Haste in the Far East is a commodity for which it is easy to pay too high a price—­when it is obtainable at all—­which, to tell the truth, it generally is not.  “Change slowly—­if change you must” has ever been the motto of China, and for years the capital itself was an example of the saying.  Improvements were not encouraged.  There were no more public buildings in 1879 than in 1863.  I doubt if a single tumble-down wall had been replaced—­the dirt and smells still remained, and the roads were no smoother.  Only a few more Legations had established themselves there, and, by clustering together, they formed what might by courtesy be called a Legation Quarter, which lay between the pink wall of the Imperial City—­the innermost of the ring of three cities that form Peking—­and the frowning, machicolated grey wall of the Tartar town.

The Chinese, partly no doubt with the idea of keeping all the foreigners together and partly for the convenience of business, presently gave the I.G. a piece of land in this quarter, and he accordingly moved down to comparative civilization—­as we understand it—­from his far-away corner of the suburbs, as soon as the buildings were ready.  He had a modest row of low offices, several houses for his staff, each standing, Indian fashion, in its own compound, and, in a large garden, his own dwelling.

This, like the rest, was a bungalow—­for the Chinese in those days objected to high buildings lest they should overlook the Palace—­and built in the form of a letter H, partly from a sentimental connection with his own initial, and partly to utilise all the sunshine and southerly breeze possible.  Two fine drawing-rooms, a billiard- and a dining-room filled the cross-bar of the letter:  one of the perpendicular strokes was the west, or guest wing; the other contained his own private offices, a special reception-room, furnished in Chinese style—­stiff chairs and rigid tables—­for Chinese guests, and his living-rooms.  It was characteristic of the man that these were the most unpretentious rooms in the whole house.

Undoubtedly one of the chief reasons which allowed Peking to preserve its mediaeval aspect intact for so many years was the difficulty of communicating with the rest of the world for several months of the year.  Its port, Tientsin, was ice-bound from November to March, and the foreign community was therefore completely cut off during the long winter.  Neither letters nor papers enlivened la morte saison until the I.G. conceived the idea of arranging a service of overland couriers from Chinkiang, a port on the Yangtsze, to Peking.  The seven hundred miles intervening was covered by mounted men, who took from ten to twelve days for the journey, and they as well as their mounts—­the latter of course in relays—­were provided on contract by a clever old mafoo (groom) who had the reputation of getting the best ponies for the Tientsin amateur race meetings, and who was in league with all the picturesque Mongol horse-dealers.