carvings and mystic symbols to the open vault of
heaven. No sign of idolatry is visible; here he worshipped Heaven and
Earth, and bowed before the Supreme Ruler, praying for the millions of
his people to whom he stood as father. A magnificent conception! The
mind of man could scarcely rise higher in ethics of worship, as in
solemn splendour the beasts are slain, and the prostrate Emperor under
the starlit sky calls upon the unknown god. Confucius seemed to realise
the unbridgeable chasm between the offender and his judge when he said:
"If a man have offended against heaven, there is none to whom he can
pray"; and here the ruler of this great people prayed, but with a
recognition of limitation which brought him, later on, back to the
familiar idol shrines with an offering of incense and acceptable gifts.

From the quiet dreams of that place, we returned to the hustle and
bustle of native city life. Our rickshaw men, with marvellous speed and
agility, were soon rushing us through the crowds of peddlers shouting,
yelling, and calling on every passer-by to purchase their goods.
Beggars, scarcely recognisable as human beings, knocked their foreheads
on the ground, beseeching us to give them some cash. The moral support
of a policeman is inadequate to the task of protecting the newcomer who
has yielded to an impulse of pity.

On we rushed through massive gates, where we ran serious risks of an
overturn in meeting a string of heavily laden camels, with sonorous bell
hanging to the neck; brightly and gaily dressed ladies passed and
repassed in rickshaws; men on horseback, coalheavers, foreign women on
bicycles, shining motor-cars, and glass-panelled, silk-upholstered
carriages composed a moving picture, with the gates and huge enclosure
of the forbidden city as background. From the pandemonium of Chinatown
we swung into Legation quarter, where macadamised roads take the place
of cobblestones, and for this you call down blessings on civilisation,
the rubber tyres of your rickshaw running rapidly and smoothly over the
way. Without transition, you pass from East to West. The Wagon-Lits
Hotel's fine buildings face you, large foreign shops abound, at night
electric lights will blaze over the streets still filled with
pleasure-seekers, thoughtless and forgetful, though the words written in
days of siege can be clearly descried on the broken fragment of Legation
wall: "Lest We Forget."

At the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank we entered t