112 
ASPECT OP THE COUNTRY. 
China, ’rather a flourishing aspect, although the 
buildings within the Sea-Gate are in ruins, and 
the famous “ Myriad-mile Wall,” as the Chinese, 
in the pride of their hearts, love to call it, is in a 
very dilapidated condition, and in some parts is 
even banked up, being nearly covered with sand. 
Sheaves of newly-cut millet (the common food- 
plant of North China) were jailed up in every field' 
— for it was harvest time at the Great Wall ; and 
scattered over the plain were little straggling home- 
steads, for the most part snugly embosomed among 
trees, the flat roofs of the low mud-built houses 
just visible here and there through the green 
foliage. A few Chinamen were quietly at work 
among the millet, and groups of donkeys were 
reposing in the broad shadow of the Great Wall, 
which is seen extending in a long line until it seems 
to vanish in the far distance. Here we halted, while 
friend Bcdwell sketched the scene, and I smoked a 
pipe and contemplated the novel and interesting 
landscape from behind the cloud. While -we were 
thus engaged, an old grey-bearded man silently 
