The compound is large, and contains the bungalows and houses of the Legation Staff, and the separate apartments of the Student Interpreters, of whom there are six. And a very happy little community of twenty-two persons they appear to be, led by Lady Walsham, who is most hospitably inclined, and living their life within the four walls of the compound, which they rarely leave, except for social duties, to pass into the outside filth and dust.
From the windows of our rooms, overshadowed by the deep eaves supported on enormous red wooden pillars, we look out on a succession of peaked roofs, inlaid with green tiles and blue decorations, with rows of pretty little green dragons perched on the ridges, whilst crescent-shaped ornaments depending from the roof, wave with each breath of wind.
CHAPTER IX.
THE CELESTIAL CITY.
A curious difficulty arises in The Celestial City. It is that of locomotion. How are we to get about with no carriages, and only those abominable agonizing carts to drive in? We end by taking refuge on the humble donkey, and every time we went out messengers had to be sent to the walls to charter the best attainable animals.
Great mandarins and ministers-plenipotentiary go in chairs, but smaller fry are not allowed to use them, besides which they are prohibitorily expensive. Even the late Marquis Tsêng, when he returned from his embassy to Europe, was at first denied the privilege of a chair, that he might understand that, although great in England, he was small in China. For the Secretaries, ponies are the chosen mode of locomotion by day, and fifty ponies stand in the Legation stables. At night all must walk, lantern in hand, or go in a cart. So it is with the ladies. Carriages are unknown and impossible, with the result that the majority make, as I have said, a sweet prison of the compound, and lawn tennis has votaries among all ages.
The sky is clear and blue, with a north wind bringing a deliciously crisp feeling into the air, suitable to this October month. The climate of Peking offers a redeeming feature to the Europeans who are isolated here. For the next six months this cloudless sky is uninterrupted. Rain is unknown for nine months together, from July to April, and the worst season is the rainy one of May and June, when the steamy heat is most trying. The winter is perfect—cold, but with warm sun in the middle of the day, and the snow that falls, but occasionally, is soon dispersed by the wind.
Moreover, Peking is fortunate in having a summer resort close at hand in the Western Hills, some fifteen miles distant. Here the Legation lives for the hot months, in a privately-rented group of Temples. The dust storms are the scourge of the town; from the crumbling "loess" and alkaline nature of the soil, they sweep in blinding clouds over the plain, and are most irritating in their fortnightly recurrence. The air is so intensely bracing and dry, as to unpleasantly affect the skin.
The first thing to do is to grasp the topography of the Celestial Metropolis, with its city within city, and wall within wall. We return to the Gate of Sublime Learning, and ascend by it on to the great Tartar Wall.