and to aggregate the Chinese rather in the other; and hence also the names of the Tartar city and the Chinese city applied severally to the two portions. But both these modes of naming the two divisions of Pekin would now mislead; for the so-called exterior city does not surround the interior, but is only attached to it on the south, and the socalled Tartar city is inhabited as much by Chinese as by Tartars. Northern city and Southern city are the most appropriate names; and the shape or groundplan of the conjoint city may be best represented by fancying a rectangle of nearly square shape resting on another nearly rectangular figure of greater breadth than the square, but considerably less altitude.

The walls of Pekin are sufficiently remarkable. They are of brick enclosing earthwork, but are strengthened in many parts with stone. They are about forty feet high; about twenty feet thick at the base; but, owing to the slope of their inner side, only about twelve feet wide atop-breadth sufficient, however, to permit men to march, or horsemen to ride, abreast upon them.

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about every sixty yards is a square tower, projecting fifty or sixty feet outwards from the line of the wall. There are sixteen gates in all leading into the city from the surrounding country-nine in the northern or Tartar, and seven in the southern or Chinese city. At each of these gates the wall is strongly faced with granite; over each is a watchtower, nine storeys high, with portholes for cannon in each storey; and round each on the outside is a semicircular wall, provided with a side-gate, and enclosing a space for parade. The army for the defence of Pekin, consisting of 80,000 men, is distributed round the walls, with the gates for its chief stations, and is divided into eight Banners, each associated with a particular gate, and called the Yellow Banner, the Yellow-bordered Banner, the White Banner, the White-bordered Banner, the Red Banner, the Red-bordered Banner, the Blue Banner, and the Blue-bordered Banner.

As regards the interior of Pekin, the description divides itself into two parts -that of the northern, interior, or Tartar city, called NEI-TCHING; and that of the southern, exterior, or Chinese city, called WAI-TCHING. Though the two are contiguous, there is a separating wall, with gates, between them.

I. NEI-TCHING, OR THE NORTHERN CITY. The descriptions of this city are more minute and graphic than of the other; and there is accessible a separate map of it, in facsimile of a Chinese original, published by Major Jervis, in 1843. Its area is about sixteen square miles; but this area is divided into three distinct parts-an inner or central block, called the Prohibited city, forming a rectangle of about two miles round, walled in from the rest by a strong wall of bright yellow colour, and containing the Imperial palace and the buildings and grounds belonging to it; next, the Hwang-Ching or Imperial city, forming a kind of hollow rectangle enclosing this central or innermost block, measuring about six miles round, and also walled and gated; and, lastly, the General city, or third enclosure, lying between the imperial city and the outer wall of the whole.

1. The Prohibited city. This innermost or central block, walled in with its yellow wall, and not cut through by the streets which intersect the rest of the town, is the Paradise of Pekin in the Chinese descriptions-the fit abode of the celestial Emperor and his household.

The splendour begins at the gates and avenues which connect this space of palaces with the outer city. One of these is "Woo-mun or the "Meridian gate," a gate of three avenues, with a solar dial on the one side, and a lunar dial on the other, and also a tower containing a gong and bell, which are struck and rung when the Emperor enters or departs. Another of the gates, called "Tae-ho-mun" or "gate of Extensive Peace," is one of five avenues, and is a structure of white marble, 110 feet high, ascended by steps; whereon the Emperor on stated days receives the prostrations of his minis

