Pekin, a very ancient city of China, is in extent about the size of Manhattan Island, upon which the city of New York is situated. It is located thirteen miles north-west of the Pei-Ho, with which it is connected by the Grand Canal and other watercourses. The city as a whole is divided into two parts. On the north is the Tartar City, containing between fifteen and sixteen square miles of territory, surrounded by a wall fifty to sixty feet in height and twenty to fifty feet broad. In the centre of the Tartar City is the Imperial City, surrounded by another wall, where live the princes, nobles, and others of high degree; and inside of this is the Forbidden City, where the Emperor and Dowager Empress live and where are located the sacred temples. The Tartar City is full of fine buildings, including the public offices, National and Medical Colleges, Observatory, and Examination Hall, the latter containing ten thousand _cells_ to be occupied by those who come to Pekin to be examined as to their qualifications for public office-holding. Many of the streets of the Tartar City are broad, but unpaved, and lined with one-story shops, huddled one against another and painted in almost all the colors of the rainbow. To the south of the Tartar City, and joining it by three large gateways, is the Chinese City, about half as large as the other, and enclosed by a wall thirty feet high and fifteen to twenty feet broad. This is the heart of the real Chinese trade, and here are also located the theatres and the public execution grounds. The streets literally swarm with people, and are in activity day and night. Nothing is ever cleaned up; and to the babble of noise, which is nerve-wrecking, is added a smell which to a new-comer’s nose is almost unbearable. Beyond the walls of Pekin as a whole are many suburbs, of more or less importance, chiefly devoted to agriculture. The American, British, and other legations in Pekin are located closely together, on Legation Street, midway between the southern wall of the Forbidden and Imperial City and the northern wall of the Chinese City. Each legation occupied from an acre to five acres of ground, and was surrounded by a wall with watch-gates. During the bombardment nearly all these walls were demolished, only those around the British legation remaining intact. Everything was ripped up by shot or shell, and rifle bullets peppered the buildings by the thousands. It is said that one door of the German legation contained sixty-three bullet-holes, and that another at the American legation was literally splintered into toothpicks.