Then we find ourselves in a sandy waste, bordered by the wall of the Tartar City on one side and the canal on the other. Little clouds of dust rising in the distance tell of some cart or donkey, and we ourselves continue enveloped in the same as we choose any track we please, for there is, of course, again no road for another weary mile or so. Some flag-poles in the distance bring a ray of comfort, for I shrewdly hope that they mean the quarter of the Legations. Nor is my hope ill-founded, for, passing through a dirty passage, we emerge into the moving streets and are soon in Legation Street, so called from the lion-guarded entrances of the various legations, for the French, the American, the German, and the Russian Envoys are grouped here. We find accommodation in one of the numerous courts of the French hotel in this aristocratic street. The sense of comfort of sitting still and not momentarily expecting a concussion is simply delicious. We are full of admiration for the physical bravery and endurance of the many travellers, who for two days or for eighty miles go in these carts from Tungchau to Peking, through such a prolonged torture.
The British Legation is over the bridge with an entrance off the Yu-ho canal. And here, the next morning, Sir John and Lady Walsham sent for us and received us most hospitably.
This beautiful Legation was formerly a Palace belonging to a member of the Imperial Family, as is shown by its green roof. The approach to the entrance is through an aisle and raised pavement, formed by two magnificent open gateways supported by pillars, and gorgeously decorated in gold, scarlet, green, and blue. The palace wanders round the spacious enclosure of a courtyard; and the reception-rooms, with their lofty ceilings inlaid like a temple in green and gold squares, with their hanging screens of that beautiful Chinese black oak carving, are magnificent. The walls are of open work filled in with dull gold papers, and furnished, as these rooms are, with handsome brocades, soft carpets, and rich hangings, chosen to harmonize with the surroundings, the whole is truly regal.
The compound is large, and contains the bungalows and houses of the Legation Staff, and the separate apartments of the Student Interpreters, of whom there are six. And a very happy little community of twenty-two persons they appear to be, led by Lady Walsham, who is most hospitably inclined, and living their life within the four walls of the compound, which they rarely leave, except for social duties, to pass into the outside filth and dust.