Great Wall of China

“ At the grand mountain gateway of Nankow you pass under the Great Wall, which crosses the road at right angles, and as you slowly steam across the plateau on the outer side, you see it reappearing from time to time like a huge snake winding along the ridges. Old wall, new railway; which will serve China best? One sought to keep the world out, the other should help to create a Chinese nation that will not need to fear the world. ”

“ Four imperishable monuments perpetuate his memory: the Great Wall, the centralised monarchy, the title Hwang-ti, and the name of China itself—the last derived from a principality which under him expanded to embrace the empire. Where is there another conqueror in the annals of the world who has such solid claims to everlasting renown? ”

“ More comparatively prosaic courses included walling in the grass with concrete; the Great Wall of China was the only work of man visible from the moon; were Americans to let backward China best them? A concrete wall only a mile high and half a mile thick could be seen by any curious astronomer on the planet Venus—assuming Venerians to be afflicted with terrestrial vices—and would cost no more than a very small war, to say nothing of employing thousands who would otherwise dissipate the taxpayers' money on Relief. ”

“ 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. ”

“ This gigantic work, designed and executed in the thirteenth century by the Emperor Kublai Khan, extended to about six hundred and fifty miles in length, and completed an almost unbroken water communication between Peking and Canton. As a wonderful engineering feat it is indeed more than matched by the famous Great Wall, which dates back to a couple of hundred years before Christ, and which has been glorified as the last trace of man's handiwork on the globe to fade from the view of an imaginary person receding into space. ”

“ The Great Wall seems to me to express a national characteristic of the Chinese race. All along that people loved to dwell in their own land in seclusion, pursuing the industries and the arts of peace, and to them China has ever been the central flowery land. Within it everything worth having is concentrated, and outside of it, on narrow and unproductive soils, dwell scattered tribes of barbarians ever bent on predatory excursions into the paradise of the Celestial Empire. ”

“ Well, we shall not be all unique in this, for three-fourths of the hundred foreigners who live in Peking have never been, nor ever intend to go. [296] An artificial interest, all out of proportion to the reality, is created by its great antiquity. Finished in 204. B.C. (for it took ten years in building) for 1500 miles this great wall, which was intended to keep out all the enemies of China, runs up and down the northern face of the country, in one place over a peak of 5225 feet high. ”

“ But perhaps the most wonderful thing in China is the Great Wall. It was built by kings a long time ago. They wanted to keep savage people from coming into the country. The wall is built very high and very wide. It is so wide in some places that eight horses can be driven on top of it side by side. It is hundreds of miles long. The people of China think it is very wonderful. They think there is nothing so wonderful in all the rest of the world. ”

“ In two days more we passed the great China wall, made for a fortification against the Tartars; and a very great work it is, going over hills and mountains in an endless track, where the rocks are impassable, and the precipices such as no enemy could possibly enter, or, indeed, climb up, or where, if they did, no wall could hinder them. ”

“ During the early years of the Chin or Tsʼin Dynasty the Great Wall to the west and north of China was constructed, so as to protect the empire against the barbarians who were wont to raid and pillage the rich pastoral and agricultural lands, and impose their sway on the industrious Chinese. ”

“ In other places it is faced with brick, and there are again some other parts, of the highest antiquity, as is supposed, where we find it to consist of an earthen mound alone. Not a few travellers regard this wall as the greatest monument of misdirected human labour to be met with in the whole world, and those who have no sympathy with the modern scientific theories regarding the great pyramids, would make these no exception to this view. But I think that the Chinese can claim something more for their wall than the Egyptians can for their pyramids. ”

“ Foochow city, one of the great tea marts of China, stands about seven miles above the arsenal and the harbour where the vessels load tea. Of all the open ports this is perhaps the most picturesque, and its stone bridge of *'ten thousand ages" proves that the Chinese, had they so chosen, might have left monuments behind them more worthy of their civilisation and prowess than their great unwieldy wall monuments, which would have shed a gleam of truth across the obscure pages of their bygone history. ”

“ The Chinese are a peaceful people, and they surrounded themselves with walls to prevent intrusion from outside. In China there are 1553 towns enclosed in massive stone walls, and the great emperor in the third century B.C. naturally thought of building a wall in the same way all round his extensive kingdom. It was principally from the north that danger threatened. There lived the nomads of Eastern Turkestan and Mongolia, savage, brave, and warlike horsemen. ”

“ They must long to oust these arrogant men from the West and their neighbour from the East, who thus lord it over them in the very heart of their own city. Even the wall, the great Tartar wall built first by Kublai Khan, and finished by the Ming conquerors, comes under foreign domination from the Ha Ta Men to the Chien Men. The watch-tower over the Ha Ta Men is still in the hands of the Chinese, and like most things Chinese is all out of repair. ”

“ To reach it wo will mount our camels and cross the desert of Gobi. It is a dreary region, and we pass through it just as fast as we can.
We are nearing the borders of China, and in the distance we see the Great Wall. This is more than 1,000 miles long, and partly surrounds China. In some places it is thirty feet high, and so broad that six men on horseback can ride abreast on the top of it. This wall was built more than 2,000 years ago, to keep the fierce Tartars of the north out of the Chinese country. ”

