Our next visit was to the Russian minister, M. Coumany, to whom we had letters of introduction from M. de Staal, the Russian minister in London. He was (as are most Russians) kindness itself, but met us with the invariable question, “Why Siberia?” The picture M. Coumany drew of the overland journey was certainly not pleasant or encouraging. “Here are letters,” said he, “for the commissioner of Kiakhta and governors of Tomsk and Nijni Novgorod. General Ignatieff of Irkoutsk is now away on leave. But let me ask you to think twice before attempting this voyage. You will experience nothing but annoyance and privation, the whole way to Nijni Novgorod. You will find the monotony and fatigue almost unbearable,——and with Japan so close!” he added, using the well-known formula.
But we managed to convince our host, before leaving, that nothing would deter us from at least making the attempt to reach Moscow by land. “Like all Englishmen,” he said, smiling, “you are obstinate; and as you are determined to go, let me give you a word of advice: Get off as soon as you can, and out of Asia by October at latest. Siberia in autumn is a hell upon earth.”
We returned to our hotel somewhat discouraged, for we had hoped that three or four days at the most would suffice for our preparations. However, there was no help for it, so to lose no time we set about getting mules and litters for the four days’ journey to the Great Wall, the first stage of our voyage, and trusted to Providence that “the Boy” (as every Chinese servant from eighteen to eighty is called in China) would arrive in a week or ten days at the latest.
There is much to do and see in Pekin, but the heat, dust and smells detract considerably from the pleasures of a walk through the city. Moreover, the Chinese, since their Tonquinese victories have become so arrogant and insolent that many of the most interesting temples are now closed to Europeans. Our favourite walk was on the summit of the outer wall, where one could enjoy the cool evening breeze out of the dust and stenches for a while. The Tartar or outer wall is a wonderful piece of masonry about sixty feet high by as many broad, and, considering the hundreds of years it has braved wind and weather, in a wonderful state of repair. It is moss-grown on the summit, and the wild tangled herbage grows knee deep. Were it not for the conservatism, to use no stronger term, of the Chinese Government it would make a splendid drive or ride, for it extends unbroken and in an excellent state of repair for upwards of twenty-two miles. To show the jealousy of this strange race, a European minister at Pekin once remarked to a mandarin what a pleasant drive it would make, adding that it was really the only place in Pekin where he could ever walk with any pleasure. “Oh! you walk there, do you?” was the reply, and the very next afternoon, on arriving for his daily constitutional, he found the gate closed, and an order posted forbidding all Europeans to ascend the wall. This order was, however, cancelled a year after, fortunately for us, and we enjoyed our evening strolls undisturbed, for we seldom saw a soul besides ourselves. It was pleasant enough here in the cool of the evening, out of the dust which on still days hung over the great city like a huge funeral pall. When clear the view was lovely, the rugged, precipitous chain of hills in the background, the densely packed, dwarfish-looking dwellings, and rays of the setting sun flashing brightly on the green porcelain roofs and lofty pagodas of the temples, and bright yellow tiles of the Imperial Palace, composed a picture as unique as, on bright, clear evenings, it was beautiful. As a rule, however, the dust obscured everything.
There is an observatory on this wall which was erected as far back as A.D. 1279. In 1674 a Jesuit priest (one Father Verbest) superintended its restoration, and from that day to this it has remained intact. On a kind of platform above the level of the wall, and reached by an iron staircase, are a quantity of bronze instruments——sextants, globes, quadrants, &c, mounted on massively wrought stands representing strange birds and beasts. Of enormous size, and some from twelve to fourteen feet high and of immense weight, they looked a little distance off as if a single man could lift them, so beautiful and delicate is their moulding and workmanship, and though of great value, were left untouched when the allies entered Pekin in 1860, probably by direction of the commanders-in-chief. It seemed strange that although they have stood in the open for so many hundred years, uncared for and uncleaned, they bore not the slightest traces of decay from time or weather——one especially, a huge globe of the heavens in bronze with the constellations thereon in gold and silver, looked as if it had been placed there but yesterday.
From the summit of the observatory one may look down into the Board of Examinations, a walled space of some eighty acres, with rows of queer-looking little boxes or cells for students. Competitive examinations for Government appointments are held here every three years, and so severe are the subjects that many of the candidates go mad. During the examinations, which last three days, no one is allowed to enter or leave the building. On one occasion two students died, but the doors were not opened. Their bodies were hoisted over the wall, and carried to the burial-ground by the friends awaiting them outside.
