Now for some of the sights of Peking.
A long hour and a half's ride on donkeys from the British Legation, brings us to the vicinity of the great temple of Confucius.
We find ourselves on a straight, dusty road, with a gateway at the end. It was through that gateway, and down this same road, that the British troops passed, when in 1860 they marched into Peking.
We are frequently seeing painted wooden archways, called Peilaus. These memorial arches are found all over China. They are only erected by express permission of the Emperor, to good and public-spirited persons—to a great man who has given a large sum of money (often solely for this object), or to a widow who has been sufficiently virtuous to remain faithful to her husband's memory. Like everything else, they are generally crumbling or falling crooked.
The approach to the Temple is through a road with a succession of blank walls, the temple itself being equally well surrounded. Here we see a man doing penance, shut up in a yellow box, and striking a bell with a wooden lever at intervals. His punishment will last a month, and if we could see inside, very likely the box is lined with spikes or nails, so arranged that they prick the sinner if he changes his position. Sometimes it is a means resorted to to obtain money to build a temple. "Give, oh! give. 1000l. I must collect before I am released from this cell."
Foreigners are often refused entrance to the Confucian Temple. We parley, too, through a crack in the door, and are told "No, big man is coming." But as usual, greed, in the shape of the golden key that accomplishes most things, conquers, and amid a rush of dirty on-lookers, who find entrance with us as the gate is opened, we pass inside the court of the temple of the Great Teacher. This court is solemn and silent, neglected and deserted, with its dusky groves of cryptomerias and cooing grey doves. The paved pathway leads up to some steps, that pass on either side of a raised stone slab, covered with ancient hieroglyphics, and embossed dragons with wonderfully twisted tails. In the inner court is the temple itself, with a roof of brilliant yellow tiles, and surrounded by pagodas and smaller halls similarly tiled.
We ascend to a marble terrace with balustrades. The door of the temple is thrown open, and forth rushes a smell of damp air, and as the gloom dissipates we cross some matting, raising clouds of dust. By degrees the lofty proportions of the massive hall, with its roof of blue and green, supported on colossal teak pillars of wood, painted a dull red, begin to dawn upon us. We see in the centre the shrine to Confucius, a humble red wooden tablet, set on a table, bearing this inscription: "The Tablet of the Soul of the Most Holy Ancestral Teacher, Confucius." On either side are tablets to the four most distinguished sages, whilst the others, in a lower position, are for the next best celebrated men of the Confucianist school. And this is the Literary Temple in which the Example and Teacher of all Ages, and ten of his great disciples, worshipped. "All is simple, quiet, and cheerless, fit place for contemplation, and suitable for the Great Thought-giver."
The Emperor comes here twice a year to worship the venerated sage, and every sovereign, in token of veneration, presents a "Tablet of Praise." Each inscription is different, and presents some aspect of his influence; he is called, "Of all men the Unrivalled," "Equal to Heaven and Earth," and "Example and Teacher of all Ages." In another court are seen the celebrated stone drums. They are ten in number, of grey granite or stone, and are believed to date from the eighth century B.C., or to be about 2700 years old. The writing on them is in the old Seal character, and consists of stanzas relating to King Süen's hunting expeditions. They are the oldest things in a country where everything is of such antiquity.
On the opposite side of the court is the Hall of the Triennial Examinations for the highest Literary Degree, the Chinese Doctor of Literature. "In commemoration of each examination, a stone is erected with the names of all the doctors. The oldest are three of the Mongol dynasty, and the Peking University has therefore a complete list for 500 years of its graduates."