THE CAPITAL OF CHINA
The coasts of Pe-chi-li and the mouth of the Pei-ho—Ta-ku and
Tien-tsin—From Tien-tsin to Peking by rail—Peking: the Forbidden,
Imperial, Tatar and Chinese cities; the walls, streets, houses,
shops and monuments—Behaviour of the natives towards
foreigners—Decadence of the capital and of the whole Empire.
If one enters China from Eastern Siberia by the Gulf of Pe-chi-li after
a long voyage round the Korean Peninsula, the first impression of the
Celestial Empire is distinctly unattractive. The contrast between the
shallow waters where the vessel casts anchor, some miles distant from
the mouth of the Pei-ho, and the noble port of Vladivostok, or the
enchanting Bay of Nagasaki, with its verdant shores and blue waters,
enlivened by the picturesque sails of the fishing-junks, is, to say the
least, extremely depressing.
Nearly all the ports of the Celestial Empire are thus formed, and can
only be entered during a few hours of the day. Even the mouth of the
great Blue River is encumbered with shoals, and its famous rival, the
Yellow River, in its lower basin, is divided up into such a multitude of
channels that meander through the marshy lands as to interrupt all
direct navigation from the sea. The Gulf of Pe-chi-li, which may be
described as the port of Peking, although situated closer to the Equator
than the Bay of Naples, or the mouth of the Tagus, seems, with its
choked-up estuaries, its storm-beaten shores, its fogs and icy coat in
winter, thoroughly typical of China and her traditional inhospitality,
and her eagerness rather to repulse than to invite the stranger within
her gates. From the anchorage outside the bar it is difficult to discern
the lowlying coast; and the first objects to attract attention are mud
forts, mud houses in mud villages, and mud heaps marking the graves in
the cemeteries. This uninviting place is Ta-ku, beyond which, a little
higher up, at Tang-ku, the Pei-ho ceases to be navigable for vessels of
any tonnage. On landing, a surprise awaits you—the railway. Commenced by
Li Hung-chang, for the purpose of transporting the coal from his mines
at Kaiping, a few miles to the north-east, branches have been added, and
since the summer of 1897 it takes the traveller to Peking viâ Tien-tsin.
An hour and a half after leaving Tang-ku, I alighted at the former town
amid a mob of noisy coolies, who pounced upon me and my luggage. We
crossed the Pei-ho in a sampang instead of the ordinary ferry-boat which
conveys the Celestials, packed together like sardines in a box, and
stuck, apparently immovably, in the most extraordinary postures. From
the landing-place, we were trotted in a jinrikisha drawn by a Chinaman
through the Rue de France, up Victoria Road to the Astor House, an
American hotel kept by a German; opposite it is a garden, over which a
white flag with a crimson circle in its centre, the emblem of the Rising
Sun, announces that the garden and the house belong to the Japanese
Consul. Thus was I first initiated to the cosmopolitanism of a foreign
concession in the Far East.
Tien-tsin is the biggest open port in North China and the third in rank
in point of activity and commerce in the whole Celestial Empire. It is,
moreover, an immense Chinese city of nearly a million inhabitants, but
its European concession is very inferior to that of Shanghai, and as a
native city it is of little interest in comparison with Peking, Canton
and many other towns. It is from here that travellers used, in former
times, to begin the disagreeable journey to the capital, either on
horseback or by junk up the Pei-ho. The river route was usually
performed partly by sail and partly by oar, but occasionally the boat
had to be towed by men. The junks took two or three days to ascend the
sinuous course of the river. Sometimes, however, when the wind was to
the north, and the shoals numerous, the journey occupied from four to
five days before Peking was reached. Now the daily express, which speeds
along at the rate of twenty miles an hour, takes three hours and
fifty-three minutes to cover the ground which separates Tien-tsin from
the station at Peking.
The country through which it passes is very flat, and it is only just
before arriving at its terminus that the blue outline of some rather
high hills come into sight towards the north-east. In the month of
September, when the rains are over and are replaced by a drought that
lasts until the end of winter, the environs of Tien-tsin, including the
cemetery, are entirely under water, and as we looked from the train
window, we could see a coffin floating about, and another like gruesome
object stuck on the embankment of the line, which led us to reflect
that, though the Chinese make such a fuss over their ancestors, they
apparently care very little for their graves. The inundation at first
stretched as far as the eye could see. Presently the land began to peep
out. If you expect to find the soil from which the waters have just
retired uncultivated, it will only be an evident proof that you know
very little about the indefatigable industry of the Chinese
agriculturist, and the great care and skill which he brings to his task.
