THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA. 165 



phenomenon, it has been asserted that the water had gradually washed 

 away the softer parts of the rock ; but most travellers with whom I have 

 conversed upon the subject, could not reconcile this with the sharp 

 angular edges of the rocks, and felt more inclined to refer it to some 

 instantaneons convulsion of nature that had shivered to pieces a vast 

 mountain. 



On a near approach the traveller might rashly fancy he was beholding 

 a city of gigantic architecture in ruins, for we can literally walk through 

 its interior, as we would in the squares and streets of a town, and it 

 hardly requires a stretch of the imagination to say that we see dismantled 

 towers, triumphal arches, dilapidated fortifications, &c. Tradition has 

 baptized many of these masses of rock with the most fanciful appellations : 

 here we have the statues of burgomasters and soldiers, there friars and 

 nuns, and in another place the emperor's throne, and, singular enough, 

 he road that leads to it is over the devil's bridge. One of the loftiest 

 of these rocks, termed the watch tower, is, T should think, between four 

 and five hundred feet high, but its pircumference is not more than that 

 of the object from which it borrows its appellation. Another of nearly 

 equal altitude, which goes under the name of the Zucker htit (sugar 

 .loaf), is in form an inverted cone, and being isolated and at some 

 distance from all the rest, has a most singular appearance. 



THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA. 



THIS has ever been considered one of the world's wonders, although 

 considerable doubts have been entertained of the greatness and extent 

 which some writers have invested it, and perhaps the extreme jealousy 

 of the Chinese to allow foreigners to go beyond certain limits, has thrown 

 around it a mystery ; and hence, the many exaggerated accounts which 

 have reached us of its vastness. Father Gerbillon, the Missionary, who 

 passed through (according to his own account) most of its principal 

 gates, and saw more of it than any other European, describes it as " one 

 of the most surprising and extraordinary works in the world ; yet it 

 cannot be denied, that those travellers who have mentioned it, have over 

 magnified it, imagining, no doubt, that it was in the whole extent the same 

 as they saw in the parts nearest Pekin, or at certain of the most important 

 passes, where it is indeed very strong and well built, as also very high 

 and thick.'' According to this authority, from the Eastern Ocean to the 

 frontiers of the province of Chan-si, or for the distance of 200 

 leagues, it is generally built of stone and brick, with strong square towers, 



