Achmed Abdullah

“ The soul of Pekin is about you as, coming up from Tientsin by the morning train, you catch a glimpse of solid highways paved with huge, square blocks and stretching toward the cardinal points of the compass. ”

“ They are China; China of the raw North, and the great, sandy, alluvial plain in the midst of which the gar- dens of Pekin bunch out in huge, green-plumed masses ... when seen from the wing of the sparrow’s flight. For it is the garden, and not the house which is the castle of the Pekinese; and so, as we walk through the streets of Chinese town and Tartar town, as we look toward the Mei-shan—the so-called “Coal Hill”—which crowns the Imperial City, no gardens are visible, but only solid house-fronts, knit together with plaster, bamboo, and scarped stone. ”

“ Then we pass a fruit market which gives the sensation of an opulent, natural force of the Earth. Heaped up, in pyramids and—overflowing from quaint, plaited baskets, and brimming over the sides of low country carts are all the fruits of all the world: pears, melons, grapes, peaches, almonds, plums, and strange, fiery-colored vegetables. They are all monstrous in size, and the profusion is as monstrous. ”

“ He, too, must have felt that the soul of Pekin, relentless even in its sleep, is pulsing everywhere, immense in passive power, moving inexorably and cruelly, very complex and yet very simple, surging close, and trying to draw in and devour everything that resists. ”

“ Others, rich merchants they, ride in low victorias crowned with broidered canopies, the wood parts tinseled and lacquered with enamel which burns like a many-colored jewel. Others still ride in rickshaws surrounded by mounted, liveried servants. These are nobles and officials, coming to and from the Imperial City. Slow-moving camels are ambling along on padded feet. ”

“ Work! Work!” says the soul of Pekin, and they obey. They move swiftly and inexorably. They are of the Mongol Horde,
An aged Pekinese mullah, a native Moslim priest, ambles feebly along. '“Hi low yah! To hoh wang!”' cries a friendly chair-bearer, trying to make a path for him, since age in Pekin means dignity and respect. And the Chinese smile and give way. What difference if they be Buddhists or Taoists or Confucianists? The soul of Pekin, being an ancient soul which knows all creeds and despises all rites, is a tolerant soul... and a holy man is a holy man. ”

“ The Mongol Horde ... the hateful suction of the inevitable ... and the inhumanity of it, the inhumanity of the yellow, bland, round-faced men and women who are the molecules of the soul of Pekin!
They teem through the streets, which are made by the crossing of straight lines, at all sorts of angles, but with hardly ever a curve. They move in an endless procession, each sure of his aim and object. ”

“ The train rushes through a hard, profitless flat dotted with huts, with cemeteries sleeping beneath gnarled cypress trees, and with an occasional brook which looks artificial. Once in a while there is a blotch of blue and sad mauve as a coolie woman steps from her hut and stares at the fire-breathing dynamo of Western progress. ”

“ The mullah stops in front of a squat building which blends curiously Chinese and Persian architecture. The outside walls are covered with Arabic characters. For always does the language of Arabia follow the faith of Arabia. The mullah preaches in Arabic, the muezzin calls to prayer in Arabic, and the faithful chant the litanies in Arabic. But they do not understand a word of what they are saying. They have learned their prayers by heart, parrot-like. Their religion is that of hot, burning Mecca but their soul is the eternal soul of Pekin ”

“ Clustered on all sides by populous streets, it is a hopeless mass of ruins, with broken plinths and split bamboo screens littering the ground, and covered with thick, slushy mud that strikes chilly through the heaviest boot. At the farther end is a tall wooden monumental gate. The gold and ruby is gone from the incurved roof. ”

“ They all walk slowly, ceremoniously, but without the slightest indication of piety. Why should they? Pekin is old. Many have died, many more will die to feed her insatiable soul. And the women in the mourners’ coaches at the tail-end of the procession seem to know it. ”

“ For the soul of Pekin is a parsimonious, hard-bargaining, miserly soul ... and there is the Mongol Horde which must be fed ...
The stream of the crowd whirls you along. You forget your name, your identity, your nationality. The soul of Pekin is about you, and you are afraid of it, afraid of its stark unhumanity.
And then ... very suddenly ... you decide that these people are human after all. For the man with the face of a Tibetan devil mask who is selling you English cigarettes made in Japan is smoking a pipe with a quaintly and beautifully carved pendant hanging from the tiny red bowl ”

“ But it is called “The Mosque of Tung-si Pai-lon,” and to the left of the entrance gate swings a huge, purple-and-gold paper lantern on which is inscribed in Chinese, and not in Arabic, “Li-Pai,” “Place of Worship.”
We pass on, skirting the mysterious mazes of the Imperial City, the Forbidden City. Many fair palaces are inside its vast azure and gold spaces; also artificial lakes and brooks, broidered with bamboo and iris of many colors, and as daintily unreal as a water-color by H’sia Kuei; also streets and bazaars and theaters ”

“ The fat gentleman smiles ... and the smile makes him look very much like one of those unhuman Li-lung-mien paintings in the British Museum.
“Yes,” he replies, “barbarians made this breach ... but not those of the Mongol plains ... but those from across the water ... who also came to Pekin in search of loot.” He draws a silk-and-ivory fan from his wide sleeve, and adds inconsequentially: “I believe this railroad of theirs pays fifteen per cent. dividends. The coolies who work for them receive twelve cents a day. They live here.” ”

“ Every man you meet moves swiftly to some definite object of his own, and the only men who loaf are a few grandfathers with their tiny, red-cheeked, perk-eyed granddaughters perched high on their shoulders. ”

“ He leads you through a long succession of second-rate streets where everything, even the puddles and the many heavy stinks are decomposed with age. He leads you past the Temple of the Five Hundred Genii, black and ochre and emerald-green ”

“ But each tone of the melody is accompanied by appoggiaturas which are an infinitesimal sixteenth below the main harmonic tones to which the human ear is attuned. It is like the singsong cry the wind whistles through a cracked chimney ”

“ The man whose protection he has begged, a portly merchant, dressed in plum-colored silk, remarks pointedly to the girl that respectful silence in presence of her elders is the leading virtue advocated by Confucius. ”