“ I met an American gentleman who had been to the capital of China, and he told me he had been to the Great Wall. Dr. Legge may take the conceit out of some travellers when he says: 'What foreigners go to visit from Peking is merely a loop-wall of later formation, enclosing portions of Chih-li and Shan-hsî.'
"Leaving the Grand Canal and the Great Wall, we will pass on to the lakes of China. They are not on a large scale, like the rivers; and they are insignificant compared with those of our own country. ”

“ The Japanese war of 1894-95 betrayed the weakness of the national organisation; and the seizure of Formosa by Japan, the Russo-Japanese protectorate over Manchuria and Corea, the French demand for Kwang-si and Kwang-tung, enforced lease of Kiao-chau to Germany, and of Wei-hai-wei to Britain (1898) , seem to forebode the partition of the ancient empire among the more energetic Western nations.
China, the Great Wall of, a wall, with towers and forts at intervals, about 2000 m. long, from 20 to 30 ft. high, and 25 ft. ”

“ So it was even in the time of the great monarch who, 200 years before Christ, consolidated the Chinese Empire, and built the still-enduring Great Wall, in hopes of thereby defeating Tartar incursions. To overcome the opposition of the Literati, he ordered all their books to be destroyed. But the fact remains that the vigorous heads among the people, who, in other lands, have had to carve their forward path, by agitation and revolution, through the barriers of social rank, caste, and the privileges of wealth, have had for ages in China an open avenue to advancement. ”

“ The kingdom of China lay to the southward of the Mongul territories, and the frontier was defended by the famous Chinese wall, which extended from east to west, over hills and valleys, from the great desert to the sea, for many hundred miles. The wall was defended by towers, built here and there in commanding positions along the whole extent of it, and at certain distances there were fortified towns where powerful garrisons were stationed, and reserves of troops were held ready to be marched to different points along [Pg 185] the wall, wherever there might be occasion for their services. ”

“ Although he held learning of small account, this "First Emperor," to give him his bombastic title, was an enthusiastic promoter of public works, the most important of these being the Great Wall, which has served as an age-long bulwark against the nomadic tribes of Mongolia and Central Asia. These tribes were a terror to China for centuries. They were always raiding the border country, and threatening a descent on the fertile fields beyond the mountains. The history of China is one long struggle to keep from being overrun by these tribes. ”

“ The name, China, is derived from 'Tsin; and it became known by this name to the other nations of the world through the ambition of Che-Hwang-te, before mentioned, who assumed the title of King of 'Tsin; and who, if he was cruel, appears to have been also able and talented. He not only enlarged and extended the empire, but what was gained to it he consolidated and strengthened. The Great Wall was not the only monument of his reign. Splendid roads afforded facilities for trade, which he greatly encouraged. ”

“ Roman bridges, aqueducts, and sewers still perform their duties. Joseph’s canal still irrigates Lower Egypt. The great wall of China, running for fifteen hundred miles over mountains and plains, contains one hundred and fifty millions of cubic yards of materials and is the greatest of artificial works. No modern building compares in grandeur with St. ”

“ The great Yangtze River sweeps beneath the walls, and the city has canal and railway connection of the finest. The city, as was discovered when General Chang defended it, is commanded by the peaks of Purple Mountain on the north. There are fortified hills within the city, and great avenues down which run modern electric cars. Ruins of the last pure Chinese dynasty remain: the Ming palace, the picturesque tombs, and an avenue lined with wonderful gigantic camels, lions, elephants, etc., similar to the Ming Avenue at Nankow on the Great Wall above Peking. ”

“ CHAPTER XL TOMBS AND REMAINS The Chinese, with the single exception of their Great Wall, have always been flimsy builders, and there is accordingly very little left in the way of monuments to prove the antiquity of their civilization. ”

“ It is not built of brick, like the interior walls of Nang-Kao for example, of which I shall say something hereafter, and which many travellers erroneously take for the true Great Wall. But the true Great Wall that separates, in the first place, Mongolia from China proper, is built of stones laid over each other without cement. Towers, placed at certain distances from each other, are more solidly constructed, and have thus more effectually resisted the wear of358 time. ”

“ It has exerted slight influence on the other peoples of Asia because the Chinese have always occupied a distant corner of the continent, cut off by deserts and mountains from the lands on the west. As if these barriers were not enough, they raised the Great Wall to protect their country from invasion. ”

“ The genius of the Chinese as great builders and engineers is expressed better in their works of public utility, as in their finely-constructed bridges, their canals, and more particularly in the Great Wall, built to protect their country from the incursions of the Northern hordes, and which is a monument at the same time to their native love of exclusiveness from surrounding nations. ”

“ A wall of forty miles on each side that is eighty miles in all will cost sixteen million dollars or thereabouts. And considering that 200 or 300 square miles of Haimen, Tsungming, and the Tungsha banks could be converted into arable land within a short time, the expense of building the wall is well justified. Furthermore, the construction of this wall means that there will be a safe and permanent approach for a world port in Shanghai as well as a deep outlet for the Yangtze. ”

“ A walk round the ramparts of Chinhae, was sufficient to give a good idea of Chinese towns in general, and of the construction of their walls, which, in some parts, could not be less than forty feet thick. Beyond the town, the long sea-wall was a remarkably fine specimen of masonry, composed entirely of large blocks of hewn granite, sloping upwards. The whole of China, in fact, appears to present to view astonishing instances of mixed civilization and barbarism, of advancement and of stagnation, in all the relations of life. Civilization appears to float upon the surface ”