In the afternoon the tourists were conveyed to the office of the Board of Punishments, and Mr. Psi-ning explained the criminal processes and sentences. The latter are very severe, including torture, which makes one think that he is reading Foxe's "Book of Martyrs." The party declined to witness any of the punishments. Some culprits are treated to twenty or more blows with a bamboo. Men suspected are tortured to make them confess. They are put in all sorts of painful positions.
Capital punishment is inflicted by placing the victim on his knees, with his arms bound behind him, and his head is severed from his body by the stroke of a heavy knife or sword.
The next day the mandarin conducted the tourists to the gate of the Forbidden City; for he had obtained a permit for the admission of the whole of them in a body. The professor had described the principal structures within the enclosure; and it would be only a repetition to report what the mandarin said of them, though he added considerable to what had come from the books. The third gateway was especially noted as one of the finest pieces of Chinese architecture the party had seen.
The "Abode of Heavenly Calmness" was the noblest, richest, and most luxuriously furnished in the great palace; for it is the private apartment of the emperor. The Great Union Saloon, where His Imperial Majesty receives the high-class mandarins, was elegant enough for any royal apartment.
The tourists walked about among the Chinese glories till they were tired out. The two Cupids were completely "blown;" and when they found a place, they seated themselves, and let the rest of the company finish the survey of the Forbidden City. The palace of one prince of the imperial house was so large that three thousand men could be quartered in the out-buildings, and doubtless as many more could be accommodated in the main structure. The Cupids were picked up on the return; but there was more to be seen, and they went to the beautiful temple of Fo, containing a gilded bronze statue of the god, sixty feet high, with one hundred arms, and Scott remarked that he was like a big man-of-war, well armed.
They came again to the Temple of Heaven; but the mandarin had not obtained a permit, which was exceedingly difficult to procure in recent years. Mr. Psi-ning told them that the interior, in its chief hall, represented the heavens. It was a circular apartment surrounded by twenty-two pillars, and everything was painted sky-blue. A portion of this temple is the "Penitential Retreat" of the emperor, where he keeps three days of fasting, meditating over his own sins and those of the government, previous to offering up his sacrifice. Connected with the temple was a band of five hundred musicians, who reside there; but the commander was thankful that the party were not compelled to listen to their performance.
The tourists were very glad to get back to the hotel in the street of the legations, and they did not go out again that day. The question of visiting the Great Wall then came up for discussion. Brother Avoirdupois and Brother Adipose Tissue declared in the beginning that they would not go; and the mandarin laughed heartily when these names were applied to them, and still more when they were called the Cupids.
"It is forty-five miles to the loop-wall which travellers generally visit from Pekin," said Mr. Psi-ning. "You would have to go in mule-litters, or on horseback, or by the carts you have used; and it would take you a day to get there, and as long to return. Then it would be only the loop-wall, and not the Great Wall, which cannot be reached without going over a hundred miles. I can say for myself that I have never been to either, just as I heard a man in Boston say that he had lived there over sixty years, and had never been to Bunker Hill Monument."
"The wall is an old story to you, I suppose," said the princess.
"You have seen the walls of Pekin, and they are a good specimen of the Great Wall; at any rate, they satisfied me," replied the mandarin.