sent by the governor of the province of Tien-Tsin, Tchoung-Hao, with
a profusion of passports and safe-conducts. During the rest of the
journey this mandarin, Ching, led the way in his cart drawn by a fine
black mule, and on arriving at the villages on the route displayed
his function, as a man of letters, by putting on an immense pair of
spectacles, the glasses of which were about three inches in diameter.
At Ho-Chi-Wou the procession halted during the middle of the day,
and was photographed by one of its members. The curious crowd of
spectators which gathered in every village to inspect the "foreign
devils" scattered when the camera was posed, and for a few moments our
travelers were freed from their intrusiveness.

[Illustration: AVENUE OF ANIMALS LEADING TO THE TOMBS OF THE
EMPERORS.]

Starting next morning at daylight, at three in the afternoon the party
entered Pekin. The relief was great to leave the sandy, dusty road for
one of the paved ways which radiate from the city. The first sight of
the city struck the travelers as the most grandiose spectacle of the
Celestial Empire. In front rose a high tower, with a five-storied roof
of green tiles, pierced with five rows of large portholes, from which
grinned the mouths of cannon; while to the right and left, as far as
could be seen, stretched the gigantic wall surrounding the city, built
partly of granite and partly of large gray bricks, with salients,
battlements and loopholes, wearing a decidedly martial air. This
impression was somewhat modified, however, by the discovery that the
grinning cannons were made of wood. The entrance was under a vaulted
archway, through which streamed a converging crowd of Chinese,
Mongols, Tartars, with their various costumes, together with blue
carts, files of mules and caravans of heavily-loaded camels.