HOW THEY "KEEP A HOTEL" IN TURKEY by EDWIN DE LEON.
OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP.
The Californian At Vienna by PRENTICE MULFORD.
Ghostly Warriors.
A Warning To Lovers.
NOTES.
LITERATURE OF THE DAY.
Books Received.
ILLUSTRATIONS
THE PAULISTS.
THE REWARD OF AN INVENTOR.
CARDINAL BALUE.
AN UNCIVIL ENGINEER.
LOCOMONIAC POSSESSION.
LE RAINCY: THE CHATEAU.
CATHEDRAL OF MEAUX.
BOURSAULT, THE RESIDENCE OF CLIQUOT.
CHURCH-DOOR, ÉPERNAY.
THE BEGGAR WHO DRANK CHAMPAGNE.
ADMIRATION.
MAC MEURTRIER.
THE BLACK DOMINO.
TAM O'SHANTER'S RIDE.
THE CROOKED MAN.
THE GRAVITY ROAD.
THE ANIMATED CELLS.
THE TRAVELER'S REST.
PALACE AT STRASBURG.
THE MANDARIN CHING'S CART.
HALT OF THE CARAVAN AT HO-CHI-WOU.
AVENUE OF ANIMALS LEADING TO THE TOMBS OF THE EMPERORS.
PORTICO TO THE TOMBS OF THE EMPERORS.
THE GREAT WALL: THE NANG-KAO PASS.
CHAPEL OF THE SUMMER PALACE.
VALLEY AND BEEHIVES.
COWS COMING DOWN THE HILLSIDE BY A MOUNTAIN STREAM.
A PROCESSION.
THE NEW HYPERION.
FROM PARIS TO MARLY BY WAY OF THE RHINE.
III.--THE FEAST OF SAINT ATHANASIUS.
[Illustration: THE PAULISTS.]
As I parted from my stout old friend Joliet, I saw him turn to empty
the last half of our bottle into the glasses of a couple of tired
soldiers who were sucking their pipes on a bench. And again the old
proverb of Aretino came into my head: "Truly all courtesy and good
manners come from taverns." I grasped my botany-box and pursued my
promenade toward Noisy.
The village of Noisy has made (without a pun) some noise in history.
One of its ancient lords, Enguerrand de Marigny, was the inventor
of the famous gibbet of Montfauçon, and in the poetic justice which
should ever govern such cases he came to be hung on his own gallows.
He was convicted of manifold extortions, and launched by the common
executioner into that eternity whither he could carry none of his
ill-gotten gains with him. Here, at least, we succeed in meeting a
guillotine which catches its maker. By a singular coincidence another
lord of Noisy, Cardinal Balue, underwent a long detention in an
iron-barred cage--one of those famous cages, so much favored by Louis
XI., of which the cardinal, as we learn from the records of the time,
had the patent-right for invention, or at least improvement. Once
firmly engaged in his own torture--while his friend Haraucourt, bishop
of Verdun, experienced alike penalty in a similar box, and the foxy
old king paced his narrow oratory in the Bastile tower overhead--we
may be sure that Balue gave his inventive mind no more to the task of
fortifying his cages, but rather to that of opening them.
[Illustration: THE REWARD OF AN INVENTOR.]
These ugly reminiscences were not so much the cause of a prejudice I
took against Noisy, as caused by it. At Noisy I was in the full domain
of my ancient foe the railway, where two lines of the Eastern road
separate--the Ligne de Meaux and the Ligne de Mulhouse. The sight of
the unhappy second-class passengers powdered with dust, and of the
frantic nurses who had mistaken their line, and who madly endeavored
to leap across to the other train, stirred all my bile. It was on
this current of thought that the nobleman who had been hung and the
cardinal who had pined in a cage were borne upon my memory. "Small
choice," said I, "whether the bars are perpendicular or horizontal.
You lose your independence about equally by either monopoly."
[Illustration: CARDINAL BALUE.]
I crossed the Canal de l'Ourcq, and watched it stretching like a steel
tape to meet the Canal Saint--Denis and the Canal Saint-Martin in the
great basin at La Villette--a construction which, finished in 1809,
was the making of La Villette as a commercial and industrial entrepôt.
I meant to walk to Bondy, and after a botanic stroll in its beautiful
forest to retrace my steps, gaining Marly next day by Baubigny,
Aubervilliers and Nanterre. "The Aladdins of our time," I said as I
leaned over the soft gray water, "are the engineers. They rub their
theodolites, and there springs up, not a palace, but a town."
[Illustration: AN UNCIVIL ENGINEER.]
"Who speaks of engineers?" said a strong baritone voice as a weighty
hand fell on my shoulder. "Are you here to take the train at Noisy?"
"Let the train go to Jericho! I am trying, on the contrary, to get
away from it."
"Do you mean, then, to go on foot to Épernay?"
"What do you mean, Épernay?"
"Why, have you forgotten the feast of Saint Athanasius?"
"What do you mean, Athanasius?"
The baritone belonged to one of my friends, an engineer from Boston.
He had an American commission to inspect the canals of Europe on the
part of a company formed to buy out the Sound line of steamers and
dig a ship-canal from Boston to Providence. The engineer had made
his inspection the excuse for a few years of not disagreeable travel,
during which time the company had exploded, its chief financier having
cut his throat when his peculations came out to the public.
[Illustration: LOCOMONIAC POSSESSION.]
"Are you trying, then, to escape from one of your greatest possible
duties and one of your greatest possible pleasures? You have the
remarkable fortune to possess a friend named Athanasius; you have in
addition, the strange fate to be his godfather by secondary baptism;
and you would, after these unparalleled chances, be the sole renegade
from the vow which you have extracted from the others."
The words were uncivil and rude, the hand was on my shoulder like
a vise; but there floated into my head a recollection of one of the
pleasantest evenings I have ever enjoyed.
We were dining with James Grandstone, one of my young friends. I have
some friends of whom I might be the father, and doubt not I could find
a support for my practice in Sir Thomas Browne or Jeremy Taylor if I
had time to look up the quotation. We dined in the little restaurant
Ober, near the Odéon, with a small party of medical students, to which
order Grandstone's friends mostly belonged. We were all young that
night; and truly I hold that the affectionate confusion of two or
three different generations adds a charm to friendship.
[Illustration: LE RAINCY: THE CHATEAU.]
At dessert the conversation happened to strike upon Christian names.
I attacked the cognomens in ordinary use, maintaining that their
historic significance was lost, their religious sentiment forgotten,
their euphony mostly questionable. Alfred, Henry and William no longer
carried the thoughts back to the English kings--Joseph and Reuben were
powerless to remind us of the mighty family of Israel.
