PEKING, THE CITY OF THE UNEXPECTED 



347 



Photograph by J. A. Muller 

 A MARVEL OF PICTORIAL ART, A SECTION OF PEKING'S DRAGON SCREEN 

 These horrendous creatures in bas-relief tile-work of various colors — yellow, purple, 



buff, maroon, and orange — dance gaily above emerald billows against a pale-blue sky. 

 screen is 20 feet high and 100 feet long (see text, page 344). 



The 



directed not only against foreign aggres- 

 sion, but against Chinese governmental 

 peculation as well. 



To find Peking the source and center 

 of this forward-looking movement for 

 reform is not the least of the surprises 

 which await the visitor to the capital. 



Indeed, to most Western visitors the 

 most unexpected thing of all is to find 

 that the real China, the China which 

 holds, potentially, the future of the Ori- 

 ent in her hands, is to be found in these 

 colleges and in the technical schools and 

 hospitals and churches, which look so 

 like churches and hospitals and technical 

 schools at home that the tourist ofttimes 

 fails utterly to see them or their signifi- 

 cance in his search for the romance and 

 glamor of antiquity. 



LAMA TEMPLE ADJOINS THAT OF 

 CONFUCIUS 



The tourist is not to be blamed for his 

 blindness, however. He can see colleges, 

 churches, and hospitals a plenty in the 

 West; but a Tama temple, or a Confu- 

 cian hall of classics, or a Taoist shrine is 

 not to be come upon in Boston or Mil- 



waukee. In the abundance of these relics 

 of a passing age Peking, above all Chi- 

 nese cities, is the queen. 



In the great Lama temple in the north- 

 west corner of the city, with its seven 

 sun-lit courtyards and its hundred dei- 

 ties, one may see on any forenoon three- 

 score yellow-coated novices droning the 

 morning lesson, cross-legged, before the 

 many-handed God of Mercy, or half a 

 dozen monks in purple palliums celebrat- 

 ing a Lamist mass with rice out of a sil- 

 ver bowl and wine from a gold-mounted 

 chalice fashioned from a human skull. 



The smoke of incense fills the nostrils 

 of the placid Buddhas who sit above the 

 high altar ; countless little cup-shaped 

 butter lamps are lighted, and to the ac- 

 companiment of drum, gong, and cymbal 

 the monotone of the celebrant rises to a 

 wild, weird chant. 



Just across the street from these idol- 

 atrous lamas, who represent the debased 

 Buddhism of Tibet and who minister 

 chiefly to the Mongols of the Xorth. is 

 the quiet, shady close of the temple of 

 Confucius, wherein are neither monks 

 nor idols. 



