The singing bearers with their palanquins,
The broad-necked hâmals sweating in the sun."
Then we go up a narrow street, tortuous and dirty, to another bazaar where there are nothing but lantern, fan, and picture shops.
Half an hour in these streets gives you more idea of Chinese life than all the books of travel you may read in a life-time.
Peking beggars description, still let me try to give some idea of what we see.
Here we are in a narrow lane. This is the aristocratic quarter where the mandarins and officials live. There are a succession of mud-plastered walls, roofed at the top and presenting an absolutely blind appearance to the road, which, when combined with the always dilapidated condition of the latter, gives the most deserted and squalid impression. Opposite the entrance are hung tablets, indicating the offices and titles of the householder. They are on a blank wall, for you must observe that the entrance into a Chinese house is never straight. It always winds, and this is supposed to be a defence against the incursion of evil spirits, for the latter can happily only go straight. For the same reason we see the little children wearing their pig-tails plaited at the side of the head, so that the evil spirit, not finding anything to grip at the back, is unable to catch hold of them. In the houses of poor people, who cannot afford such elaborate precautions, there is always a mud screen erected in front of the door. Let us go inside. We find ourselves in a succession of courts, surrounded by low buildings, where a family and its branches reside, to the number sometimes of 200 persons. There are separate buildings for the cooking, eating, sleeping, and living, but the family all live together. As our "boy" said, when we inquired about these houses, "Family man live there." Truly one, indeed. Yet there is something to be admired about this family life, this care of aged parents and luckless relations.
The streets with shops, present the most wonderful vista of untidy ends of tattered rags flying from poles, of dingy decorations of strips of paper or cloth hanging over the doorways. The houses have a mean appearance, being only of one story, and their walls, unless they are of mud, consist of carved wood openwork, covered in with tattered yellow paper. I think I may truly say that I never saw one, where the paper was not torn and discoloured. Occasionally you come upon a shop, bright with the names of the goods written in gold and scarlet or green. They were originally all like this, and this one is only recently finished, yet in a few months will become as dull and dirty as the rest. Everything is allowed to run to decay. The Chinese never seem to think it necessary to repair or re-decorate, and the climate powerfully aids in this destruction.
A street in Peking.
In many of the streets, the road is raised on an embankment of loose dust, and then bordered by an empty space, where the garbage of the dwelling-house is increased by the refuse from the various trades pursued in it, and which is thrown out indiscriminately to fester and decay in the hot sun, or it is occupied by cheap-jacks who lay their goods in the dust, hawking and crying their wares. Here are rows of lanterns with a primitive wooden receptacle for the lamp, filled in with opaque paper, and frequent watch-houses, whence the watchmen patrol the city at night with the muffled beat of a gong.