gives an unintelligent _pu chih tao_--"I do not know"--and moves
boorishly on. As my old Chinese writer said a week ago, Peking has
never been in such a state of topsy-turvydom since the robber who
unseated the Ming dynasty rushed in two and a half centuries ago....

Going on top of the great Tartar Wall and gazing down on the scene of
devastation and ruin beyond the Ch'ien Men Gate, one can hardly
believe one's eyes, for where there was once a mighty bustle one now
sees thousands of houses with nothing but their walls standing and
charred timbers strewing the grounds. The great burned tower which
blazed so wondrously a few nights ago is still half standing, its
mighty brickwork too powerful and too proud to succumb totally to the
flames' destroying energy. Gaunt and hollow-eyed, the old Tartar tower
surveys the scene somewhat contemptuously, as if saying that the pigmy
men of to-day are far removed from the paladins of old and their
works....

Quiet and perfectly silent it all looks--but below the tower, and,
indeed, on all sides as far as the eyes can see, some search shows
little ants of men are at work in the ruins--not moving much, but
bobbing up and down with unending energy and regularity. They are the
beggars of Peking in their hundreds and thousands salving what they
can from all this immense destruction by poking deep holes into the
ruins and pulling out all manner of things from under the mass of
bricks and rubbish. In the conserving hands of the Chinaman nothing is
ever irremediably destroyed....

Looking far to the east, even the Ha-ta Gate, where no harm has been
done, does not show much movement. The carts passing in and out are
very few and far between, and the dust which in ordinary times floats