All that emerges has already been carefully sown, even down to the very
brink of the water, and at a few steps from the limits of the
inundation, the future harvest which has sprang up under the hot
September sun from the moist but rich soil begins to make its
appearance. The mud villages now succeed each other rapidly, and
presently the traveller reaches an admirably cultivated country where
not an inch of soil is wasted, and where the wheat and sorghum fields
are alternated by kitchen gardens and orchards.
The temporary station at Peking, built of planks and galvanized iron,
stands in the midst of this landscape. Very little is to be seen of the
high walls of the city, which are almost entirely hidden by trees, and
by a slight rising in the land. Nothing indicates that the gates of the
capital of the oldest Empire in the world are so near. In order to
traverse the mile which separates the station from the entrance to
Peking, it is necessary to exchange the most highly perfected of human
conveyance for the most barbaric. The Chinese are unwilling that the
stranger should dispense, in order to enter their most holy capital,
with a thorough jolting in their national carriage, unto which the
Siberian tarantass may be compared as the most luxurious of vehicles.
Two enormous wheels, covered with iron and garnished with a triple row
of nails, support this shapeless waggon, which is protected by a blue
awning, and is dragged along by two mules harnessed one in front of the
other. Whilst the driver sits in front under the awning, the hapless
traveller has to accommodate himself on the floor, with his legs
stretched out in front of him. Now begins the torture, for one is
literally jolted about against the wooden sides of the cart like a pill
in a box. Presently the wheel goes over a huge stone, only to fall into
a deep hole, or stick in a rut. Meanwhile, the diabolical waggon behaves
in a most abominable manner, to the unutterable agony of its wretched
inmate, who lives in terror of being either precipitated into the mud,
or of having his brains knocked out by the collapse of the whole
structure. Of this latter catastrophe there is little or no likelihood,
for about the only good quality this appalling conveyance can boast of
is solidity: nothing could break it. About twenty minutes after leaving
the station a high battlemented wall, surrounded by a mud-filled moat,
is reached. Next, you pass over a bridge, beyond which a gate admits
into a sort of half-moon surrounded by walls, beyond which is yet
another gate admitting to the city proper, where, after another hour’s
jolting, the unhappy traveller alights at a hotel in Legation Street
kept by a Frenchman.
Although not the most ancient city in the Celestial Empire, Peking is an
epitome of the rest of China, together with its ancient civilization and
its present stagnation and decadence. It belongs to a very different
type from the cities of Europe, or even of the Moslem world, and the
sight of its immense wall and successive enclosures, which divide it
into four distinct parts, reminds one of Nineveh or Babylon. In the
centre is the ‘Forbidden’ or ‘Purple City,’ about a league in length
from north to south, and a quarter of a league in width, containing the
palaces of the Emperor and Empress Dowager, and the gardens and the
residences of a swarm of parasites numbering, it is said, between six or
eight thousand persons, inclusive of guards, concubines, eunuchs,
functionaries, gardeners and other attendants upon the Imperial harem.
The only Europeans who are allowed to cross the sacred threshold of the
Purple City are the members of the Diplomatic Corps, to whom the Emperor
gives audience on New Year’s Day, as well as since quite recently on the
occasions of their arrival or taking leave. Around the Purple City
extends the Imperial City, its walls painted pink, which in its turn is
surrounded by the Tatar City, a rectangle of 4 miles in length, by 3
miles in width, whose sides face the cardinal points. Its colossal walls
are 50 feet high, and at their summit are 50 feet wide. Their external
fronts consist of two strong brick walls, rising from a substructure of
stone. The interior is filled up with earth, and the summit, covered
with flagstones, forms a walk bordered by embattled stone parapets.
Bastions project outwards, and huge pavilions built of brick, pierced
with many balistraria, and coated with highly varnished coloured tiles,
ornament its four corners and gates. It rises only 99 feet above the
ground, beyond which height it is never allowed to build, lest the
flight of the good spirits might be inconvenienced thereby. This
magnificent rampart, which to the north-east and to the west rises
abruptly from the midst of the country, Peking having no suburbs,
presents a most imposing aspect; and it is not less impressive when
beheld from any one of the half-moons, which are very vast, and are
built before the various gates, but which, owing to the height of the
embattled walls which surround them on all sides, each of which is
surmounted by a massive brick pavilion, look like wells.
