Beyond the Tsieng-Men Gate is situated the Beggars’ Bridge, always thronged by groups of wretches clamouring for alms and ostentatiously displaying the most appalling mutilations, with all kinds of loathsome diseases added to their sordid misery to excite compassion. The narrow side-walks, which are bordered on the one hand by booths, and on the other by big shops, are filled by a motley gathering of small shopkeepers, each plying his business in the open-air barbers, hairdressers, and fortune-tellers, among whom the crowd has no little difficulty in threading its way. Here you see men in light-blue blouses, with long pigtails; Chinese ladies with their hair dragged back magpie-tail fashion, who balance themselves painfully as they go along on their tiny deformed feet; Tatar women, whose hair is puffed out on each side of their faces, and who, like their Chinese sisters, stick a big flower behind their ears. Not being crippled by bound feet, like their less fortunate Chinese sisters, these women strut along with as firm a step as their high-heeled clogs will permit. Their faces are bedaubed with rice-flour, and their cheeks painted an alarmingly bright red. Children with their heads shaved in the most comical manner, dotted about with little tufts, that have a very funny appearance, being cut according to the taste or caprice of their parents, also run about. Among the well-clad children of a better class are others, stark-naked, looking for all the world like small animated bronzes, so dark and warm-coloured is their polished skin. In order to avoid being mobbed, one has occasionally to seek refuge in a shop, which usually opens on to the street, and is without windows. In the back the shopkeepers are peacefully seated behind their counters smoking long pipes, whilst exhibiting their goods and listening to the bargainings of their customers. These shops are always very clean, and the goods are arranged with great order and even considerable taste. A bowl with goldfish, or a cage full of birds, adds not a little to the charm and peacefulness of the scene, which is peculiarly refreshing after the noise and dirt of the streets. All the great arteries of Peking are equally filthy and closely resemble each other, excepting that not one of them can equal, either in the size of the shops or wealth of their contents, the famous High Street that leads to the Tsieng-Men Gate. In summer, after the rains, a coating of mud some two feet and a half deep covers both road and footpath, which when the weather dries again is converted into thick clouds of dust. The sideways, always lower than the central road, are usually filled by pools of green water, whence arises the most horrible stench of decayed vegetables and rotting carcases of animals, in addition to the accumulated offal of the neighbouring houses. The wonder of it all is that the entire population of Peking has not long since been swept away by some appalling epidemic.