Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1873-07-25
Farm and Fzres1de.
THE CITY. OF PERKY.


The ancient capital of Northern China,
three days journey from the Great Wall,
on the Siberian road, uprears itself from
a hideous, seemingly boundless plain Of
dust, strewn with remnants OF old build
ings and all kinds of disheartening rub
Dish. There is, perhaps, no portion of the
earth's surface on which the European
feels more hopelessly far away from every
familiar place and person than when trav-
ersing this great desert plain, heaped with
the dust of ages. A few crumbling villag-
es break the monotony, and then comes n
wall of immense length, brown, crenulat-
ed, pierced in the centre by magnificent
portico, the finest gate in all the Celes-
tial Empire. 1t is like the Scripture pic
ture of the walls of Babylon and the form
liable ramparts Of Nineveh. A lofty tow
five stages of green tiles, pierced by five
ranges of holes, through which grin huge
cannon mouths, very terrible, until one
learns that the guns are wooden. Far out
of sight, on right and left, stretches the
WALL partly of granite, partly of huge gray
bricks, and at its foot opens deep, vault
ed passage, through which pour converg-
ing tides of Chinese, Mongols and Tartars,
strings of blue carts, files of black mules,
caravans of dun-colored, heavily laden
camels; for this is the entrance to the Chi
nese town.
The ancient city is divided into three Sec
tions-the Chinese, the Tartar, and the i'm
perial-and each has a perfectly distinct
physiognomy. The majestic beauty of the
'gate" passes like a dream, and the travel
err finds its stateliness utterly reversed by
the scene which it incloses. Waste land,
tunble-down huts, snuous ways-half
paved Nth enormous blocks OF stone, half
left in yawning gaps couple of feet deep
dirt, poverty, desolation; through these
one struggles on until second wall stops
the way. II is still more majestic and Bah
ylonian; it is sixty feet high and forty feet
wide, and it divides the Chinese from the
Tartar city. On the other side is kind Of
circus without benches, which ia formed o.
gigantic walls protecting The principal gate
and is very Ikea spacious bear-pit. No.
body is permitted to pass through The cen.
trail aperture except the Emperor, so the trav.
eler passes under the great arch at the side
and is generally instructed by his guide to
ascend some steps to the top of the wall
from whence he can command view O.
all Pekin. A wonderful sight-grand, mel
ancholy, and suggestive. Three eccentric
cities, divided from each other by inne
walls: first the Tartar city, which is thu
largest, and has upon il warlike the SIAM
of the conquering race then the imperia
city, with the palaces of the mandarins
each consisting of nearly a hundred kiosks
and finally the forbidden city, with il!
thousands of roofs in imperial yellow, anC
its Me-chan, the SdcrOSdnctum of the Celes
tial Empire.
Forming the vast mysterious Enclosure
of the forbidden city are walls on whose
submits four carriages might be driven
abreast; the countless roofs of the manda
rims palaces are bright green, the domes 0
the temples are dark blue; there are grea
spaces paved with pottery, and there arr
marble bridges. But all this splendor i
set in a framework of crumbling, dust,
ruin. Every thing is extraordinary in thi
wonderful place, which is an epitome o
decay Thebes, Memphis, Carthage, Rome
are ruins which tell of violent vicissitude
Pekin is a skeleton dropping into dust
The ravine-like streets are knee-deep il
every sort of rubbish (; the meats, the ca
nails, and the rivers are all, and always
dry; the formal parks, the once marveou
ponds, are turned to desert places. Tri
umphal arches stand side by side wit
wretched tumble-down booths, surmount
ed by forest of little poles, whence pape
"signs" dangle in the air, and uniformit
is lent to all by the the thick layer of evil
smelling dust which lies upon them-th
same dust that is always wbirling around
hurting the eyes and offending the nos
tris. This great city, in which nothing /
ever repaired, and where it is penal to pul
down any thing, is dropping to pieces; an
it is the opinion of NJ. De Beauvoir, tn
French traveller, to whom we owe the bes
and most picturesque account of Pekin "
given to the Western world, that in a cent
ury it will have been abandoned and hay
ceased to exist.
A poetic element reigns at Pekin, wit
all its dust and quaintness, making one sc
the soul of that wonderful verifcation
life, and on huge scale, of the designs o
screens and plates with which every one
familiar. The imperial city is vast as
semblage Of the turrets, the belfries, til