"I have no complaint to make of my own name," I protested, "which
has been praised by Dannecker the sculptor. That was at Würtemberg,
gentlemen. 'You are from America,' the old man said to me, 'but you
have a German name: Paul Flemming was one of our old poets.' The
thought has been a pleasant one to me, though I have not the faintest
idea what my ancient godparent wrote. But in the matter of originality
my Christian name of Paul certainly leaves much to desire."
[Illustration: CATHEDRAL OF MEAUX.]
I was gay enough that evening, and in the vein for a paradox. I set
up the various Pauls of our acquaintance, and maintained that in any
company of fifty persons, if a feminine voice were to call out "Paul!"
through the doorway, six husbands at least would start and say,
"Coming, dear!" I computed the Pauls belonging to one of the grand
nations, and proved that an army recruited from them would be large
enough to carry on a war against a power of the second order.
"If the Jameses were to reinforce the Pauls," I declared, looking
toward my young host, "Russia itself would tremble.--Are you to make
your start in life with no better name?" I asked him maliciously.
"Must you be for ever kept in mediocrity by an address that is not
the designation of an individual, but of a whole nation? Could you not
have been called by something rather less oecumenical?"
"You may style me by what title you please, Mr. Flemming," said
Grandstone nonchalantly. "I am to enter a great New York wine-house
after a little examination of the grape-country here. Doubtless a
Grandstone will have, by any other name, a bouquet as sweet."
The idea took. An almanac of saints' days, which is often printed in
combination with the _menu_ of a restaurant, was lying on the table.
Beginning at the letter A, the name of Ambrose was within an ace of
being chosen, but Grandstone protested against it as too short,
and Athanasius was the first of five syllables that presented. Our
engineering friend, who was present, had in his pocket a vial of
water from the Dardanelles, which fouls ships' bottoms; and with that
classic liquid the baptism was effected by myself, the bottle being
broken on poor Grandstone's crown as on the prow of a ship.
"You are no longer James to us, but Athanasius," I said. "If you
remain moderately virtuous, we will canonize you. Meantime, let us
vow to meet on the next canonical day of Saint Athanasius and hold a
love-feast."
We drank his health, and glorified him, and laughed, and the next day
I forgot whether Grandstone was called Athanasius or Epaminondas. And
my confusion on the subject had not clarified in the least up to the
rude reminder given by my engineer.
"I had quite forgotten my engagement," I confessed. "Besides,
Grandstone is living now, as you remind me, at Épernay--that is to
say, at seventy or eighty miles' distance."
"Say three hours," he retorted: "on a railway line we don't count by
miles. But are you really not here at Noisy to satisfy your promise
and report yourself for the feast of Saint Athanasius? If you are not
bound for Épernay, where _are_ you bound?"
"I am off for Marly."
"You are going in just the contrary direction, old fellow. You can be
at Épernay sooner."
"And Hohenfels joins me at Marly to-morrow," I continued, rather
helplessly; "and Josephine my cook is there this afternoon boiling the
mutton-hams."
"Fine arguments, truly! You shall sleep to-night in Paris, or even
at Marly, if you see fit. I have often heard you argue against
railroads--a fine argument for a geographer to uphold against an
engineer! Now is the instant to bury your prejudice. Do you see that
soft ringlet of smoke off yonder? It is the message of the locomotive,
offering to reconcile your engagements with Grandstone and Hohenfels.
Come, get your ticket!"
[Illustration: BOURSAULT, THE RESIDENCE OF CLIQUOT.]
And his hand ceased squeezing my shoulder like a pincer to beat it
like a mallet. A rapid sketch of the situation was mapped out in my
head. I could reach Épernay by five o'clock, returning at eight, and,
notwithstanding this little lasso flung over the champagne-country, I
could resume my promenade and modify in no respect my original plan;
and I could say to Hohenfels, "My boy, I have popped a few corks with
the widow Cliquot."
Such was my vision. The gnomes of the railway, having once got me in
their grasp, disposed of me as they liked, and quite unexpectedly.
From the car-window, as in a panorama of Banvard's, the landscape spun
out before my eyes. Le Raincy, which I had intended to visit at all
events on the same day, but afoot, offered me the roofs of its ancient
château, a pile built in the most pompous spirit of the Renaissance,
and whose alternately round and square pavilions, tipped with steep
mansards, I was fain to people with throngs of gay visitors in the
costume of the _grand siècle_. Then came the cathedral of Meaux,
before which I reverently took off my cap to salute the great
Bossuet--"Eagle of Meaux," as they justly called him, and on the
whole a noble bird, notwithstanding that he sang his Te Deum over some
exceedingly questionable battle-grounds. Then there presented itself
a monument at which my engineering friend clapped his hands. It was
a crown of buildings with extinguisher roofs encircling the brow of
a hill, and presenting the antique appearance of some chastel of the
Middle Ages.
[Illustration: CHURCH-DOOR, ÉPERNAY.]
"Do you see those round, pot-bellied towers, like tuns of wine stood
upon end?" he said--"those donjons at the corners, tapering at the
top, and presenting the very image of noble bottles? There needs
nothing but that palace to convince you that you have arrived in the
champagne region."
"I do not know the building," I confessed.
"Can you not guess? Ah, but you should see it in a summer storm, when
the rain foams and spirts down those huge bottles of mason-work, and
the thunder pops among the roofs like the corks of a whole basket of
champagne! That fine castle, Flemming, is the château of Boursault,
apparently built in the era of the Crusades, but really a marvel of
yesterday. It rose into being, not to the sound of a lyre, like the
towers of Troy, but at the bursting of innumerable bottles, causing to
resound all over the world the name of the widow Cliquot."
At length we entered the station of Épernay. There I received my first
shock in learning that the only return-train stopping at Noisy was one
which left at midnight, and would land me in the extreme suburbs of
Paris at three o'clock in the morning.
Our friend Grandstone, whom we found amazing the streets of Épernay
with a light American buggy drawn by a colossal Morman horse, received
us with still more surprise than delight. He had relapsed into plain
James, and had never dreamed that his second baptism would bear fruit.
Besides, he proved to us that we were in error as to the date. The
feast of Saint Athanasius, as he showed from a calendar shoved beneath
a quantity of vintners' cards on his study-table, fell on the second
of May, and could not be celebrated before the evening of the first.
It was now the thirtieth of April. He invited us, then, for the next
day at dinner, warning us at the same time that the evening of that
same morrow would see him on his way to the Falls of Schaffhausen.
This idea of dining with an absentee puzzled me.
[Illustration: THE BEGGAR WHO DRANK CHAMPAGNE.]
We both laughed heartily at the engineer's mistake of twenty-four
hours, and he for his part made me his excuses.
Athanasius--whose name I obstinately keep, because it gives him, as
I maintain, a more distinct individuality,--Athanasius happened to
be driving out for the purpose of collecting some friends whom he was
about to accompany to Schaffhausen, and whom he had invited to dinner.
