An exciting incident—The Pass of Nang-kao—Picturesqueness of the gorge—A young married couple—The levy of taxes—Toun-cheh-ouh—The last solitude—Entry into Pekin—Arrival at the Legation.

After having travelled over fifty lies since leaving HrouaÉ-lach-sien, we arrived at Tchah-tao. This village is picturesquely situated at the foot of a little mountain that carries the third wall—here a brick wall. As we arrived rather early, and our inn was near the gate of the town, we went to take a walk along the ramparts, which consist of a great brick wall four or five yards wide. I was much astonished to see there two cannon without carriages, lying abandoned as useless lumber. Can it be true that cannon existed in China long before we had any notion in Europe of the properties of gunpowder? But it is quite certain that no European expedition has penetrated so far as Tchah-tao. These bronze cannon unfortunately bore no inscription, nor even any mark that might indicate their origin.

During this promenade M. Marine thoughtlessly threw a stone from the ramparts, which happened to hit a dog below. The proprietor of the animal turned round in a rage, and seeing that the projectile had been thrown by a European, tried to excite the crowd to take vengeance for such an outrage. The opportunity was only too well appreciated, and we were followed by more than five hundred persons, in our retreat to the inn, hooting, and showing a disposition to rush on us. M. SchÉvÉlof made a sign for me to retire with Pablo into some obscure corner, and mounting on the platform began addressing them to pacify their anger.

“We are not Europeans,” he earnestly remonstrated. “We are Siberians; look at our passports; the two peoples are brothers, and you cannot doubt our friendly sentiments.” A few Chinese who spoke Russian, of which there are instances everywhere here, replied in this language; the affair then came quietly to an end. Pablo and I did not venture out of our hole till this mob was dispersed, and M. SchÉvÉlof advised us on account of the adventure to quit the village at daybreak.

This day we were to go through the famous passes of Nang-Kao, between the village of Nang-Kao and the portion of the Great Wall the nearest to the capital—an attraction that no tourist to Pekin disregards. Dreading the shocks of the palanquin in so mountainous a country, and desiring to enjoy as much as possible the grand scenery at our ease, we jogged along on asses, from Tchah-tao to Nang-Kao. About an hour after we had left the village, and having passed the brick wall I have mentioned, we arrived at the pass, the entrance of which is very narrow, and is closed by a fourth wall.

The approach is by zigzags in the declivity similar to those we passed between Mongolia and Kalkann, and then, after crossing a fifth wall, one enters into a narrow gorge extremely picturesque. The Chinese doubtlessly must have formerly regarded this spot as the most formidable entrenchment against the Mongols. In a gorge that can only be approached by an escarped road, and protected by two walls surmounted with crenelated towers and fortresses, there were certainly the means of an obstinate defence for a long time, even against an enemy very superior in number. When the tourist has arrived at the bottom of the valley the route is continued amid remarkable sites constantly varied. I will mention one only that struck me more than the others by its originality and its charming aspect.

The pass at this spot may be from about twelve to sixteen yards wide.

The little river of Nang-kao occupies the whole width of it, and scatters its waters amid scores of rocks. Our little donkeys were obliged to leap from one to another to clear the passage between. The two walls of rock forming the gorge overhang the river, and come so near to one another at a certain height that they admit through the opening but a few rays to light up, in a mysterious gloom, this sort of natural grotto. The Chinese have scooped out a little temple in the face of one of these rocks about ten yards from the ground. It is reached by steps cut out on the wall of the rock, having the appearance of a natural causeway. The entrance of the temple is ornamented with sculptured wood painted red and gilded, with lanterns and all sorts of suspended ornaments. Nothing can be more charming, or gayer and prettier, and at the same time more Chinese than this little nook, which is all at once a valley, a grotto, the bed of a rivulet, and a sanctuary. Once in my life only have I desired to be an idol. Happy the god that dwells in such an enchanting spot!

I was quite astonished on emerging from this little temple to find on the other side the walls of the rock sculptured in the Egyptian manner, and kinds of modillions, as in the land of the Pharaohs.

The remainder of the pass of Nang-kao is also very fine, but resembling too much many similar my readers must have frequently seen in their travels, to render it worth while to describe it here.

But I may say briefly that it resembles the entrance to the gorges of the Trent, Roland’s Breach, and the valley of the Chiffa in Algeria; what may be seen and admired very often in mountainous countries. I should mention, however, a village gate, a kind of triumphal arch in stone, sculptured, sunk, and covered with dragons and fabulous monsters in such a way that it may certainly be reckoned among the chefs-d’oeuvre of Chinese art.

We crossed in due course the two last walls of China, or, to speak more correctly, the two last buttresses of the Great Wall of Kalkann, and arrived at Nang-kao. I was delighted to hear myself addressed in French on entering this village by the Chinese mule drivers and sedan carriers, and to see written on the walls of the inn warnings in French to travellers, such as this: “DÉfiez-vous du maÎtre de l’hÔtel, c’est un hardi voleur;” signed “Un officier de marine compÂtissant envers les Étrangers;” and many similar.

