To the south of the Tatar City is a group of less imposing walls surrounding the lengthy rectangle which includes the Chinese City, the commercial part of Peking. The broad street that intersects it from north to south, and cuts it into two equal parts, especially close to the Tsieng-Men Gate, by which you pass into the Tatar City, is the most animated artery of the city. In the central walk, paved with magnificent flagstones, not one of which is now in its right place, and which apparently only serve as stumbling-blocks to pedestrians, and are covered with mud a foot deep in summer, and by a pestilential dust in winter, circulate in the utmost confusion the ever-present waggons, already described, palanquins, sedan-chairs, whose colours vary with the dignity of the owner, chairs drawn by mules, men riding on small Manchurian ponies, indefatigable asses, which are the best means of locomotion in the place, enormous one wheeled barrows, coolies struggling under the burden of huge baskets filled with fruit, vegetables, and other comestibles, fixed to the end of a very long pole slung across their shoulders—all this busy world bustles along, filling the air with shouts and cries of every kind, from the croaking of the porters to the stentorian shouts of the waggoners. Occasionally a long string of huge two-humped camels, a cord running from the nostrils of one animal to the tail of the other, and led by a Mongolian urchin, adds to the incredible confusion. All this crowd, together with beasts and vehicles, has to content itself with what, under ordinary circumstances, would be a very broad roadway, if at least a third of it were not encumbered by a sort of permanent open-air fair, carried on in rows of booths, some of which are used as restaurants, others as shops of every description. These booths turn their backs to the middle of the street, and thus hide the line of shops beyond, of which, from the centre of the road, you can only perceive the enormous and innumerable signboards hanging from a veritable forest of gaily-painted poles.