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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC- MAGAZINE 



posts, and stand on tall masts outlined 

 against the sky. Golden scepters and 

 dragons sprout from the eaves, horses, 

 unicorns, and peacocks perch there, and 

 gods and goddesses, fiends, and fairies 

 jump from gigantic flower cups and ride 

 on mythical monsters, along with every 

 other fantastic and highly-colored thing 

 Manchu fancy can invent. Besides 

 these, there are the gigantic images of 

 the articles sold within— hats, beads, 

 pipes, and Brobdignagdian boots that 

 dwarf the shopkeeper who stands beside 

 them. 



There were many more fantastic shop 

 signs along the streets before the Boxers 

 burned the rich shopping quarter in 

 1900, and after the rebuilding many of 

 the new signs had to be moved to inner 

 courts when the telegraph poles were 

 erected, and many more put out of sight 

 when the streets were paved. 



One must lament any such sacrifice of 

 picturesqueness to the demon Progress, 

 and I begged the governor of Mukden 

 to ofifer prizes for the most gorgeous 

 shop signs of each year, to reward such 

 public benefactors by an omission or re- 

 duction of taxes. 



City life centers around the mediaeval 

 bell-tower and drum-tower that block 

 the main street and make busy four 

 corners of gossip and trade, and fend 

 ofif the evils of the north from the palace. 

 The rich silk shops and fur shops are 

 near these old towers, and in the au- 

 tumn every other shop is a fur shop. 

 Fur coats, fur robes, and dressed skins 

 are hung out and piled up on the coun- 

 ters of the open-fronted shops, along 

 blank walls and on the ground. 



Pursuing side streets and narrow al- 

 leys of bottomless mud, and crossing un- 

 tidy courts, we found the storehouses of 

 dealers in sable and ermine — second and 

 third rate reddish-brown Manchurian 

 sables and the superior dark, smoky- 

 brown treasures from beyond the 

 Amur — all put at the preposterous prices 

 dealers dream of getting from strangers 

 and greenhorns. 



There are many shops for the sale of 

 foreign goods, many more than drew 



the fury of the Boxers in 1900, and the 

 popular fancy now seems to run to our 

 enamelled tinware — pink and blue tea 

 kettles, and, choicest of aU, rose-du- 

 Barry and turquoise wash basins that 

 are always put last on the top of the big 

 wicker market basket with netted cord 

 cover, which is the most chic piece of 

 luggage that a great personage carries 

 on his railway travels. 



the; manchu samovar 



The viceroy and the governor ride in 

 "glass carriages" — broughams with win- 

 dows on all sides in Shanghai style— 

 and the first automobile has come, in the 

 shape of a steam roller that parades the 

 streets and snorts in the lunettes of the 

 old red gateways, whose tiled roofs wave 

 with weeds and bushes, and have archaic 

 cannon niched in quiet corners. Prog- 

 ress, with a very large "P," blares its 

 presence when two young men in enor- 

 mous spectacles drive up and down the 

 main street in a real American buggy, 

 clanging the gong of a police or hospital 

 ambulance. 



Far better to the eye is the two- 

 wheeled Manchurian cart with three 

 mules straining at the traces ahead of 

 the shaft animal, and a soft, boomy bell 

 sounding from under the body of the 

 cart, instead of being hung on the ani- 

 mals' necks. When these carts are 

 filled with country women rouged to the 

 eyebrows, and their headdresses set with 

 sunflowers, Mukden shows one street 

 sights unequaled outside of the three 

 provinces. 



There is a purely Manchu samovar to 

 be seen at every tea booth and street res- 

 taurant in Mukden and in Peking, which 

 is plainly of the place and the race, and 

 undoubtedly parent of the samovar, 

 which the Russians did not have in Rus- 

 sia before the Tartar raids and con- 

 quests. The Manchu samovar burns 

 wood, coal, charcoal, grass, and any- 

 thing that comes along, and the shining, 

 graceful, copper or brass body, with its 

 beautiful and unmistakable Persian 

 lines, has any sort of an iron or tin chim- 

 ney thrust down its throat to draw the 



