Crossing the bridge which spans the mout parallel to the wall, one comes to the head of the Eh' wai. From the height of one's pony' back one can see down its. whole length to where the ribbon of roadjway narrows almost to vanishing point at the Yung-ting-men. Northward, could one but sec it, the line of the street stretches an" equal distance, passing straight through the centre of the Forbidden City, blocked. only by the innumerable gateways. to butt at last on the Coal Often a string of camels, roped nose too tail, stop your way at this cutting across the street their way westward to. the hills to fetch coal and limestone for the city. The traffic from now on is both dense land varied. Besides the inevitable legions of rickshas, there is a stream of male and donkey carts coming in from the country, a. sprinkling of "Peking carts," striking a bright note with their blue hoods and yellow varnished woodwork and white]
Shantung mules between the shafts, {townsmen on bicycle, countrymen on donkeys, and a few offeials in motors with soldiers lining the footboards. More likely than not a string. of military supply waggons, under mounted escort, comes rattling past fon their way' to the Nanyuan barracks a few miles south of the! city.
The street itself looks unusually clean and bright in the young fresh daylight. The irregular line of housetops on the eastern side throws a crenelated shadow along the middle of the roadway, leaving! fnalf in deep shade, while the sunlit fronts of the houses opposite sparkle and gleam in all the pride of their gilded woodwork or moulded stucco. Sod it is that the old carved shopfronts—some of them master-Pieces fit to compare with the finest specimens of Gothic roadscreens—are steadily giving place to stucco ffarades in the baroque style of suburban cinema-palaces with plaster birds and beasts perched on the parapets of the roofs; but at least these manifestations of modern, Chinese taste have the merit of ample variety.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.