The National tribune., 1901-06-20
WASHINGTON, THURSDAY

I the poles and suspending from the ami
mails back. Travelling by chair is the
only means of escaping the awful torture
of the rough roads of China. They are
| almost impossible for our kind of vehicles.
| The chair is very easy and comfortable,
the long bamboo carrying-poles giving a
springy effect.
The chair belonging to the "Son of
Heaven and that belonging to the
Heaven Sent Dowager Empress are
most elaborate affairs in their interior dec
orations of fancy silks.
The rest of this Imperial caravan is
made up of a long line of camels, and a
still longer line of Pekin carts for trans
porting the treasure and goods. The cam
els in China are the bactrian species, and
have two humps. They ?re somewhat
larger and faster travellers ian the single
bumped camels of Arabia and Egypt
A Pekin cart is the most primitive and
cruel affair on wheels, and is as springlesS
as the foundations of your house. Some
of our lodges should get one to take the
place of the goat in initiating new candi-
date. Necessarily a Pekin cart must be
very strong. Tney are drawn by mules
hitched into shafts.
Add to this long caravan the guard of
Imperial troops and you have process
sion so picturesque, so queer. and so enig
i'll the world to compare with it.
This strange caravan will pass over
roads that are as dusty in dry weather and
as impasSably muddy when it rains as any
the world affords. 1t will cross rivers as
large as some of our greatest American
water courses, and over mountains that
are rough and ascend TO great heights.
These Heaven Sent rulers will meet no
mail carriers on horseback or on stages,
for there is no Government system of de-
livering mails in China. Letters to and
from the great and populous interior are
carried by travellers as they happen TO
make trips.
Weak in body and mind, rs the EN-
perOr is reported to be, and as reduced in
health as is the Dowager Empress, there
are no rulers of any nation on earth whose
movements are watched with as great
anxiety as the march of Kwang Su and
the DOwagcr Empress towards Pekin.
The peace Of the world may depend upon
LIS being successfully replaced on the
Dragon Throne that has been unOccupied,
except by an occasional foreign devil,
since Aug. II, last.
These rulers of the most populOus coun-
try on earth are leaving a province near
where millions of their subjects are Suf-
fering from an awful famine. What will
meet tnelr eyes on the advance to Pckin.
They will see the awful devastation
wrought DA DOlH Ills ONl SuDJttlS anu Illt
allied troops and other foreign devils"
The allied troops entered the South Gate
of this oldest city of antiquity on Aug. IA
last, and the area inclOsed by the city'S
great walls was not large enough to hold
the Emperor and the Empress and so
many foreign devil soldiers at the same
time. When the allied armies began to
make a great deal of noise in the process
of getting in at the South Gate, the
Heaven Sent Imperial family slipped
out at the North Gate.
The Imperial Princes and the official
classes went with them leaving the Pal
aces of the Emperor and Dowager En-,
press and the Purple Forbidden City,
the numerous palaces of the Princes out
side, and the Temple of Heaven and the
Temple of Agriculture in the Chinese City,
two miles away, to their fate.
THE Forbidden CITY.
They have heard ere this of the damages
inflicted on Pekin since they abandoned
it. and their eyes will soon meet the
changes that await them. Is the damage
to the city less than the Imperial family
expected: 1t certainly Is, for they feared
the worst and probably never thought of
returning TO make Pekin the Capital
again.
In the old days Pekin's great gates were
closed at certain hours of the night, to re
main so until morning. No one could en-
ter or leave the city at night. Now the
Emperor and Dowager Empress will find
the gates wide open at all times. The
pract'c cal American, and others, regard
less of the traditions and sacraments of
these walls, and the things within them,
have cut holes through in some places, so
short cuts could be taken to reach certain
points, instead of going way round to en-
ter at a big, cumbersome gate.
1t is unfortunate for the Emperor and
the Dowager Empress, for China, and for
the Powers of the earth. that these rulers
of the greatest number of people ON earth,
will miss seeing the troops from all the
nations, meeting their gallant officers, and
getting good, square look at the foreign
devil as he really is. But they have
tried as hard not to see them as the com
manders in China have tried to get them
to see them.
Since these unfortunate rulers last saw
their palaces, their Temple of Heaven,