SIGHTS IN PEKIN.
From their own observations and the notes and accounts of travellers who
had preceded them, the boys made the following description of Pekin:
"Pekin stands on a great sandy plain, and has a population of about two
millions. It consists of two parts, which are separated by a wall; that
towards the south is called the Chinese city, and that on the north the
Tartar city. The Tartar city is the smaller both in area and population;
it is said to measure about twelve square miles, while the Chinese city
measures fifteen. There are thirteen gates in the outer walls, and there
are three gates between the Tartar and the Chinese city. In front of
each gate there is a sort of bastion or screen, so that you cannot see
the entrance at all as you approach it, and are obliged to turn to one
side to come in or go out. The Chinese city has few public buildings of
importance, while the Tartar city has a great many of them. The latter
city consists of three enclosures, one inside the other, and each
enclosure has a wall of its own. The outer one contains dwellings and
shops, the second includes the government offices, and the houses of
private persons who are allowed to live there as a mark of special
favor; while the third is called the Prohibited City, and is devoted to
the imperial palace and temples that belong to it. Nobody can go inside
the Prohibited City without special permission, and sometimes this is
very hard to obtain; the wall enclosing it is nearly two miles in
circumference, and has a gate in each of its four fronts, and the wall
is as solid and high as the one that surrounds the whole city of Pekin.
"We had no trouble in going to see the imperial palace, or such parts of
it as are open to the public, and also the temples. We could readily
believe what was told us--that the temples were the finest in the whole
country, and certainly some of them were very interesting. There are
temples to the earth, to the sun, the moon; and there are temples to
agriculture, to commerce, and a great many other things. There is a
very fine structure of marble more than a hundred feet high, which is
called "The Gate of Extensive Peace." It is where the emperor comes on
great public occasions; and beyond it are two halls where the foreign
visitors are received at the beginning of each year, and where the
emperor examines the implements used in the opening of the annual season
of ploughing. The ploughing ceremony does not take place here, but in
another part of the city, and the emperor himself holds the plough to
turn the first furrow. There are some very pretty gardens in the
Prohibited City, and we had a fine opportunity to learn something about
the skill of the Chinese in landscape gardening. There are canals,
fountains, bridges, flower-beds, groves, and little hillocks, all
carefully tended, and forming a very pretty picture in connection with
the temples and pavilions that stand among them.
[Illustration: A PAVILION IN THE PROHIBITED CITY.]
"We have seen many temples--so many, in fact, that it is difficult to
remember all of them. One of the most impressive is the Temple of
Heaven, which has three circular roofs, one above another, and is said
to be ninety-nine feet high. The tiles on the top are of porcelain of
the color of a clear sky, and the intention of the builder was to
imitate the vault of heaven. On the inside there are altars where
sacrifices are offered to the memory of former emperors of China, and on
certain occasions the emperor comes here to take part in the ceremonies.
[Illustration: TEMPLE OF HEAVEN.]
[Illustration: PEKIN CASH.]
"Then we went to see the great bell, which is one of the wonders of the
world, though it is not so large as the bell at Moscow. It is said to
weigh 112,000 pounds, but how they ever weighed it I don't know. It is a
foot thick at the rim, about twenty feet high, and fifteen feet in
diameter; it was cast more than two hundred years ago, and is covered
all over, inside and outside, with Chinese characters. There is a little
hole in the top of it where people try to throw copper cash. If they
succeed, it is a sign that they will be fortunate in life; and if they
fail, they must leave the money as an offering to the temple. All of us
tried till we had thrown away a double-handful of cash, but we didn't
get a single one of them through the hole. So if we fail now in
anything, you will know the reason.
[Illustration: TRADITIONAL LIKENESS OF CONFUCIUS.]
[Illustration: GOD OF WAR.]
