The City of Peking is composed of three walled towns—the Chinese, the Tartar, and the Imperial City. Within the Imperial City lies the Winter Palace, its battlemented, turreted walls surrounded by a moat. After passing through one of the great gates, in the wall surrounding the Imperial City, and crossing the stone bridge that spans “the Grain-bearing Canal,” we soon came in sight of the splendid walls and lofty gates of the Palace enclosure. The red outer walls of the Palace, faded by Time and weather to a charming gray-pink, with their beautiful corner constructions of airy-looking turrets reflected in the still waters of the moat beneath, were most picturesque. We were carried along the raised road beyond the moat until we came to a marble bridge (formerly a portcullis), that leads into the gate of the Palace in front of the Manchu Banner quarters, at the foot of the Coal Hill. Our chairs, by special arrangement, were allowed to enter the enclosure proper, of the Winter Palace; but even after entering the exterior gates, one winds in and out between high walls, through massive gates and heavy wooden doors studded with huge iron nails and ornamental copper balls. Against the high wall on either side of this approach, wooden sheds were built as sleeping-places for the guards and soldiers. Each shed had a front of latticework, with paper pasted over the interstices. Within was a cemented platform, which the Northern Chinese use as beds. These have a place underneath for building a fire, for they keep warm at night by sleeping on hot beds and use very little cover.
Just beyond the last of these guardhouses, our official “green chairs” were put down between two high walls, with forbidding gates in front of us. Here we took the red Palace chairs which were awaiting us. We were swiftly carried through still other gates and past a very labyrinth of walls. The courts were all paved in large flagstones of white marble, and surrounded by high walls with heavy doors. We finally reached a charming court, where, standing under the overhanging branches of a beautiful cedar, we found the young Empress and Princesses, in full Court dress, already awaiting the coming of Her Majesty. It was a pretty group that stood there, gowned in their splendid Court costumes, the sunlight glinting upon the jeweled crowns of their fur caps, and giving a touch of nature to the brilliant flowers in their hair. My plain, foreign, tailor-made gown was the only dark spot in this bright group of gorgeously attired ladies.
Presently the cymbals and flutes sounded the weird notes of the “Imperial Hymn.” The great wooden doors of the court were thrown open and the Imperial procession came in sight. Splendidly gowned eunuchs advanced in two lines, walking with rigid bodies and stately step. At a sign from the young Empress, a hush fell upon the chattering group of Princesses and each took her proper place. Then the Imperial chair-bearers crossed the threshold, with Her Majesty sitting erect in one of her “open chairs,” for as soon as she gets into the Palace grounds she leaves the closed palanquin, in which she is obliged to travel abroad and which she very much dislikes on account of its stuffiness. The Ladies, as if moved by one impulse, made the formal bow at her approach, and repeated the usual Imperial salutation “Lao-Tzu-Tzung Chee-Siang,” which I repeated with the others. Her Majesty had her chair stopped in the center of the Court and got out, and I went up to salute her. She shook hands, and said she hoped I would be happy in the Winter Palace, but that it was a dull, depressing sort of a place, with too many walls and gates, after the open brightness, of the Summer Palace. After a few minutes’ conversation she went into the Throne-room, followed by the Empress and Ladies.
Her Majesty’s Throne-room at the Winter Palace fronted on a court which was surrounded by well-built walls with curiously shaped doors and windows and ornamental yellow and green tiled designs at intervals. In the center of the wall in front was the immense gateway, with wooden folding-doors, which had just opened for her passage. The verandah of the Throne-room had two rooms projecting upon it, making of it a rectangular space with walls around three of its sides. This verandah was quite different from any at the Summer Palace, where they run the whole length of the buildings, back and front.
Entering, I was struck by the beauty of the great central hall—the harmony of its proportions, the somber splendor of its color. It seemed to me the most satisfying, the most picturesque of all the restful, harmonious Chinese interiors I had seen. Its dull red walls, splendid coffered ceiling glowing in color and glinting in gold, its central dome, with elaborately carved pendentives, was painted in brilliant primary colors, subdued into a rich harmony by the demi-obscurity, for it had no “lantern” and received its light from the windows below.
Court in the Winter Palace—“Her Majesty Comes”
The curious feature of the domes in several of the palaces in the Violet City, so effective from within, giving elevation and space to the interiors, is that they are not visible from the outside of the edifice. The beautiful straight line of the roof, with its upturned corners, remains intact in its purity and retains its restful simplicity.
The hall was paved with great blocks of highly polished black marble, which dimly reflected the glowing splendor of the walls and ceiling. In the center of one side was a low dais, richly carpeted, on which stood a