ters. Then, among the buildings, is "Keën-tsing-kung" or "the Tranquil palace of Heaven," the Emperor's private palace; the loftiest, richest, and most magnificent of all the palaces; in the court before which is a small tower of gilt copper, adorned with a great number of figures, beautifully executed, and on the east side of the tower a large vessel, likewise of gilt copper, in which incense is burnt day and night. The Chinese descriptions mention also, as of note, "Kwan-ning-kung," or "the palace of the Earth's Repose," i.e. the palace of the Imperial Consort; "Fung-seen-teen," or "the temple. of Imperial Ancestors," where the Emperor sacrifices on great occasions; also "Ching-hwang-meaou," or "the temple of the Guardian Deity of the City; also "Nan-heun-teen," or the hall of portraits of the Chinese emperors and sages, arranged according to their degrees of merit; also "Nuy-ko," or the council-chamber, the treasury, and other offices; also "Chuen-sin-teen," or "the hall of intense mental exercises" -which the reader might suppose, from the name, to be the hall devoted to the Civil Service examinations of which he has heard as universal in China, but which seems rather to be a place sacred to the memory of Confucius; also "Wanyuen-ko," or "the hall containing the literary abyss," i.e., the Imperial library; and "

Woo-ying-teen," or the Imperial Printing Establishment, whence is issued daily the Imperial or Pekin Gazette, for circulation exclusively among the mandarins and officials throughout the empire. There are, besides, gardens and pleasure grounds; the most notable of which is the Imperial flower garden, containing beautiful walks, groves, fountains, and shrines.

(2). The Imperial City.-In the hollow rectangle, so named, interposed between the central palatial block, and the outer rim of the town, are many of the palaces of princes of different ranks, of which there are said by Father Hyacinth to be about 700 in all throughout the whole city of Pekin. The gates here are also objects of interest, and have

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characteristic names. Then there are many temples and altars-among which are noted "Tae Meaou," or "the Great Temple," dedicated to the ancestors of the present dynasty, the outer wall of which is said to be 3,000 feet in circuit; Shay-tseih-tan," or the altar of the gods of land and grain; a temple to the discoverer of the silk-worm; and "Chen-fu-tse," or "the Temple of Great Happiness"-which is a large Buddhist temple, with a copper statue of Buddh, sixty feet high. Here also are some stores and governmentoffices. But much of the space is laid out in pleasure-grounds for the wealthier inhabitants. Here is "Kingshan," an artificial mountain, 150 feet high, with terraces, walks, pavilions, and plantations in which are birds, hares, rabbits, &c. Here also is an artificial lake, with a bridge of white marble, of nine arches, and an island called "The Marble Isle," which is a hill of groves, temples, and summer-houses. Here also is "Tseaouyuen," or "the Plantain Garden," full of fruit-trees, shrubs, &c. and containing a lake on which there is yachting in summer and skating in winter.

(3). The General City.-It is in this city, forming a wide hollow rectangle between the Imperial city and the outer walls, that the general bustle of Pekin is to be seen, and the great mass of Pekin life is lodged. Here are most of the public offices-including the six supreme tribunals or boards, known as the Board of Civil Offices, the Board of Revenue, the Board of Rites and Ceremonies, the Board of War, the Board of Public Works, and the Board of Punishments; also, ments; also, "Le-fan-yuen," or the office of Foreign Affairs; "Too-chayuen," or the Imperial Censorate; "Kung-yuen," or the office for examining Candidates for Degrees; also, "Hanlin-yuen," or the Grand National College; also, "Tae-e-yuen," or the Great Medical College; also, the Observatory, the Police office, &c. Here, too, are the Russian Mission, the Mohamedan Mosque, and buildings for the recep tion of Deputies from the Asiatic powers visiting Pekin. There are, besides,

many palaces of the princes, and many temples and shrines-the large Buddhist temple called "the Temple of Eternal Peace;" another magnificent Buddhist temple called "the White Pagoda;" the Temple of the Successive Generations of Kings and Emperors; the Temple of the Deity protecting the Imperial family; and an Altar to the Pole-Star. Here also is the enclosure for the Imperial Elephants.