"The Chinese have a great many gods, and pretty nearly every god has a
temple in some part of Pekin. There is a fine temple to Confucius, which
is surrounded by some trees that are said to be five hundred years old;
the temple has a high roof which is very elaborately carved, and looks
pretty both from a distance and when you are close by it. But there are
no statues in the temple, as the Chinese do not worship Confucius
through a statue, but by means of a tablet on which his name is
inscribed. The other deities have their statues, and you may see the god
of war with a long beard and mustache. The Chinese have very slight
beards, and it is perhaps for this reason that they frequently represent
their divinities as having a great deal of hair on their faces, so as to
indicate their superiority to mortals. Then they have a god of
literature, who is represented standing on the head of a large fish, and
waving a pencil in his right hand, while he holds in his left a cap such
as is worn by the literary graduates after they have received their
degrees. The god of literature is worshipped a great deal by everybody
who is studying for a degree, and by those whose ancestors or other
relatives have been successful in carrying away the honors at an
examination. Think what it would be to have such a divinity in our
colleges and schools in America, and the amount of worship he would get
if the students really believed in him!
[Illustration: GOD OF LITERATURE.]
[Illustration: GOD OF THIEVES.]
"The Chinese have a god of thieves; but he has no temple, and is
generally worshipped in the open air. All the thieves are supposed to
worship him, as he is a saint who made their business successful; and,
besides this, he is worshipped by those who wish to become wealthy in
honest ways. He is said to have been a skilful thief, and very pious at
the same time. He was kind to his mother, and the most of his stealing
was done to support her.
"One of the interesting places we have visited is the office of the
Board of Punishments, which corresponds pretty nearly to our courts of
justice. But one great point of difference between their mode of
administering justice and ours is that they employ torture, while we do
not. Not only is the prisoner tortured after condemnation, but he is
tortured before trial, in order to make him tell the truth; and even the
witnesses, under certain circumstances, are submitted to the same
treatment. We saw some of the instruments that they use, and there was
not the least attempt to keep us from seeing them. It is customary to
have them piled or hung up at the doors of the courts, so that culprits
may know what to expect, and honest persons may be deterred from
wickedness through fear. It is the same principle that is followed by
some of the school-teachers in America when they hang up in full view
the stick with which they intend to punish unruly boys.
[Illustration: A MANDARIN JUDGE DELIVERING SENTENCE.]
"When we went into the court-room, a man had just been sentenced to
receive twenty blows of the bamboo, and the sentence was immediately
carried out. He was ordered to lie down with his face to the floor; his
back was then stripped, and while his legs and arms were held by
attendants, the executioner laid on the twenty blows with a bamboo stick
about six feet long and two inches wide. One side of the stick was
rounded and the other was flat; the flesh was blistered at every stroke,
or raised in a great puff, and it is certain that the man must be some
time in getting well. He did not scream or make the least outcry, but
took his punishment patiently, and was raised to his feet at its end. He
bowed to the judge, and, perhaps, thanked him for the attention he had
received, and was then led away to make room for some one else.
"The Chinese don't seem to have any nerves compared with what we have.
They do not suffer so much as we do under tortures, and this is perhaps
one of the reasons why they are so much more cruel than the people of
Europe and America. For example, it would nearly kill a European to
travel a week in carts such as we saw on the road from Tien-tsin to
Pekin. The Chinese don't seem to mind it at all; and the best proof that
they do not is that they have never invented any better or more
comfortable way of travelling, or tried to improve their roads. And it
is the same with their punishments in the courts. They don't care much
for whippings, though it is not at all probable that they like them, and
the only things that they appear to fear very much are the punishments
that are prolonged. There are a good many of these, and I will tell you
about some of the most prominent and best known.
"Several times we have seen men with wooden collars three or four feet
square, and with a hole in the centre, where the poor fellow's neck
comes through. It is made of plank about two inches thick, and you can
see that the load is a heavy one for a man to carry. He cannot bring his
arms to his head; and if he has no friends to feed him, or no money to
pay some one else to do so, he must starve. On the upper surface of the
plank is painted the name of the criminal, together with the crime he
has committed and the time he has been ordered to wear the collar. This
instrument is called a 'cangue,' and is said to be in use all over China
from one end of the country to the other.
