We find an anchorage at Tungchau among fleets of sampans, and in half an hour our boy has procured three carts, packed in our luggage, and we are ready to begin the fifteen miles journey to Peking. Let me describe these carts. The body is formed of a few planks of wood, with a hood covered in blue or black stuff. The wheels are of circular pieces of wood, they are guiltless of springs, and are drawn by mules. They resemble an old mediæval chariot, and indeed they date from and are exactly the same as were in use in the tenth century. There is no seat inside, and instead of sitting on the floor, it is easiest to ride on the shaft, with your legs hanging over; but I did not know this in time. Before you have been half an hour in this vehicle you cry out for mercy—for an instant's cessation of this agonizing mode of progression, from the unbearable bumping and concussion. And when at length you become numbed by the pain and discomfort, the intense weariness that succeeds, makes you sure that another jolt will be unbearable, until at last you close your eyes, feeling that nothing but the end of the journey is of the remotest consequence. The roads are somewhat softened by the loose dust. Still, when you tumble into a ditch on one side, with a jar that is felt to your most internal depths, and are then run up on to a bank on the other, you can have some idea of what we suffered during that journey from Tungchau to Peking. What must have been the agonies endured by Sir Harry Parkes, and our old friend Sir Henry Loch, as they journeyed in these same springless carts to Peking, but with their hands bound behind them and over the stone road that takes a more circuitous route!
How I went to Peking.
We passed through the outskirts of Tungchau, through some blind lanes of mud walls, with doors in them leading to the courts, round which the houses are built. Soon we are out on the road—no, it is not a road, but a rough track with several trails, and made of millions of tons of dust, that rise in impenetrable clouds by the passing of a single donkey—dust that smells and tastes of the garbage of China proper, that envelops everything in a white mist, that, easily raised, subsides as lingeringly. The embankments are crumbling into dust, as are the numerous walls of these hideous earth villages which line the road, and are perched on the top of them. The whole face of the land is parched and burnt. The willows are streamers of dust, and the other trees are coated grey with the same. And the road: it is a succession of deep gutters, of holes, of upheavals of sandbanks, running in the middle or across the road, scarcely defined from the surrounding fields—and this is the great highway to the Great City of the unknown Emperor.
We pass cavalcades of carts, and the gaudily-dressed and painted Chinese women inside peer out curiously at us; bullock carts laden with merchandise, parties of horsemen, a caravan of camels, and endless strings of donkeys, bearing away the last of the students from the late annual examinations at the capital. Many of these wear goggle spectacles, the glasses of which are at least four inches in diameter, and enclosed in broad tortoiseshell rims. With their loose coats they tower over and bulge out above their tiny quadrupeds, but these sleek, good-looking little donkeys go cheerfully jig-jogging along, with their blue-coated owners urging them from behind. In the oasis of a few trees, the mules are occasionally watered from the tubs that stand ready filled, for the traffic along this highway is ceaseless.
The sun, as it got lower, scorched mercilessly into the hood, and the dust in its parching aridity became still more trying. The mule began to tire, and the driver cruelly flogged it, while the monotonous waste seems endless.
Absolute indifference, with a deadly weariness, had long since taken possession of me. The clammy chill of sunset was of no consequence, though I tried to huddle something round me. I was only roused by the sight, over some tree tops, of a little bit of black crenellated wall. The approach to Peking is thus an absolute disappointment, for, instead of seeing the grand walls from afar standing up out of the yellow plain, here we were creeping round a corner to them. In a few minutes we were under the gloom and darkness of this vast mass of stones, piled up on high centuries ago. But, alas! that at such a moment imagination and sentiment, increased by the difficulties and tediousness of the journey, should succumb before an increased ordeal of pain, as we now join the stone road, and jar over the great crevasses the paved way. At last, turning the corner, we enter under the massive arch or gateway, deep with many feet of thickness, called by the poetical name of Hatamen, or the "Gate of Sublime Learning." We are within the outer walls of The Forbidden City.
Then we find ourselves in a sandy waste, bordered by the wall of the Tartar City on one side and the canal on the other. Little clouds of dust rising in the distance tell of some cart or donkey, and we ourselves continue enveloped in the same as we choose any track we please, for there is, of course, again no road for another weary mile or so. Some flag-poles in the distance bring a ray of comfort, for I shrewdly hope that they mean the quarter of the Legations. Nor is my hope ill-founded, for, passing through a dirty passage, we emerge into the moving streets and are soon in Legation Street, so called from the lion-guarded entrances of the various legations, for the French, the American, the German, and the Russian Envoys are grouped here. We find accommodation in one of the numerous courts of the French hotel in this aristocratic street. The sense of comfort of sitting still and not momentarily expecting a concussion is simply delicious. We are full of admiration for the physical bravery and endurance of the many travellers, who for two days or for eighty miles go in these carts from Tungchau to Peking, through such a prolonged torture.
The British Legation is over the bridge with an entrance off the Yu-ho canal. And here, the next morning, Sir John and Lady Walsham sent for us and received us most hospitably.
This beautiful Legation was formerly a Palace belonging to a member of the Imperial Family, as is shown by its green roof. The approach to the entrance is through an aisle and raised pavement, formed by two magnificent open gateways supported by pillars, and gorgeously decorated in gold, scarlet, green, and blue. The palace wanders round the spacious enclosure of a courtyard; and the reception-rooms, with their lofty ceilings inlaid like a temple in green and gold squares, with their hanging screens of that beautiful Chinese black oak carving, are magnificent. The walls are of open work filled in with dull gold papers, and furnished, as these rooms are, with handsome brocades, soft carpets, and rich hangings, chosen to harmonize with the surroundings, the whole is truly regal.