The main streets which intersect the general city-some of them from north to south through its entire length, others broken short by the inner block of the Imperial city, and others running at right angles, as connexions from east to west-are described as great thoroughfares, from 140 to 200 feet wide, not paved, and constantly watered into a state of muddiness, to keep down the dust. It is not in these main streets that the public offices, the temples, and the dwelling-houses of the bulk of the inhabitants, are situated. They are continuous lines of shops, painted red, blue, green, &c., with flaunting signs and advertisements, and a profusion of gilt characters, and the wares exposed in front. The great streets proceeding from the gates, and named after them-as "the Great Street of the Sze Chih Gate," "the Great Street of the Tih Shing Gate," &c. -are from morning to night incessant streams of clamorous life. At the sides are the shopkeepers recommending and vending their wares, pedlars, mountebanks, quack-doctors, and policemen with bamboo canes pushing about among them to keep order; while up and down at a slow rate in the midst, through all the interruptions, go vehicles, foot-passengers, strings of dromedaries, men on horseback, and occasionally Tartar horsewomen-for the Tartar women go about more freely than the Chinese, and do not compress their feet. At the intersection of these main streets with the cross streets, are curious structures looking like triumphal arches, which are really monuments to illustrious persons. At night the roar of the great streets continues, and torches and painted paper lanterns illuminate their length.

What of the general city does not consist of these great streets of shops, is one vast network of narrow streets and lanes, containing, as we have said, many of the public offices, temples, and also manufactories and stores of various kinds, and the dwelling-houses of the populace. Here are the names of some of these inferior streets and lanes, culled from Major Jervis's facsimile of the native "Fetid Hide Street," map"Dog'stooth Street," "Cut-asunder Street," "Barbarian Street," "Board of Punishment Street," "Dog's-tail Street," "Boat Plank Street," "Obedience Street," "Water-wheel Street," "Cow's Horn Bend," "Newly opened Street," "Pay and Rations Street," "Goddess of Mercy Temple Street," "Mutton Street," "Sugar Place Street," "Old Screen Street," "Pine Street," "Immeasurably Great Street," "Proboscis Street," "Handkerchief Street," "Stone Tiger Street." Along these streets, the numberless lanes connecting them, and indeed all through Pekin, the houses are generally but of one storey, built of brick, with the roofs of a grey colour, or painted red, or (the imperial houses only) yellow. Owing to the deficiency of water-supply -all the water in the town being from the one Imperial canal-and also owing to what Barrow calls the " frowsy habits of the Chinese, the lanes and narrow streets are by no means savoury; and Father Hyacinth speaks of the "insupportable odour," meeting one everywhere in walking through the more thickly peopled parts.

II. WAI-TCHING, OR THE SOUTHERN CITY. This second division of Pekin, also known as the outer or Chinese city, is more thickly built on than the northern division-resembling it in its main features where it is occupied by houses, but distinguished chiefly as the quarter where there are the theatres and other places of public amusement for the Pekinese, and as having a large portion of its space occupied by two great temples. One of these is "Teen-Tan," or "the Temple to Heaven," occupying, with its grounds, a circuit of three miles; the other is "Tec-Tan," or "the

Temple to Earth," within the circuit of which the Emperor performs every year the national ceremony of ploughing with his own hands.

In the vicinity of Pekin, both in the suburbs close to the walls, and at some distance along the paved roads which lead from the gates, there are many objects of interest-temples, shrines, &c. From the east side of the Chinese city goes the Imperial canal, and from the same side of the Tartar city a broad, level, granite-paved road-both joining Pekin with the town of Tung-chow, about twelve miles off, situated on the Peiho. Another road, leaving Pekin on the north side, leads to the great Chinese wall, at a place called Keu-pi-keu, and thence to the imperial residence of Yehhol, in Tartary, 136 miles north-east from Pekin. Hither it was that Lord Macartney followed the Emperor in his embassy of 1792-3. Much nearer to Pekin-distant, indeed, but a few miles in a north-west direction-is the famous "Yuen-men-yuen," or summer residence of the Chinese Emperors. The grounds of "Yuen-men-yuen,' says Barrow, are at least ten English miles in diameter, and consist of waste and woodlands, in part not unlike Richmond Park, with canals, streams, sheets of water, hills, pleasure-houses, gardens, and thirty distinct places of residence for the Emperor, with attached offices for his ministers, eunuchs, &c. Here Here Chinese landscape-gardening and Chinese architecture were to be seen to perfection. Mr. Barrow, however, does not seem to have thought much of either, or indeed of the boasted splendour of Yuen-men-yuen generally.

