78

FROM PEKING TO PETERSBURG

CHAPTER I.

AT PEKING.

PEKING is a great city, much in want of repair. You can see at once that it is a city that has been founded

-as in contradistinction to one that has grown. Further, you can see that the men who laid out Peking were men of generous ideas—generous after the fashion of their day and generation. Inevitably the European who rides through Peking for the first time contrasts it with any other great Chinese city he has known-in my case Canton. The difference is great. Canton is a specimen of a city that has grown in answer to mercantile needs. Consequently it has not one spacious street, and not one 'lung.' It is merely an accumulation of lane added to lane.

Peking, on the other hand, is a city built foursquare, approached and traversed by several roads that were meant to be great highways. In the

centre is the Imperial City, some part of which you may visit, skirting the great wall of the inner centre, the Forbidden City, the Palace, where the helpless Emperor reigns but does not rule. Outside of and surrounding the Imperial City is the Manchu City, originally occupied exclusively by the ruling classes and their dependents. Beyond, again, is the Chinese City-the city of the trader.

Each of these 'cities' is complete within its own walls. In the centre is the Forbidden City, walled and moated; next the Imperial City, also walled; next the Manchu City, also walled; and beyond is the Chinese City, with the Great Wall enclosing it and, so to speak, re-enclosing all the others.

The chief effect of the walls nowadays is to impede the circulation of air. If these walls were destroyed, and part of their stonework were used to macadamize the roads, Peking might become the healthy capital of a vigorous empire. Such a change would symbolize everything else. But, even as things are, there is little doubt that the Forbidden City, with its spacious lawns and lakes, is the saving condition in the health of Peking, just as the same Forbidden City, with its ancient glamour, is the cement that holds together the Chinese Empire.

It may be convenient to explain here how one gets to Peking. I do not address that explanation to the quiet family man at home, for he is not likely suddenly to say to his wife: My dear, let us go to

Peking this year.' But the earth is being girdled yearly by thousands of 'globe-trotters,' who buy a ticket that takes them from London or New York right round the world. And yet few of them see Peking. Indeed, very few of those who live in the East ever see Peking. Yet Peking is worth seeing, and can easily be seen, assuming always that the would-be visitor is already in the Far East.

That being assumed, let us also assume that he (or she) is already at Shanghai, the terminal port of the P. and O. Company, and in close connection with the routes of the Pacific steamer lines. From Shanghai you take a local English-managed steamship, and, if you select it with good local advice, you will get food, liquor, and accommodation nearly as good as on the best mail lines. That steamer will take you north, along the Chinese coast, past Kiaochau, round the jutting-out corner of the Shantung promontory, and into the Gulf of Pechi-li. It It may probably give you a few hours at Wei-hai-wei and Chifu. It will then carry you on to Taku, at the mouth of the Pei-ho River, the time from Shanghai being about four days. A railway will then take you in an hour and a half to Tientsin, where you can stay awhile, or you may simply change carriages for Peking.

The journey from Tientsin to Peking takes three and a half hours by express train, and you may make it in the mail car run by the Imperial Customs