Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1894-07-21

from two and half to four feet thick. and
the base Of the wall is ten feet wider than
the top. The bricks of which it Is made
weigh from forty to sixty pounds. or as
much as a six-year-old boy, and the clay
for these bricks had to be transported long
distances from the interior at some por-
lions OF the wall. These bricks are of
slate color. According to measurement
they are fifteen inches long, nine inches
wide and about five inches thick. They are
put together in q solid masonry by means
of lime mortar. and they are built up from
the foundation IN two walls, each about
three feet thick. running parallel with each
other, the space between being filled with
earth and stone well rammed down. The
top of the wall is paved with these bricks
and its average width is about fifteen feet.
1t is everywhere 50 wide that two two
horse wagon loads of hay could be driven
along it and the hubs of the two teams
would not touch. Six horses abreast could
be easily driven upon it's paved highway.
and on each side of the road along Its
whole fifteen hundred miles of length there
is q brick crenellated wall as high as your
m case Of a stampede. At short intervals
the wall Is crowned by great two and
three-story towers, made OF these big blue
bricks, and at the passes in the mountains
there are arched gates Of stone. some OF
which are beautifully carved. Here and
there the wall is double, a second wall run
I ing over the country some distance back
from the first, and On the peaks near II
there are often watch towers, in which the
guards stood in times past and warned the
soldiers stationed on it's top of the advanc-
ing hordes which they spiad coming from
the wilds beyond
Present Condition..
Much of the great wall is still In perfect
condition. Standing upon 1t at the city OF
Shan Hal Kwan we could see it climbing
UP the Manchurian mountains, jumping
the gorges and scaling the peaks. Gray
tn ia Of tUp seemed
to grasp the earth of the present with its
mighty hand, and where It crossed the
r,ountains 1t seemed as imperishable as the
hills whose hoary brows it crowns. At
other places. however. time has gained
the mastery, end nearest the railroad there
Is a breach at least 100 feet wide. and one
side of tho Will where 1t bounds the city
OF Shan Ia! Kwan has been. almost over
thrown. Its sides are covered with moss,
and the grass has grown upon its pave
ments. No arches now guard 1t, and 1t
only remains as a monument OF the nun
dreds of thousands of Acknowledged men
who two thousand years ago thus sought
to protect their homes and those OF their
descendants from the savages Of the north
for all time to come. No one can stand
Upon its ramparts and not be impressed
with the strength of this great Chinese
nation. Seventeen hundred years before
America was discovered; at time when
our blue-blooded ancestors half-naked and
altogether savage, were wandering through
the WlldS or france, Germany ana England,
when Rome was still republic. fighting
her last battles with the Carthaginians;
two hundred years before Christ was born,
these same Chinese people built this mighty
wall. Their history states that IL required
an army of 100000 men to protect the
builders and millions must have been en-
ployed In the undertaking. / have seen
enough of the building of railroads and
other works in China during my present
tour to understand how it was probably
constructed. There was no machinery
used, and few cattle and horses. Every
foot of it was built by man, and In its
1900 miles of mountain climbing there are
today bottled up within this structure the
vital force of millions of the Chinese Of
the past, a monument to the thought that
while man dies his work remains, as does
the hand that carved the Venus di Medici
and the pen that wrote Shakespeare and
the Aeneid. These Chinese of two thou
sand years ago probably carried the earth