Catoctin clarion. [volume] (Mechanicstown, Md.) 1871-1940, 1909-01-28

| great literature. It was possessed OF
wealth and culture, and the rich re-
wards of conquest constantly inspired
the Mongols, wild tribes who lived
in the country now called Mongolia,
to make forays.
They had invaded the country on
the northern part, and were encroach-
ing further toward Pekin and the
provinces to the south.
1t was in this crisis that Shi-
Hoang-ti performed the feats of valor
that made his name forever famous
in Chinese song and poem. Assem-
bling a mighty army, he threw him
self on the Mongolian hordes, fought
them, defeated them, and sent them
flying back from Chinese territory.
| But it was not enough to have
downed the enemy. The Mongols
always came back. They had per-
tinacity that made them the most
dangerous of foes. Therefore it be-
came necessary to construct barrier
that would unfailingly perform its
duty.
Everything had to be done by
hand, for the great engineering de-
vices that to-day accomplish the work
of five hundred men had not then
been invented. But fortunately labor
was plenty in this most thickly popu-
lated country in the world, and swift
ly the great wall moved into its place,
grim and powerful and able to with
stand any assault that Mongols might
make.
It's battlemented walls are fifty
feet high, and at every few hundred
| feet they bristle with towers where
in days of yore Chinese warriors
stood ever ready to repel the invader.
| The wall is twenty-five feet wide
and is built for the greater part of its
way with mortared brick and stone.
When the Ming dynasty had come
into power it duplicated, for consid-
, cradle extent, Shi-Hoang-ti's wall,
and thus for large part of the dis
tance there is a double barrier.
The most powerful part of the wall
was that at Pa-ta-ling, for this gate
was only sixty miles from Pekin, and
here it was that any charges directed
against the nation would have to be
repulsed.
One great battle was fought here.
for at the top of the Nankou Pass
! the gate was the scene of the last
stand against the noted Mongolian
warrior, Genghis Khan, and when he
| overrode the defenders 1t was down
the pass and through the gate that
! the conqueror led his forces. He
took the Mongols into China and con-
quered a country against which his
people had been fighting for 1900
years.
Kubla Khan also entered by this
pass when he completed the con-
quest of China and made his realm
the greatest the world has ever
known.
Genghis Khan and Kubla Klan
were differently disposition. Genghis
burned all the literature of China.
but Kubla Khan protected the litera-
ture and helped along the people by
wise measures that gave prosperity In
agriculture and commerce. Kubla
fixed places in the wall that had been
ravaged by the wars of the centuries
and undertook to restore tranquility
in the country.
Some historians have said that the
great wall accounted for the sloth
into which China fell The huge bar
rier, which even to-day shows itself
to be stoutly built, gave the people
a sense of security and made them
feel that no nation could overwhelm
them.
Centuries passed in this foolish de-
lusion; but when the war with Japan
came China discovered that she had
been sleeping.
Since the humiliation of that de-
feat by the Mikado, determination
has grown up among the younger
element of the people to earn a place
among the great nations of the world.
The old Dowager Empress and the
weakling Emperor stood in the way.
Now they are gone, and the country
looks with hope to the strong man
who is now at the helm.
Along the pass of Nankou is to run
the new Russian railway.
If it goes along country from
which the great wall has been razed
China will feel, no matter how the
remainder of the world may regret
the passing of famous relic, that
new era has dawned.-Seattle Post
Int tp1lioanpar