The new-comers to the site watered by the blood of the innocent, have proceeded exactly on the same lines as their predecessors; they opened a hospital and some schools, apparently in total ignorance of the dangers surrounding them. A tri-colour flag floats once more from the buildings under their control. The "Cyclamens," as lovers of flowers call the caps worn by the devoted Sisters, are once more familiar objects in the streets of Tien-tsin. May their labour of love be rewarded as it deserves, and may God temper the wind to them as He does to the lambs shorn of their fleece, for truly they sorely need the protection of Heaven in their defenceless condition! Fortunately, however, they are no longer so isolated as were the pioneers of missionary effort in 1870. In 1881 the port of Tien-tsin became connected by telegraph with Shanghai, where there is a large foreign population, and the Chinese have of late years had so many proofs that foreigners are not to be massacred or in any way injured with impunity, that there is some hope of the avoidance for the future of such tragedies as that we have recorded here. CHAPTER XI The Great Wall--Its failure as a defence--Forced labour--Mode of construction--Shih-Hwang-Ti orders all books to be burnt--Mandarins flung into the flames--The _Shu-King_ is saved--How the sacred books came to be written--The sedan-chair and its uses--Modern hotels at Pekin--Examination of students for degrees--Cells in which they are confined--Kublai Khan conquers China--Makes Pekin his capital--Introduces paper currency--The Great Canal--Address to the three Philosophers--Marco Polo's visit to Pekin--His description of the Emperor--Kublai Khan's wife--Foundation of the Academy of Pekin--Hin-Heng and his acquirements--Death of Kublai Khan--Inferiority of his successors--Shun-Ti the last Mongol Emperor--Pekin in the time of the Mongols--When seen by Lord Macartney--The city as it is now. It is a relief to turn from the terrible events which have given to Tien-tsin such a sinister notoriety to visit from it the celebrated Great Wall of China, the western termination of which is at no great distance from the town on the north. Begun by the Emperor Shih-Hwang-Ti, in B.C. 214, as a protection against the invasions of the Tartars, it was completed in the marvellously short time of five years, that energetic monarch sparing neither expense nor trouble, and ruthlessly sacrificing the lives of thousands of his subjects in his determination to keep out the hated barbarians. That he was not successful, but that his rampart in due time served his enemies better than it had done himself, is one of those ironies of fate with which the student of history is familiar. Tartars, Mongols, and Manchus have in their turn reigned over China from the sacred city, within the very defences supposed to be impregnable; the mighty wall remaining a standing proof, not of the wisdom, but of the short-sightedness of its builder.