The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1894-07-22
CHINA'S GREAT WALL
TRIP OVER THE NEW RAILWAY To
THIS WONDERFUL WORK.
How 1t Was Built and How 1t Lasts
1T Cost Millions of Lives and
Oceans of DEMONSTRATING Scenes.

Copyright. 1894. by Frank G. Carpentar)
In the vice regal special train running
through North China, from Shan Hal
Kwan to Tien-Tsin-by railroad to the
great wall of China On a special train
through some of the least known parts
of the Chinese empire. Dashing along at
the rate of forty miles an hour through
the plains of North China. The steam de-
mon of the present cutting his way into
the most famous vestiges of the celestial
past.
These are some of the wonders of the
journey 1 am row making over the
imperial road of this vast empire in CON-
pany with the party of ex-Secretary Foster
in the private car of China's most powerful
statesman and ruler. Ii Hung Chang. We
have travelled already nearly 200 miles
through the agricultural and mining dis
tricts of this part of China, and have plant
ed our American sole leather on the bor-
ders of Manchuria. We left the New York
Of North China, the great trading city of
Tien-Tsin. and it's million Acknowledged peo-
ple in the early morning of two days ago,
and plowed our way through tens of thou
sands of brown grave mounds to the east
ward. We passed the myriad huts of the
city of Tong XII. at the mouth of the Peiho
the shadow of the frowning battlements
and of the Krupp and Armstrong guns of
the Taku forts. We stood on the platform
and saw the scores of queer windmills
which with their square white wings pump
the brine of the Yellow sea into the salt
pools of the government reservoirs, and
watched the gangs of yellow coolies cutting
down the mountains of salt and loading it
for Tien-Tsin, whence ii will be shipped off
at high prices as a government monopoly
for the people of the interior. We rode for
an hour over salt marshes, upon which
Mongolian ponies, red cattle and donkeys
graZed, and then entered the rich gardens
of the great plain. Here every inch was
cultivated, and the farmers were every
where laboring in the fields. We saw the
wheat planted in rows, two feet apart,
springing from the soil in it's luxuriant
green dress of the early spring and could
note the curious methods of work of these
the best farmers of the world The crops
planted in small tracts and everything
is cultivated with the hoe and the plow.
There is sowing of grain as with us.
and the rows of wheat, corn and millet
are weeded and fed with manure.
FARMING SCENES.
The wheat is planted in the fall and in
the spring as now, the rows are plowed
and other crops planted between them.
Everywhere over the landscape you see
piles of manure, each containing about two
bushels of brown earth, and here and there
men and boys gather up this manure into
baskets and carefully shake it out over the
newly planted crop. This is after the
seed has been sown. Now a donkey or a
man pulls through the row a little roller
of stone, mixing the seed and the manure
with the soil and pulverizing the earth till
it is as fine as the sands of the seashore.
Every one is at work in the fields. Little
children of three and six years go through
the rows with baskets tied to their backs
pulling the weeds with three-pronged hoes.
They put each weed into their baskets and
it is saved for food or fuel There you see
boys driving donkeys and now and then
you will see d man blowing and men and
boys hitched to the pillow and doing the
work of horses. / photographed one man
on my way to Picking who had his whole
family harnessed to his pillow. He leaned
upon the handled with all his might. while
his three sons and one daughter tugged and
pulled in drawing the pillow through the
furrow. He grew quite angry at my point
ing the camera at him and rushed up TO
me and tried to take it out of my hands
showed him back, however, and with the
assistance of my donkey boy was able to
mount and gallon away.
We saw some such scenes on the way to
Tong Shan where the famous Kaiping coal
mines are situated, and where were en-
tertained over night. We passed many coal
cars carrying the black diamonds down to
the sea to be shipped in the company
steamers to all parts of South China, and
at every station we found a crowd of al
mon-eyed, yellow-faced mortalS gazing at
us in wonder. The trip from Tong Shan to
the wall has been over the new government
railroad and our special train is the first
of the kind which has gone over it, The
| line itself has only been opened TO traffic
| for a few days. and this will be the first
report given to the civilized world of It's
| character. 1t is a railroad that any coun-
| try might own with pride. Well balasted
| and we'll laid, the steel track is solid as
| though ii had been used for a generation,
| and its stations and bridges have been
built to stay. The Ian Ho bridge, which
| we crossed several hours ago, near the
walled city of Lam Chow, is nearly two
, thousand feet in length, and ii has five
great spans each of which is two hundred
| feet long. 1t has a number of sma.l9r
| spans, and IL is built upon arches OF so id
| stone, the iron work being made by the
| same company that made the great Forth
| bridge in Scotland and the heavy arches
were sunken by the pneumatic process.
1 Crossing this we rode onward-parI of the
| time at a speed of forty-five miles an hour
| past other cities, till we came in sight of
| the mountains of Manchuria, and stopped
| with the end OF the railroad, almost on the
| edge of the sea and within a stones throw
! of the breach in the great wall, through
| which the railroad is 10 be extended hun
| 1reds of miles further on into the wilds
\ of the almost unknown country of Man
churia. Here under the shadow of the great
! Chinese wall, gray with its age of two
thousand years, we ate our luncheon in the
| viceroy's car. nine representatives of the
| most progressive nations of the present at
| home and in comfort among the ruins of
| the greatest OF China's historic past.
| WHO WE'RE PRESENT.
| 1t is, indeed, a curious sight for China.
| Our party consists of six Americans three
| Englishmen and two Chinese officials, in
| addition to a retinue of servants and train
| men, The Americans are Gen. john W.
| Foster, ex-Secretary Of State and his wife:
| Mr. Orr, wealthy citizen Of Evansville,
| Ind. and his two young lady daughters,
| who are related TO Secretary Foster and
| who are making the tour OF the world with