We passed several gaily-decorated junks belonging to a great mandarin with the peacock's feather over the door, generally accompanied by another with the household; also the ex-French _Chargé d'Affaires_, Monsieur Ristelhueber, and his family, returning to France from Peking, and with whom we afterwards had the pleasure of travelling homewards for a month on the French mail.
The approach to Peking, which signifies the "Gate of Heaven," is indeed synonymous with the biblical definition in one particular, for it is narrow. This morning the Peiho has dwindled into a ditch between extensive mud flats, and we are constantly aground, our five brown coolies struggling and sweating in the quagmire of soft mud under a broiling sun. It is weary, weary work this slow progress, and we chafe at all the delays of crossing the tow line from one bank to another, to avoid the now continuous succession of sampans, many of which are in worse condition than ourselves, for the men have to get out into the water to push the boat along; for should we not arrive at Tungchau by noon, we must abandon all hope of reaching Peking to-night, as the gates close at sunset. There is a head wind, with a strong current racing down the narrow channel against us, and we sadly mark how crawling is our progress by the landmarks on the bank. And so the long hours of morning pass, and, just as we are losing hope, we see the blue tower of the pagoda at Tungchau, rising up from the plain, and there are only seven miles more with an hour to do it in, and we shall be at our journey's end. We afterwards found that, favoured by the wind, we had made almost, if not quite, a record passage of forty-six hours, and that many boats take from four to five days in coming up from Tientsin.
We find an anchorage at Tungchau among fleets of sampans, and in half an hour our boy has procured three carts, packed in our luggage, and we are ready to begin the fifteen miles journey to Peking. Let me describe these carts. The body is formed of a few planks of wood, with a hood covered in blue or black stuff. The wheels are of circular pieces of wood, they are guiltless of springs, and are drawn by mules. They resemble an old mediæval chariot, and indeed they date from and are exactly the same as were in use in the tenth century. There is no seat inside, and instead of sitting on the floor, it is easiest to ride on the shaft, with your legs hanging over; but I did not know this in time. Before you have been half an hour in this vehicle you cry out for mercy--for an instant's cessation of this agonizing mode of progression, from the unbearable bumping and concussion. And when at length you become numbed by the pain and discomfort, the intense weariness that succeeds, makes you sure that another jolt will be unbearable, until at last you close your eyes, feeling that nothing but the end of the journey is of the remotest consequence. The roads are somewhat softened by the loose dust. Still, when you tumble into a ditch on one side, with a jar that is felt to your most internal depths, and are then run up on to a bank on the other, you can have some idea of what we suffered during that journey from Tungchau to Peking. What must have been the agonies endured by Sir Harry Parkes, and our old friend Sir Henry Loch, as they journeyed in these same springless carts to Peking, but with their hands bound behind them and over _the stone road_ that takes a more circuitous route!