This great monument of human labour, that still, with some interruptions, pursues its aerial climb over 2000 miles of peak and ravine, almost invariably excites the enlightened abuse of the foreigner, who can see in it nothing but a blindfold conception and misdirected human power.1 To me, I confess, it appears as a work not merely amazing in plan, but of great practical wisdom (in its day) in execution. To this date the Mongol tribes regard the Great Wall as the natural limit of their pastures; and though it could not have been expected at any time to render the Empire or the capital absolutely secure from invasion, yet in days when men fought only with bows and arrows, and indulged in guerilla. raids of irregular horse, times without number its sullen barrier arrested the passage of predatory bands, caused the examination of passports, and prevented the illicit entry of goods. Because we do not now, in days of artillery, encircle an empire any more than a city with a wall, it by no means follows that such a defence may not once have been as useful to a kingdom as it was to a town.

The Ming
Tombs.

Of the Shih-san-ling, or Thirteen Tombs of the Ming Emperors, which at unequal distances, each in its own wooded enclosure, surround a wide bay or amphitheatre in the hills, thirty miles nearly due north of Peking, I will merely observe that the famous avenue of stone animals through which one enters the valley from the south is to my mind grotesque without

attributed to the Wei dynasty in a.b. 542; but in its present state it is almost entirely the work of the Ming Emperors. Their part of the wall is built of stone, and is from 25 to 50 feet in height, including the outer parapet, and has a paved walk along the summit 14 feet in width, passing through frequent and more elevated towers with embrasured stone walls 9 feet in thickness. At the Pataling Gate it is a very imposing structure.

1 Dr. Williams, for instance, in his Middle Kingdom, speaks of it as an 'evidence of the energy, industry, and perseverance of its builders, as well as of their wisdom and waste.

R

being impressive, the images being low, stunted, and without pedestals; that the Great Hall of Yung Lo, which contains his tablet, is in design, dimensions, and extreme simplicity, one of the most imposing of Chinese sacred structures; that, like the Egyptian kings in the Pyramids of Ghizeh and in the subterranean galleries of Thebes, and the Persian kings in the rock-sepulchres of Persepolis, the object of the Chinese Sovereigns appears to have been either to conceal the exact spot in which the royal corpse was deposited, or at least to render it impossible of access; and that a visitor should be recommended to compare the Ming Tombs with the Mausolea of the reigning dynasty, which are situated in two localities known as the Tung-ling and Hsi-ling, to the east and west of Peking (while the ancestors of the Imperial family were interred in Southern Manchuria), and are reported to be of great beauty and splendour; though no European would stand a chance of being admitted to their inner temples or halls.

These and similar excursions to the delightful monastic retreats in the western hills, or rides in the Nan-hai-tzu,1 a great Imperial park three miles to the south British of the Chinese city, surrounded by a wall and Legation. containing some very peculiar deer,2 are an agreeable relief to the visitor, who soon tires of the dirt and confusion of Peking. Even such relaxations, however, are found to pall upon the resident; and he is apt to turn from the surfeit of désagréments in the streets to the repose of the

1 In a fit of belated economy, the Empress Dowager, since the war, is said to have closed her palace in the Nan-hai-tzu.

2 This is the Ssu-pu-hsiang (lit. Four-Parts-Unlike, because the various parts of the body resemble those of different animals), or Tail-deer, called after its first discoverer Cervus Davidianus. It has an immense tail, over a foot in length, and gigantic antlers, somewhat resembling those of a reindeer. The species has never been found wild, and is not known to exist anywhere in the world except in this park.

walled compounds within which the various Foreign Legations reside, and where life, though confined, is at least cleanly and free. Of these by far the most imposing is the British Legation, an enclosure of three acres inside the Tartar city, once the palace of an Imperial prince, whose entrance-archways and halls have been skilfully adapted to the needs of European life, where the members of the staff are accommodated in separate bungalows, where the means of study and recreation alike exist, and where a generous and uniform hospitality prevails.

The premises of the British Legation include the Minister's receptionrooms and residence in the quondam palace, separate houses for the First and Second Secretaries, houses of Chinese Secretaries, Physician, and Accountant, the Chancellery, Library, Student Interpreter's quarters and mess, Dispensary, Fire Engine, Arnoury, Lawn Tennis and Fives Courts, and Bowling Alley, with a body-guard of two constables.

CHAPTER IX

Relations between Chinese

and Europeans.

CHINA AND THE POWERS

Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch' entrate.

DANTE: Inferno, C'auto ii.

AT no capital in the world are relations between the Government of the country and the representatives of Foreign Powers conducted under circumstances so profoundly dissatisfactory as at Peking. There is absolutely no intercourse between the native officials and foreigners. Few of the latter have ever been, except for a purely ceremonious visit, inside a Chinese Minister's house. No official of any standing would spontaneously associate with a European. Even the Chinese employés of the various Legations would lose 'face' if observed speaking with their masters in the streets. Superior force has installed the alien in the Celestial capital; but he is made to feel very clearly that he is a stranger and a sojourner in the land; that admission does not signify intercourse; and that no approaches, however friendly, will ever be rewarded with intimacy. This attitude is more particularly reflected in the official relations that subsist between the Diplomatic Corps and the Foreign Office at Peking.

That office, if it can be said so much as to exist, is an office without either recognised chief or departmental organisation. After the war of 1860, a board named the Tsungli Yamen was invented in 1861 by Prince Kung, who