In the afternoon we go into the Chinese town, passing through the great Chien-men or Front Gate. Inside this there is a large blank square, formed by the meeting walls of the Chinese and Tartar cities, which are pierced by four archways. The centre entrance is only opened and used by the Emperor on the occasion of his yearly visit to the Temple of Heaven. But through the others that connect the towns, there is a constant moving, hurrying crush of people, the two streams meeting and blocking in the arch.
We lift up and pass under some black draperies and find ourselves in the Chinese bazaar—in a passage one yard wide and completely covered in. The shops are a succession of rooms, raised on a step from the earth passage and all open in front, where you can buy fancy articles and artificial flowers. There are the pretty jade pins, which form the centre for the shiny coil of hair worn by the Chinese women, long earrings and bracelets of the same, mandarin buttons in coloured stones, clocks, porcelain, shoes, and silk embroideries. It is the quaintest and prettiest of Eastern arcades, with the afternoon sun penetrating the bamboo blinds in shafts of light, lighting the picturesque groups of buyers and sellers squatted on the floors. The three-foot passage is blocked by a curious crowd, assisting in our purchases.
We penetrate yet further into the Chinese city, across a stone bridge and through a dangerous open square—a meeting of ways—where crates of merchandise, carts drawn by tandem bullocks and mules, palanquins, wheelbarrows with baskets of liquid manure running over, horses and donkeys, are all mingled together, going and coming in different directions. Yes! Sir Edwin Arnold, you speak truly of
"The painted streets alive with hum of words,
The traders cross-legged, mid their spice and grain,
The buyers with their money in the cloth,
The war of words to cheapen this or that,
The shout to clear the road, the huge stone wheels,
The strong slow oxen and their rustling loads,