The reason was, Nang-kao is often a place of rendezvous for the personnel of the embassies at Pekin; and the tourists who visit the capital never omit going to Nang-kao and the tomb of the Mignes, returning by the Summer Palace and the Great Bell. It is the established excursion, just as to see the Mer de Glace of Chamounix or the Righi of Lucerne.

After we had resumed our palanquins to take our way to the village of Kouan-chih-lih, M. SchÉvÉlof said to me: “We are obliged to reach as quickly as possible the south of China, and consequently to take the road to Toun-cheh-ouh and Tien-tsin. We have just decided on not going to Pekin; still, you are not far from the capital here, and the time is come to separate and say adieu.” “I will go with you to the next stage, Toun-cheh-ouh, and from there to Pekin,” I said, unwilling to part till absolutely necessary. In truth this sudden announcement of a separation, the prospect of finding myself alone with Pablo in an unknown country, among people that seemed hostile and to whom I could not make myself intelligible, inspired me with misgiving and almost fear. The reader will see what curious result this decision led to from what follows.

At the moment of starting we saw coming into the court of the inn a palanquin borne by two men. It contained, therefore, some aristocratic personage; for in China such a mode of locomotion is permitted only to persons enjoying a certain dignity or holding a certain rank in the hierarchy. The horse and the mule palanquin may be used by everybody; the carriage, and especially the carriage having the axle far removed from the shafts, as well as the palanquin borne by men, are reserved for the aristocracy.

We, therefore, approached this privileged vehicle as soon as we saw it enter into the court of our inn, and presently there descended from it a lady apparently rather pretty, if one might say that a lady could be pretty under a thick coat of paint, with the disadvantage of extraordinary embonpoint. What I specially remarked was the apparent absence of feet. Under the ankle the leg ended in a point like the end of a stilt or a wooden leg.

The poor woman, whom this conformation indicated as a member of the high class, and as one to be admired and envied by all fine connoisseurs and people of the most refined taste, could not take a single step, even supported between her two servants. She was carried from the palanquin, to be laid down like anything else unendowed with power of movement, on the platform of a distant room. M. SchÉvÉlof was informed on questioning the palanquin men that she was the wife of a great mandarin, on his honeymoon tour.

We saw the happy husband arrive a few minutes later; it will be sufficient to say he was just like the governor of Maimatchin, already mentioned. These Chinese husbands of high rank should be free from any anxiety on the score of their wives running away from them, and at the same time be perfectly satisfied with the important guarantee they hold for obedience to their lord and master.

As the distance is very great between Kouan-chih-lih and Toun-cheh-ouh we left as early as two in the morning. On leaving Nang-kao we left the mountains also, to enter on the plains of Pekin. The country, therefore, was not what would be called picturesque, but it was so well cultivated, so green, so well wooded with fine trees, so cool, from the numerous canals cutting it in every direction, that I was never tired of regarding it, and the sight was all the more grateful to my eyes after the perpetual snow of Siberia and the monotonous desert of Mongolia, in spite of the picturesqueness of their mountain scenery. After having travelled over sixty lies we halted a short time at Lih-choui-tziao, and then resumed our way. We easily passed the Chinese custom house of Tum-bah, thanks again to the ability of M. SchÉvÉlof. Wherever the Chinese impose a tax it is difficult to escape it, and to the collection of taxes the law of responsibility extends also. The sovereign says to the grand mandarins, “I want so much money from your government.” The grand mandarin says to his subordinate, “I want so much from your province,” taking care to double the sum for security. The mandarin of the second class exacts the same from the mandarin of the third class, in each case doubling through precaution; and the mandarin of the third class announces to his district that he must raise such and such a tax, again doubled no doubt through being over zealous.

Such an organisation doubtlessly is burdensome to the tax-payer, but since so much is extracted, this is precisely what seems to me an incontestable proof of the great riches of this country. In spite of these abuses, misery and destitution are apparently not very prevalent. During the whole of my sojourn in China, there were hardly eight or ten who came to me begging, whilst in Egypt, a country reputed rich, one is constantly assailed with packs of beggars dinning in one’s ears: “Backsheesh,” “chavaga.”

It was about four in the afternoon when we entered the immense village of Toun-cheh-ouh, on the banks of the Peiho.

We were entertained at the house of a young Chinese full of health and embonpoint, reminding one a little of the exaggerated round figure of Mr. Punch, but a thoroughly good fellow, and one fond of good living in every way. He served us a dinner À la russe, which I found to my taste, after the detestable cuisine of the Chinese cook-shop.

Immediately after this repast my companions went to embark for Tien-tsin, and I accompanied them as far as the river. On the way M. SchÉvÉlof gave all the necessary instructions to my host to enable him to provide for my safe journey on the morrow to Pekin.

