THE GREAT WALL. i6i 



he took the capital, Peking, in one day, eredted the country into 

 a fovereignty, and vefted it in his fourth fon. 



The empire ends about 150 miles farther, in Lat. 40° 45'. Great Wall. 

 Here begins the celebrated wall, completed two hundred and 

 twenty-one years before ChriJI, by the ^xx\\itxQxTJing-chi-whung, 

 to protect the northern parts of Ojina from the incurfions of 

 the Tartars. It appears firft in the very fea, on a vaft bulwark, 

 founded on a number of fliips, funk by a wonderful weight 

 of huge ftones, to render immoveable the terminating fuper- 

 flrudture. The wall is all the way from twenty to twenty-five 

 feet high, generally cafed with brick, and terraffed at top of 

 a breadth fufficient for five or fix horfemen to ride a-breaft. It 

 pafles along the frontiers of the provinces of Pe^cbe-H, Sha^t-Jiy 

 and Sbe}t-fi ; is guarded by a feries of fquare towers or forts, at 

 proper intervals, of only two bow-fliots afunder ; and has its 

 gates often of a vaft fize, with rooms adjacent, fitted up as places 

 d^ amies, and peculiarly well garrifoned. At no great diftance, in 

 fever al cities, general ofiicers are pofted with confiderable bodies 

 of troops. The generaliflimo refides at Kan-choo. Many of thefe 

 cities are the magazines for the articles of commerce brought 

 from different parts to be tranfported into the various provinces 

 of the empire. 



This great prote6lion oi China is not uniformly built of the 

 fame materials. In fome places the walls, and even the forts, are 

 of earth. In the diftri6l of Ning-bya, a iQw leagues from the city 

 of the fame name, the mountains are fo high and precipitous as 

 to fupply the neceflity of a wall for the fpace of ten leagues. In 

 other places it is carried along vaft and rugged mountains, almoft 



Vol. III. - Y inacreiTible, 



