To reach it we have to go outside of all the ashes and ruins, outside of the Tartar City where we are staying, through the gigantic gates of the terrible walls, and penetrate to the Chinese City itself. These two walled cities, which together make up Pekin, are two immense quadrilaterals placed side by side; one, the Tartar City, contains in a fortress-like enclosure the Yellow City, where I go to-morrow to take up my abode. [Illustration: CHEN-MUN GATE TO PEKIN] As we come through the separating wall and see the Chinese City framed by the colossal gateway, we are surprised to find a great artery, stately and full of life as in the old days, running straight through Pekin, which up to this time had seemed like a necropolis to us; the gold decorations, the color, the thousand forms of monsters were all unexpected, as well as the sudden aggression of noises, of music, and voices. This life, this agitation, this Chinese splendor, are inconceivable, inexplicable to us; such an abyss of dissimilarity lies between this world and ours! The great artery stretches on before us broad and straight,--a road three or four kilometres long, leading finally to another monumental gate which appears in the distance, surmounted by a dungeon with an absurd roof. This is an opening through a wall beyond which is the outside solitude. The low houses which line the street on both sides seem to be made of gold lace, from top to bottom the open woodwork of their façades glitters; they are finely carved at the top, all shining with gold, with gargoyles similar to our own, and rows of gilded dragons. Black stele covered with gold letters rise much higher than the houses, from which jut out black and gold lacquered platforms for the support of strange emblems with horns and claws and monsters' faces. Through the clouds of dust, the gilding, the dragons, and the chimæras glisten in the dusty sunlight as far as one can see. Above it all triumphal arches of astonishing lightness mount heavenward across the avenue; they are airy things of carved wood, with supports like the masts of a ship, which repeat against the pale blue ether more strange hostile forms, horns, claws, and fantastic beasts.