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PEL—PEL
is protected by a semicircular enceinte, and is surmounted with a high tower built in galleries and provided with countless loopholes.
The population of Peking is reckoned to be about 1,000,000, a number which is out of all proportion to the immense area enclosed within its walls. This disparity is partly accounted for by the facts that large spaces, notably in the Chinese city, are not built over, and that the grounds surrounding the imperial palace, private residences, and temples are very extensive. Viewed from the walls Peking looks like a city of gardens. Few crowded neighbourhoods are visible, and the characteristic features of the scene which meets the eye are the upturned roofs of temples, palaces, and mansions, gay with blue, green, and yellow glazed tiles, glittering among the groves of trees with which the city abounds. Enclosed within the Tatar city is the Hwang ch’ing, or “Imperial city,” which in its turn encloses the Tsze-kin ch’ing, or “Purple Forbidden city,” in which stands the emperor's palace. On the north of the Tsze-kin ch’ing, and separated from it by a moat, is an artificial mound known as the King shan, or “Prospect Hill.” This mound, which forms a prominent object in the view over the city, is about 150 feet high, and is topped with five summits, on each of which stands a temple. It is encircled by a wall measuring upwards of a mile in circumference, and is prettily planted with trees, on one of which the last emperor of the Ming dynasty (1644), finding escape from the Manchu invaders impossible, hanged himself. On the west of Prospect Hill is the Se yuen, or “Western Park,” which forms part of the palace grounds. This park is tastefully laid out, and is traversed by a lake, which is mainly noticeable from the remarkably handsome marble bridge which crosses it from east to west. Directly northwards from Prospect Hill stand the residence of the Titu, or “governor of the city,” and the Bell and the Drum Towers, both of which have attained celebrity from the nature of their contents,—the first from the huge bell which hangs in it, and the second from the appliances it contains for marking the time. The bell is one of five which the emperor Yung-lo ordered to be cast. In common with the others, it weighs 120,000 ℔, is 14 feet high, 34 feet in circumference at the rim, and is 9 inches thick. It is struck by a wooden beam swung on the outside, and only at the changes of the night-watches, when its deep tone may be heard in all parts of the city. In the Drum Tower incense-sticks, specially prepared by the Astronomical Board, are kept burning to mark the passage of time, in which important duty their accuracy is checked by a clepsydra. Another of Yung-lo's bells is hung in a Buddhist temple outside the north-west angle of the city wall, and is covered both on the inside and outside with the Chinese texts of the Lankāvatāra Sūtra, and the Saddharma pundarika Sūtra.
Turning southwards we again come to the Purple Forbidden city, the central portion of which forms the imperial palace, where, in halls which for the magnificence of their proportions and barbaric splendour are probably not to be surpassed anywhere, the Son of Heaven holds his court, gives audience to ambassadors from tributary states, and receives the congratulations of his ministers at the annual seasons of rejoicing. In the eastern and western portions of this city are situated the residences of the highest dignitaries of the empire; while beyond its confines on the south stand the offices of the six official boards which direct the affairs of the eighteen provinces. It was in the “yamun” of one of these boards—the Le Pu or board of rites—that Lord Elgin signed the treaty at the conclusion of the war in 1860,—an event which derives especial interest from the fact of its having been the first occasion on which a European plenipotentiary ever entered Peking accompanied by all the pomp and circumstance of his rank.
Outside the Purple Forbidden city the most noteworthy building is the Temple of Heaven, which stands in the outer or Chinese city. Here at early morn on the 22d of December the emperor offers sacrifice on an open altar to Shang-ti, and at periods of drought or famine presents prayers for relief to the same supreme deity. The altar at which these solemn rites are performed “consists of a triple circular marble terrace, 210 feet wide at the base, 150 in the middle, and 90 at the top.” The uppermost surface is paved with blocks of the same material forming nine concentric circles, the innermost consisting of nine blocks, and that on the outside of eighty-one blocks. On the central stone, which is a perfect circle, the emperor kneels, “surrounded first by the circles of the terraces and their enclosing walls, and then by the circle of the horizon.” In the same temple stands the altar of prayer for good harvests, which is surmounted by a triple-roofed circular structure 99 feet in height. The tiles of these roofs are of glazed porcelain of the most exquisite deep-blue colour, and add a conspicuous element of splendour to the shrine, which even without their aid would inspire admiration by the grace of the design and the rare beauty of the materials employed in its construction.
The other powers of nature have shrines dedicated to them at the altar to Earth on the north of the city, the altars to the Sun and Moon outside the north-eastern and north-western angles respectively of the Chinese city, and the altar of Agriculture inside the south gate of the Chinese city. Next to these in religious importance comes the Confucian temple, known as the Kwo-tsze-keen. Here there is no splendour; everything is quite plain; and one hall contains all that is sacred in the building. There the tablets of “the soul of the most holy ancestral teacher, Confucius,” and of his ten principal disciples stand as objects of worship for their countless followers. In one courtyard of this temple are deposited the celebrated ten stone drums which bear poetical inscriptions commemorative of the hunting expeditions of King Suen (827–781 b.c.), in whose reign they are believed, though erroneously, to have been cut; and in another stands a series of stone tablets on which are inscribed the names of all those who have obtained the highest literary degree of Tsin-sze for the last five centuries.
In the south-eastern portion of the Tatar city is the observatory, which was built by order of Kublai Khan in 1296. During the period of the Jesuit ascendency in the reign of Kang-he (1661–1721), the superintendence of this institution was confided to Roman Catholic missionaries, under whose guidance the bronze instruments now existing were constructed. Unlike the thoroughfares in the cities of central and southern China, the streets of Peking are wide and open, but, being unpaved and the soil being light and alluvial, they easily become almost impassable from mud in wet weather and ankle-deep in dust in dry weather. The inhabitants of Peking being consumers only, and in no way producers, the trade of the city is very small, and the article of the European treaties which prohibits foreign merchants from trading within the walls is, therefore, to be regretted only as an instance of the narrow-mindedness of the Chinese Government.
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PELAGIA, St. An Antiochene saint of this name, a virgin of fifteen years, who chose death by a leap from the housetop rather than dishonour, is mentioned by Ambrose (De Virg., iii. 7, 33 sq., Ep. xxxvii. ad Simpl.), and is the subject of two sermons by Chrysostom. More famous is
