Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1873-07-09
Peking.

| 'ioi Oil 1tS uuSt anu qudlntneSS, making
one see the soul of that wonderful vertical
tlon IN life, and on huge scale, of the
designs on screens and plates with which
every one is familiar. The imperial CITY
is vast assemblage of the turrets. the
beliries, the steep bridges, the balconies,
ana the kiosks, which we have seen a
thousand times in lacquer But they are
reached through the Gates of Virtuous
victory, of Great Purity, Of the Temples
OF Heaven, of Agriculture, Of the Genius
Oh the Winds, of the Genius of the Light
nlng, and the Bright Mirror of the Mind.
Every year the Emperor, arraved in a
country costume, with straw hat ward
In circumference (afterward hung up in
| the temple), drives golden plowshare
through field, that the tracing Of the fur
row may call down the blessing of Buddha
upon the seed-time and the harvest.
Every SIX months the Emperor burns a
number Of deathwarrants in bronze
prazlers, ranged under roof of dark-blue
porcelain, between curule chairs of pink
marble, in front Of which are dragons and
pugs In the rarest china, perched on col
umns OF carved wood. A little beyond
Inc temple where these ceremonies take
place, there stands, built upon the wall, a
magnificent observatory, two hundred and
seventy three years old. The gigantic
bronze instruments, curiously wrought,
rest upon the outspread wings of flying
| dragons; a celestial globe eight feet in
| diameter shows all the stars known in
! 1860, and visible at Peking. Such is the
dryness of the climate, that the whole an
| paratus OF the observatory, though ex-
| posed to the open air, is wholly uniniured
| and the instruments act with unerring nre
cision.
Close by the Hall of Examination for
the literates, an immense RECTANGULAR
building which accommodates twelve
| thousand candidates, are 'the reddish
pond" in which there is neither water nor
fish; two great theatres, the Temple of the
Moon, and that of the Lamas. Here, as at
Lhassa, thousand bronzes, clothed in
yellow, chant in hollow tones an eternallv
monotonous rhythm. In the Temple of
Contucius the devotions are not chanted !;
they are, SO to speak, ground" in huge
prayer-wheel. In this temple hangs the
largest bell that has ever been hung (the
famous bell of Moscow has never been
lifted Oft the ground); it is twenty-five feet
high weighs ninety thousand pounds, and
is covered with the finest carving.
The private life of the Chinese is, espec-
tally at Picking, SO profound mystery for
est them in the city except it's architecture
and ornamentation, which, though most
curious and ingenious, does not appeal to
any of the tastes or sentiments of "Western
peoples. There is always food for the
imagination in the contemplation of the
outside OF objects whose interior is "for
bldden," and thus the traveller looks long
1ngly at the enclosure of the sacred CITY,
which he must never pass and dreams of
the treasures which it is said to contain
the golden columns, the silver mats. the
furniture incrusted with fine pearls; but
what he sees is very rude case for such
jewel. AS for the famous Me chan, a
very thlrd-rate pagoda in Siam is more
splendid, externally, than the sacred dwell
ing of the Son of Heaven At Picking, ex-
ternal ornament, or even decency, is not
regarded as desirable The city is sedu-
lousy divided into the noble and military
the trading and the poor quarters, and in
the former it is considered etiquette to
concea. all curiosity concerning strangers
After while, the traveller learns to recog-
n1ze the rank of the mandarins by the
arrangement of the movable wheels of
their carriages. The more "bluebotton"
or ''red-button" a mandarin is, the farther
the wheels are removed from the center of
the huge machine. The palanquin is
lar easier vehicle than the jingling, jolting
carriages; but the use Of it is sedulously
restricted to princes and ministers.
The middle-class and poor quarters of
| the town have something picturesque
about them, in the midst of much which
is horrible. They consist Of one intermin-
able winding street, with an impossible
name, IN which there are three hundred
shops with scarlet boards hanging upon
poles before them, covered with giIded in
| scrlptl0ns, and where only animation
exists in Picking. The motley scene is
crowded with carts, palanquins, camels,
mules, coolies, Cinnamon, buying, selling,
poklng about and examining all sorts Of
merchandise, myriads of children and old
men pushing their way to the waste
grounds near the walls, that they may
proudly fly the kites whose cords they
hold in their hands. Absurd as the
notion OF kite-hying as national pastime
seems to us, it is interesting to learn to
what pitch of perfection the manufac-
ture OF the familiar toy has been carried.
MI. de Beauvoir says: II have seen in
numerous instances a kite which becomes
flying dragon, a flying eagle, or a flying
mandarin seven yards in circumference,
lighted, and given motion and gesture"
| A1AoJ SoAAooA tACo ClIOoO WOHOCI1u1
aoithout tails, a popularity which implies
extraordinary art; and so dexterously
manage their equilibrium, that they rise
calmly, steadily, without any of the jerks
of our kite-fying, and float, glittering like
stars, vertically above the head Of the
cord-holder. They fit kind of Holian
apparatus to them, almost imperceptibly
small, which initiates the songs of birds,
or the voices of men; and, when the air is
crowded with kites, produces tremend-
Gus noise; and they send messengers up
the cords with an incomprehensible dex-
terity. Another singular musical inven-
ton deserves special notice. They make
tiny Holian harps, hardly heavier than
soap-bubbles, but beautifully worked, and
affix them to the tails of doves and pig
cons, fastening them to the two central
feathers; as the birds strike the air, it re-
sounds through their harps, loudly or
pathetically according to the speed of
their f1ight.-Appleto7a's Journal.
A MARRIED woman in Decatur, Ohio,
the other day, pining for her husbands
society, went with her three little children
to the billiard-room and took seat by his
side. cts disgraceful," said he, looking