Show ARM a a 17 VI G A gg E OPEN ME the great wall north of peking Wre prepared pared by abo th national society D C HOUGH peking has been ALTHOUGH renamed name d deping and is to supersede supers cdo it as capital of china the old town with its structures and tra bradl dl eions that have bare played their part in history cannot but continue as an important center of chinese life there la Is much that thi the tourist to peking finds that Is unexpected and every visitor to tho the old capital has pretty definite ideas of what lie ho la Is to find for ono one thing illing he expects to find the town corrupt and contented nor Is he be disappointed in the palaces pa lacea tho the government offices and the multitude of barracks which surround tile the city some self seeking gangs of grafters drafters gr who have plundered the chinese people since the overthrow of the monarchy are still to be found but tile chinese tra tradition altion which would have centers of government also centers of learning has fins in spite of reactionary rulers filled the capital with thousands of eager students for whom peking la Is not only a city of splendid memories but a city of hopes there Is the pelting peking university a first class american mission institution the university of pelting peking an u n adla jl Jd LA t score of lesser schools it was among the students and teachers of peking particularly among those of the universities that the lib ill oral cral movement of recent years year la china started and continued in the face of who wholesale lesnie arrests and suppression by corrupt officials by the peking students the movement was spread throughout the land to find peking the source and center of this forward looking movement for reform Is not the least of the surprises which await abali tho the visitor to the capital indeed to most western visitors 71 the most unexpected thing of if all la Is to find and that the real china the china which holds potentially the future of the orient in her bandi hands Is to be found in these colleges and in the technical schools and hospitals and churches which look so like churches and hospitals and technical schools at home that the tourist falls fails utterly tit terly to see them or their cance in his search for the romance and of antiquity buddha and confucius in the great lama temple in the northwest corner comer of the city with its ita seven sun gun lit courtyards and its hundred deities one cne may see on any forenoon threescore three score yellow coated novices droning tile the morning ing lesson cross leg ged before the many handed god of mercy or halt half a dozen monks in purple celebrating a hamist mass with rice out of a silver bowl and wine from a gold mounted chalice fashioned from a human skull the smoke of incense fills the nostrils of the placid budihas who sit above abote the high altar countless little ap cup shaped butter lamps lampa are lighted and to tho the accompaniment of drum gong and cymbal the monotone of tile the cele celebrant brout rises to a wild weird chant just across the street from these idolatrous lamas who represent the debased buddhism of tibet and who minister chiefly to tile lie mongols of the north Is the qulex shady close of the temple of confucius wherein are neither monks nor idols here the muster master Is represented by a simple wooden tablet bearing the letters of at his name it Is but little more mord ex alto than the tablets of the four notable philosophers aud the twelve paril particular cular disciples who share the hall with lim and tho the two and seventy famous scholars whose names a are recorded in the long low building on the sides of the court to this memorial to chinas cainas men of learning come educators and officials of the spring and autumn equinox to offer sacrifice the ceremony say gay many Is not one of worship vor shIp but ratter of grateful remembrance mem brance of the author of learning and his distinguished followers whose moral maxims la at the basis of chanas chinas life for almost three mil the initial reaction of the visitor to much that be heales sees in peking Is apt to be one wc of appointment followed j arts 2 t alf ir w str st r by surprise then by delight and nomi admiration mi ration exploring the western hilli when lie he leaves the city gates and 9 goes oes to the western hills there la Is surprise and delight but no initial disappointment perhaps that la is because lie he has heard su so much of tile tho city and so little of the ho hills that lie he goes expecting nothing perhaps it Is because the hills in spite bf their barrenness are altogether lovely however that may be halt the charm of peking Is not in pelting peking ut all but in its surroundings surrounding shrine upon ilir shrine lne palace upon palace lie without the city walls they dot the surrounding plain they nest on nearby wooded knolls they lodge in crevices of the wide circling treeless hills those quiet hills slow blow curving like billows after storm verdant and velvety in summer in winter bare and red brown deepening into twill twilight 9 lit purple to understand peking and to love it it one must feel fee its glory in the setting of the hills not see it through the critical dust of the streeter eted plain one of the most pleasant ways in which to explore tile the hills Is by rickshaws blankets and quilts must be taken for every provident proudest proUd ent traveler la in one goca ins oe anu nf a dog trot to tho the western gate thence seven more over the willow shaded highway to the mountain of ten thousand ancients a pleasant wooded hll hil lock before it lies a broad lake and on its slope stands the far famed summer palace though several centuries more recent than kublal klinn khan tills this Is indeed the stately pleasure dome of the poets imaginings kublal might well have decreed it with its graceful spiry triple roofed pavilion set 04 upon a massive foursquare four square base of stone towering above i e porticos and pallous kiosks find and summer houses grottos and labyrinthine passages islands and lily illy ponds bridges of marble and grotesque dragons cast in bronze another jog of seven miles takes one past the jade fountain pagoda past leisurely camel trains bl beyond the high road and the dust of tourist autos under the shadow of somber square beacon towers marching in n single file at half maliq mil intervals out over the hill crests pushing on deeper into the hills bills one cornea comes at PI yun YUB ssu to the temple of at the green jade clouds the loveliest temple in the north trip to the great wall one of the most fascinating trips to be made from peking is to the great wall wait it Is wonder enough for one journey to walk atop the wall and look out ou over the dusty brown plains of the north where tatar horsemen once swarmed toward the passes and to see trains of pack mules straggling through the great stone clone gateways oblivious of the traffic on the nearby rails their backs laden with merchandise as were the backs 0 of f pack mules two thousand years ago like so 80 much in or near peking the great wall is at first disappointing it Is disappointingly small it Is 19 in places only twenty feet high and as many broad while the city wall of peking Is twice OR all high and at the base thrice as broad when one stands close under the peking city wall it looms above with the massive grandeur of an abrupt high cliff but when the tra traveler voler gets off the train at the bankow pass slid and sees bees the bit of wall scrambling up the flip hillside before him he be wonders why it la Is called great that however Is only at first ue he has only to climb up out of the pass and follow the tha wall for halt an hour and he begins to understand away it goes before him and behind up up the topmost ridges of the hills beb bending dIng swinging climbing leaping like the supple alle d dragons rags of the palace gurden garden screen it undulates du lates it sways it marches before it takes the curve of the hills like a swart auto ito on a mountain road read on and on ana d on across the farthest gully beyond the farthest peak where the mountains mount alna blend into the clouds eherd it Is where the last horizon it to la there 1 |