We occasionally returned from these expeditions along the pieces of waste land, sandy and sterile, which bound the city walls, and frequently came upon groups or squads of Manchu soldiery at target practice with the bow and arrow. The men are fine strapping fellows and well set up, but their weapons wretched, clumsy things, carrying barely thirty yards. The greater portion of the Chinese army consists of these Manchu Tartars. A force of eighty thousand quartered in Manchuria under the command of Germans, forms the backbone of the Chinese army, and consists of cavalry, artillery, and infantry, the latter armed with the new Berdan rifle. Nearly the whole of the remainder of the Imperial army use the old bow and arrow of their ancestors, and I do not think I exaggerate when I say that there is not a rifle among the soldiery in Pekin.
The Chinese are, indeed, a strange and unaccountable race. It is hard to credit that a nation possessing ironclads and the latest improvements in light and heavy guns at the mouth of the Peiho river still clothes its soldiers at the capital in tiger-skins, and instructs them in the art of making faces to frighten the enemy.[[1]] Clever and civilized as he is in many things, the Chinaman’s forte clearly does not lie in firearms. A German officer of one of the Imperial gunboats told me that a consignment of three hundred Martini-Henry rifles was one day received on board his ship, with one hundred rounds of ammunition to each. A short time after, returning from a week’s leave, he found that by order of the Chinese commander they had all been thrown overboard. The ammunition was exhausted, argued the latter, what was the use of keeping the rifles!
We made but two excursions into the city itself the whole time we remained in Pekin, and after the first time on foot. I only rode in a Pekin cab once. They are not pretty conveyances to look at, being a sort of box, four feet long by three feet broad, fastened to two long poles or beams, and supported by a pair of clumsy ponderous wooden wheels in iron tires. The roof is of thick dark blue cloth, with two little gauze-covered windows on either side. Most of them are drawn by mules, an animal which is looked upon in Pekin as of far greater value than a horse or pony, and fetches far higher prices. T do not think I have ever seen finer mules, even in Spain, than in North China.
To describe the celestial capital is not difficult. One street is so exactly like another, that when you have seen a bit of the place you have seen the whole of it. The principal street of the Tartar city may be described in very few words. A broad straggling thoroughfare, knee deep in dust, with low, tumble-down houses on either side, hidden at intervals by dirty canvas booths, wherein fortune-tellers, sellers of sweetmeats, keepers of gambling-hells, and jugglers ply their trade. Deep open cesspools at every fifty yards; crowds of dirty, half-naked men and painted women; mandarins and palanquins preceded by gaudily-clad soldiers on horseback and followed by a yelling rabble of men and boys, armed with flags, spears, and sticks, on foot; Tartar ladies in mule litters, hung with bells and bright cloths; dark, savage-looking Mongolians from the desert, leading caravans of camels; Chinamen in grey, green, or heliotrope silk, Chinamen in rags, and Chinamen in nothing at all; water-carriers, soldiers, porters, sellers of fruit and ice, the latter coated with dust, like everything else, and looking singularly uninviting; Chow-chow and sweetmeat sellers; camels, mules, ponies, oxen carts thronging the ruined roadway; a deafening noise of bells, cymbals, shouting and cursing; indecency and filth everywhere, with a dusty, gloomy glare over everything, even on the brightest day, while the air everywhere around is poisoned with the hot, sickly smell peculiar to Pekin. Such was the impression one usually retained of a walk through the capital on a summer’s day. We saw many curious sights, but most were of such a nature that I cannot describe them. A Chinese funeral we passed one day is perhaps worth mention. An enormous procession, nearly a mile long, bore witness to the fact that the deceased was a man of some rank. A number of relations clad in white (Chinese mourning), preceded the catafalque, strewing flowers and burning incense before it. Every hundred yards or so a halt was made, and a huge white sheet spread upon the ground on which the mourners lay flat on their breasts and stomachs, repeatedly beating their heads against the ground. Immediately in front of the coffin was the deceased’s property, his horse, hat, pipe, &c, and sedan. The latter startled one somewhat, for seated in it was a figure which, on closer inspection, we discovered to be a waxen effigy of the dead man himself, clad in the clothes he had worn just before death. The huge oaken coffin was so heavy that it took sixty or seventy men to carry it. At the end of the procession of relatives and friends came the rabble and “followers” of the deceased. The Chinese custom is to set the coffin down on reaching the burial-ground with a light layer of earth over it till the wood begins to rot. It is then covered thickly with earth, but not buried. The dead in China are never put underground.