Directory_and_Chronicle_1842 — Page 110

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Notices of the Pei Ho.

FEB.

will read them, with much pleasure and advantage. We recommend them to all who desire to gain accurate information of this country. We may have occasion to refer to them again, but will not extend this notice further than to add two short observations. The first is one that had often struck our friend, Mr. Davis, and we give it in his own words. "On looking forward to accompanying an embassy to Peking from the neighborhood of Canton, which lies at the im- mense distance of seventeen degrees (the difference between Edin- burgh and Mudrid), it was natural to expect a considerable disparity between China to the north, and China to the south. What was our surprise, therefore, to find that there really exists scarcely the least dissimilarity in the character of the people, in their customs, in their dress, or in any single circumstance whatever," not "even in their complexion." Vol. I., p. 185. Our second observation is in the form of a request, that he will be kind enough in future to substitute the plain English word officer, for mandarin, and his excellency, or some equivalent, for the little understood tujin.

ART. III. Notices of the Pei ho, from Tientsin to the vicinity of Peking, of the avenue to the capital, and of the road to Je ho, or the Hot stream.

PEKING the northern capital, so called in contradistinction to Nan- king, or southern capital-is situated near the western extremity of an immense plain, distant to the northwest, say one hundred and fifty miles from the anchorage for ships, at the mouth of the Pei ho. Bar- row says the distance is 170 miles from the entrance of the river to the city of Tungchau; but measuring in a right line, on the chart accompanying Staunton's Account of Macartney's embassy, the dis- tance is only 108 common English miles. From Tungchau to Pe- king the distance is twelve miles.

On the 9th of August, 1840, the Wellesley anchored off the mouth of this river, in lat. 38° 55′ 30′′ N., and long. 118° E., with six fa- thoms at low tides.

H. B. M. ship Alceste, captain Murray Maxwell, bearing the right honorable lord Amherst, embassador extraordinary, minister