He contrived to stow away two in his buggy, and the rest assembled in
his chambers. We dined gayly and voraciously, and I hardly regretted
even that old hotel-dinner at Interlaken, when the landlord waited on
us in his green coat, and when Mary Ashburton was by my side, and
when I praised hotel-dinners because one can say so much there without
being overheard.
Dinner over, we went out for a stroll through the town. The city of
Épernay offers little remarkable except its Rue du Commerce, flanked
with enormous buildings, and its church, conspicuous only for
a flourishing portal in the style of Louis XIV., in perfect
contradiction to the general architecture of the old sanctuary. The
environs were little note worthy at the season, for a vineyard-land
has this peculiarity--its veritable spring, its pride of May, arrives
in the autumn.
[Illustration: ADMIRATION.]
One very vinous trait we found, however, in the person of a beggar. He
was sitting on Grandstone's steps as we emerged. Aged hardly fourteen,
he had turned his young nose toward the rich fumes coming up from the
kitchen with a look of sensuality and indulgence that amused me. The
maid, on a hint of mine, gave him a biscuit and the remainders of
our bottles emptied into a bowl. A smile of extreme breadth and
intelligence spread over his face. Opening his bag, he laid by the
biscuit, and extracted a morsel of iced cake: at the same time he
produced an old-fashioned, long-waisted champagne-glass, nicked at the
rim and quite without a stand. Filling this from his bowl, he drank to
the health of the waitress with the easiest politeness it was ever my
lot to see. Ragged as a beggar of Murillo's, courteous as a hidalgo
by Velasquez, he added a grace and an epicurism completely French.
I thought him the best possible figure-head for that opulent spot,
cradle of the hilarity of the world. I gave him five francs.
[Illustration: MAC MEURTRIER.]
We proceeded to admire the town. The great curiosities of Épernay,
its glory and pomp, are not permitted to see the daylight. They
are subterranean and introverted. They are the cellars. Those rich
colonnades of Commerce street, all those porticoes surmounted with
Greek or Roman triangles in the nature of pediments, of what antique
religion are they the representations? They are cellar-doors.
[Illustration: THE BLACK DOMINO.]
It was impossible to quit the city without visiting its cellars, said
Grandstone, and we betook ourselves under his guidance to one of the
most renowned.
I only thought of seeing a battle-field of bottles, but I found the
Eleusinian mysteries.
[Illustration: TAM O'SHANTER'S RIDE.]
In the temple-porch of Eleusis was fixed a large pale face, in the
middle parts of which a red nose was glowing like a fuse. Several
other personages, in company with this visage, received us on our
approach with a world of solemn and terrifying signals.
Directly a man in a cloak and slouched hat, and holding in his hands
a wire fencing-mask, extinguished with it the red nose. The latter
met his fate with stolid fortitude. All were perfectly still, but the
twitching cheeks of most of the spectators betrayed a laugh retained
with difficulty. The cloak then advanced, like a less beautiful Norma,
to a bell in the portico, and struck three tragical strokes. A strong,
pealing bass voice came from the interior: "Who dares knock at this
door?"
"A night-bird," said the man in the cloak, who took the part of
spokesman. "What has the night-bird to do with the eagle?" replied the
strong voice. "What can there be in common between the heathen in
his blindness and the Ancient of the Mountain throned in power and
splendor?"
"Grand Master, it is in that splendor the new-comer wishes to plunge."
After this imitation of some Masonic mystery the red-nosed man was
quickly taken by the shoulders and hurtled in at the door, where a
flare of red theatrical fire illuminated his sudden plunge.
"What nonsense is this?" I said to Athanasius.
"The man in the iron mask," he explained, "is in that respect what we
shall all be in a minute. Without such a protector, in passing amongst
the first year's bottles we might receive a few hits in the face."
"And do you know the new apprentice?"
"No: some stranger, evidently."
[Illustration: THE CROOKED MAN.]
"It is not hard to guess his extraction," said one of our
dinner-party. "In the East there are sorcerers with two pupils in each
eye. For his part, he seems to be braced with two pans in each
knee. He is long in the stilts like a heron, square--headed and
square-shouldered: I give you my word he is a Scotchman. For certain,"
he added, "I have seen his likeness somewhere--Ah yes, in an engraving
of Hogarth's!"
The author of this charitable criticism was a little crooked
gentleman, at whose side I had dined--a man of sharpness and wit, for
which his hunch gave him the authority. As we penetrated finally into
the immense crypt, long like a street, provided with iron railways
for handling the stores, and threaded now and then by heavy wagons and
Normandy horses, my interest in the surrounding wonders was distracted
by apprehensions of the fate awaiting the unfortunate red nose.
[Illustration: THE GRAVITY ROAD]
The gallop of a steed was heard at length, then a dreadful exploding
noise. I should have thought that a hundred drummers were marching
through the catacombs.
Relieved of his mask, fixed like a dry forked stick, wrong side
foremost, on a frightened steed which galloped down the avenue, and
pursued by the racket of empty bottles beaten against the wine-frames,
came the Scotchman, like an unwilling Tam O'Shanter. At a new outburst
of resonant noises, which we could not help offering to the general
confusion, the horse stopped, and assumed twice or thrice the attitude
of a gymnast who walks on his hands. The figure of the man, still
rigid, flew up into the air like a stick that pops out of the water.
The Terrible Brothers received him in their arms.
Hardly restored to equilibrium, the patient was quickly replaced in
the saddle, but the saddle was this time girded upon a barrel, and the
barrel placed upon a truck, and the truck upon an inclined tramway.
His impassive countenance might be seen to kindle with indignation and
horror, as the hat which had been jammed over his eyes flew off,
and he found himself gliding over an iron road at a rate of speed
continually increasing.
He was fated to other tests, but at this point a little discussion
arose among ourselves. Grandstone, his fluffy young whiskers
quite disheveled with laughter, said, "Fellows, we had better stop
somewhere. There will be more of this, and it will be tedious to see
in the rôle of uninvited spectators, and it is not certain we are
wanted. I always knew there was a Society of Pure Illumination at
Épernay. It is not a Masonic order, but it has its signs, its passes,
its grips, and in a word its secret. I have recognized among
these gentlemen some active members of the order--among others,
notwithstanding his disguise, a jolly good fellow we have here,
Fortnoye."
"You cannot have seen Fortnoye," said one of the party: "he is at
Paris."
"And who is your Fortnoye, pray?" I asked.
"The best tenor voice in Épernay; but his presence here does not give
_me_ an invitation, you see. The Society of Pure Illumination has
its rites and mysteries more important than everybody supposes,
and probably complicated with board-of-trade secrets among the
wine-merchants. We have hit upon a bad time. Let us go and visit
another cellar."