"There is a mode of torture which is chiefly used to extort confessions
from persons accused of crime, and the result of its use is said to be
that many a man has been induced to confess crimes of which he was
entirely innocent, in order to escape from the terrible pain which is
produced. The victim is compelled to stand against a post, and his cue
is tied to it so that he cannot get away. His arms are tied to a
cross-beam, and then little rods are placed between his fingers in such
a way that every finger is enclosed. The rods are so arranged that by
pulling a string the pressure on the fingers is increased, and the pain
very soon becomes so great that most men are unable to endure it. If you
want to know just how a little of it feels, I advise you to put one of
your fingers between two lead-pencils and then squeeze the pencils
together. You won't keep doing so very long.
[Illustration: SQUEEZING THE FINGERS.]
"They squeeze the ankles in much the same way, by making the man kneel
on the ground, with his ankles in a frame of three sticks that are
fastened together at one end by a cord like that of the finger-squeezer.
Then, when all is ready, they pull at the cord and draw the sticks
nearer to each other, so that pressure is brought on the ankles. The
pain is intense, and the most demure Chinaman is not able to stand it
without shrinking. This mode of torture, like the other, is used to make
prisoners confess the crimes of which they are accused, and they
generally confess them. It is said that witnesses may be subjected to
the ankle torture, but with the modification in their favor that only
one ankle can be squeezed at a time. Very kind, isn't it?
[Illustration: SQUEEZING THE ANKLES.]
"We went near the prison while we were in the Tartar city, and so it was
proposed that we should see what there was inside. It was the most
horrible place I have ever seen, and the wonder is that men can be found
inhuman enough to condemn people to be shut up there. There was a large
cage so full of men that there was not room on the floor for them all to
lie down at once, even if they had been as close together as sardines in
a can. We could see through the bars of the cage, as if the captives had
been wild animals instead of human beings, and they looked so worn and
wretched that we all pitied them very much. If a man is sent to prison
in China, and has no money to pay for his food, he will die of
starvation, as the jailers are not required by law to feed the prisoners
under their charge. There were men chained, with iron collars around
their necks; and others tied, with their hands and feet brought close
together. The suffering was terrible, and we were glad to come away
after a very few minutes. It is positive that we do not want to see
another prison as long as we stay in this country.
[Illustration: A BED OF TORTURE.]
"In the Chinese prisons they torture men to make them confess, and also
to compel them to tell if they have money, or any relatives or friends
who have it. One of these cruelties is called 'putting a man to bed,'
and consists in fastening him on a wooden bedstead by his neck, wrists,
and ankles in such a way that he cannot move. He is compelled to pass
the night in this position; and sometimes they give him a coverlet of a
single board that presses on his body, and is occasionally weighted to
make it more oppressive. The next morning he is released and told that
he can be free until night, when he will be again tied up. Generally a
man is willing to do anything in his power rather than pass a second
night on such a bed. If he has money, he gives it up; and, no matter how
reluctant he may be to call on his friends, he does so, sooner or later,
and throws himself on their generosity.
"They suspend men by the wrists and ankles; sometimes by one wrist and
one ankle, and at others by all four brought closely together. Then they
place a victim in a chair with his arms tied to cross-sticks, and in
this position he is compelled to sit for hours in the most terrible
pain. Another mode is by tying a man's hands together beneath his knees,
and then passing a pole under his arm and suspending him from it. This
is called 'the monkey grasping a peach,' and it is frequently employed
to compel a rich man to pay heavily to escape punishment. How it got its
name nobody can tell, unless it was owing to a supposed resemblance to
the position of a monkey holding something in his paw.
[Illustration: FOUR MODES OF PUNISHMENT.]
