Next morning we made a very early start, hoping to reach the capital and get our letters in good time. It was now more than six months since we had heard from home, and we were, naturally, a little anxious as to what news might be awaiting us. For some days the traffic had been rapidly increasing. All night one could hear the camel bells ringing as they passed our inns,[19] while all day we passed string after string of pack mules and carts. But to-day far surpassed everything we had yet seen. In one hour, just before daybreak, Rijnhart and I counted no less than 765 camels, all carrying tea, sugar, and oil to the interior, while those travelling east were mostly laden with wool.
Just below Nan Kou the road, which for the last few days had lain through rocky mountains, debouched on the wide "Plain of Pe Chili," in which lies Pekin, and where are also the famous "Tombs of the Emperors." As we neared the great city we crossed some fine stone bridges, which must have been quite wonders when originally built in the days of long ago, but, as little care is now taken about keeping them in order, the roadways are very rough. Here it was that we got our best opportunity of studying the crowd that was hurrying to the capital, all bent on business or pleasure.
First and foremost in interest was an important Mongolian prince, decorated with the dark red button and surrounded by an escort whose faces plainly told their nationality. From one of them we learnt that their chief had been hastily summoned into the presence of the Emperor, and was travelling with all possible speed. Just behind his sedan chair came a coffin with its inevitable accompanying rooster, while, indifferent alike to the living prince or the dead commoner, a mass of jostling, bustling humanity, neat little private mule carts, rougher hired ones, country waggons, and people on foot, all hurrying on and looking after themselves alone, crossed the bridge in front of us, a mass of colour and Chinese life worth going a long way to see.
CLOSE TO THE CELESTIAL CAPITAL.
Here, too, for the first time, we saw Chinese women with decent sized feet. This is owing to the fact that from mixing with Manchus and other foreigners they have seen the error of their ways, and the younger generation are, to a great extent, forsaking the folly of their ancestors. The treatment necessary to produce a really neat Chinese foot, the best examples of which are to be seen in Lancheo, is absolutely barbarous. First, slits are made between the metatarsal bones to enable the toes, except the big toe, to be bent well under the sole. Then a similar cut is made in the heel, so that it can be bent to nearly meet the toes, the whole foot being tightly bound round and held in position with bandages. The unfortunate child-cripple is now left to walk about on the stumps until the agony becomes unbearable, when the foot is released till the following day. Needless to say, a free, easy gait is an impossibility, and how such deformity can be considered becoming passes all understanding. Shahzad Mir summed up the Chinese race in the words, "All the women are lame, and the men rotten with opium," by no means an unfair description.
Coming from India, the effects of opium on the people strike one perhaps more forcibly than they would do otherwise. In both countries there is a large consumption, but, instead of smoking in the Chinese fashion, the inhabitants of India either eat it or drink a decoction of it. As was shown before the Opium Commission in 1894, the good effects of the drug in India more than counterbalance the evil effects, but there can be no mistake as to its being an unmitigated curse in China, where many of its slaves would gladly give it up if they could, but the craving it induces is too strong to be combated by nature alone.
Manchu women, with their carefully dressed hair sticking out on either side of the head, and their curious shoes, were the next curiosity to attract our attention, but all these were soon dwarfed into insignificance by the appearance, in the distance, of the west gate of Pekin, but, though still early when first seen, it was three o'clock in the afternoon before we arrived in the suburb.