er them which extended out over the horse. Farther up
they observed a couple of coolies irrigating the land with a machine
which had four paddles for moving the water, with four more each side of
the stream, under a frame to which two men were holding on, and working
treadmill fashion, with their feet on each of the four arms. They
noticed mixed teams of horses and bullocks, such as one sees in Naples.
The most curious was a mule-litter, which was simply a sedan between two
animals.

Felipe drove the launch at a nine-knot speed, and at half-past three in
the afternoon the boat arrived at Tung-chow. Contrary to their
expectation, the passengers had greatly enjoyed the trip; but it was out
of their own hilarity rather than their surroundings. Pitts had arranged
the lunch in a very tasty manner on the tables in what the boys had
called the fore and after cabins. They found all the variety of vehicles
they had seen on the road, and in three hours they came to the great
gate of Pekin. They were conveyed to the small German hotel, which they
more than filled; and other lodgings were provided for some of the
gentlemen, though the meals were to be taken at the public-house.

The Chinese gentlemen had to leave them to attend to their own affairs,
but after dinner the professor told them something about Pekin: "The
city is in about the same latitude as New York, and the climate is about
the same. It is situated on a sandy plain, and the suburbs are
comparatively few. The town consists of two cities, the Manchu and the
Chinese, separated by a wall; and the whole is surrounded by high walls,
with towers and pagodas on them, as you have already seen. The Manchu
wall is fifty feet high, sixty feet wide at the bottom, and forty at the
top. Without the cross-walls, there are twenty-one miles of outer wall,
enclosing twenty-six square miles of ground.

"There are sixteen gates, each with a tower a hundred feet high on it.
Your first impression must have been that Pekin is the greatest city in
the world. You came in by a street two hundred feet wide, with shops on
each side; but when you have seen more of it, you will find dilapidation
and decay, and about the same filth you have observed in other Chinese
cities. But it is one of the most ancient cities in the world, for this
or another city stood here twelve hundred years before Christ. Kublai, a
grandson of Genghis Khan, the great conqueror of the Moguls, made Pekin
the capital of al