"Just as we were coming out of the prison-yard we saw a man standing in
a cage with his head through a board in the top, while his toes just
touched the bottom. Unless he stood on tiptoe, the weight of his body
fell on his neck; and everybody knows how difficult it is to remain on
tiptoe for any length of time. Sometimes men are compelled to stand in
this way till they die, but generally the punishment is confined to a
few hours. It is the form most frequently employed for the sentence of
criminals who have been robbing on the public highway, and are convicted
of using violence at the time of committing their offences.
[Illustration: STANDING IN A CAGE.]
"I could go on with a long account of the tortures in China, but they
are not very pleasant reading, and, besides, some of them are too
horrible for belief. I will stop with the torture known as 'the
hot-water snake,' which consists of a coil of thin tubing of tin or
pewter in the form of a serpent. One of these coils is twisted around
each arm of the victim, and another around his body, in such a way that
the head of the snake is higher than any other part. Then they pour
boiling water into the mouth of the snake, and the flesh of the prisoner
is burned and scalded in the most terrible manner. This punishment is
said to be used rarely, and only on persons accused of crimes against
the government. It is too horrible to be popular, even among the most
cold-blooded people in the world.
[Illustration: HOT-WATER SNAKE.]
"A good many of these punishments precede a much more merciful one, that
of decapitation. The victim who is to suffer the loss of his head is
carried to the place of execution in a small cage of bamboo, with his
hands tied behind him, and the crime for which he is to suffer written
on a piece of stiff paper and fastened to his hair. In one corner of the
cage is a bucket, which is to hold his head after the executioner has
cut it off; and frequently the pail with the head in it is hung near one
of the gates of the city or in some other public place. When he reaches
the execution-ground, he is required to kneel, and the executioner
strikes his head off with a single blow of a heavy sword. The poor
fellows who are to suffer death rarely make any opposition, and some of
them seem quite willing to meet it. This is said to be due partly to the
calmness of the Chinese, and partly to the fact that they have been so
tortured and starved in their imprisonment that it is a relief to die.
In most of the Chinese prisons the men condemned to death are usually
kept until there are several on hand; then a general execution is
ordered, and the whole lot of them are taken out to the place of
decapitation. During the time of the rebellion they used to have
executions by wholesale, and sometimes one or two hundred heads were
taken off in a single morning.
[Illustration: CARRYING FORTH TO THE PLACE OF EXECUTION.]
"Very great crimes are punished by cutting the body into small pieces
before decapitation, or, rather, by cutting it in several places. All
the fleshy parts of the body are cut with the sword of the executioner
before the final blow; and sometimes this species of torture goes on
for an hour or two before the suffering of the victim is stopped by
decapitation. There is a story that they have a lottery in which the
executioner draws a knife from a basket. The basket is full of knives,
and they are marked for various parts of the body. If he draws a knife
for the face, he proceeds to cut off the cheeks; if for the hand, he
cuts away one of the hands, and so on for all parts of the victim. If he
is kindly disposed, or has been properly bribed, he will draw the
beheading-knife first of all, and then he will have no occasion to use
any other.
[Illustration: JUST BEFORE DECAPITATION.]
"Well, we have had enough of these disagreeable things, and will turn to
something else. We passed by the place where the candidates for military
honors compete for prizes by shooting with the bow and arrow. At the
first examination they are required to shoot at a mark with three
arrows, and the one who makes the best shots is pronounced the winner of
the prize. At the second examination they must practise on horseback,
with the horse standing still; and at the third they must shoot three
arrows from the back of a running horse. Afterwards they are exercised
in the bending of some very stiff bows and the handling of heavy swords
and stones. There is a certain scale of merit they must pass to be
successful; and when they succeed, their names are sent up for another
examination before higher officials than the ones they have passed
before. It is a curious fact that a man who does well as an archer is
entitled to a degree among the literary graduates, though he may not be
able to carry away a single prize for his literary accomplishments
alone."
[Illustration: MILITARY CANDIDATES COMPETING WITH THE BOW AND ARROW.]