On leaving Peking by the Northern Gate, one crosses a sandy and barren space, occupied in the thirteenth century by a part of the town, which has now disappeared. Then come some outlying towns, mainly inhabited by merchants, succeeded by the admirably cultivated plain which extends from the north of Peking to the foot of the hills. It is more barren to the south, and trees only grow close to the villages, which are invariably surrounded by groups of weeping-willows. In this region the soil and the climate are too dry to allow of the cultivation of rice, but a crop of winter wheat is obtained, and I have seen it sown, and even appearing above the ground, in the month of October. It does not freeze in the very dry earth, although the thermometer falls twenty degrees, and the snow is never very deep. This crop of wheat is harvested during May. Presently you see fields of sorghum, millet, the staple food of the people in these parts, and also of buckwheat. On all sides the peasantry are hard at work, usually alongside strong waggons, better built than those of the Siberian mujiks, and drawn either by two mules or two horses, or sometimes by three little donkeys. In the villages you can sometimes see the grain thrashed or the long leaves of the sorghum being bound in sheaves, which when dried are made into mats and screens. The women help in the latter work, which invariably takes place close to their doors, for they are never seen in the fields. The roads are generally very bad, but have not always been so. Many of the bridges are still in a superb condition, although the fine flagstones with which they are paved are in a shocking condition. Others, however, are in absolute ruin, and the rivers which they once spanned have consequently to be forded. Everything points to the fact that we are passing over a once magnificent highroad, and effectively it leads to the Tombs of the Mings, which explains why it was built in such a sumptuous manner by that Dynasty, as well as the state of abandonment into which it has fallen since it has come into the hands of the Manchus, who dethroned the Mings in 1644.