The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1900-06-21
FROM TIEN-TSIN TO PICKING.
Danger and Inconvenience i'm Landing
Sailors at Taku Forts.
New York Post.

New York Post.
a naval officer who has just returned
from the Asiatic station recently made
two Journeys to Picking by way of Tien-
Tsin and the railroad. which the Boxers
have in part destroyed, and along which
the foreign marines and sailors are now
advancing to the Chinese capital. He de-
scribes the approach TO the Chinese capital
to Il reporter as extremely uncomfortable,
even at the best of times. Not only is the
journey by rail very tedious. but the pre-
liminaries TO landing from a ship Of war
are inconvenient and even dangerous.
The Taku forts" he said, $50 frequent
~ referred to in current dispatches are
adobe structures on the coast at the mouth
of the Peiho. Either from lack of enter
prise or OF studied purpose, the Chinese
permit a dangerous bar to exist off the
mouth of the Peiho in front of the forts.
This bar and the shadows about 1t extend
so far out that men-of-war are forced to
lie fifteen miles off shore, entirely out of
sight of land.
when a naval officer has occasion TO
visit Picking, he must drop from. his ship
into a little launch, and in this light craft
make the journey across the bar and to the
point where he is to take the train for
Tien-Tsin. The journey by rail thence is
about twenty miles. The hour of departure
is always uncertain, and the train is ex-
trcmely slow. The road runs through a
densely peopled region in which are few
Europeans. Tien-Tsin itself is a consider
able Chinese town on the Peiho. 1t has a
small foreign colony, but Is likely, in view
of disturbances at Picking and in
the interior, to have this colony consider
ably enlarged by refugees.
THE journey from Tien-Tsin to Picking
is made at better speed than the journey
from the coast to Tien-Tsin: besides for S.
one may have the privilege of riding in an
imperial postal car, which has some of the
comforts of the American parlor-car. 1t Is
a little misleading. however. TO speak of
the journey to Picking by rail, for the near
est station is about five miles from the city.
The abomination of modern civilization
rnox- mot capon a tho canro6 nffN Tho
journey from the station to Picking is made
over one of the worst roads on earth, and
In a peculiarly uncomfortable vehicle-the
Chinese country cart.
Picking itself is a city of a million in
habitants, standing in a desert, without
sewers and without a public water supply.
The filth of the place, which Is almost I'M
believable, offends the nostrils at every
turn. The streets are i'll paved, and getting
about the city is uncomfortable and even
dangerous. Peking is walled with q most
picturesque piece of masonry, but the city
has outgrown its bounds, and from the top
of the wall one may see the outer suburbs
stretching wide and densely crowded.
1T is hardly accurate to say that Picking
has a foreign quarter in the sense in which
that phrase is understood in the treaty
ports. The foreign residents are the mem
bers Of the legations, the missionaries and
their households. Each foreign household
lives in a compound of it's own. These
compounds are the only clean places in the
city. The compound of the British lega-
t1On Is large ana dttTdCtlNe. II same Il
true of the plot occupied by the Russian
legation. Our own legation occupies a neat
but far too small compound, near the city
wall.
1.-The legations and the missionaries have
a social life of their own, and the represent
tatives of foreign powers Civ brilliant en-
tertainments. The social life of the Legal
tons, however, goes on in the presence of
a vast hostile population, and is rendered a
little uncomfortable at times by reason of
national jealous fears and suspicious. The
presence of a large Russian force at Port
Arthur, just across the Gulf of Pechili from
the Taku forts. does not tend to lessen the
uneasiness of life at the legations.
Picking has a hot and rather unhealthy
summer climate. The city is as near as
may be in the same latitude as Philadel-
phia, but considerably further inland.
Many of the coast towns are also un-
healthy, but Che-Foo, on a bluff facing the
sea, about 200 miles southeast OF the Taku
forts. has an excellent climate. and is a
favorite place of summer residents with
foreigners in that part Of China