354 



THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



Photograph by T. A. Muller 



A FLANKING TOWER ON THE BATTLEU EX TED WALLS OF PEKIXG 



The numerous window-like openings were designed for archers defending the city. Note 



the canopied Peking cart in the foreground. 



ious of the traffic on the near-by rails. 

 their backs laden with merchandise as 

 were the backs of pack-mules two thou- 

 sand years ago. 



THE SPELL OF THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA 



Like so much in or near Peking, the 

 Great Wall is at first disappointing. It 

 is disappointingly small. It is, in places, 

 only twenty feet high and as many broad, 

 while the city wall of Peking is twice as 

 high and, at the base, thrice as broad, 

 with huge ten-storied watch-towers at 

 each corner. 



When one stands close under the Pe- 

 king city wall it looms above with the 

 massive grandeur of an abrupt high cliff: 

 but when the traveler gets off the train 

 at the Nankow Pass and sees the bit of 

 wall scrambling tip the hillside before 

 him. he wonders why it is called "great.'' 



That, however, is only at first. He has 

 only to climb up out of the pass and fol- 

 low the wall for half an hour and he be- 

 gins to understand. 



Away it goes before him, and behind, 

 tip, up the topmost ridges of the hills — 

 bending, swinging, climbing, leaping like 

 the supple, agile dragons of the palace- 

 garden screen. It undulates, it sways, it 

 marches before, it takes the curve of the 

 hills like a swift auto on a mountain road, 

 on and on and on, across the farthest 

 gully, beyond the farthest peak. Where the 

 mountains blend into the clouds, there it is ; 

 where the last horizon vanishes, it is there. 



One sits in the shadow of a watch- 

 tower and through its windows gets arch- 

 framed pictures of bulwarks and bastions 

 and exultant curves : and he remembers 

 that this wall was begun two hundred 

 years before the birth of Christ, and was 

 added to throughout the centuries, until 

 it compassed fifteen hundred miles. 



In places of strategic importance, as 

 here at the Nankow Pass, there were 

 once five giant loops, with miles of coun- 

 try between, so that if one were taken 

 the next might be defended ; and every 

 hundred vards there is a watch-tower. 



