A JOURNEY TO THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA.
Pekin is not very far from the famous wall that was built to keep the empire of China from the hands of the Tartars. It is commonly mentioned as "The Great Wall," and certainly it is clearly entitled to the honor, as it is the greatest wall in the world. To go to Pekin without visiting the Great Wall would be to leave the journey incomplete; and therefore, one of the first things that our friends considered was how they should reach the wall, and how much time they would require for the excursion.
We shall let the boys tell the story, which they did in a letter to their friends at home. It was written while they were on the steamer between Tien-tsin and Shanghai, on their return from Pekin.
"We have been to the Great Wall, and it was a journey not to be forgotten in a minute. We found that we should have to travel a hundred miles each way, and that the roads were as bad as they usually are in most parts of China. We went on horseback, but took a mule litter along for use in case of accidents, and to rest ourselves in whenever one of us should become weary of too much saddle. There are no hotels of any consequence, and so we had to take the most of our provisions from Pekin. We did the same way as when we went from Tien-tsin; that is, we hired a man to supply all the necessary horses and mules for a certain price to take us to the wall and back; and if any of them should fall sick on the road, he was to furnish fresh ones without extra charge. We were advised to make the bargain in this way, as there was a danger that some of the horses would get lame; and if there were no provision for such a case, we should have to pay very high for an extra animal. The Chinese horse-owners are said to be great rascals—almost equal to some American men who make a business of buying and selling saddle and carriage animals. Doctor Bronson says he would like to match the shrewdest Chinese jockey we have yet seen with a horse-dealer that he once knew in Washington. He thinks the Yankee could give the Chinese great odds, and then beat him.
WALKING ON STILTS. WALKING ON STILTS.
"It was a feast-day when we left Pekin, and there were a good many sports going on in the streets, as we filed out of the city on our way to the north. There was a funny procession of men on stilts. They were fantastically dressed, and waved fans and chopsticks and other things, while they shouted and sang to amuse the crowd. One of them was dressed as a woman, who pretended to hold her eyes down so that nobody could see[Pg 379] them, and she danced around on her stilts as though she had been accustomed to them all her life. In fact, the whole party were quite at home on their stilts, and would have been an attraction in any part of America. Whenever the Chinese try to do anything of this sort, they are pretty sure to do it well.
JUGGLER SPINNING A PLATE. JUGGLER SPINNING A PLATE.
"Then there were jugglers spinning plates on sticks, and doing other things of a character more or less marvellous. One of their tricks is to spin the plate on two sticks held at right angles to each other, instead of on a single stick, as with us; but how they manage to do it I am unable to say. They make the plate whirl very fast, and can keep it up a long time without any apparent fatigue.
GAMBLING WITH A REVOLVING POINTER. GAMBLING WITH A REVOLVING POINTER.
"We passed several men who had small establishments for gambling, not unlike some that are known in America. There was one with a revolving pointer on the top of a horizontal table that was divided into sections with different marks and numbers. The pointer had a string, hanging down from one end, and the way they made the machine work was to whirl the pointer, and see where the string hung when it stopped. The game appeared to be very fair, as the man who paid his money had the chance of whirling the pointer, and he might do his own guessing as to where it would stop. If he was right, he would win eight times as much money as he had wagered, since the board was divided into eight spaces. If he was wrong, he lost all that he put down, and was obliged to go away or try his luck again. The temptation to natives seems to be very great, since they are constantly gambling, and sometimes lose all the money they have. Gambling is so great a vice in China that a good many of its forms have been forbidden by the government.[Pg 380] The case is not unusual of a man losing everything he possesses, even to his wife and children, and then being thrown naked into the streets by the proprietor of the place where he has lost his money.
FORTUNE-TELLING BY MEANS OF A BIRD AND SLIPS OF PAPER. FORTUNE-TELLING BY MEANS OF A BIRD AND SLIPS OF PAPER.
"We stopped to look at some fortune-tellers, who were evidently doing a good business, as they had crowds around them, and were taking in small sums of money every few minutes. One of them had a little bird in a cage, and he had a table which he folded and carried on his back when he was moving from one place to another. When he opened business, he spread his table, and then laid out some slips of paper which were folded, so that nobody could see what there was inside. Next he let the bird out of the cage, which immediately went forward and picked up one of the slips and carried it to his master. The man then opened the paper and read what was written on it, and from this paper he made a prediction about the fortune of the person who had engaged him.
"There was another fortune-teller who did his work by writing on a plate. He had several sheets of paper folded up, and from these he asked his customer to select one. When the selection was made, he dissected the writing, and showed its meaning to be something so profound that the customer was bewildered and thought he had nothing but good-fortune coming to him. We tried to get these men to tell our fortunes, but they preferred to stick to their own countrymen, probably through fear that they would lose popularity if they showed themselves too friendly with the strangers.
FORTUNE-TELLING BY DISSECTING CHINESE CHARACTERS. FORTUNE-TELLING BY DISSECTING CHINESE CHARACTERS.
"The Chinese are great believers in fortune-telling, and even the most intelligent of them are often calling upon the necromancers to do something for them. They rarely undertake any business without first ascertaining if the signs are favorable; and if they are not, they will decline to have anything to do with it. When a merchant has a cargo of goods on its way, he is very likely to ask a fortune-teller how the thing is to turn out; and if the latter says it is all right, he gets liberally paid for his information. But in spite of their superstition, the Chinese are very shrewd merchants, and can calculate their profits with great accuracy.
"Well, this is not going to the Great Wall. We went out of Pekin by the north gate, and into a country that was flat and dusty. Fred\'s pony was not very good-natured, and every little while took it into his head to balance himself on the tip of his tail. This was not the kind of riding we had bargained for, as it made the travel rather wearisome, and interfered with the progress of the whole caravan. We thought the pony would behave himself after a little fatigue had cooled his temper; but the more we went on, the worse he became. When we were about ten miles out, he ran away, and went tearing through a cotton-field as though he owned it, and he ended by pitching his rider over his head across a small ditch.
"Then we found how lucky it was we had brought along a mule litter, as Fred rode in it the rest of the day. Next morning he made our guide change ponies with him. In half an hour the guide was in a mud puddle, and saying something in Chinese that had a very bad sound, but it didn\'t help dry his clothes in the least. On the whole, we got along very well with the ponies in the north of China, when we remember the bad reputation they have and the things that most travellers say about them.
CHINESE RAZOR. CHINESE RAZOR.
"We stopped at the village of Sha-ho, about twenty miles from Pekin; and as we had started a little late, and it was near sunset, we concluded to spend the night there. There was not much to see at the village, except a[Pg 382] couple of fine old bridges built of stone, and so solid that they will evidently last a long time. A barber came around and wanted to shave us, but for several reasons we declined his proposal, and satisfied ourselves by seeing him operate on a native customer. The Chinese razor is a piece of steel of a three-cornered shape, and is fastened to a handle about four inches long. It is kept very sharp, as any well-regulated razor should be, and a barber will handle it with a great deal of dexterity. The Chinese haven\'t much beard to shave off, but they make up for it with a very thick growth of hair, which is all removed every ten or twelve days, with the exception of a spot on the crown about four inches in diameter. The hair on this spot is allowed to grow as long as it will, and is then braided into the cue or pigtail that everybody knows about.
BARBER SHAVING THE HEAD OF A CUSTOMER. BARBER SHAVING THE HEAD OF A CUSTOMER.
"After we left Sha-ho the country became rough, and the road grew steadily worse. Our ponies were pretty sure-footed, but they stumbled occasionally, and Frank narrow............