Evening star., 1913-02-09
THE REPUBLIC OF CHINA.
XVIII-PEKING THE WONDERFUL.
Bv Frederic J. Haskin.

Pekine proudly and of right. claims
three III asnier distinctions. 1t is China
great ca::ital and metropolis. the most en-
trancine kitty in the far east and one OF
the wori:i s really wonderful cities Pek-
ing is IL the orient what Rome is TO
Europe. Wipe out all of China and Pek-
ing woua5 still be Pelling. But any act
of God er man dealt to raZe PekinS
would be a blow on China's very heart
If one Ee.i to choose between visit to
PekinG. eoursing some aeroplane route
which g..'e no glimpse of the land be-
low. and an extended tour OF the rest
of the csa,ntry with Peking left out il
Will be the wise voyager who speeds his
course stTzight to the basin of the Pei
no river, where the hands of Chinese.
Tartars, Mongols and Manchus have
nodded tii:> Eternal city of the celestial
empire
Peichini1, meaning northern capital is
the derivation of the modern name of
Pek1ng. Hltuated less than one hundred
mics be;ssw the Mongolian border. it
fell into ele hands of the khitan Tar
tars in 9sss AID. being given the name of
Nanking. .or southern capital. In the
year of 1'sO. or thereabouts, the Chinese
retoo kit because its original despoilers
"Cie uSINNDB more important tdT
to the ns'sth. The Chinese reduced the
place to Ese grade OF ''fu," or first-class
town. and~so 1t langu.shed until captui ID
in 1151 By the Kin Tartars. who gave it
the designation of central capital. the
implicatiCet being that another import
ant base 20 he called southern capital.
was to be- still farther south on Chinese
soil. In LAO the great Mongol king, Gen
ghs khas. drove out the boastful Kins.
But it dis not become the ravisher's Of
lin m preIv q 90
city unti5: the reign of his successor,
kublai kaan. even greater than Genghis.
kublai Khan. in 1885 made what is now
Peking hia main capital. the greatest dis
tinction accorded
City Is Rebuilt 1t up to that time
by Kualai Khan. n,aoa A' tno''t u" nne rne
the man Esho made it great for all time,
and most ~ the temples, arches and other
things that one sees there
were eithe@ built by him or put up later
by later generations in order that his
name might be venerated forever. Under
Kublai tbs, city became famous far and
wide as YeSking. or "great court Again
it was kn.t wn as Cambaluc. and ancient
Chinese writings rebound with poetic and
enthusiastic. tributes and descriptions.
The successors of Kublai Khan decided to
move the capital quite bit farther south
in order TO prevent raids from rowing
northerner.. and In SO doing established
Nanktng, 6r southern capital as 1t is still
called. Eere the Mings. the very last
Chinese dynasty, fiourished after the rule
of the kha MS had died out. The Emperor
Yung-lo moved his capital back to the
sea, of tfse great kublai Khan early i'm
the fifteenth century. The name was
made Peicifing, northern capital and later
twisted ts Peking north court So it
has remained from that day to this.
Peking Il reached by two main routes.
n trip over the Peking- -Hankow railway
a Franco -Belgian concern, from the last
named city to the capital, gives a good
general view of the Chinese interior. The
other way is to travel three days by boat
from Shanghai to Tientsin and then go
eighty miles on the Peking-Tientsin rail-
way. Tie3tsin itself is the cleanest most
healthful city in China. having wide
streets, unique foreign concessions and
two comfcrtab BILE hotels. Severa hundred
foreigners live there. The climate is
about like that of Ohio.
First to hold the attention of visitors
to China scapital is the imposing
Tartar wall along
4dILdT W I'LL Which the railway
Imposing Sight. mi1s nuns for 1t about b ga a
years old and is mighty pile of large
even gray stones over four miles long
and three miles wide. 1t is 30 feet high,
30 feet thi-k at the base and 30 feet wide
at the top. Massive gates, topped by a
gaudy pagoda-like structure pierce the
wall at several points. The water gate
and the Ch.en-men gate are Of special in
terest. Through the former tourists go
into the foreign legation quarter, which
is backed up against the big wall for
safety's sake. The latter is about one
half mile away, and just to the left of
it I'm the wall perches an American field
artillery battery. The position commands
the clamOrouS Chinese city on the out
SIDE. and our boys have held it ever
nee the Boxer seige in 1900. An inter-
m,nab.e tide of jabbering pedestrians and
noisy. spi ngleSS carts bang over the
stones through TIL s gate from morning
to night. The legation area Is surround
ed on three sides by it's own wal, from
twelve to twenty feet high. Patroll.ng OF
the three sides is appOrtioned among the
British, French Italians, Germans,
Americans. japanese and Russians. In
side this irregular square each legation is
surrounded by its own wall. The crudely
W WU9uS Lest we on the
street side Of the British compound, are a
grim reminder of bloody stand taken
at that pcint by foreii ners, troops and
volunteers alike, against a horde of
Boxers whss swarmed around with bullets
and burning brands from June 20 to Au-
gust IL
The usual joys of tourists are the Tenn
pie of Heaven and Temple of Agriculture
the Drum and Bell towers, the Lama
Temple, Temple of the Sun in the eastern
part of the city outside the Tartar wall,
Temple of the Moon in the west. Temp e
of the Earth In the north, the Imperial
city in general Hataman street. the lega-
tions, the Imperial Park and Prospect
Hill. Short out-of-town trips include the
palace of the Yuchuan Shan. about two
miles beycnd the Summer Palace: the
Hs ling or Western tombs, the Imperial
Hot Springs and the Ming tombs and
Nankow pass and the great wall of
China.
The section of the great wall at Nam
kow pass IS comparatively new, being
only about 900
Forbidden City years old. The
Is Mysterious Place. wall where M IL |