The Forest Republican. [volume] (Tionesta, Pa.) 1869-1952, 1885-06-10
IN THE CHINESE CAPITAL.
WHAT A LADY SAW IN THE CITY
OF PEKIN.
A Place Rarely Visited by Travel
ers-Views from Che City walls
The SIIOps and Street Life.

Gordon Cunning, a sister of the great
explorer and ''lion slayer" G. Gordon
Cunning, has lately written a narrative
OF a visit to Pekin, the Chinese capital.
Her first impressions of the city are re.
corded as follows:
There is just one way by which to OBJ
tain quite an illusive impression of Pekin
namely, by looking down on the city
from its majestic walls. Then all the
squalor, dirt and dust, which are so
fearfully prominent at all other times,
seem to disappear, and, as if by magic,
you find yourself overlooking rich
bowers of greenerv, tree tops innumer-
able, from which, here and there, rise
quaint ornamental roofs of temples or
mandarins' houses, with roofs of mar
monious gray tiles, or of bright, glazed
porcelain, cleaning in the sunlight
Then you realize how many cool, pleas
ant homes wealthy citizens contrive to
reserve in the midst of the dingy, gray,
densely crowded streets, of which you
only catch glimpse here and there,
just enough to give suggestion Of life
to the whole scene.
Such glimpse I first obtained one
morning at early dawn, ere the dust
clouds had begun to rise with the days
busy traffic, and the beauty of the scene
struck me more forcibly from the con-
trast betwixt the bird d's-eye view aud the
reality when seen on the level In truth,
when standing on the south wall, which
divides the Tartar city from the Chi
nese, it is scarcely possible to realize that
one is looking down on the dwellings of
about l., 800, 900 human beings OF these
900, 600 inhabit the Tartar city, which,
seen from the walls, isapparently beau
tiful park, richly wooded, and now
clothed in its densest mid d-summer foil
age. To the south of the city wall
stretches vast enclosure, called the
Hai-tsy, or Great Sea-ike Plain, which
is the emperor's private hunting ground,
inclosed by high brick wall forty miles
in circumference. On the other side,
looking into the Tartar city from the ele-
vation of about fifty feet, the brilliant,
yellow tiled roofs of the imperial palace
are most conspicuous, and very beautiful
as they rise above the masses of dark
green foliage. A considerable number
of ornamental buildings, all yellow
rooted and cleaning like FURNISHED gold,
are scattered in every direction through
the imperial pleasure grounds, and with
the aid of good opera-glasses one
can distinguish details very fairly.
OF course, as you travel round the
walls the view changes considerably, one
lot of roofs gives place to another-so
that you obtain birds-eye view of the
situation of most of the points of interest
in the city. 1t would, however, take a
really good walker to go the whole
round of the walls, as the Tartar city
forms a square four miles in every direc-
tion, and the Chinese city is an oblong,
thirteen miles in circumference. Impos-
ing as the castellated towers and walls
appear when seen through the dust
clouds, closer inspection proves that
they are not made of stone but of large
gray bricks (about twenty inches in
length by nine in width; 30 that, after
all, these enormous bastions are just the
universal dust in a baked form.
The municipal system of watering the
streets is on an exceedingly limited scale,
being confined to few buckets of drain
water brought by the official scavengers
when not engaged in carrying the most
abhorrent sewerage from the houses to
the fields. Each householder is required
every evening at sunset to water that
section which is before his own door. At
this moment, therefore, all the slops are
brought out from every house and are
sprinkled over the highway. If there is
any stagnant sewer, drain or pond with
in reach, no matter how foul its waters,
few extra buckets are drawn from thence,
and the happy population who seem de-
void of all sense of smell, rejoice in the
sudden cessation of the suffocating dust.
The miracle is to see the people thrive
on the poisonous atmosphere which they
must forever inhdle and which makes us
positively sick. In the narrowest, most
crowded street, where the air is most
pestilential, where there are foul open
drains under their very windows, these
people look just as fat and healthy as in
the open country.
Being on the inside Of the great gate
way, and therefore in no danger of being
locked out at sunset, we were able to re-
main on the walls till the street watering
was over, and 80 gained impressions of
evening street life as we walked home in
the twilight. OF these the most curious
were the second hand clothes auction at
the open booths, where the stall men
were rapidly turning their wares and
shouting out their prr3es at the top of
their voices.
Then there is the incessant din of
street cries, while as deep bass to these
comes the grunting chorus oi the coolies,
who, in the middle road, are urging on
their heavily laden carts, and the never
ceasing stream of the terrible springless
carts, which take the place of cabs and
carriaUp0 for the greatest mandarinS as
we'll as for the humber folk Riders on
mules and donkeys go jingling along to
the music Of their own bells. Clearer
and most melodous is the tinkling o. the
square bell which hangs from the Ieck
of the last camel in the long files which
now and again move slowly up the street
with soft, silent tread and gliding move
ment. Some are laden with tea others
bring fuel for the city-a compound OF
clay and coal-dust made up into balls
L ..