Here I was passed by the native servant into the entrance hall, very large and beautifully arranged, and showing exquisite carving and fretwork in the woodwork fittings. From this, with but a few minutes' wait, I was shown into the private room of our genial Minister. He received me most cordially, and then, as during the whole of my stay in Peking, was most kind to me in all ways ; so, too, were the members of his staff.
He told me my application for a passport and per mission to sketch within the precincts of the palace at Jehol had been sent in through the Wai-wu-pu (Foreign Office), and he had no doubt it would be granted, although the time was short in which to get through the formalities required, even for such a small thing as this. Now my good luck came in. The Minister told me that the Legation had permission for a party of English people, many of the officers of the Cameron Highlanders and a few civilians, to visit and go over the Winter Palace within a day or two, and that as some one had dropped out he thought I might go instead. I was very pleased to have this opportunity. I knew how difficult it was for a foreigner to get permission, and my professional instinct made me doubly anxious to join this party. So I left the Legation in very good spirits, charmed with my kindly reception and with the early prospect of seeing such a famous place.
While waiting in suspense, both as to my proposed journey to Jehol and the visit to the Winter Palace, I had a little time to look round Peking itself, and form some impression of the city. From various points of the Tartar wall a very good idea can be formed of the extent and general scheme, and it at once struck me that the city in its first laying out was most carefully considered and planned. I say " city," but it might more correctly be described as three cities, with even a fourth in the centre.
Say that the traveller is on the wall by the Tsien-Men (" men " means gate). The inner gate and gatehouse over it is in and on the main wall ; but outwards from this there is a great square projecting wall, with a gate house most suited for purposes of defence, and at either end of this projecting wall (which encloses a considerable space of ground) are gates used for ordinary traffic, this then converging on this inner central gate. The outer central gate is only opened to allow of direct passage on state occasions. The upper part of the inner gateway has been entirely rebuilt since it was ruined in 19oo, and is a marvellous example of this sort of building. It rises to a considerable height, with great red pillars supporting the different projecting roofs and floors of each storey, and is most gorgeously painted and gilded. It does not seem from this that the modern Chinaman has lost any of his cunning and design in such buildings.
This, the Tsien-Men, is the chief gate in the Tartar wall ; and supposing the traveller to stand on this part of the wall, he will have, stretching out to the south, but twice that much in width from east to west, the Chinese city ; at his feet, right under the wall, is the railway station—then a narrow piece of water, the old moat, over which the road is carried by a very fine wide marble bridge with balustrades of beautiful design, and beyond a great painted wooden pailau. Looking straight away south, he will see the main street, running right out to the Yungting-Men, the gate of the Chinese city wall. Near by are crowds of rather squalid-looking houses ; beyond them is a great open space on either side of the road ; and again on each side of this space are masses of trees, those to the left being in the grounds surrounding the Temple of Heaven, and on the right the Temple of Agriculture, and the pinnacles and roofs of these wonderful buildings can be seen peeping out of the trees. Now turn north and you have, almost within a square, the great Tartar city. In its centre is the Imperial city, enclosed in pink-coloured walls, and within that again the Forbidden City and Winter Palace.
When the. Northern race conquered China, they ar ranged their capital with due regard to their own safety, separating the conquered Chinese and keeping them out side their city, and again enclosing the Imperial residence within its own walls.
On the north side of the walls, quite close to the Tsien-Men, begins the great state entrance to the For bidden City, this entrance being only used on state occasions by the Imperial family, as when they go and return from making sacrifice at the Temple of Heaven. The first part of this entrance, and all that is visible to the onlooker, is a great square stone-paved yard, sur rounded by a very beautifully worked open marble wall ; only the tops of the pillars show anything of the original white ; it is not in good repair, and there is a roadway passing round three sides of it. It is splashed with mud and damaged by traffic and passers-by ; and as it is close to the chief gate, the Tsien-Men, the traffic is very great. There is here one continuous stream of foot-passengers, rickshas, Peking (and other) carts, trains of camels, mules, ponies, all entering or leaving and pushing and jostling through the narrow gateway, in the centre of which stands a native policeman, endeavouring to guide the different strings in or out : in wet weather he stands on the large stone on which the great gates close, to keep out of the slush and mud ; it is then very bad, the roadway being of old flat paving-stones with great ruts and holes.