Hand drawingA STREET IN TARTAR CITY——PEKIN.
A STREET IN TARTAR CITY——PEKIN.
A STREET IN TARTAR CITY——PEKIN.
“Oh, never mind! we must go and see it. Canyou get us a guide at once? We have to be in Tientsin again the day after to-morrow, to sail for Japan.”
It was only with the greatest difficulty that they were persuaded to defer their visit to “the Great Wall” till next day.
At dinner that evening, they were great on the subject of their travels; had been, they informed us, to Gibraltar, Malta, Port Said, Cairo, Suez, Aden, Colombo, Singapore, and Shanghai, giving us their impressions and ideas of each port, and the customs of its inhabitants, in a manner which, in more ways than one, was highly entertaining. They were now going to see the “Great Wall of China,” because their mamma had written to say that theTimessaid there was none, and she was sure there was, because her grandfather (who was a sailor) had told her so, and he had seen it. Then they were going to Japan, San Francisco, Salt Lake City, and New York, then to Liverpool and then London; “and I don’t think,” said the elder of the two sadly and wearily, “we shall ever care to go abroad again!”
Judging from the ideas this youth formed of the countries he visited, one could not help thinkinghe would not lose very much by this determination.
They were up and away next morning long before we were stirring, on the same wretched animals that had brought them from Tungchow, and with a guide of their own finding, a rascally Pekinese, who probably made a good thing out of them. Where the scamp took them remains a mystery. I have since heard, they returned the next day quite proud of their achievement, remarking at dinner that evening, that the “Wall was a fine sight.” The fact that it is a long five-days’ journey from the capital never occurred to them, and they left Pekin quite satisfied, having probably been shown the ramparts of some suburban town or village. I have often wondered since if they wrote to that long-suffering paper theTimes.
It was past seven o’clock, and the sun was high in the heavens before we had completed our preparations, saddled the ponies, and packed the luggage and provisions into the litters. Our party consisted of but three mule-litters, and our two ponies. The heavy baggage had preceded us the day before, and we did not expect to come up with it till we reached Kalgan, the lastChinese city on the borders of Mongolia. Two Chinese muleteers accompanied us, also Jee Boo, who bustled about and made himself generally useful in a way that augured well for the future.
A finalcafé au laitand“chasse”with our host, who was almost as keen about the expedition as we were (indeed, where should we have been, had it not been for his timely aid?), and we were ready to start. Early as it was, madame and her sister were at the gate to bid us farewell and wish us a prosperous journey. One could not help thinking, as one looked at their pretty French faces and neatly clad figures, how long it might be ere one would look upon their like again!
A few moments more and we had taken leave of our friends, and were riding down the narrow dusty street for the last time, half sorry (so perverse is man) to leave the place we had been for three long weeks moving heaven and earth to get away from. The feeling of regret did not last long, however, and before we had crossed the stone bridge over the Imperial canal no one would have recognized in us the despairing wretches of two days ago. We left Pekin a quarter of an hour later by the Anting Gate, and for the following three hours skirtedclosely along the sandy plains that bound the city walls. Here we passed some three or four hundred camels, a caravan inward bound from the desert, going at a pace of about a mile and a half an hour. The Tartars in charge were all asleep, but the camels seemed to know their way; indeed the track here is pretty clearly laid down, being in the direct route to and from Kalgan. An hour later we had entered a fertile plain of millet, corn, and rye, interspersed with huge fields of pasture, and bounded on the horizon by a rugged, precipitous chain of hills, partly covered with forest, from which brightly coloured temples and pagodas stood out here and there in bright relief, glittering in the sunshine. All was life and animation; our very ponies seemed to rise in spirits, and plunged and danced about under the influence of the keen air and bright sunshine, to say nothing of the unusually large feeds of corn they had been given of late.
An hour later we stopped to look back across the emerald green plain to where, on the horizon, a thin brown line, faint and indistinct, broke the bright blue sky-line. We were looking our last on the walls of Pekin: the long land journey across Europe and Asia had commenced in real earnest.
1. A fact.
1. A fact.
2. A verst is about three-quarters of a mile.
2. A verst is about three-quarters of a mile.