The entire length of the Great Wall between its extremities is 22½ degrees of latitude, or 1,255 miles in a straight line; but its turnings and doublings increase it to fully 1,500 miles. It would stretch from Philadelphia to Topeka, or from Portugal to Naples, on nearly the same latitude. The construction of this gigantic work is somewhat adapted to the nature of the country it traverses, and the material was taken or made on the spot where it was used. In the western part of its course, it is in some places merely a mud or gravel wall, and in others earth cased with brick.

The eastern part is generally composed of earth and pebbles faced with large bricks, weighing from 40 to 60 lbs. each, supported on a coping of stone. The whole is about 25 feet thick at the base, and 15 feet at the top, and varying from 15 to 30 feet high; the top is protected with bricks, and defended by a slight parapet, the thinness of which has been taken as proof that cannon were unknown at the time it was erected. There are brick towers at different intervals, some of them more than 40 feet high, but not built upon the Wall. These are independent structures, usually about 40 feet square at the base, diminishing to 30 at the top; at particular spots the towers are of two stories.

The impression left upon the mind of a foreigner, on seeing this monument of human toil and unremunerative outlay, is respect for a people that could in any manner build it. Standing on the peak at Ku-peh Kau (Old North Gate), one sees the cloud-capped towers extending away over the declivities in single files both east and west, until dwarfed by miles and miles of skyward perspective as they dwindle into minute piles, yet stand with solemn stillness where they were stationed twenty centuries ago, as though condemned to wait the march of time till their builders returned. The crumbling dike at their feet may be followed, winding, leaping across gorges, defiles, and steeps, now buried in some chasm, now scaling the cliffs and slopes, in very exuberance of power and wantonness, as it vanishes in a thin, shadowy line, at the horizon. Once seen, the Great Wall of China can never be forgotten.

At present this remarkable structure is simply a geographical boundary, and except at the Gates nothing is done to keep it in repair. Beyond the Yellow River to its western extremity, the Great Wall, according to Gerbillon, is mostly a mound of earth or gravel, about fifteen feet in height, with only occasional towers of brick, or gateways made of stone. At Kalgan portions of it are made of porphyry and other stones piled up in a pyramidal form between the brick towers, difficult to cross but easy enough to pull down. The appearance of this rampart at Ku-peh kau is more imposing; the entire extent of the main and cross walls in sight from one of the towers there is over twenty miles. In one place it runs over a peak 5,225 feet high, where it is so steep as to make one wonder as much at the labor of erecting it on such a cliff as on the folly of supposing it could be of any use there as a defence. The wall is most visited at Nan-kau (South Gate), in the Ku-yung Pass, a remarkable Thermopyla fifteen miles in length, which leads from the Plain at Peking up to the first terrace above it, and at one time was guarded by five additional walls and gates, now all in ruins. From this spot, the wall reaches across Shansí, and was built at a later period.

THE GRAND CANAL.

The other great public work is the Grand Canal, or Chah ho (i.e., river of Flood-gates), called also Yun ho or ‘Transit River,’ an enterprise which reflects far more credit upon the monarchs who devised and executed it, than does the Great Wall, and if the time in which it was dug, and the character of the princes who planned it, be considered, few works can be mentioned in the history of any country more admirable and useful. When it was in order, before the inflow of the Yellow River failed, by means of its connection with its feeders, an uninterrupted water communication across the country from Peking to Canton existed, and goods and passengers passed from the capital to nearly every large town in the basins of the two great rivers. The canal was designed by Kublai to reach from his own capital as far as Hangchau, the former capital of the Sung dynasty, and cannot be better described than in Marco Polo’s language: “You must understand that the Emperor has caused a water communication to be made from this city [Kwa-chau] to Cambaluc, in the shape of a wide and deep channel dug between stream and stream, between lake and lake, forming as it were a great river on which large vessels can ply.”[17] The northern end is a channel fourteen miles long, from Tung-chau up to Peking, which, passing under the city walls, finishes its course of some 600 miles at the palace wall, close by the British Legation; here it is called Yu ho, or ‘Imperial River,’ but all boats now unlade at the eastern gate. An abridged account of Davis’s observations[18] will afford a good idea of its construction and appearance.

