Directory_and_Chronicle_1845 — Page 227

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ing to some foreign as well as native books, the northern part was composed, as it were, of three different towns, separated by very high walls, but so conjoined, that the same gate served to go out from the one and enter the other.” These divisions ceased long ago to exist. The new city was built at a much later period than the old. The entire circuit of the wall, which now includes both divisions of the city, is variously estimated by the Chinese. At a quick step we have walked the whole distance in little less than two hours, and think it cannot exceed six English miles. On the south side the wall runs nearly due east and west, parallel to the river, and distant from it perhaps fifteen or twenty rods. On the north, where the city “rests on the brow of a hill,” the wall takes a serpentine course; and its base, at the highest point on the hill, is perhaps 200 or 300 feet above the surface of the river.

The walls are composed partly of stone and partly of bricks: the former is chiefly coarse, and forms the foundation and the lower part of the walls, and the arches of the gates: the latter are small and of a soft texture. In several places, particularly along the east side of the city, the elements have made such inroads on the walls as to afford satisfactory evidence, that before the prowess of a moderu foe they would present but a feeble resistance. They rise nearly perpendicularly, and vary in height from twenty-fire to thirty-five or forty feet. In thickness they are twenty or twenty-five feet. They are the highest and the most substantial on the north side, evidently so built because in that direction hostile bands would be the most likely to make an attack. A line of battlements, at in- tervals of a few feet, are raised on the top of the walls round the whole city; these the Chinese call ching-jin, literally, city-men; and in the rear of them there is a broad pathway. There are two "wings," or short walls, one at the southeast, and the other at the southwest corner, which stretch out from the main walls; these were designed to block up the narrow space between the walls and the ditches of the city. Through each of these there is a gate, in every respect similar to those of the city itself.

The gates of the city are sixteen in number: four of these lead through the wall which separates the old from the new city; so that there are only twelve outer gates. Cminencing on the north and passing round to the west, south, and east, the following are the names of these twelve gates.