There was opposition to this measure: different opinions were
expressed, and I was chosen for moderator.
"My dear boys," I said, "as the grayest among you I may be presumed to
be the wisest. But I do not feel myself to be myself. I have received
to-day a succession of unaccustomed influences. I have been dragged
about by an impertinent locomotive; I have been induced to dine
heavily; I have absorbed champagne, perhaps to the limit of my
measure. These are not my ordinary ways: I am naturally thoughtful,
studious and pensive. The Past, gentlemen, is for me an unfaded
morning-glory, whose closed cup I can coax open at pleasure, and read
within its tube legends written in dusted gold. But the Present to the
true philosopher is also--In fact, I never was so much amused in my
life. I am dying to see what they will do with that Scotchman."
[Illustration: THE ANIMATED CELLS]
Athanasius submitted. At the end of one of the cross galleries we
could already see a flickering glimmer of torches. There, evidently,
was held the council. We stole on tiptoe in that direction, and
ensconced ourselves behind a long file of empty bottle-shelves, worn
out after long service and leaning against a wall.
Through the holes which had fixed the bottles in position we could see
everything without being discovered. The grand dignitaries, sitting
in a semicircle, were about to proceed from physical to moral tests.
Before them, his red nose hanging like a cameo from the white bandage
which covered his eyes, and relieved upon his face, still perfectly
white and calm, stood the Scot. The Grand Master arose--I should have
said the Reverend--his head nodding with senility, his beard white as
a waterfall: he appeared to be eighty years of age at least. He was
truly venerable to look at, and reminded me of Thor. He wore a sort of
dalmatica embroidered with gold. Calmness and goodness were so plainly
marked on the aspect of this worthy that I felt ashamed of playing
the spy, and felt inclined to return humbly to the good counsel of
Athanasius, when the latter, pushing my elbow behind the shelves,
said, referring to the Ancient of the Mountain, "That's Fortnoye: I
knew I couldn't be mistaken."
I was greatly mystified at discovering the first tenor voice of
Épernay in an aged man; but the catechism now commencing, I thought
only of listening.
"The barleycorns of your native North having been partially cleaned
out of your hair by contact with the two enchanted steeds--the steed
you bridled without a head, and the steed that ran away with you
without legs," said the Ancient--"we have brought you hither for
examination. We might have gone much farther with the physical tests:
we might have forced you, at the present session, to relieve yourself
of those envelopes considered indispensable by all Europeans beneath
your own latitude, and in our presence perform the sword-dance."
"So be it," said the disciple, executing a galvanic figure with his
legs, his countenance still like marble.
"If we demanded the head of your best friend, would you bring it in?"
"I am the countryman of Lady Macbeth," replied the red nose. "Give me
the daggers."
"We would fain dispense with that proof, necessarily painful to a man
of such evident sensibility as yours." The red nose bowed. "What is
your name?"
He pronounced it--apparently MacMurtagh.
"In future, among us, you are named Meurtrier."
"MacMeurtrier," muttered the Scotchman in a tone of abstraction.
"No! Meurtrier unadulterated. Your business?"
"I am a homoeopathic doctor."
"Are you a believer in homoeopathy? Be careful: remember that the
Ancient of the Mountain hears what you say."
The Scot held up his hand: "I believe in the learned Hahnemann, and
in Mrs. Hahnemann, no less learned than himself; but," he added,
"homoeopathy is a science still in its baby-clothes. I have invented
a system perfectly novel. In mingling homoeopathy with vegetable
magnetism the most encouraging results are obtained, as may be
observed daily in the villa of Dr. Van Murtagh, near Edinburgh--"
"Enough!" cried the Ancient: "circulars are not allowed here. Forget
nothing, Meurtrier! And how were you inspired with the pious ambition
of becoming our brother?"
"At the hotel table: it was the young clerks from the wine-houses.
I mentioned that I wished to be a Free Mason, and the lodge of
Épernay--"
"Silence! The words you use, _lodge_ and _Free Mason_, are most
improper in this temple, which is that of the Pure Illumination, and
nothing less. Will you remember, Meurtrier?"
"MacMeurtrier," muttered the novice again. The last proofs were now
tried upon him, called the "five senses." For that of hearing he was
made to listen to a jewsharp, which he calmly proclaimed to be the
bagpipe; for that of touch, he was made to feel by turns a live fish,
a hot iron and a little stuffed hedgehog. The last he took for a pack
of toothpicks, and announced gravely, "It sticks me." The laughs broke
out from all sides, even from behind the bottle-shelves.
Alas! on this occasion the laugh was not altogether on my side of that
fatal honeycomb!
[Illustration: THE TRAVELER'S REST.]
They had made him swallow, in a glass, some fearful mixture or other,
and he had imperturbably declared that it was in his opinion the
wine of Moët: after this evidence of taste the proof of sight was to
follow, and the semicircle of purple faces was quite blackening with
bottled laughter, when Grandstone touched me on the shoulder. My hour
for departure was come, and I had not a minute to spare.
[Illustration: PALACE AT STRASBURG.]
Apparently, the last test of the red nose resulted in a triumph: as
we were effecting our covert and hasty retreat we heard all the voices
exclaim in concert, "It is the Pure Illumination!"
Gay as we were on entering the great wine-cellar, we were perfectly
Olympian when we came out. The crypts of these vast establishments,
where a soft inspiration perpetually floats upward from the wine in
store, often receive a visitor as a Diogenes and dismiss him as an
Anacreon.
Our consumption of wine at dinner had been, like Mr. Poe's
conversation with his soul, "serious and sober." In the cellar no drop
had passed our mouths. I was alert as a lark when I entered: I came
out in a species of voluptuous dream.
All the band conducted me to the railway-station, and I was very much
touched with the attention. It was who should carry my botany-box, who
should set my cap straight, who should give me the most precise and
statistical information about the train which returned to Paris, with
a stop at Noisy; the while, Ophelia-like, I chanted snatches of old
songs, and mingled together in a tender reverie my recollections
of Mary Ashburton, my coming Book and my theories of Progressive
Geography.
"Take this shawl: the night will be chilly before you get to the
city."
"Don't let them carry you beyond Noisy."
"Come back to Épernay every May-day: never forget the feast of Saint
Athanasius."
"Be sure you get into the right train: here is the car. Come, man,
bundle up! they are closing the barrier."
I was perfectly melted by so much sympathy. "Adieu," I said, "my dear
champanions--"
I turned into an excellent car, first class, and fell asleep directly.
Next day I awoke--at Strasburg! The convivials of the evening before,
making for the Falls of Schaffhausen on the Rhine, had traveled beside
me in the adjoining car.
My friends, uncertain how their practical joke would be received,
clustered around me.
