Pekin was built by Kublai-Khan about 1282, near the site of an
important city which dated from the Chow dynasty, or some centuries
before the Christian era. The city covers an enclosed space about
twenty miles in circumference. It is rectangular in form, and divided
into two parts, the Chinese and the Tartar cities. The walls of the
Tartar city are the largest and widest, being forty to fifty feet
high, and, tapering slightly from the base, about forty feet wide at
the top. They are constructed upon a solid foundation of stone masonry
resting upon concrete, while the walls themselves are built of a solid
core of earth, faced with massive brick: the top is paved with tiles,
and defended by a crenelated parapet. Bastions, some of which are
fifty feet square, are built upon the outside at distances of about
one hundred feet. There are sixteen gates, seven of which are in the
Chinese town, six in the Tartar town, and three in the partition wall
between these two. In the centre of the Tartar city is an enclosure,
also walled, called the Imperial City, and within this another,
called the Forbidden City, which contains the imperial palaces and
pleasure-grounds. Broad straight avenues, crossing each other at right
angles, run through the whole city, which in this respect is very
unlike other Chinese towns. A stream entering the Tartar city near its
north-west corner divides into two branches, which enter the Imperial
City and surround the Forbidden City, and then uniting again pass
through the Tartar and Chinese towns, to empty in the Tung-Chau Canal.

The foreign legations are in the southern part of the Tartar city,
on the banks of this stream. The top of the walls forms the favorite
promenade of the foreign settlers, and from here a fine view of the
whole city is obtained. M. de Beauvoir, however, from his more minute
examination, comes to the following conclusions: "This immense city,