THE DEER OF THE PEKING PARKS 



OCTOBER I2th, 1860, will always be memorable as the date 

 of the burning of the Imperial " Summer Palace " in the 

 Yuangming Yuan, the wonderful pleasaunce situated to the 

 north-west of Peking. The Yuangming, which at the time 

 had apparently been unvisited by Europeans, occupies an 

 area of many hundred acres, and is in fact a park diversified 

 with lakes, and containing a collection of buildings of 

 immense extent, among which was the Summer Palace. 

 The most beautiful part is the forest clothing the flanks of 

 the Hiang-chan hills, which attain a height of a thousand 

 feet, and from which may be viewed at the foot the ex- 

 tensive lake, and in the far distance the walls of Peking 

 enveloped in a smoky haze. Dotted through the gardens 

 were temples, lodges, and pagodas, groves, grottos, lakes, 

 bridges, terraces, and artificial hills. "It certainly was," 

 writes a spectator, "one of the most beautiful scenes I 

 had ever beheld." In the Summer Palace were gathered 

 together all the treasures and curiosities accumulated by 

 the reigning dynasties of China during untold centuries. 

 All these perished in the conflagration, which lasted two 

 days. Whether this burning of the palace, which was 

 ordered by Lord Elgin as a punishment for the atrocities 

 inflicted by the Chinese on British subjects, was justifiable, 

 it is not our province to inquire. Mr. Justin McCarthy, in 

 his " History of Our Own Times," considers that it was. 



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