"Ah, boys," I said, "I have too many griefs imprisoned in this aching
bosom to be much put out by the ordinary 'Horrid Hoax.' But you have
compromised my reputation. I promised to meet Hohenfels at Marly:
children, bankruptcy stares me in the face."
Grandstone had the grace to be a little embarrassed: "You wished to
dine with me at the Feast of Saint Athanasius, but you mistook the
day. Your engineer is the true culprit, for he voluntarily deceived
you. The fact is, my dear Flemming, we have concocted a little
conspiracy. You are a good fellow, a joyful spirit in fact, when you
are not in your _lubies_ about the Past and the Future. We wanted
you, we conspired; and, Catiline having stolen you at Noisy, Cethigus
tucked you into a car with the intention of making use of you at
Schaffhausen."
"Never! I have the strongest vows that ever man uttered not to
revisit the Rhine. It is an affair of early youth, a solemn promise, a
consecration. You have got me at Strasburg, but you will not carry me
to Schaffhausen."
He was so contrite that I had to console him. Letting him know that no
great harm was done, I saw him depart with his friends for Bâle. For
my part, I remained with the engineer, whose professional duties, such
as they were, kept him for a short time in the capital of Alsace. In
his turn, however, the latter took leave of me: we were to meet each
other shortly.
It was seven in the morning. This time, to be sure of my enemy the
railroad, I procured a printed Guide. But the Guide was a sorry
counselor for my impatience. The first train, an express, had left:
the next, an accommodation, would start at a quarter to one. I had
five hours and three-quarters to spare.
One of the greatest pleasures in life, according to my poor opinion,
is to have a recreation forced on one. Some cherub, perhaps, cleared
the cobwebs away from my brain that morning; but, however it might be,
I was glad of everything. I was glad the "champanions" were departed,
glad I had a stolen morning in Strasburg, glad that Hohenfels and my
domestics would be uneasy for me at Marly.
In such a mood I applied myself to extract the profit out of my
detention in the city.
EDWARD STRAHAN.
[TO BE CONTINUED.]
TWO MOODS.
All yesterday you were so near to me,
It seemed as if I hardly moved or spoke
But your heart moved with mine. I woke
To a new life that found you everywhere,
As if your love was as some wide-girt sea,
Or as the sunlit air;
And so encompassed me,
Whether I thought or not, it could not but be there.
To-day your words approve me, and your heart
Is mine as ever, yet that heavenly sense
Of oneness that made every hour intense
With Love's full perfectness, is gone from thence;
And, though our hands are clasped, our souls are two,
And in my thoughts I say, "This is myself--this you!"
MARY STEWART DOUBLEDAY.
THE RIDE OF PRINCE GERAINT.
The Ride of Prince Geraint.
And Prince Geraint, now thinking that he heard
The noble hart at bay, now the far horn,
A little vext at losing of the hunt,
A little at the vile occasion, rode
By ups and downs through many a glassy glade
And valley, with fixt eye following the three.
_Enid_.
Through forest paths his charger strode,
His heron plume behind him flowed,
Blood-red the west with sunset glowed,
Far down the river golden flowed,
And in the woods the winds were still:
No helm had he, nor lance in rest;
His knightly beard flowed down his breast;
In silken costume gayly drest,
Out from the glory of the west
He flashed adown the purple hill.
His sword hung tasseled at his side,
His purple scarf was floating wide,
And all his raiment many-dyed,
As if he came to seek a bride,
And not the combat that he sought;
Yet rode he like a prince, and one
Native to noble deeds alone,
Who many a valiant tilt had run,
And many a prize of tourney won
In Arthur's lists at Camelot.
Cool grasses and green mosses made
Soft carpet for his charger's tread,
As 'neath the oak boughs dark o'erhead,
By belts of pasture scant of shade,
Into the Castle Town he rode:
He heard, as things are heard in dreams,
The sound of far-off falling streams,
The shriller bird-choir's evening hymns:
He saw but only helmet-gleams,
The smith that smote, the fire that glowed,
The sheen of lances, and the cloud
From many a field-forge fire, the crowd
Of gay-clad squires, and, neighing loud,
The war-horse with rich trappings proud,
That arched his neck and pawed the ground;
Old armorers grave and stern in stall,
Where low-crowned morions, helmets tall,
Shone gilt and burnished on the wall;
And, shining brighter than them all,
The eyes of maidens sun-embrowned.
MARTIN I. GRIFFIN.
SKETCHES OF EASTERN TRAVEL.
I.--THE COUNT DE BEAUVOIR IN CHINA.
Within the last twenty years the East has opened wide its gates, and
China, Japan and India are as anxious to become acquainted with
the later but more fully developed civilizations of Europe and this
country as we are to examine their social, political and industrial
systems. We have had accounts from English, American, German and
French travelers in the East, each tinged, in a measure, with the
national spirit of their respective countries. In the case of the
traveler, as of the astronomer, a certain allowance, known as the
personal equation, has to be made in receiving the accounts of his
observations.
[Illustration: THE MANDARIN CHING'S CART.]
The journey round the world made by the count de Beauvoir in company
with the duke de Penthièvre, son of the prince de Joinville, is
entitled to especial notice, as the attentions shown to the travelers
by the Chinese and Japanese authorities enabled them to obtain the
best conditions for investigating various matters of interest.
On landing at Shanghai their hearts were gladdened by seeing "on the
quay a French custom-house official, with his kepi over his ear, his
rattan in his hand, dressed in a dark-green tunic, and full of
the inquisitiveness of the customs inspector--as martial and as
authoritative as in his native land." The appearance of the population
here struck our travelers as different from that of the native Chinese
farther south. Those were yellow, copper-colored, lean, and slightly
clad in garments of cotton cloth; these were rosy as children and fat
as pigs: they were besides wrapped up in four or five pelisses, worn
one over the other, lined with sheepskins, so that a single man smelt
like a whole flock of sheep. Their style of dress was this: half a
dozen waistcoats without sleeves, covered with a single overcoat with
extremely long sleeves, falling down to their knees. These garments
made them resemble balls of wool rather than men.
By accident, the party passed first through the quarter of the town
devoted to the restaurants. Here they were for every grade of fortune,
from the millionaire to the ragged poor. The street filled with these
latter was terrible: it swarmed with thousands of beggars, hardly
human in form and almost naked, though there was frozen snow upon the
ground. A group, seeming even joyous, attracted attention. The cause
of their happiness was a dead dog which they had found in one of the
gutters. Even, however, in this degradation the politeness of these
people struck our Frenchmen forcibly. The guests gathered about this
fortuitous repast treated each other with a ceremonious deference
strange enough in such surroundings. In a still lower stratum,
however, among even a more degraded class, whose feasts were
obtained from the live preserves carried upon their own persons, this
politeness, the last quality a Chinaman loses from the degradation of
poverty, was wanting.
