the climax of decay is reached here, in this former
abode of the old empress dowager, where everything remains as she left
it, or as the Boxers left it, or as the European looters left it after
the Boxer troubles. Scattered through the beautiful grounds are
magnificent buildings, all fallen into ruin. The roofs of the palaces
and temples, blazing with the imperial yellow tiles, are dropping to
pieces, and rank grass is replacing the fallen tiles and dislodging
those that are left. In one of the temples we walked through littered
debris of rich carvings, kicked against the broken heads and hands of
gilded gods fallen from the altars, and brushed against the loosened
shreds of old paintings swaying in tatters from the walls. One building
contained the remains of a once beautiful fountain, painted and
lacquered, now moldering and fallen into dust. At the four corners of
the room the old gods, life-size, had been gathered into piles and
covered with matting, and from beneath this dusty covering protruded
dirty, battered heads and gilded bodies, ludicrous and pathetic.

In the grounds it was no better. Weeds grew shoulder high, springing
from between the stones of the great courtyards and open spaces
connecting the temples and palaces, and we pushed ourselves through this
brush, and stumbled over rolling stones, all the while enveloped by the
whirling dust, the everlasting Peking dust, straight from the Gobi
Desert. All this was very disastrous to our personal appearance, and at
the end of two hours we were all reduced to pretty much the same level:
really, there wasn't much difference between the beautiful Americans,
those attired in Gillard's best, and ourselves, when we took to our
rickshaws (and motors) again and set off for the President's palace, in
the Forbidden City.

The grounds of this palace presented a much better appearance than
anything we had seen in Peking. The roads were newly swept, and
everything was very neat and clean and orderly, though bare. The lawns,
if such they could be called, were as arid and grassless as the great
plains of Chili. We arrived a few minutes before four, and descended
from our vehicles, grand and otherwise, and then a cleaning-up process
took place. Dusty shoes were brushed off with handkerchiefs, dusty coats
slapped and patted, wind-blown hair rearranged, dust cleaned out from
the corners of eyes, and powder-papers passed from hand to hand among
the women. One lady remarked cheer