When I was in Peking in the autumn of 1897 Europeans were very rarely insulted in the streets. Before the War it was otherwise, and I myself, like many another, did not escape the impertinence of the Chinese at Canton. All the same, they took good care to close their monuments to the inspection of the ‘foreign devils,’ and the only temple now open for our inspection is that of Confucius, an immense but rather commonplace hall with a steep roof supported on pillars painted a vivid red. Foreigners are also permitted to visit the place where the literati undergo their examinations. It consists of some thousands of little cells lining several long, open corridors, wherein the unfortunate candidates for law and medicine are shut for several days while they answer the questions set them. Then there is the old Observatory, wherein are two series of highly useful instruments. The first dates from the time of the Mongol Dynasty in the thirteenth century, and lies scattered half buried among the weeds at the bottom of the courtyard; the second series is less antiquated, having been made under the direction of the Jesuit Verbiest, who was astronomer to the Emperor of China in the early part of the seventeenth century. They are shown on the walls. After seeing these thoroughly up-to-date astronomical instruments, one has visited all there is to be seen in the Imperial city of Peking.
It must be confessed, however, that walking in the streets, or at the foot or on top of the enormous walls, is far more interesting and instructive than visiting temples and palaces. At every step the observer is struck with the activity and energy of the Chinese people in contradistinction to the systematic stagnation of its governing classes, and he soon comes to the conclusion that China is in a state of decadence strongly resembling in many details that of the Roman Empire at the time of the invasions of the Barbarians. This erstwhile magnificent capital is now only the shadow of its former self. The number of its inhabitants, 700,000 to 800,000, is gradually decreasing, and many houses are already in ruins. Some of the best streets, which must at one time have been splendidly paved, are now almost impassable, the result of neglect; drains, which at one time were covered in, now run open through the streets, and are choked up by nameless deposits which are never removed, and even immense blocks of the celebrated walls are occasionally allowed to crumble to ruin. Now and again an effort to repair them is started, but as half the money intended for the work usually remains in the hands of the officials and contractors it is never well done, great care being taken not to do the repairs thoroughly, for fear of preventing fresh disaster and losing a chance to do it all over again. On the other hand, on the rare occasions when the Emperor betakes himself and his court to some summer residence or other, or to make a sacrifice at one of the temples, things are furbished up a bit, to make him believe that his capital is well looked after. The ruts and the mud-heaps in the streets through which the procession passes are hidden under a thick coating of sand, and everything likely to offend the eye of the Son of Heaven is covered over; even the miserable booths which encumber the streets are removed, and the half-moons in the rampart have their walls painted white, but only so high as the Imperial eyes may be lifted as His Celestial Majesty passes by, lolling back indolently in his magnificent palanquin.
CHAPTER III
THE COUNTRY IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF PEKING—NUMEROUS SIGNS OF THE DECLINE OF THE EMPIRE
From Peking to the Ming Tombs and the Great Wall of China—The temples in the hills—Striking neglect of monuments and public works—Remains of ancient and well-paved highroads, now replaced by wretched ones, which are only temporarily repaired when the Emperor or the Empress Dowager passes—The manner in which useful works are neglected in China, and her treasure wasted.
A tour in the environs of Peking, to the Great Wall and to some of the temples built on the hills to the west of the town, confirms the bad impressions received in the city. This excursion occupies between three and four days, and can be performed with relative comfort, and in ordinary times without the least danger. A ‘boy,’ that is to say, a domestic servant—a combination of guide, interpreter, valet and cook, and who is often, by the way, a very expert disciple of Vatel—a donkey and donkey-boy, a waggon, drawn by two mules, and a waggoner, are the staff necessary for this journey, which is usually performed partly on foot and partly on donkey-back. This suite may be considered somewhat numerous, but no other human being but his own master would get a Chinese donkey to budge a step forward, and the same may be said of the mules. As to the ‘boy,’ he is the indispensable party into whose hands you must trust yourself absolutely, even to the extent of handing over your purse, so that he may settle your accounts at the various inns and give the expected backsheesh to the servants or to the guides and bonzes in the temples. Needless to say, he perfectly understands how to take care of himself in the matter of reserving for his own benefit the ‘squeezee,’ as they say in pigeon-English. All Europeans who travel in the Far East are obliged to have a retinue, which adds to their importance, and in which every man has his particular function to fulfil, and will not undertake the least share of his fellow-servants’ work.
On leaving Peking by the Northern Gate, one crosses a sandy and barren space, occupied in the thirteenth century by a part of the town, which has now disappeared. Then come some outlying towns, mainly inhabited by merchants, succeeded by the admirably cultivated plain which extends from the north of Peking to the foot of the hills. It is more barren to the south, and trees only grow close to the villages, which are invariably surrounded by groups of weeping-willows. In this region the soil and the climate are too dry to allow of the cultivation of rice, but a crop of winter wheat is obtained, and I have seen it sown, and even appearing above the ground, in the month of October. It does not freeze in the very dry earth, although the thermometer falls twenty degrees, and the snow is never very deep. This crop of wheat is harvested during May. Presently you see fields of sorghum, millet, the staple food of the people in these parts, and also of buckwheat. On all sides the peasantry are hard at work, usually alongside strong waggons, better built than those of the Siberian mujiks, and drawn either by two mules or two horses, or sometimes by three little donkeys. In the villages you can sometimes see the grain thrashed or the long leaves of the sorghum being bound in sheaves, which when dried are made into mats and screens. The women help in the latter work, which invariably takes place close to their doors, for they are never seen in the fields. The roads are generally very bad, but have not always been so. Many of the bridges are still in a superb condition, although the fine flagstones with which they are paved are in a shocking condition. Others, however, are in absolute ruin, and the rivers which they once spanned have consequently to be forded. Everything points to the fact that we are passing over a once magnificent highroad, and effectively it leads to the Tombs of the Mings, which explains why it was built in such a sumptuous manner by that Dynasty, as well as the state of abandonment into which it has fallen since it has come into the hands of the Manchus, who dethroned the Mings in 1644.