To the south of the Tatar City is a group of less imposing walls
surrounding the lengthy rectangle which includes the Chinese City, the
commercial part of Peking. The broad street that intersects it from
north to south, and cuts it into two equal parts, especially close to
the Tsieng-Men Gate, by which you pass into the Tatar City, is the most
animated artery of the city. In the central walk, paved with magnificent
flagstones, not one of which is now in its right place, and which
apparently only serve as stumbling-blocks to pedestrians, and are
covered with mud a foot deep in summer, and by a pestilential dust in
winter, circulate in the utmost confusion the ever-present waggons,
already described, palanquins, sedan-chairs, whose colours vary with the
dignity of the owner, chairs drawn by mules, men riding on small
Manchurian ponies, indefatigable asses, which are the best means of
locomotion in the place, enormous one wheeled barrows, coolies
struggling under the burden of huge baskets filled with fruit,
vegetables, and other comestibles, fixed to the end of a very long pole
slung across their shoulders—all this busy world bustles along, filling
the air with shouts and cries of every kind, from the croaking of the
porters to the stentorian shouts of the waggoners. Occasionally a long
string of huge two-humped camels, a cord running from the nostrils of
one animal to the tail of the other, and led by a Mongolian urchin, adds
to the incredible confusion. All this crowd, together with beasts and
vehicles, has to content itself with what, under ordinary circumstances,
would be a very broad roadway, if at least a third of it were not
encumbered by a sort of permanent open-air fair, carried on in rows of
booths, some of which are used as restaurants, others as shops of every
description. These booths turn their backs to the middle of the street,
and thus hide the line of shops beyond, of which, from the centre of the
road, you can only perceive the enormous and innumerable signboards
hanging from a veritable forest of gaily-painted poles.
Beyond the Tsieng-Men Gate is situated the Beggars’ Bridge, always
thronged by groups of wretches clamouring for alms and ostentatiously
displaying the most appalling mutilations, with all kinds of loathsome
diseases added to their sordid misery to excite compassion. The narrow
side-walks, which are bordered on the one hand by booths, and on the
other by big shops, are filled by a motley gathering of small
shopkeepers, each plying his business in the open-air barbers,
hairdressers, and fortune-tellers, among whom the crowd has no little
difficulty in threading its way. Here you see men in light-blue blouses,
with long pigtails; Chinese ladies with their hair dragged back
magpie-tail fashion, who balance themselves painfully as they go along
on their tiny deformed feet; Tatar women, whose hair is puffed out on
each side of their faces, and who, like their Chinese sisters, stick a
big flower behind their ears. Not being crippled by bound feet, like
their less fortunate Chinese sisters, these women strut along with as
firm a step as their high-heeled clogs will permit. Their faces are
bedaubed with rice-flour, and their cheeks painted an alarmingly bright
red. Children with their heads shaved in the most comical manner, dotted
about with little tufts, that have a very funny appearance, being cut
according to the taste or caprice of their parents, also run about.
Among the well-clad children of a better class are others, stark-naked,
looking for all the world like small animated bronzes, so dark and
warm-coloured is their polished skin. In order to avoid being mobbed,
one has occasionally to seek refuge in a shop, which usually opens on to
the street, and is without windows. In the back the shopkeepers are
peacefully seated behind their counters smoking long pipes, whilst
exhibiting their goods and listening to the bargainings of their
customers. These shops are always very clean, and the goods are arranged
with great order and even considerable taste. A bowl with goldfish, or a
cage full of birds, adds not a little to the charm and peacefulness of
the scene, which is peculiarly refreshing after the noise and dirt of
the streets.
All the great arteries of Peking are equally filthy and closely resemble
each other, excepting that not one of them can equal, either in the size
of the shops or wealth of their contents, the famous High Street that
leads to the Tsieng-Men Gate. In summer, after the rains, a coating of
mud some two feet and a half deep covers both road and footpath, which
when the weather dries again is converted into thick clouds of dust. The
sideways, always lower than the central road, are usually filled by
pools of green water, whence arises the most horrible stench of decayed
vegetables and rotting carcases of animals, in addition to the
accumulated offal of the neighbouring houses. The wonder of it all is
that the entire population of Peking has not long since been swept away
by some appalling epidemic.
Leaving aside the few broad streets, one frequently comes across immense
open spaces, whose centres are generally occupied by a huge dunghill.
The narrow little streets that branch out in all directions can be
divided into two classes—those which border on the three or four
principal commercial thoroughfares, which, like them, are lined with
shops, but are scarcely broad enough to allow of the passage of a single
cart, although they are thronged from morning to night by a seething,
noisy crowd; and the silent and deadly dull private streets, where the
dwelling-houses are to be found. On either side runs a gray wall, whose
monotony is broken at intervals by a series of shabby little doors. If
any one of these happens to be open, one can only perceive from the
street a small courtyard a few feet square, and another dead wall,
beyond which is the inner courtyard, shut off from all observation, and
on which open all the windows of these singular dwellings, not one of
which is more than one story high, and always protected by a gray
double-tiled roof, usually ornamented at the four corners by some
grotesque stone beast or other, but never turned up at the ends as are
invariably those of the temples and the monuments. There is no movement
whatever in these streets. A few children play before the doors, a dog
or so strays about in the road, and now and again a coolie or an
itinerant merchant, with two baskets suspended from a pole across his
shoulders, breaks the silence by a shrill cry; sometimes a donkey or a
cart passes along but fails to enliven the deadly quiet of the street,
which is so still and monotonous that one might almost imagine one’s
self in a village instead of in one of the most populous cities in the
world.