A few miles from Shanghai lies Zi-Ka-Wai, a colony founded by the
Jesuits, of which our traveler gives a most interesting account. The
road to Zi-Ka-Wai lay over a sandy plain intersected with canals.
On both sides of the road were hundreds of coffins resting upon the
surface of the ground. In the northern part of China there are no
grave-yards, and the coffins were arranged sometimes in piles in the
fields. It is said that they thus remain until a change takes place
in the reigning dynasty, when they are all destroyed. As the present
dynasty has reigned about three hundred years, the accumulation may be
imagined. This traditional respect for the inviolability of the dead
is one of the chief obstacles in the way of the introduction of the
telegraph and railroad in China. A commercial house in Shanghai had
built a telegraph to Wo-Soung to announce the arrival of the mail, but
in a few days the wire was cut in more than five hundred places--at
all the points where its shadow from the rising sun fell upon the
coffins lying on the ground.
At Zi-Ka-Wai the Jesuits have an educational institution, and, dressed
in the Chinese costume, smoking the long native pipes, received their
visitors with great cordiality. Their pupils are divided into three
classes. The first consists of the children of the neighboring towns
who have been deserted by their parents and left to die of hunger.
The majority of them are lepers, and have been more or less perfectly
cured by the Fathers. When brought to the institution they are
thoroughly cleaned, being rubbed with pumice stone. They receive an
industrial as well as a literary education. In one building they
are taught to read and write, and in another are the schools for
shoemaking, carpentering, printing and other manual arts; so that,
being received at the age of five or six, at twenty to twenty-one they
are launched upon the world with an education and a trade.
There are about four hundred children in this class, and the activity,
the order and organization of the workshops, and the exquisite
cleanliness of the surroundings, are delightful to see. Near at hand
is a school of a higher grade, to which the most promising pupils
are transferred for the study of Chinese literature. The system of
teaching here is peculiar: all the pupils are required to study aloud,
and the din is in consequence deafening and incessant. Then there is
the highest class, consisting of about two hundred and fifty youths,
the sons of rich mandarins, who pay heavily for their instruction.
These are destined to become rhetoricians, and, step by step,
bachelors, licentiates, doctors, then mandarins and members of the
governing class of the Middle Kingdom. The studies are Chinese, and
the Fathers have with wonderful patience learned not only the Chinese
language, as well as its written characters, but also the nice
critical points of its idioms, so as to be able to teach with
authority the poetry and legends and the commentaries upon the
writings of Confucius. This they have done for the purpose of having
an opportunity to convert the orphans they have adopted, and thus
by degrees introduce into the government an element which will be
essentially Christian. Thus far, the profession of Christianity is
not essentially incompatible with the office of mandarin, though it
is impossible to hold this position without performing some idolatrous
rites.
[Illustration: HALT OF THE CARAVAN AT HO-CHI-WOU.]
On the 13th of March the ice was sufficiently broken to open the
navigation of the Pei-Ho, and the party started upon the steamer
Sze-Chuen for Tien-Tsin and Pekin. They were joined by an English
commissioner of the Chinese custom-house, whose position as a high
functionary of the Celestial government, together with his knowledge
of Chinese, proved of great service. The trip to Pekin was brought to
a sudden temporary close by the Sze-Chuen running aground on the bar
of the Pei-Ho, where she remained nearly two days, but was finally got
off after the removal of a part of her cargo.
The navigation of the Pei-Ho is difficult on account of the narrowness
of the stream and its exceedingly sinuous course. Frequently the
steamer had to be towed by a line passed on shore and fastened round
a tree. At Tien-Tsin the travelers landed, and witnessed a review of
some imperial cavalry regiments mounted upon Tartar ponies, with high
saddles and short stirrups. The warriors wore queues and were dressed
in long robes. Their moustaches gave them, however, a fierce martial
air, and they were armed with English sabres and American revolvers.
Tien-Tsin ("Heaven's Ford") is a city of about four hundred thousand
inhabitants, and lies at the junction of the Imperial Canal with the
Pei-Ho. The country from here to Pekin, about three days' journey by
land, is sandy, and the trip is made a very disagreeable one by the
clouds of dust, which blind the traveler and effectually prevent any
examination of the country passed through.
The cavalcade comprised seven of the native carts, each drawn by two
mules. Their construction may be thus described: A sort of barrow made
of blue cloth hangs like a box upon an axletree about a yard long,
furnished with two clumsy wheels. It is impossible to lie down in
them, because they are too short, nor can a bench to sit on be placed
in them, because they are too low. As a compensation, however, they
are so light that they can go anywhere. The driver sits on the left
shaft, where he is conveniently placed for leaping down to beat the
mules. These are harnessed, one in the shafts and the other in front,
with long traces tied upon the axletree near the left wheel. As they
are guided only by the voice, the course of the cart depends chiefly
upon the fancy they may take for following or neglecting the road;
while from the manner in which they are harnessed their draught is
always sideways, and they therefore trot obliquely.
At Yang-Soun the party was joined by a mandarin with a crystal button,
sent by the governor of the province of Tien-Tsin, Tchoung-Hao, with
a profusion of passports and safe-conducts. During the rest of the
journey this mandarin, Ching, led the way in his cart drawn by a fine
black mule, and on arriving at the villages on the route displayed
his function, as a man of letters, by putting on an immense pair of
spectacles, the glasses of which were about three inches in diameter.
At Ho-Chi-Wou the procession halted during the middle of the day,
and was photographed by one of its members. The curious crowd of
spectators which gathered in every village to inspect the "foreign
devils" scattered when the camera was posed, and for a few moments our
travelers were freed from their intrusiveness.
[Illustration: AVENUE OF ANIMALS LEADING TO THE TOMBS OF THE
EMPERORS.]
Starting next morning at daylight, at three in the afternoon the party
entered Pekin. The relief was great to leave the sandy, dusty road for
one of the paved ways which radiate from the city. The first sight of
the city struck the travelers as the most grandiose spectacle of the
Celestial Empire. In front rose a high tower, with a five-storied roof
of green tiles, pierced with five rows of large portholes, from which
grinned the mouths of cannon; while to the right and left, as far as
could be seen, stretched the gigantic wall surrounding the city, built
partly of granite and partly of large gray bricks, with salients,
battlements and loopholes, wearing a decidedly martial air. This
impression was somewhat modified, however, by the discovery that the
grinning cannons were made of wood. The entrance was under a vaulted
archway, through which streamed a converging crowd of Chinese,
Mongols, Tartars, with their various costumes, together with blue
carts, files of mules and caravans of heavily-loaded camels.
