Page:Through China with a camera.pdf/441

 In the morning I was awakened by the clang of a smith's anvil, and found that the smith was one of the many travelling workmen who abound in Cathay. He was making knives and reaping-hooks, and had contrived a simple forge by attaching a tube to his air-pump, passing this beneath the ground, and then bringing up the end so as to play through the fire which lay in a hollow in the soil. There was also a Mahommedan inn at Nankow, and there the host and his attendants were remarkable for their Indian physiognomies. At the same place, too, I found a guide, who had distinguished himself by show- ing visitors through the pass. This individual had fallen heir to a pair of enormous foreign boots, which he kept on his feet by pads and swathes of cloth. He had, besides, obtained a number of certificates from his patrons, which, almost without exception, described him as a great ruffian. These certificates he presented for my inspection with an evident air of pride. He also said that his sympathies were not Chinese, and pointing to his boots, declared that he was a foreigner like myself.

From Nankow I proceeded on to the Ming tombs. For the information of those among my readers who may still be unacquainted with the great burial-ground where thirteen Em- perors of the Ming dynasty were interred, I will give a brief summary of my experiences in that place.

It will be remembered that Nanking, the ancient capital, where the founder of the Ming dynasty established his court, contains the first mausoleum of those Kings — a mausoleum in almost every particular resembling the tombs of the same line in the valley thirty miles north of Peking. These tombs lie at the foot of a semi-circle of hills, which has something like a three miles' radius.