Respecting all this remote region of Eastern Asia, including Pekin and its vicinity, we shall, doubtless, soon learn a great deal that will supersede or antiquate much that has been here set down. For, in the interval between that 22nd of September, when the British and French forces were still at some short distance from Pekin, with their blood roused for any course that

would rescue or release their captured fellow-countrymen, and that 5th of November to which, while we write, the last despatch carries us back-what a story of striking transactions ! The resolute advance of the allies-Lord Elgin showing himself nobly equal to the emergency; the occupation and "looting" of the Imperial summerpalace of Yuen-men-yuen; the preparations for an assault on Pekin itself; the inch-by-inch yielding of the Imperial officials under the terror of these preparations; the cession of two of the gates of the city to the Allies; their encampment on the walls, and the raising there of the British and French flagsthe rumour of which event, as of nothing less than the fall of Pekin and the overthrow of the rule of the Flowery Emperor, may even now be flying through the Asiatic populations; the dispersion of the Tartar army, and the flight of the Emperor to Yeh-hol; the subsequent negotiations, and their consummation in a new, and, it is to be hoped, lasting treaty, equal to that of Tientsin, if not of larger scope; the evacuation of Pekin, leaving the Emperor free to return, and undertake his dominions again, a wiser and a better man, under the new conditions which the barbarians from the west had imposed, of all this the newspapers have recently informed us, though we still expect the details. Mingled with all this is the thought of the sufferings, and the deaths, of those of our fellow-countrymen whose capture is the incident round which the rest centres.

Of these men, martyrs in this last enterprise of British arms, we ought to hold the memory sacred; and, not the least, of that one among them who (if our fears prove true) has fallen a victim in a peculiar career of literary serviceupon whom his countrymen at home depended for the fullest reports from those scenes of quaint interest and of danger and from whom, had he lived and been at liberty, they would by this time have had pictures, such as can hardly now be looked for soon, of “the Chinese capital, Pekin."

great majority, indeed, have with graceful candour confessed their error; and, though here and there one of the old Protectionists-the "cannon balls," as they have been designated-may still be encountered, it is well understood that his consistency in the face of light is due quite as much to the obstinacy of pride, or to the idiosyncrasy of the individual, as to the convictions of the politician. The country has reaped the advantages of this in every way. The material prosperity which followed with a full flood the repeal has not only increased the national resources to an amazing extent, but it has put the different classes of the community into good humour with each other. Chalmers's prediction, expressed in his own terse language, that nothing would tend so much "to sweeten the breath No. 16.-VOL. `III.

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of society" as a repeal of the Corn Laws, has been fulfilled in a still wider sense than even he perhaps meant it. The clamours of the poor against the rich have been stilled; the gladiators who fought front to front in the arena have long since shaken hands. It would be a strange thing now to hear either farmer or squire curse the treachery of Sir Robert Peel; and those who enjoy the fruits of the victory he won for them may afford to look back with interest, and even with a certain degree of admiration, on the struggles of the men who did their best to withhold them, and who, taken all at unawares, still made so gallant a defence, and fought so desperately on behalf of what they at least believed to be the cause of the country.

They undoubtedly fought at a disadvantage. The men in whom they had been accustomed to repose their confidence suddenly moved from their side, and went over to the camp of their adversaries. It was not the ministers alone, though that would have been aggravation enough; but almost every man of their party who had been accustomed to address the House with anything like acceptance announced his intention of following in the ministerial track. Upon the bulk of the party the new doctrines had made no impression; but then they were of the class whom nature had formed for the lobby rather

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