Pekin was built by Kublai-Khan about 1282, near the site of an
important city which dated from the Chow dynasty, or some centuries
before the Christian era. The city covers an enclosed space about
twenty miles in circumference. It is rectangular in form, and divided
into two parts, the Chinese and the Tartar cities. The walls of the
Tartar city are the largest and widest, being forty to fifty feet
high, and, tapering slightly from the base, about forty feet wide at
the top. They are constructed upon a solid foundation of stone masonry
resting upon concrete, while the walls themselves are built of a solid
core of earth, faced with massive brick: the top is paved with tiles,
and defended by a crenelated parapet. Bastions, some of which are
fifty feet square, are built upon the outside at distances of about
one hundred feet. There are sixteen gates, seven of which are in the
Chinese town, six in the Tartar town, and three in the partition wall
between these two. In the centre of the Tartar city is an enclosure,
also walled, called the Imperial City, and within this another,
called the Forbidden City, which contains the imperial palaces and
pleasure-grounds. Broad straight avenues, crossing each other at right
angles, run through the whole city, which in this respect is very
unlike other Chinese towns. A stream entering the Tartar city near its
north-west corner divides into two branches, which enter the Imperial
City and surround the Forbidden City, and then uniting again pass
through the Tartar and Chinese towns, to empty in the Tung-Chau Canal.
The foreign legations are in the southern part of the Tartar city,
on the banks of this stream. The top of the walls forms the favorite
promenade of the foreign settlers, and from here a fine view of the
whole city is obtained. M. de Beauvoir, however, from his more minute
examination, comes to the following conclusions: "This immense city,
in which nothing is repaired, and in which it is forbidden under the
severest penalties to demolish anything, is slowly disintegrating,
and every day changing itself into dust. The sight of this slow
decomposition is sad, since it promises death more certainly than the
most violent convulsions. In a century Pekin will exist no longer; it
must then be abandoned: in two centuries it will be discovered, like a
second Pompeii, buried under its own dust."
The gates of Virtuous Victory and of Great Purity, the temples to
the Heavens, to Agriculture, to the Spirit of the Winds and of
the Thunder, and to the Brilliant Mirror of the Mind, occupied the
attention of the party. They saw the gilded plough and the sacred
harrow with which the emperor yearly traces a furrow to obtain divine
favor for the crops, as well as the yellow straw hat he wears during
this ceremony; and also the vases made of iron wire in which he every
six months burns the sentences of those who have been condemned to
death in the empire. They visited also the magnificent observatory
built by Father Verbiest, a Jesuit, for the emperor You-Ching, in the
seventeenth century. The instruments are of bronze, and mounted upon
fantastic dragons, and are still in good condition, though they
have been exposed to the open air all this time. One of them was a
celestial sphere eight feet in diameter, containing all the stars
known in 1650 and visible in Pekin.
[Illustration: PORTICO TO THE TOMBS OF THE EMPERORS.]
Visits to the theatres, to the temple of the Moon, that of the Lamas,
that of Confucius, and to others made the days spent in Pekin pass
quickly. Among the wonders shown was the largest suspended bell in the
world--the great bell of Moscow has never been hung--twenty-five feet
high, weighing ninety thousand pounds, and richly sculptured.
The private life of the Chinese it is almost impossible for a stranger
to take part in. To do so requires a knowledge of Chinese, which can
be gained only by years of assiduous study, and that the applicant
should, as far as possible in dress and general appearance, make
himself a Chinese. Even then, complete success is gained only by a
fortunate combination of circumstances. The streets devoted to
shops of all kinds afford, however, to the traveler a never-ending
succession of changing and interesting pictures. Yet the general
spirit of the Chinese leads them also to be sparing of all outward
decoration, reserving their forces for interior display. The
Forbidden City even, though marvelous stories are told of its
interior splendors, has outside a mean appearance. "A pagoda of the
thirty-sixth rank has more effect than the sacred dwelling of the Son
of Heaven."
In the military quarters, and in those inhabited by the nobility, the
party in their wanderings were struck with an expression of disdain
on the countenances of those natives whom they met. Elsewhere the
curiosity to see the foreigners was even greater than the Chinese
themselves ever excited in the capitals of Europe; but at home the
higher classes passed the foreigners without even turning to look at
them, or else glanced at them indifferently or disdainfully. Some of
the noble class walked, but generally they rode in carts similar to
that of the mandarin Ching. The higher the rank of the owner, the
farther behind are the wheels placed. With a prince's cart they are so
far behind that the rider hangs between them and the mule. Palanquins,
carried upon the shoulders of the porters, offer another and the most
convenient means of locomotion used in China: this method is, however,
forbidden except for princes and ministers of state.
In the busy streets of trade the scene is most animated. Thousands of
scarlet signs with gilded inscriptions hang from oblique poles raised
in front of the shops. Carts, palanquins, mules, camels, coolies,
soldiers and merchants throng the streets, while to add to the
confusion myriads of children play about your legs, and the old men
carrying their kites toward the walls add to the singularity of the
scene. The kites, representing dragons, eagles, etc., are managed
with a dexterity which comes only from a lifelong practice. They are
sometimes furnished with various aeolian attachments which imitate
the songs of birds or the voices of men. The pigeons also in Pekin are
frequently provided with a very light kind of aeolian harp, which is
secured tightly to the two central feathers of their tails, so that
in flying through the air the harps sound harmoniously. This curious,
indistinct note had excited the count's attention, and he learned its
cause from a pigeon which fell dead at his feet, having in its flight
struck itself against the cord of one of the kites. Their use was
explained by the natives as a protection against the hawks which are
very common in Pekin.
Passing one day the place of execution, the travelers were shocked to
see that the heads of the executed were exposed to the public gaze,
labeled with the crimes for which they had suffered. Such sights as
this, with the terrible filth of all the Chinese cities, the squalid
suffering of the poor and the want of sympathy with indigence and
disease, suggested to the count, as they too frequently suggest to
European visitors, that the degradation of the Chinese is hopeless.
Yet such sights were common a few generations ago in every European
capital, and the same causes which have led to their cessation there
are at work to-day in China, and bid fair to produce the same results.
The service of the custom-house, which has been put into the hands
of Europeans, and under the management of Mr. Robert Hart has been
thoroughly organized, is having a great influence in civilizing the
government, as well as in diffusing European ideas and methods among
the people. A fixed rate of charges, an honesty of administration
which is beyond question, prompt activity in the transaction of
business, have replaced the depredations and the old methods in
use under mandarin rule. It is the desire of the manager of the
custom-house to inaugurate in China the establishment of a system of
lighthouses, to organize the postal system, to introduce railroads and
telegraphs and to open the coal-mines of the empire. Success in
these reforms means bringing China into the circle of inter-dependent
civilized nations; and so far all the steps in this direction have
been sure and successful ones.
[Illustration: THE GREAT WALL: THE NANG-KAO PASS.]
