The ox carts with strange passengers inside them! The jinrickshas with their Chinese runners with more “devil may care manners”! The street hucksters, the few Europeans and the rich natives with their coolies, the stir of one of the busiest cities of the East and one of the most original, that all makes Moukden!
The recruits are exercising out in front of the American consulate and raw they are, but quick, and the military steps are fast becoming familiar to them.
An ancient pagoda surely contemporary with David is on this street: this Parisian boulevard of Moukden, and much we wondered at its stone form of concrete and its top of bronze, a crescent and ball!
Around the unique buildings of the consulate extends the plain, by turns dusty or muddy, according to the season.
Our delight was the moonlight on the consulate! The court so imposing, with its grotesque animals and its Chinese queerness! The rare old Chinese windows and at evening time, the watchman “beating the fish,” sounding a rattle to warn away all intruders!
The especial beauty of a real oriental house and furnishings; this one, set in the heart of China, has as delightful a flavor as one may meet.
The tombs of the Emperors of the Manchu dynasty, the men rather, who founded the reigning house, are of fitting elaborateness. They too, like the palaces of Seoul, are falling to decay.
The one I went to see on a chilly autumn afternoon, was set in a park of considerable dimensions guarded by the ever faithful stone dogs. These faithful animals have kept the palaces intact and the sleepers in their tombs for centuries!
We watched the old stern-faced tho not unkindly woods-men cutting the winter fodder in the over-grown grounds. They work while the emperors sleep and how much more impressive they are!
A huge gate as usual meets us at the entrance to the enclosure; indeed, two gates.