Through China with a Camera

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1898 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER X. CHEFOO. TIENTSIN. PEKING. THE GREAT WALL. Chefoo--The Foreign Settlement--The Yellow River--Silk--Its Production-- Taku Forts--Chinese Progress--The Peiho River--Floods in Peichil-li--Their Effects--Tientsin--The Sisters' Chapel--Condition of the People--A Midnight Storm--Tung-chow--Peking--The Tartar and Chinese Divisions of the Metropolis--Its Roads, Shops and People -- The Foreign Hotel--Temple and Domestic Architecture--The Tsungli Yamen--Prince Kung and the High Officers of the Empire--Literary Championship--The Confucian Temple--The Observatory--Ancient Chinese Instruments--Yang's House--Habits of the Ladies--Peking Enamelling--Yuen-Ming-Yuen--Remarkable Cenotaph--A Chinese Army --Li-Hung-chang--The Inn of "Patriotic Perfection"--The Great Wall-- The Ming Tombs. Chefoo is a favourite watering-place for foreigners resident at Peking or Shanghai, for there bracing air and sea-bathing may be enjoyed during the hottest months of summer. The beach on which the European hotel is built, skirts the foot of a low range of grassy hills, and reminded me, in its semicircular sweep and general aspect, of Brodic Bay in Arran, on the west coast of Scotland. I have a lively recollection of Chefoo Bay; of its stretch which at the time appeared interminable; and of the soft yielding sand over which, with a friend remarkable alike for his good-nature, weight and agility, I had to run from the steamer to forestall the other passengers and secure the best apartment for an invalid lady from Shanghai. The thermometer at the time was standing at about one hundred degrees in the shade, so that after completing our task we were in a condition to enjoy to the full the cool breeze that swept through the verandah of the hotel. It was an unpretending...