“Early on the 23d September, we entered the canal through two stone piers and between very high banks. The mounds of earth in the immediate vicinity were evidently for the purpose of effecting repairs, which, to judge from the vestiges of inundation on either side, could not be infrequent. The canal joins the Yu ho, which we had just quitted, on its eastern bank, as that river flows towards the Pei ho. One of the most striking features of the canal is the comparative clearness of its waters, when contrasted with that of the two rivers on which we had hitherto travelled; a circumstance reasonably attributable to the depositions occasioned by the greater stillness of its contents. The course of the canal at this point was evidently in the bed of a natural river, as might be perceived from its winding course, and the irregularity and inartificial appearance of its banks. The stone abutments and flood-gates are for the purpose of regulating its waters, which at present were in excess and flowing out of it. As we proceeded on the canal, the stone flood-gates or sluices occurred at the rate of three or four a day, sometimes oftener, according as the inequalities in the surface of the country rendered them necessary....

“As we advanced, the canal in some parts became narrower, and the banks had rather more of an artificial appearance than where we first entered it, being occasionally pretty high; but still the winding course led to the inference, that as yet the canal was for the most part only a natural river, modified and regulated by sluices and embankments. The distance between the stone piers in some of the flood-gates was apparently so narrow as only just to admit the passage of our largest boats. The contrivance for arresting the course of the water through them was extremely simple; stout boards, with ropes fastened to each end, were let down edgewise over each other through grooves in the stone piers. A number of soldiers and workmen always attended at the sluices, and the danger to the boats was diminished by coils of rope being hung down at the sides to break the force of blows. The slowness of our progress, which for the last week averaged only twenty miles a day, gave us abundant leisure to observe the country....

“We now began to make better progress on the canal than we had hitherto done. The stream, though against us, was not strong, except near the sluices, where it was confined. In the afternoon we stopped at Kai-ho chin (i.e., River-opening mart), so called, perhaps, because the canal was commenced near here. On the 28th we arrived at the influx of the Yun ho, where the stream turned in our favor, and flowed to the southward, being the highest point of the canal, and a place of some note. The Yun ho flows into the canal on its eastern side nearly at right angles, and a part of its waters flow north and part south, while a strong facing of stone on the western bank sustains the force of the influx. At this point is the temple of the Dragon King, or genius of the watery element, who is supposed to have the canal in his special keeping. This enterprise of leading in this river seems to have been the work of Sung Lí, who lived under Hungwu, the first emperor of the Ming dynasty, about 1375. In his time, a part of the canal in Shantung became so impassable that the coasting passage by sea began to be most used. This was the very thing the canal had been intended to prevent; Sung accordingly adopted the plan of an old man named Píying, to concentrate the waters of the Yun ho and neighboring streams, and bring them down upon the canal as they are at present. History states that Sung employed 300,000 men to carry the plan into operation, and that the work was completed in seven months. On both sides of us, nearly level with the canal, were extensive swamps with a shallow covering of water, planted with the Nelumbium; they were occasionally separated by narrow banks, along which the trackers walked, and the width of the canal sometimes did not exceed twenty-five yards. On reaching the part which skirts the Tu-shan Lake, the left bank was entirely submerged, and the canal confounded with the lake. All within sight was swamp, coldness, and desolation—in fact, a vast inland sea, as many of the large boats at a distance were hull down. The swamps on the following day were kept out of sight by some decent villages on the high banks, which from perpetual accumulation assumed in some places the aspect of hills.

“A part of our journey on the first of October lay along a portion of the canal where the banks, particularly to the right, were elaborately and thoroughly faced with stone; a precaution which seemed to imply a greater than ordinary danger from inundations. In fact, the lakes, or rather floods, seemed to extend at present nearly to the feet of the mountains which lay at a distance on our left. We were now approaching that part of China which is exposed to the disastrous overflowings of the Yellow River, a perpetual source of wasteful expenditure to the government, and of peril and calamity to the people; it well deserves the name of China’s Sorrow. We observed the repairs of the banks diligently proceeding under the superintendence of the proper officer. For this purpose they use the natural soil in combination with the thick stalks of the gigantic millet.”