The scene changes entirely when Peking is seen from the heights of the
walls which form the only agreeable promenade in the capital, to whose
summits ascends neither the mud nor the stench of this dirtiest of
cities. The eye wanders pleasantly over a forest of fine trees, for
every house has one or two in its courtyard, and barely a glimpse of the
offensive streets is to be had: only the gray roofs of the little
houses; and thus Peking looks for all the world like an immense park,
from whose midst rise the yellow roofs of the Imperial Palace, and to
the northern extremity of the city, a wooded height called the Coal
Mountain, surmounted by a pagoda.
As to monuments, there are very few in Peking worth the seeing, and into
these foreigners are never allowed to enter. Twenty-five or thirty years
ago visitors were admitted into a great number of the temples: that of
Heaven, which is now being restored, and where the Emperor goes annually
to make a sacrifice, and the Temples of the Sun, the Moon, and of
Agriculture, and they were even allowed to peep into the Imperial
Gardens; but since the entry of the Anglo-French troops into Peking, in
1860, the Chinese have been very reticent with respect to their
monuments, doubtless a consequence of the salutary lesson they then
received, which they are philosophical enough to endeavour to forget, as
all wise folk should do things that wound their pride. To-day the people
affect to believe the official story invented on that occasion to save
appearances, wherein it was stated that the Emperor Hien-feng, instead
of fleeing before the allies, merely went on a hunting excursion in his
park at Johol in Mongolia. Their usual insolence towards foreigners had
completely returned, to be modified, however, so soon as they heard of
the successes of the Japanese, and they were seized with absolute terror
at the prospect of beholding the Mikado’s army marching through their
gates.
When I was in Peking in the autumn of 1897 Europeans were very rarely
insulted in the streets. Before the War it was otherwise, and I myself,
like many another, did not escape the impertinence of the Chinese at
Canton. All the same, they took good care to close their monuments to
the inspection of the ‘foreign devils,’ and the only temple now open for
our inspection is that of Confucius, an immense but rather commonplace
hall with a steep roof supported on pillars painted a vivid red.
Foreigners are also permitted to visit the place where the literati
undergo their examinations. It consists of some thousands of little
cells lining several long, open corridors, wherein the unfortunate
candidates for law and medicine are shut for several days while they
answer the questions set them. Then there is the old Observatory,
wherein are two series of highly useful instruments. The first dates
from the time of the Mongol Dynasty in the thirteenth century, and lies
scattered half buried among the weeds at the bottom of the courtyard;
the second series is less antiquated, having been made under the
direction of the Jesuit Verbiest, who was astronomer to the Emperor of
China in the early part of the seventeenth century. They are shown on
the walls. After seeing these thoroughly up-to-date astronomical
instruments, one has visited all there is to be seen in the Imperial
city of Peking.
It must be confessed, however, that walking in the streets, or at the
foot or on top of the enormous walls, is far more interesting and
instructive than visiting temples and palaces. At every step the
observer is struck with the activity and energy of the Chinese people in
contradistinction to the systematic stagnation of its governing classes,
and he soon comes to the conclusion that China is in a state of
decadence strongly resembling in many details that of the Roman Empire
at the time of the invasions of the Barbarians. This erstwhile
magnificent capital is now only the shadow of its former self. The
number of its inhabitants, 700,000 to 800,000, is gradually decreasing,
and many houses are already in ruins. Some of the best streets, which
must at one time have been splendidly paved, are now almost impassable,
the result of neglect; drains, which at one time were covered in, now
run open through the streets, and are choked up by nameless deposits
which are never removed, and even immense blocks of the celebrated walls
are occasionally allowed to crumble to ruin. Now and again an effort to
repair them is started, but as half the money intended for the work
usually remains in the hands of the officials and contractors it is
never well done, great care being taken not to do the repairs
thoroughly, for fear of preventing fresh disaster and losing a chance to
do it all over again. On the other hand, on the rare occasions when the
Emperor betakes himself and his court to some summer residence or other,
or to make a sacrifice at one of the temples, things are furbished up a
bit, to make him believe that his capital is well looked after. The ruts
and the mud-heaps in the streets through which the procession passes are
hidden under a thick coating of sand, and everything likely to offend
the eye of the Son of Heaven is covered over; even the miserable booths
which encumber the streets are removed, and the half-moons in the
rampart have their walls painted white, but only so high as the Imperial
eyes may be lifted as His Celestial Majesty passes by, lolling back
indolently in his magnificent palanquin.