On my first visit, I made use of Byron’s lines on Lisbon to express my impressions of Peking.  Though there are now some signs of improvement in the city [Page 39] the quotation can hardly be considered as inapplicable at the present time.  Here it is for the convenience of the next traveller: 

 “...Whoso entereth within this town,
  That, sheening far, celestial seems to be,
  Disconsolate will wander up and down,
  ’Mid many things unsightly to strange ee: 
  For hut and palace show like filthily: 
  The dingy denizens are rear’d in dirt;
  Ne personage of high or mean degree
  Doth care for cleanness of surtout or shirt...”
    (Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto the First, st. xvii.)

Returning to the station we face about for the south and take tickets for Paoting-fu.  We are on the first grand trunk railway of this empire.  It might indeed be described as a vertebral column from which iron roads will ere long be extended laterally on either side, like ribs, to support and bind together the huge frame.  Undertaken about twelve years ago it has only recently been completed as far as Hankow, about six hundred miles.  The last spike in the bridge across the Yellow River was driven in August, 1905, and since that time through trains have been running from the capital to the banks of the Yang-tse Kiang.

This portion has been constructed by a Belgian syndicate, and their task has been admirably performed.  I wish I could say as much of the other half (from Hankow to Canton), the contract for which was given to an American company.  After a preliminary survey this company did no work, but, under pretext of waiting for tranquil times, watched the fluctuations of the share market.  The whole enterprise was eventually [Page 40] taken over by a native company opposed to foreign ownership—­at an advance of 300 per cent.  It was a clever deal; but the Americans sacrificed the credit and the influence of their country, and a grand opportunity was lost through cupidity and want of patriotism.

This iron highway is destined in the near future to exert a mighty influence on people and government.  It will bring the provinces together and make them feel their unity.  It will also insure that communication between the north and the south shall not be interrupted as it might be were it dependent on sea or canal.  These advantages must have been so patent as to overcome an inbred hostility to development.  Instead of being a danger, these railways are bound to become a source of incalculable strength.

Paoting-fu was the scene of a sad tragedy in 1900, and when avenging troops appeared on the scene, and saw the charred bones of missionaries among the ashes of their dwellings, they were bent on destroying the whole city, but a missionary who served as guide begged them to spare the place.  So grateful were the inhabitants for his kindly intervention that they bestowed on the mission a large plot of ground—­showing that, however easily wrought up, they were not altogether destitute of the better feelings of humanity.