, and when the lamps were lit we sat as in a fog, dimly able to see each other through the thick, hazy atmosphere. There we sat, coughing and sputtering, breathing dust into ourselves at every breath, unable to escape. We became covered with it; it piled itself upon us in little ridges and piles; no one moved much, for that shook it off into the surcharged air, already thick enough, Heaven knows.
Two hours of this, bitter cold and insufferable, choking dust. And every one in the crowded compartment was suffering from Chinese colds; we had them too, contracted at Shanghai. And let me tell you that a Chinese cold is something out of the ordinary. Whatever happens here happens on a grand scale, and these colds, whatever the germ that causes them, are more venomous than anything you've ever known. No wonder the railway station looked good to us; no wonder we were glad to be welcomed back to the old hotel, at the end of such a journey!
We found plenty of hot water when we got here. Not that hot water does one much good in Peking. For Peking water is hard and alkaline, and about as difficult to wash in as sea-water, if one uses soap; we are dirty despite all the facilities afforded us. I should say that the Chinese had given up the struggle several generations ago; and small blame to them. We reached here the last day of February, and are now experiencing a taste of real Northern winter, just the tail of it but sufficient. Coming up from the Equator, as we have done, the shock is rather awful. This winter, they say, has been an extraordinarily severe one, even for Peking, where it is always cold; they tell us it has been the coldest winter within the memory of the oldest foreign resident. I don't believe much in these superlative statements, however: people always make them concerning hot or cold weather, in any climate or in any country. However, the thermometer went so low on several occasions that the pipes burst, and the hotel was without heat; very trying with the weather at twenty below zero. Nevertheless, in spite of the lingering cold, in spite of the dust, in spite of the hard water and other discomforts, Peking is the most delightful place in the world, not even excepting Paris, than which, as an American, I can say no more.
We have been here a week now, have recovered from our Chinese colds, and are getting hold of things again. We are catching up with all the gossip, all the rumors, all the dessous of Chinese politics, which are such fun. And just as I expected, too, it wasn't safe for us to go away, to leave China to flounder along without us. Things have happened in our absence: I won't say that we could have prevented them, but at least we could have been on the spot to take notes. That is what makes Peking so absorbing,—the peculiar protective feeling that it gives one. In a way it seems to belong to us; its interests are our interests; its well-being is peculiarly our concern. You wish the best to happen to China, you wish Chinese interests to have the right of way. And whatever you can do to promote such interests, however small and humble your part may be in advancing them, it is your part nevertheless, and the obligation to fulfil it rests upon you with overwhelming insistence. As I told you before, China is overrun with "advisers." Consequently we all feel ourselves "advisers," more or less, all capable of giving advice just as worthless or just as valuable as, certainly more disinterested than, that which the Chinese Government is compelled to pay for. Everything is in such a mess here—so anarchic, so chaotic—that you feel you must put out a hand to steady this rocking old edifice; and you also feel that your hand is as strong, and probably as honest, as the next one.
Chinese funeral
