Clinch Valley news. [volume] (Jeffersonville, Va.) 18??-2019, 1889-04-19

W hot chpltal LOT such country and
such people! 1t is made up, you know,
of three great walled cities, and the
walls about it are more than twenty
seven miles in length. There is the BIC
Tartar or Mnnchoo city, in the interior
OF which is the forbidden city inside
whose walls is the home of the sacred
Emperor and where the great palace:
arc located. There is the Chinese city
outside, where the most of The business
of North China is done, and where tho
sights and building do not differ much
from those of the narrow streets and low
buildings of other Chinese cities. There
arc in the Tartar city the thousands of
residences of the great officials of the
! Government, and here are the great
Government departments which look for
| all the world like Il set OF western cattle
yard stables rooted with heavy tiles. and
ranged around barnyard courts which are
no cleaner nor better kept than our stables
themselves. From the walls the whole
great city looks like an Immense orchard
sparsely filled with trees, which rise high
enough TO shut out the view of the low.
one story buildings composing its
houses. In one corner rises the great
temple OF heaven, n round lowered, pa
goda-like structure, where the Emperor
periodically watches the slaughter of
oxen and burns them rs sacrifices upon
Il big marble altar. In another direction
you can see the walls of the forbidden
city, with it, many-tiled palaces shining
i'll the sunlight, aid all around standing
out against the Sky are the great towers
which rise story above story over the
gates which lead through the walls.
They are. to me, the most wonderful
things | have yet seen in city architcc-
ture. Fcking is said to be the finest
walled city in the world. 1t is made up
of the three cities all of which arc sur
rounded by walls, the greater part of
which are rs firm to day as when
they were built hundreds of years AGO
These walls must have cost MANY
million dollars, and, though useless now.
they once made Peking a fortified city.
The wall of the Tartar city is the strong
est. 1t is as high as city house of four
stories, and lis top has width of forty
feet, or nearly the width of manya city
street. 1t is sixty feet wide ut the bot
tom, and you could drive four wagon
loads OF hay along the top without
crowding. 1t is made of large, gray
bricks laid in blue mortar, and the whole
has become, through age, one mass of
stone. At the top the outs de walls,
perhaps two feet thick, iisc four feet
and make fence TO the pathway between
them. This is tagged with stones, in
the creviccs of which ike grass is grow
ing, and through which here and there a
tree has forced its way and grown big.
trunked and long branched amid its
rocky surroundings. Tho space be.
tween the facings OF the
wall is filled with earth, and the
sixteen great gates of the city have brick
towers OF many stories, some of which
are built in galleries with port holes, and
which, over certain gates, isc to the
height Of 100 feet. The gates are faced
with stone, and their arches are of solid
granite. They are great, round holes
cut through this massive wall, and within
them swing heavy, wooden doois studded
with many iron rivets. These are closed
when the sun goes down, and are not
opened again until the morning Through
these outside fences above the walk on
the top of the wall are holes through
which arrows might have been shot or
perhaps musket- barrel pushed through.
They are not large enough for cannon,
and to-day there are no soldiers keeping
guard along these great military high
ways. Here and there is n rude hut bull.
upon the stones for Waterman, but the
most OF the walls nre free for all. and