Page:Peking the Beautiful.pdf/142

 A Peking Block Tower

W E LDOM do we find a more fascinating group within the scope of A f a single landscape than this, the hardy water carrier with his empty Il buckets, about to descend the narrow pathway to the waters of the moat; the little bridge with its brilliant red balustrades, leading to the old cart road; the weeping willows, casting their dense shade on sloping canal banks; and last of all the huge gray form of old Hsi Pien Mện, towering above then all. This massive tower, corresponding to the Tung Pien Mên on the east, is now only a memory, for in 1925 it was ruthlessly tor from its five-hundred-year-old foundations, and its bricks and its timbers, its tiles and its grotesquely modern tin roof, were all sold without doubt to enrich the coffers of some hard-pressed war-lord or greedy official, What a pity that these hoary monuments relics of "this vanishing world of Eastern splendor"- must go, when their presence adds such interest and charm to beautiful vistas along the wall. The lofty southeastern tower is not the only one that has suffered during the past two years or so; for the Tung Chih Men, on the eastern wall, and the Pling Tse Mêr, on the western wall have also been shom of their glorious towers, and have now passed into history. Thus many of the older monuments are fast disappearing, because the Chinese people are too indifferent to preserve or repair then In the olden days these tovers on the wall were used as real forts, but "the brass cannon, which under the last Mings and early Manchus flanked the city gates, have disappeared"; and now painted cannon muzzles, glaring symbols of vanished power, alone remain to remind us of the days when "Mongol or Ming, or Manchu warriors in velvet and satin uniforms," fought from the high towers above the wall, "holding in their hands bows and arrows and twisted pikes or clumsy jingals," as they breathed out slaughter on besieging armies who vainly sought to scale or batter down the giant ramparts. For centuries these huge walls and towers afforded efectual resistance, and with stood the stoutest armies and the most persistent attacks. Putnam Veale tells the story of the early cavalry raids against Peking-how "immense bodies of Manchu and Mongol cavalry, passing from the grassy plateau above Peking, descended on to the Chihli plain and attempted to capture the Capital. But Peking was too vast a city so easily to suc cumb. The Manchus and their Mongol allies rode round the mighty walls uttering curses and imprecations and discharging their arrows at the painted towers in vain; they even sat down ard attempted to starve the defenders out. But Chinese cities are always well provisioned, the harvest of the surrounding country being stored in the capitals and form ing the main asset on which trade and industry of the country are conducted. So presently the invaders rode away foiled, and the gates of the Capital were opened once more."