The first thing to do is to grasp the topography of the Celestial Metropolis, with its city within city, and wall within wall. We return to the Gate of Sublime Learning, and ascend by it on to the great Tartar Wall.
Peking is spread out at our feet. We can trace out the four Walls, each containing a separate town. The outer and lower ramparts surround the Chinese city. The next exclude the abodes of the conquered from those of the Conqueror. Here upon the higher ground were assigned, two hundred and fifty years ago, spacious residences for the Tartar Bannermen. Within the Tartar town again, and surrounded by its defenders, is the Imperial city, and enclosed again, securely inside this, with further moats and guard-houses, is the Wall of the Forbidden City itself.
These Walls are from fifty feet high, to forty and sixty feet wide. They are built on massive stone foundations, but the walls themselves are of brick, filled in with mud. How have these common black bricks survived the crumbling of ages? But, except where the base has been marauded for the saké of the yellow clay of the mortar, they are as solid as the day they were constructed. At intervals of three hundred yards there are massive flying buttresses, and a crenellated parapet crowns the summit. They are pierced with many gateways, for there are nine to the Tartar city, and eight for the Chinese. Each gate is surmounted by a square tower of many storeys, loopholed for archers and musketeers, and with quaint heavy black roofs, decorated often in gay colours.
Poetical names mark these Gates, such as "The Eastern Straight Gate," "The Gate of Peace and Tranquillity," "Of Attained Victory," "The Gate of Just Law," "The Western and Eastern Gate of Expediency." These vast fortifications extend for twenty miles, and enclose an area of twenty-five square miles. They are all that you see from whichever side you approach the city, for they are loftier than the loftiest interior pagoda or tower. They are the most impressive and venerable sight, and alone would be worth coming to see.
We are walking on the top of this Wall of the Tartar city--over the ancient grass-grown pavement--commanding a splendid view of the Chinese capital, in the early morning light. The pale grey haze over the Western Mountains points the direction where lie the ruins of that beautiful Summer Palace, magnificent even in its decaying fragments, standing for ever as a reproach to the allies, but fit judgment on the barbarous cruelty of a civilized nation. From this bird's-eye view, Peking appears so buried in trees, that it is hard to believe that its teeming streets, with a population variously estimated at from 400,000 to 800,000, is immediately below. We are so far above it, that even the street cries and calls come up in a softened murmur.