Peking

“ Here on the topmost terrace we look down on what is certainly the most beautiful view in Peking. As we look out over the treetops toward the south, a panorama of surpassing loveliness spreads out before us. On our right is the picturesque Nan Hai, or South Sea Gardens, with their colorful pavilions and artistic rockeries "sharply outlined, yet idealized by distance," On the left, within crenelated pink walls, rise row upon row, acre upon acre of gleaming yellov tile roofs—the myriad palaces, temples, and dwelling pavilions of the Forbidden City. ”

“ We turn back to that oasis in the wilderness of Peking, that fairy palace, the Ying-kuo Fu. We reach once more the beautiful perspective, that makes us long for 473 the British Minister to stand in state with his following, holding a reception of Chinese mandarins, that we might see them all grouped according to their dignities against such a picturesque background. Then looking at the blue and green and golden dragon beams, at the sunshine and the stillness of the courtyards, we feel inclined, like Germans, to evolve the rest of Peking out of our own inner consciousness. ”

“ And then your gaze travels along the wall, to where, dimly outlined against the horizon, you discern the empty frames of the wonderful astronomical instruments that were once the glory of Peking, now adorning a Berlin museum, set up for the German holiday-makers to gape at. After all, there are discordant notes in Peking.
Down in the streets there is plenty of life and variety. Mongol and Manchu and Chinese jostle each other in the dust or mud of the broad highways. The swift rickshaws thread their way through the throng with amazing dexterity. ”

“ So soon as we had passed the dusty streets and suburbs obstructed by carts and camels, whose bells and dull tramp irritate one’s ears, while the dust they shuffle up blinds and chokes one, the ride became delightful. The fresh green of the budding trees and young spring crops and the tints of the distant hills were new life to eyes tired with the monotonous grays of a Peking winter. ”

“ There are acres of hovels at Peking, in which the Imperial bannermen herd, and filth seems to be deposited like tribute before the very palace gates ; indeed, there is hardly a spot in the capital that does not make one long for a single glimpse of that Chinese paradise we had pictured to ourselves in our youth — for the bright sky, the tea-fields, orange-groves and hedges of jasmine, and for the lotus-lakes filling the air with their perfume.
Next to the shops, the footpaths in front of them are perhaps most curious to a foreigner. ”

“ Your "boy," who is a Bannerman or Manchu and of Roman Catholic family, as are all servants of polite Peking society, does not move a muscle nor show any passing indignation, as he would were the ordinary rules and regulations of life still in existence. He, like everyone of the hundreds of thousands of Peking and the millions of North China, is waiting—waiting more patiently than impatient Westerners, but waiting just as anxiously; waiting with ear wide open to every rumour; waiting with an eye on every shadow—to know whether the storm is going to break or blow away. ”

“ One never realises how great a part soap and water play in one's scheme of things until times like these. With upturned Peking carts blocking the ingresses to our quarter; with everything disgruntled and out of order; with native Christians crowding in on us, sensible heathen servants bolting as hard as they can, ice running short, we, the eleven Legations of Peking, await with some fear and trepidation and an ever-increasing discomfort our various fates under the shadow of the gloomy Tartar Wall. ”

“ Standing on the walls of Peking, a city of the plain, you look down upon twelve square miles of grey-tiled roofs, the roofs of one-storied houses hidden in the summertime by a forest of trees, but in the heart of the city are high buildings that stand out not only by reason of their height but because the roofs of golden-brown tiles, imperial yellow, gleam and glow in the sunlight. This is the Forbidden City where has dwelt for hundreds of years the Emperor of China, often he must have been the only man in it, and always it was closed to all save the immediate following of the Son of Heaven. ”

“ Having seen the Chinese at several points before reaching Hong-Kong, that city with its English environment did not impress me greatly. Canton seemed an unrelated place, a kind of a by-play. The Shanghai I knew was modern.
As we approached Peking, we caught a glimpse of the Great Wall, a massive gray bulk, with the immense corner tower, which produced a feeling of awe, standing as though it were an entrance into a city of mystery—a walled town of over twenty miles in circumference which was virtually the product of four walled cities in one. ”

“ I went with one of these faute-de mieux, as Peking has become so gloomy, and there is so little to do that it fills one with an immense nostalgia to remain and continually to contemplate the ruins and devastation, from which there can be no escape.
Never shall I regret that little expedition into the rude hills and mountains, where climbs in wonderful manner the Great Wall of China. It was divine. There was a sense of freedom and of openness which no one who has not been a prisoner in a siege can ever experience. ”

“ In short, we are working gradually into winter. In another fortnight the trees will all be bare, and Peking, throwing off the green clothes which it puts on in summer, in order to delude stray visitors into the idea that it is a pretty place, will stand naked, dirty, and ashamed. The last month has been very pleasant—neither too hot nor too cold; and the early morning rides, before wind or dust has arisen, and when the evil smells of the town, which are beaten down by the night dews, have not had time to assert themselves again, put fresh life into us after the great heats. ”

“ The eye wanders pleasantly over a forest of fine trees, for every house has one or two in its courtyard, and barely a glimpse of the offensive streets is to be had: only the gray roofs of the little houses; and thus Peking looks for all the world like an immense park, from whose midst rise the yellow roofs of the Imperial Palace, and to the northern extremity of the city, a wooded height called the Coal Mountain, surmounted by a pagoda.
As to monuments, there are very few in Peking worth the seeing, and into these foreigners are never allowed to enter. ”

“ The very fact that so many of the ancient landmarks-priceless in their age-old glory-are being torn from their foundations and ruthlessly destroyed, makes an album of this kind not only interesting as an art volume, but a work of immeasurable value to China and to the world, as an authentic record of picturesque Peking. ”

