A Woman In China

by Mary Gaunt

Always in China there are people; and here there were tiny towns packed together on ledges of the eternal hills, with the fruit-trees and the willows that shade the graves, and there were walls—walls that stretch up to the inaccessible portion of the hills, where only a goat might climb, and no invading army could possibly pass. So numerous were these walls that my cheery young friend suggested that if ever a village head-man had a little spare time on his hands he remarked: “Oh, I say, here's a fine day and plenty of stones, let's go out and build a wall.” And then next day the villagers in the next hamlet looking out said, “By Jove, Balbus, no Wong, has built a wall. We can't be beat.” But I don't think in the old days the villagers on those hills ever took life quite as lightly as that.

Over and over again it is repeated, the watch-towers on the hills and the strips of wall running down into the valley, walls with wide tops on which companies of archers might stand, protected by a breast-work slit for arrows, with a wall behind again to which they might retire if they were beaten, making the space between hard to hold, even for a victorious enemy. Always there were the walls and watch-towers as we went on up the valley, telling (116)in their own way, the story of the strenuous lives of the men who lived here in the old days.

Down the mule track these walls command came an endless company of people, wandering along, slowly, persistently, as they have wandered since the dawn of history. They had mules, and donkeys, and horses—muzzled so that they cannot eat the tufts of herbage by the roadside—laden with grain, and hides, and all manner of merchandise. There were blue-coated coolies trudging along with bamboos across their shoulders, their heavy loads dangling from either end; and there were laden camels, the ragged dromedaries from Mongolia, long lines of them, picking their way among the stones along the road by the side of the stream. The camels, and the walls, and the watch-towers go together, they enhance the wonder and the charm of this road to the Great Wall.

Up and up we went, up the valley, past the great archway where is the Customs barrier even to-day, and on, higher and higher, deeper into the hills, till ahead, crowning them, climbing their steepest points, bridging their most inaccessible declivities, clear-cut against the blue sky, I saw what I had come out to see, one of the wonders of the world, the Great Wall of China! Here among the stony, arid hills, that anywhere else in the world would be left to the rock-doves and the rabbits, we came upon a piece of man's handiwork that for ages has cried aloud to those who have eyes to see, or ears to hear, of the colossal industry of China, nay of more than that, of the sacrifice of the individual for the good of the community. On and on went the Wall, up and up and up, climbing steadily, falling, climbing again, and again dropping into the valleys. There were watch-towers and a broad highway along its top; here stood the sentries, who kept ceaseless watch and ward looking ever for the invader, whether he came in countless array, a conquering army, or in small raiding bands that might take toll of the rich crops to the south, steal a few women, or hold a wealthy squire up to ransom.

“Watchman, what of the night? What of the night? Is the road clear to the north? Hist! Hist! What is that beneath the loom of the hills? What is the sound that comes up on the wind?”

“There are always dark shadows in the loom of the hills, and it is only a stone falling down the gully.”

“Ah, but the dark shadows have hidden a band of Manchurian archers, and the stone might be loosened by the hoof of a Mongol pony. Watchman! Watchman, what of the night? What of the night?”

That was the way I felt about it as, having got out of the train, and taken a chair, we made our way through the desolate country to the Nankou Pass, and I, forgetting all else, stood gazing my fill at the Wall I had heard about ever since I was a little child. Dreaming of what it must have been in the past, I forgot, for the moment, the present, and the passing of time. I was alone, as the poet wished to be, and then a high-pitched voice brought me to this present day again.