The palace at Jehol is still maintained, and entrance to it can be obtained only by special permit, although no Emperor has visited it since that dark hour in -China's history when the Emperor Hsien Feng fied thither before the victorious advance of the British and French armies, at the time when the land was ravaged by the T'aiping rebellion. Here he died, and here came into being the coup d'état that called for the hasty departure to Peking of Tzd Hsi in order to secure the throne for her son and the power' of the Empire for herself, which eventually resulted in her long period of autocratic authority as Empress-Dowager. Since then, the Court has never visited the Jehol Palace, though the question of flight thither was mooted in 1900, and the retirement there of the Hsuan T'ung Emperor was suggested in the course of the recent negotiations for the establishment of the Republic.
But it is especially with the palmy days of the Ch'ing dynasty under the Emperor Ch'ien Lung that Jehol is associated,—all its architectural splendour date from him, and the place abounds with legends of him. Here he was born, says an apparently well-founded tradition (which sometimes hints, too, that parentage on one side was Chinese) and to y the traveller is shown the tiny thatched cottage in which the great emperor made his entry on the world—the cottage shows no indications of so great an antiquity, but the Chinese caretakers attribute this to the care they take keep it in repair. The city had great attractions for Ch'ien Lung, and he spent much of his time there. The finest of the numerous temples all date from his reign, and the two most imposing buildings (the Palace excepted), the Potala and the Hsingkung, or Im rial Rest-house, were erected by him on his return from his victorious campaign in }Tibet, and are replicas of the fortress-temples of that land. for.the mule's provender. In another temple one is shown the three Buddhas that Ch'ien Lung used to worship, while in another hall of the same building is a huge P'wea, about 35 feet high, the face which is said to reproduce exactly the features of the famous emperor. In one respect, Jehol has peculiar interest for Britons, for was here that Lord Macartney w: received by the Emperor in 1792, this being the first occasion on which the representative of Great Britain was admitted into the presence of the Son of Heaven.
Except for the Palace, the temples, and the lamaseries, Jehol would soon dwindle into utter insignia ficance. It hae very little trade, save as an for Mongol caravans, and no manufac tures, with the of a little coarse and cheap marqueterie. In common with the others of extra-mural China, the city has no wall, and consists of on long street, straggling some three or four miles down a narrow valley, and spreading out fanwise where this debouches on the Jehol, or Hot River, from which the town derives its popular name. The large Manchu element in the population will help to account for the absence of commercial enterprise, while th barrenness of the surrounding hil haa proved s hindrance to Chin-exe colonization. The town, too, does not lie on one of the great trunk roads of the Empire, and owes its important rank partly to ite Impes d partly to its strategic value, It is believed, however, that the surrounding hills are rich in minerals, and there are {many rudimentary gold workings in operation.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.