“ Peking stands at the end of the great seacoast plain as you go up from Tientsin by railway or by boat. Beyond rise the Hsi Shan (Western Mountains) and the Mongolian plateau and mountains. It is the most expansive city in the republic, because it is more built up than spacious Nanking; a court, a legation, a trading, an art, an educational, a health center in autumn, a military, but not a manufacturing center as yet, though it will be. It is more Mongolian and Manchu, perhaps, than pure Han Chinese. ”

“ From this bird's-eye view, Peking appears so buried in trees, that it is hard to believe that its teeming streets, with a population variously estimated at from 400,000 to 800,000, is immediately below. We are so far above it, that even the street cries and calls come up in a softened murmur. ”

“ I cannot imagine what makes things so dear in Peking, nor do I believe they are so dear to the initiated. One thing is cheap, and that is ice, and the most refreshing sight we saw during our stay in the capital, was the cartloads of the precious commodity being carried about in large square blocks; and how did we pity our friends whom we had left in Shanghae, sweltering through the worst part of the summer without this luxury—I ought to say necessary—in such a climate. No care is taken of ice in Peking. It is collected and thrown into large pits, and may melt as much as it likes. ”

“ Peking is a place never to be forgotten by one who has shared its social life. In the midst of one of the most picturesque, most historical, and most romantic cities of the world there is a cosmopolitan community that enjoys itself to the utmost. ”

“ It is very provoking to be kept out of really interesting sights by the brutality of travelling bullies who will force their way into places where they have no right to go.
All we can do now for our visitors is to show them the panorama of the two cities from the walls, the top of which forms a ride or walk right round Peking, and where the wonderful observatory of the old Jesuit fathers, with its beautiful bronze instruments, still stands, and to take them through the streets and over the curio shops—braving offence given to eyes and nostrils. ”

“ Yes; and as Peking was built many centuries before the Christian era, it is a very old city. The name Peking means Court of the North. After the conquest by the Tartars of the kingdom of Yen, of which Peking was the capital, it became only a provincial town, when, at the beginning of the fifteenth century, it was again made the capital of China. The Chinese sovereigns used to live at Nanking, but when the Tartars had so often invaded the country, they removed to the northern province, to enable them the more easily to keep out the invaders. ”

“ Bigger and broader and higher than the walls of any other city, the giant battlements that surround the capital are still the chief glory of this grand, old, medieval fortress. During the thousand years which have elapsed since Peking first became master of China the city has existed under many different names, and perhaps has been surrounded by as many different walls. "After each disaster her walls have been changed and her houses rebuilt, so that to-day she stands upon the debris of centuries of buildings." ”

“ Those that are hardest up will sell their daughters into bondage, and there will be an end of the matter.
The hills west of Peking are the Switzerland of Northern China. They are not very high nor extraordinarily beautiful, but there are some very pretty gorges and valleys, richly wooded, and at any rate the air is fresh and pure. Every gorge has a perfect nest of temples, built by the pious emperors of the Ming dynasty and the earlier Tartars, for which good deeds the Corps diplomatique at Peking cannot be too grateful. ”

“ Though the peculiarities of foreigners amuse the Chinese as much as theirs do [59] us, it is singular how their natural courtesy prevents their showing it in the offensive manner that every Englishman has experienced in some foreign countries. I had expected to find the country on this side of Peking flat, ugly, and barren. Flat it certainly is, but there are plenty of trees and rich fields, and it cannot be called ugly. The villages and graves argue an immense population. It is not till one is under the very walls of the town that one sees Peking. ”

“ But no matter what happens outside, Peking is safe, that is your dictum, and the dictum of the day. So, yawning and somewhat tired of the evening's convivialities, we go our several ways home, in our Peking carts and our official chairs, and are soon lost in sleep—dreaming, perhaps, that we have been too long in this dry Northern climate, and that it is really affecting one's nerves. ”

“ The population of Peking is reckoned to be about 1,000,000, a number which is out of all proportion to the immense area enclosed within its walls. This disparity is partly accounted for by the facts that large spaces, notably in the Chinese city, are not built over, and that the grounds surrounding the imperial palace, private residences, and temples are very extensive. Viewed from the walls Peking looks like a city of gardens. ”

“ Fifteen miles out of Peking all the indecencies and filthiness which are its characteristics disappear entirely; a man would be stoned if he were to venture upon outraging decency as the Pekingese do; the poor peasants are more polite and less inquisitive about us, although foreigners so rarely appear among them, which makes one think that the inquisitiveness is sometimes only studied impertinence. We saw several farmhouses with pretty gardens and neat out-houses, which might have stood in an English shire, so free were they from all stamp of China. ”

“ This is due not only to its historic monuments which rival in age and beauty those of any other city--but also to its unique and fascinating life. High walls and spirit screens hide $ from view the homes of Peking's most interesting people, yet the Se street affords an endless study of their life, their habits, their work, and their play. The unceasing parade of old and new in ever-shifting combination, never ceases to thrill us when we leave our quiet compound gate. ”

“ George Ernest Morrison, the famous correspondent to the Times, has, probably, a more intimate acquaintance with the interior of China than any man living. Peking is his postal address, but there is only a modicum of truth in the statement that it is his home. Travel forms his sole recreation, and he has, at various times, accomplished the most
arduous and, what would appear to the ordinary man, almost impossible journeys. ”

“ Peking is set in the middle of the large plain that stretches one hundred miles from the Gulf of Pechihli to the Pass of Nankow. On the north it is flanked by low hills, thus happily excluding all evil influences, [229] but it is open to the good, that always come from the south. So from a Chinese point of view its location is entirely satisfactory, but a European might think it was dangerously near the frontier for the capital city of a great state. Years ago Gordon's advice to the Tsungli Yamen was, "Move your Queen Bee to Nanking." ”