On leaving Pekin, our party set out to visit the Great Wall of China,
which lies about three days' journey from that capital, on the route
to Siberia. Mongolian ponies served for the means of transportation on
this trip. These shaggy little animals were as full of tricks as they
were ugly. The cavalcade was followed by two carts for carrying the
money of the expedition. The whole of this capital amounted to about
one hundred and fifty dollars, in the form of hundreds of thousands of
the copper coins of the country, made with holes in their centres and
strung by the thousand upon osier twigs. This is the only money which
circulates in the agricultural portions of China, and a "barbarian"
has to give a pound weight of them for a couple of eggs. The country
soon began to become hilly, with the mountains of Mongolia visible in
the distance. Trains of camels were passed, or could be seen winding
in the plain below.
The next day the party arrived at the Tombs of the Emperors. These are
the tombs of the Ming emperors, one of the most brilliant dynasties of
Chinese history. They lie in a circular valley which opens out from a
great plain, and is surrounded by limestone peaks and granite
domes, forming a barren and waste amphitheatre. The grandeur of its
dimensions and the awful barrenness of its desolation make it a fit
resting-place for the imperial dead of the last native dynasty. At
the foot of the surrounding heights thirteen gigantic tombs, encircled
with green trees, are arranged in a semicircle. Five majestic portals,
about eight hundred yards apart, form the entrance to the tombs. From
the portico giving entrance to the valley to the tomb of the first
emperor is more than a league, and the long avenue is marked first
by winged columns of white marble, and next by two rows of animals,
carved in gigantic proportions. Of these there are, on either side,
two lions standing, two lions sitting; one camel standing, one
kneeling; one elephant standing, one kneeling; one dragon standing,
one sitting; two horses standing; six warriors, courtiers, etc. The
lions are fifteen feet high, and the others equally colossal, while
each of the figures is carved from a single block of granite.
At the end of the avenue are the tombs, with groups of trees about
them. Each tomb is really a temple in which white and pink marble,
porphyry and carved teak-wood are combined, not indeed with harmony
or taste, but, what is rare in China, with lines of great purity and
severity. One of the halls of these tombs is about a hundred feet long
by about eighty wide. The ceiling is from forty to sixty feet high,
and is supported by rows of pillars, each formed of a single stick of
teak timber eleven feet in circumference. These sticks were brought
for this purpose from the south of China. Though they have been in
position over nine hundred years, they appear as sound as when first
posed, nor has the austere splendor of the structure suffered in any
degree.
The sombre obscurity well befits these sepulchral dwellings, and the
dull sound of the deadened gongs struck by the guardians makes the
vaults reverberate in a singular and impressive way. Behind the
memorial temple rises an artificial mound about fifty feet high,
access to the top of which is given by a rising arched passage
built of white marble. On the top of the mound is an imposing marble
structure consisting of a double arch, beneath which is the imperial
tablet, a large slab, upon which is carved a dragon standing on the
back of a gigantic tortoise. The remains of the emperor are buried
somewhere within this mound, though the exact spot is not known: this
precaution, it is said, was taken to preserve the remains from being
desecrated in a search for the treasures which were buried with him,
while the persons who performed this last office were killed upon the
spot, in order further to preserve the secret.
[Illustration: CHAPEL OF THE SUMMER PALACE.]
From this gigantic effort to preserve the memory of the dead our party
hastened to the Great Wall, an equally immense work to preserve the
living from the incursions of their neighboring enemies. Perhaps
nowhere in the world are to be found in such close proximity two such
striking evidences of the waste of human labor when undirected by
scientific knowledge. The wall is to-day, and was from the first, as
worthless for the purpose it was intended to serve as the temples are
for obtaining immortality for the bodies they enclose.
Leaving the town of Nang-Kao, the party soon found themselves at the
entrance of the pass of the same name, and during the six leagues
which separated them from the wall the spectacle kept increasing in
grandeur. The gorge at first was savage and sombre, shut in closely
by the steep mountain-sides. Soon the first support of the Great Wall
appeared in a chain of walls, with battlements and towers, built
over the principal mountain-chain, and as far as the eye could reach
following all the peaks. The effect of this wall is most striking.
Like some enormous serpent it stretches away in the distance, climbing
rocks which appear impracticable, and which would be so without its
aid. The count was convinced that it would be as difficult to climb
it for the purpose of defending it as it would be to do so in order to
attack it. This first support of the wall is in itself a giant work.
As the party advanced in the valley, in the far distance the
crenelated outlines of two other similar and parallel walls appeared,
situated also upon the crests. The Great Wall was built about 200 B.C.
as a barrier against the Tartar cavalry. It is said to have been built
in twenty-two years. It was everywhere constructed of the materials
at hand. On the plains it was built of a core of earth, pounded, and
faced with tiles, the top being also covered with tiles and furnished
with a parapet. On the mountains of stratified rock the facing was
made of masonry, and the core of earth and cobble-stones. Where the
rock is such as fractures irregularly, the wall is of solid masonry,
tapering to the top, which is sharp. Throughout its whole length it
is defended by towers occurring every few hundred feet. Every
mountain-pass and weak point was defended by a fortified tower. At
present the wall is in various conditions of preservation, according
to the materials used in its construction. In the valleys, which were
the points to defend, it has gradually crumbled to a mere heap of
rubbish, which the plough year by year still further scatters.
The Great Wall is, however, a wonderful monument of the labor and
organization of the Chinese nation two thousand years ago. The
illustration is from a photograph taken on the spot by one of the
party. In order to take a view which should be most effective the
camera was placed upon the wall itself.
On their return to Pekin the party visited the ruins of the famous
Summer Palace, Yuen-Ming-Yuen. The avenues were formerly adorned with
porticoes, monuments and kiosques, which are now masses of ruins. Only
two enormous bronze lions, the largest castings ever made in China,
remain, and these simply because the allies could not carry them
away. To have attempted it would have required the building of a dozen
bridges over the streams between here and Tien-Tsin. The chapel of
the Summer Palace escaped destruction only from the fact that it was
situated upon a rock so high that the flames did not reach it. Looking
at the confused ruins which are all that remain of this wonderful
collection of the most admirable products of fifteen ages of
civilization, of art and of industry, the count de Beauvoir says
truly that no honest man can help shuddering involuntarily. Though
his sentiment of national loyalty is very strong, yet he cannot avoid
exclaiming, "Let us leave this place: let us run from this spot, where
the soil burns us, the very view of which humbles us. We came to China
as the armed champions of civilization and of a religion of mercy,
but the Chinese are right, a thousand times right, in calling us
barbarians."
A PRINCESS OF THULE.
BY WILLIAM BLACK, AUTHOR OF "THE STRANGE ADVENTURES OF A PHAETON."