When these tea merchants arrived at the port, they entered into one of the barges moored to the shore, in the middle of whose decks is raised a construction for passengers, resembling somewhat that of the Venetian gondola. We wished one another good-bye and pleasant journeys, and off they went. These merchants in departing from my sight dropped completely the curtain between me and the Empire of the Czars, and I turned mine eyes from Siberia, a country over which, in spite of its fertility and auriferous riches, a bird of prey seemed to be continually hovering. Therefore, on seeing the last ties that held me, though only remotely, to this unfortunate land of exile and sorrow cut away, I felt relieved from an oppression, notwithstanding the singular position in which I found myself among these bulb-shaped Chinese. I could say nothing whatever to my host. Even Pablo’s talent in expressing himself in pantomime became quite insufficient to penetrate the limited intelligence of the Buddhist with whom I was lodged. I could not close an eye the whole night on account of the repeated attacks of an army of fleas, that annoyed me with their scouts in every quarter, drawn out probably by a change of diet in which they revelled; and again on account of the night watch, whose duty it was to make a row to frighten away thieves, according to the Chinese custom, which I first became acquainted with at Krasnoiarsk. The next day my host could not provide me with a palanquin before one in the afternoon. I was, however, very glad that he had even so far complied with the instructions of M. SchÉvÉlof, for if he had been disposed to keep me at his house some time, I really do not know how I could have managed to have got out of it again. Just as I was going away I gave a trifle to one of the servants: the master perceiving it called all the servants together, who came and knelt before me and touched the ground with their foreheads. However familiar a European may be with Oriental manners, he can never regard without a pang such a spectacle of slavish humility. I jumped into my palanquin as quickly as possible, and took leave of my host, not in offering my hand, which is not in accordance with Chinese custom, but in pressing my hands together, and moving them two or three times in a line perpendicular to my chest. I understood, with satisfaction, that this obliging man recommended my mule driver to conduct me to the French Embassy; then we started, Pablo and I, towards the capital of the Celestial Empire.

Whilst I was journeying under a burning sun over this road, covered with thick dust, in the abominable vehicle called a palanquin, three young horsemen, whom I shall present to the reader, galloped by without drawing rein between Tien-tsin and Pekin.

The distance is thirty-two leagues, and they would accomplish it in a day. They had, certainly, no time to lose. Having left Tien-tsin at four in the morning, they had stopped an hour in a village to breakfast and change horses: at the time I was leaving Toun-cheh-ouh, they had just begun the second stage. In order to go from Paris to Pekin, these three young French travellers had not braved the hardships of a Siberian winter, nor the monotony of a sledge, nor the discomfort of a Chinese vehicle; and yet their adventures were as interesting as mine. They had been through India: they had been received in the palaces of the nabobs of that country, far more attractive I should say than those of the gold hunters of the North: they had hunted wild beasts in Ceylon and Java, chased the elephant in the virgin forests of Malacca, and continuing their hardy course, they thought it a mere trifle to do thirty-two leagues a day, intending, if circumstances admitted of it, to resume their journey at the same speed.

The first of these three young men—one of my best friends, who, whilst we were travelling a few miles apart on the plain of Pekin, I thought was in Paris—was the Baron Benoist MÉchin; his two comrades were the Viscomte de Gouy d’Arsy and Monsieur Guillaume Jeannel. They arrived at the legation as I came in sight of the fortifications of the capital of China.

At this sight I felt quite a glow of enthusiasm. The longer one has had an object in view, and the more efforts he has made to attain it, the greater is the joy on reaching it at last. It is difficult to find anything grander and more boldly constructed than the first wall of Pekin. It is a wall of imposing elevation, crenelated, and perfectly regular. Here and there fortresses are raised above principal gates, rising to three or four stories, and roofed in green porcelain, that glitters in the sun. The gates are of bronze, and gigantic: they are closed at night, and at certain hours of the day. I did not enter the city without feeling a thrill of emotion. I had to pass over some irregular space scattered over with low, unsightly habitations; then I entered into the populous quarter; finally, under a dome of foliage I perceived a wooden gate, elegantly sculptured with two marble lions, above which I could read, “LÉgation de France.” I had at last accomplished my journey from Paris to Pekin overland.

When I entered into the salon of M. de Geoffroy, who was the Envoy Extraordinary of France in China, all the personnel of the legation were present to do honour to the three young travellers I have just mentioned. I shall never forget my entry into this hospitable salon, where I found so much courtesy and affability. The palace was quite an Eden. What happy days I passed there! I slept at last in a bed, a luxury I had not known since I left Nijni-Novgorod: I lived À la cuisine franÇaise, and I spoke French with French people. But the reader will feel more interested in a description of Pekin and its people, which I shall attempt in the next and last chapter.