[To face [p. 346].
Many of the towns we passed through were evidently very old, and in most cases their venerable crenelated walls showed signs of great antiquity. One place in particular, Tchai Dar, the entrance to which was through a sort of double archway in splendid preservation, was very fine, and doubtless dating back very many hundreds of years. Once, however, inside these magnificent relics, all illusion vanished; it was almost like going behind the scenes of a theatre, for the cities were invariably squalid in the extreme, and offered a striking and disappointing contrast to their outer mediæval appearance.
On Friday, May 29, we reached the famous Nankaou Pass, and a little before we reached the town of that name, the road passed under an archway through what is generally known as the “Great Wall of China.” Some time before reaching it, I could distinguish the mighty structure standing out in bold relief against the sky, where in places it actually crossed the very tops of the highest mountains. I had fully prepared myself for something wonderful, but this marvellous work more than realized my expectations, and fairly held me spellbound for a few minutes. One can form some idea of the panic the Celestials must have been in when they undertook such a gigantic barrier. The Kalgan wall, in my opinion, is not worthy of being mentioned in the same breath even, and any one who first saw this one, and then fancied he would find something finer at Kalgan, would be grievously disappointed. What struck me most about it was its wonderful state of preservation, the symmetrically hewn stones of which it is composed showing but few signs of the ravages of time. I persuaded Nicolaieff to halt the caravan long enough for me to make a rough sketch; but it is too overpowering and colossal for an ordinary pencil to be able to do justice to. How it could have ever been defended is a mystery, for it would undoubtedly have been as difficult to hold as to attack. The Nankaou Pass is very beautiful, and reminded me not a little of parts of Wales or Ireland. Through the rocky gorge ran a sparkling torrent, and the boulders on either side were clothed with the most brilliant lichen.
The town itself, where we arrived in time for our midday halt, offered but little of particular interest, as it was very like all the others we had passed through, except that it was market day, and the narrow streets were, if possible, more crowded. I noticed here more women walking about than hitherto, many of them not crippled with the hideous Chinese foot, but wearing the more sensible Manchurian shoe.
THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA AT THE ENTRANCE TO NANKAOU PASS.
[To face [p. 348].
Nankaou also impressed itself on my memory on account of the awful amount of flies everywhere; in fact, they were positively maddening, as there was no getting away from them. One’s food, if left exposed for only a few seconds, became covered with what resembled a moving mass of jet. Up till then I had been enjoying a comparative immunity from insect pests, but I should now have to pay the penalty of having continuous warm weather and sunshine. These flies were, however, insignificant, compared with what I had to endure later on, when the mosquitoes and sandflies never for a moment left me alone night or day.
We were now rapidly nearing the end of our long journey, and evidently beginning to get in touch, so to speak, with the capital, the country becoming if possible even more cultivated, and the stream of traffic along the road more and more congested. I now began to get a slight foretaste of what heat and dust in China really mean; for at times everything within a few yards on either side was lost in a dense sort of fog, through which the moving, perspiring masses of people appeared to be groping their way tediously. At last on the horizon, not very far ahead, I made out a long dark line just visible above the surrounding trees. At the same moment Nicolaieff, who was riding close to my litter, pointed to it, and, with a smile of satisfaction on his sunburnt face, informed me that the walls of Peking were before us.
Our goal once in sight, the time did not seem so long in reaching it, and in less than half an hour we were advancing in the midst of a dense crowd, under the shadow of the massive crenelated battlements, towards the entrance of the immense city. In comparison to its size, there are but few entrances, and these far apart, and we had to follow the walls quite a long way before we reached an archway, but not the entrance to the city itself, for on the other side of the vast walls were the inner walls enclosing the Tartar city, our destination, a wide expanse of waste ground separating them from the outer enceinte. Along this dusty, stony waste hundreds of caravans and vehicles and passengers were passing to and fro. It was a strange scene, and rendered doubly so by the weird hoarse murmur of the great city so close. The venerable walls seemed almost endless, at any rate to me, for I was all impatience for the wonders which I felt sure were coming.