Decorah public opinion. (Decorah, Winneshiek County [Iowa]) 1895-1928, 1917-08-08
MORE ABOUT CHINA
BY A. C. BAKER
Visited Great Wall, the Greatest Tn
dertaking Ever Accomplished
by Man, is 1900 Miles
Long.
96O LEPERS SHOT
TO DEATH IN MANCHURIA
This Place is About Seven Times
Larger Than Iowa, Mostly
High Level Plain.

The railroad on which we go to the
great wall is purely a Chinese under
| taking. Now finished from Peking tc
kaligan 124 miles and being extend
ed to Urga. Before the building ot
this road it was a matter of cCnsid.
erab.e hardship to reach the great
wall but now only three hours ride.
The railroad traverses Nankow
Pass, the route through which the
products of Tartary were transported
to Peking for hundreds of years be-
fore the white man knew of that
country.
1t is twenty minutes walk from the
little station where we leave the
train to the great wall, the greatest
undertaking ever accomplished by
man. This wonderful undertaking
was brought about by the inhuman
Tartar and Mongolian making their
unprovoked raids into China proper
The Chinese, a quiet, inoffensive peo-
pie, industrious, without a fault,
would accumulate fine surroundings
when these sons of the devil would
come upon them, killing. robbing and
taking away into slavery their peo-
pie. To protect themselves IL ON
these incursions this wall was under
taken. In the third century before
Christ the work commenced and was
kept up until about the twelfth CEN
tury after Christ.
It's main line of wall is 1900 miles
long and it has laterials of about
1000 miles, making it longer than
from Iowa to San. Francisco. 1t COM
mences at the sea shore at Shan-hai-
kwan, extends west, following the
icrest of mountains 4 900 feet high,
no place so difficult but that it has
been overcome. In some PAGES built
on the side of cliffs where it would
seem impossible for it to be anchored.
At the point where We visited it
there was great rayine and the
gate through which all traffic be-
ltween all that great territory north
OF Peking passed through this gate
and while the traffic has largely been
transferred to the railroad yet we
saw caravans constantly passing. In
lone of these l counted 12T camels
that no doubt had come from more
than a thousand miles west, as they
come in from all central Asia and ST.
IBERIA.
At the point where we examine 1t
the wall has granite sides out to a
very close joint, the blocks of granite
about six feet o1g and eighteen inch
es wide lain in splendid mortar. II
lis forty feet high and about twenty
wide on top, the rampant above ex-
tending above the space between
about six feet with openings for can
non about every hundred feet.
The walk Oh top is built Of burned
brick lain in mortar, about every
thousand feet is a tower for lookout
and a pair of stairs that one can get
down on the Chinese side of the wall.
About three miles over in Mongo-
| liza are watch towers which they kept
watchman with material for kindling
fires to give notice of an enemy ap-
preaching to these on the main wall.
How this wonderful work was ac-
complished becomes great study
but it is said for hundreds OF years
that the second son in every family In
China dedicated his life to this work
Where this lime could have been
burned where the clay for these brick
came from and lately where they got
the water to mix the mortar Is
mystery for none except the granite
are to be found there.
1t has been the pleasure or the
writer to have seen all that is to be
seen Of the seven wonders OF the
world but all others fade into insig-
nificance besides this. Seen beside the
Sphinx or Pyramids of Egypt one
would not think of comparing. In fact
the latter would be only work ,of
children compared with this gigantic
work.
A few of the cd cannon used on
the wall are seen near the gate to the
wall but they would make little i'm
preston with those now in use The
most of them were of brass and have
been subjected to the melting pot
hundreds OF years since.
Returning to Peking we spend a
day visiting other surroundings and
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