We penetrate yet further into the Chinese city, across a stone bridge and through a dangerous open square--a meeting of ways--where crates of merchandise, carts drawn by tandem bullocks and mules, palanquins, wheelbarrows with baskets of liquid manure running over, horses and donkeys, are all mingled together, going and coming in different directions. Yes! Sir Edwin Arnold, you speak truly of
"The painted streets alive with hum of words, The traders cross-legged, mid their spice and grain, The buyers with their money in the cloth, The war of words to cheapen this or that, The shout to clear the road, the huge stone wheels, The strong slow oxen and their rustling loads, The singing bearers with their palanquins, The broad-necked hâmals sweating in the sun."
Then we go up a narrow street, tortuous and dirty, to another bazaar where there are nothing but lantern, fan, and picture shops.
Half an hour in these streets gives you more idea of Chinese life than all the books of travel you may read in a life-time.
Peking beggars description, still let me try to give some idea of what we see.
Here we are in a narrow lane. This is the aristocratic quarter where the mandarins and officials live. There are a succession of mud-plastered walls, roofed at the top and presenting an absolutely blind appearance to the road, which, when combined with the always dilapidated condition of the latter, gives the most deserted and squalid impression. Opposite the entrance are hung tablets, indicating the offices and titles of the householder. They are on a blank wall, for you must observe that the entrance into a Chinese house is never straight. It always winds, and this is supposed to be a defence against the incursion of evil spirits, for the latter can happily only go straight. For the same reason we see the little children wearing their pig-tails plaited at the side of the head, so that the evil spirit, not finding anything to grip at the back, is unable to catch hold of them. In the houses of poor people, who cannot afford such elaborate precautions, there is always a mud screen erected in front of the door. Let us go inside. We find ourselves in a succession of courts, surrounded by low buildings, where a family and its branches reside, to the number sometimes of 200 persons. There are separate buildings for the cooking, eating, sleeping, and living, but the family all live together. As our "boy" said, when we inquired about these houses, "Family man live there." Truly one, indeed. Yet there is something to be admired about this family life, this care of aged parents and luckless relations.