MUKDEX, THE MANCHU HOiME 



305 



smoke and flame up through the hollow- 

 core. In the early morning and at the 

 noon "rice-time" these great water boil- 

 ers are fired up freshl}', and send out 

 clouds of cheering smoke and steam. 

 For the rest of the day they simmer 

 gently, always ready to pour a bubbling 

 stream into the teapot. They are forged 

 and hammered out in the brass bazar, a 

 narrow street opening from the main 

 street, and the ear is the only guide 

 needed for one who would find the place. 



THE :\IANCHU WOMEN ARE THE MOST 

 STUNNING FIGURES IN ALL ASIA 



The Manchu women are the most 

 stunning figures in all Asia, and the tall 

 liaii-barh-to of Manchuria is the most 

 magnificent head-dress I have ever seen. 

 In the last decade the Uan-harh-to has 

 mounted and spread, until it is a tower- 

 ing, gabled afi:'air that stands eight and 

 ten inches above the smooth, blue-black 

 head, the golden cross-bar wound with 

 loops of black satin instead of hair. The 

 simple guan-zan of the old Empress 

 Dowager, balanced across the head and 

 held there by loops of hair, has broad- 

 ened as well as mounted, and its ends 

 droop like railway signal arms. If they 

 did not, it would be impossible for a 

 Manchu lady to enter a house door or a 

 cart without turning the structure side- 

 ways. 



This exaggerated Merry Widow afifair 

 is so heavy that women must remove it 

 indoors, and they cannot walk facing the 

 wind nor turn on their course without 

 certain scalping. On rainy and on dusty 

 days this magnificent structure of satin 

 and flowers, tinsel and jewels is shrouded 

 in a cotton cloth, and their brilliant silk 

 robes and gay little jackets are hidden 

 in long sheath garments straight and 

 tight as bolster cases or Parsee's coats. 



To see the Manchu women in all their 

 glory in the sunshine, I stayed on day 

 after day in the Alukden hotel, sufficient 

 test and proof of admiration and ap- 

 preciation. That "Astor House!" — the 

 Mukden- Astoria ! — where all the rooms 

 were back rooms, dark and damp, and 

 the place cheerless enough in the rain, to 



drive any one to suicide ! Where the 

 tourists came raging down from Harbin 

 every midnight, to sleep on the floor as 

 long as there was any floor space left — 

 and where the tourists came raging up 

 from Tairen at daylight, berating" the 

 universe and the fate that had landed 

 them break fastless in such a dilemma at 

 the end of the long drive from the rail- 

 way station — raged madly as only tour- 

 ists will, until that genius of a French 

 cook, lately turned hotel proprietor, al- 

 ways dressed in military khaki, gave 

 them such a midnight supper or morn- 

 ing coff"ee that they thanked their ances- 

 tors that they — and he — lived. 



A SILVER CHEESE 



The palace of the Manchus, as built 

 in 1656, was doubtless a very simple af- 

 fair. It was rebuilt in 1750 by Kienlung 

 the Magnificent, a very Louis XI\' for 

 splendor, a Cosmo de Medici for learn- 

 ing and love of the arts. Kanghsi and 

 Kienlung and the early great ones of 

 the Manchu line revisited the ancestral 

 home often in those days, when travel- 

 ing meant something. They came to 

 Mukden once in every ten years, at least, 

 to thank their ancestors, to worship the 

 tablets, to make ofiferings and to de- 

 posit the dynastic records, bringing with 

 them gifts and treasures of every kind 

 to the rarely occupied palace, until it be- 

 came and remains a great storehouse of 

 eighteenth century art — an Art Museum 

 bursting with incredible treasures. 



There was the theory that the Manchu 

 rulers were preparing against a rainy 

 day — preparing against any chance of 

 fortune sending them for refuge to the 

 old home — and there was- a fable that 

 they stored solid treasure there against 

 the time when the next conqueror should 

 push them from the dragon throne at 

 Peking. They did not send bags of loose 

 coin to be sifted along the highway. 

 Even the bars and shoes of silver bullion 

 were not put in final storage in any such 

 convenient shape. 



The Manchus knew themselves — that 

 is, their own people : and, as the fable 

 goes, they took an old dry well in the 