Very few places that I have ever visited have produced upon me a greater impression of grandeur than the amphitheatre formed by the lofty hills on whose last slopes stand the Tombs of the thirteen Emperors of the Ming Dynasty. Each of these monuments is formed of an aggregation of buildings shaded by magnificent trees, that present a striking contrast to the usual gray barrenness of Chinese hills. The broad road which leads to them, once paved but now in ruins, passes under a superb triumphal arch into the silent valley, which seems deserted, although in reality it is highly cultivated; the little villages clustering at the foot of the heights, too, are, as a rule, difficult to make out. After passing under numerous elegant gateways, supported by winged columns, we at length arrive at a gigantic alley of colossal monoliths, representing figures of animals and monsters alternately sitting and crouching, and statues of famous legislators and warriors. Roads radiate towards each of the Tombs, of which I only visited that of the first Ming Emperor who reigned in Peking.
After having passed through a high wall by a porch with three badly-kept gates, we crossed a spacious courtyard planted with trees, and presently entered the great hall. Before the whole length of the façade extends several flights of marble steps with exquisitely sculptured balustrades. The hall itself is not less than 200 feet long by about 80 feet wide and 40 feet in height. It is nearly empty, and at first you can only perceive the forty gigantic wooden columns, each formed of the trunk of a tree, that support the roof, and which two men cannot embrace. These columns are said to have come from the confines of Indo-China. In the midst of them, half hidden away, is a small altar, ornamented with a few commonplace china vases, which are crumbling to pieces and full of dust. Beyond the altar, enclosed in a sort of tabernacle, is the tablet inscribed with the deceased Emperor’s name in three Chinese characters. His body lies beyond, at the end of a gallery a mile long, which penetrates straight into the heart of the hill, but is walled up a short distance from the entrance, which one reaches through two courtyards separated by a portico. From the lofty tower that rises over this entrance, the walls of which, by the way, are embellished with names which numerous Chinese and a few Europeans have been vulgar enough to scratch on the walls with the points of their knives, the view includes the whole semicircle of hills, as well as all the Tombs, which, by reason of the very simplicity of their design, create an impression of extreme grandeur. Their erection must have cost as great an amount of labour as that which was bestowed by the Egyptians upon the sepulchres of their Pharaohs.
The Great Wall of China is another colossal undertaking, in order to reach which you take the high road to Mongolia that passes through the Pa-ta-ling Gate at the extremity of the pass of Nan-kow. This highroad, which for centuries has been daily traversed by long caravans of camels, engaged in the traffic between Mongolia, Siberia, and China, was formerly paved with blocks of granite, of which no trace is now to be seen, either on that part of the road in the little town of Nan-kow, or in the difficult mountain pass, and the traveller may therefore conclude that they have either been used in the construction of houses or washed away by some torrent. Nan-kow is a walled town, like almost all those in the neighbourhood of Peking, including the curious old suburb of Chao-yung-kwan, over one of the doors of which there is an inscription in six languages, one of which has not yet been deciphered. Everywhere on the mountain sides towers and picturesque ruins of fortifications manifest how great has ever been the fear of the Chinese of the Tatars and Mongols, for protection against whom the Great Wall was built. It is divided into two parts, the inner and the outer wall, the first of which extends for nearly 1,560 miles, from Shan-hai-kwan on the Gulf of Pe-chi-li into the Province of Kan-su on the upper Yellow River. Built two hundred years before our era, needless to say, it has been often repaired and rebuilt. Near the sea it is constructed of stone, but brick has been used on the inland portions. In thickness it varies from 16 feet to 20 feet, and is about the same in height, but to the west it is nothing like so lofty.
The inner wall, which dates from the sixth century, was almost entirely reconstructed by the Mings in the sixteenth century, and is 500 miles long. This is the wall to be seen from Pa-ta-ling, passing over the hill, and then proceeding right and left to climb in zigzag fashion to the very summit of the mountains. It is constructed after the model of the walls of Peking, on a substructure of stone, with two rows of brick battlements. The top is paved, and forms a roadway 11 feet in width. Its height varies, according to the irregularity of the land, between 12 feet and 20 feet, and at about every 300 feet there are towers twice the height of the wall, also surrounded by bastions and battlements. Although less imposing than the Wall of Peking, the Great Wall of China does not deserve the flippant remarks that have been made about it. Against an enemy unprovided with artillery, and horsemen like the Mongols and Tatars, it must have presented a very serious obstruction, and if occasionally they have been able to scale it, it has generally resisted every attempt at invasion. Although it has not been used under the present Dynasty, which is of Tatar origin, it has remained, thanks to the care bestowed upon it in former times, one of the best preserved monuments in China.