My feet are rather long and it was just fourteen of them across the top, which is evenly paved with square bricks, while the height of the wall I judged to be between twenty and thirty feet. At irregular intervals there are towers, in one of which was a pile of antique carronades about two feet long, of equal size all the way down and bound round with iron hoops for additional strength. Much resembling old rain-pipes, they had not a very formidable appearance, and were probably more dangerous to those who fired them than to the enemy. Built two hundred years before Christ, and upwards of thirteen hundred miles in length, the wall is certainly a gigantic monument, well constructed of large bricks, and here, at any rate, in good preservation and by no means whatsoever a mass of stones and rubbish as asserted by some describers. Instead of winding along the line of least resistance it follows the sinuosities of the country, surmounting crags and delving into valleys, so that it can be seen topping height after height as it climbs the mountain range until it becomes a mere thread and finally is lost to view in the far distance. Walking along it for some little way I found that it scaled almost perpendicular cliffs, up one of which I passed, the top of the wall here taking the form of steps, while down the opposite side the descent was so steep that for greater security I made it backwards on hands and knees. The wall was built with the object of protecting China from the inroads of wild Tartars, who came down in hordes from Manchuria, Mongolia and the steppes of Northern Asia to seek plunder in the plains. [Illustration: THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA. _To face page 158._] Chinawards there is a low parapet, while stone stairs built into the middle of the wall lead from the top through doorless gateways to the ground, giving means of ingress and exit to defenders, but on the side facing towards Mongolia the wall is crowned with battlements some four and a half feet in height, affording ample protection and pierced about every five feet with loopholes and embrasures. One of the wonders of the world, its construction lasted ten years, and at the date of completion was probably as futile to bar the advance of a resolute foe as it would be to-day _vis-a-vis_ modern artillery.