A COLOSSAL WORK

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 19933, 31 August 1927, Page 7

A COLOSSAL WORK

THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA Over 2000 Miles in Length (By FREDERICK STUBBS, F.R.G.S.)

The rumour that the Japanese Government has proposed that China shall regard the Great Wall as her Northern boundary, and the more recent news that Chang-tso-Lin intends, if pressed, to withdraw his entire forces to tho East of the Great Wall, calls attention once more to that stupendous monument to human industry. I first saw it in 1920 at Shan-hai-kwan, where it crawls down the mountain side to the edge of the sea; and, later, visited it again from Ching-lung-chaio, some 40 miles from Peking. It is, of course, the greatest work of man’s hands, built by order of the Emperor Shih-Hoangti and completed 24 years B.C. as a defence against the inroads of the fierce barbarians of the North (ancestors of the people afterwards known in Europe as the Huns). It took 15 years to build. It measures, in a straight line 1,250 miles, but when all its twistings and turnings are taken into account it stretches to 2,000. In some parts it is double. “A Serpent in Stone.” It twists and turns like a huge serpent turned to stone, climbing the mountains, dipping down into the valleys, bridging streams, and at last, as I have said, slipping into tho sea at Shan-hai-Kwan. Sometimes in mountain districts there is a sheer drop of several hundred feet from the bottom of the wall. The average height is 35 or 40 feet; the width about 20 feet; and I noticed there was room for two motorcars to pass almost anywhere. There were originally numerous small twostoried square towers, situated about half a mile apart, for the accommodation of the garrison The wall extends from 97 degrees to 121 degrees East longitude, running through the provinces of Chic-il, Shansi, and Shensi, and along the boundary line of the vast, ugly, uninteresting plains of Mongolia. Visible From The Moon. According to astronomers it is the only work of man’s hands that woult be visible from the moon. It was foi centuries accounted the Eighth Woe der of the World, and has survived al the others, with the exception of the Pyramid of Gizeh. These eight wonder: were:— 1. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon. 2. The Tomb of Mausolus (whence is derived our word mausoleum). 3. The Temple of Diana, 4. The Jupiter Olympius of Phidias. 5. The Lighthouse of Pharos. 6. The Brass Colossus of Rhodes. 7. The Great Pyramid. 8. The Great Wall of China, As far as magnitude, costliness, and practical usefulness was concerned, it seems to me to have deserved the first place, but was not first, of course, in regard to time. I think it was tho great Venetian traveller, Marco Polo, who first made it known to Europe, describing it as being situated in the country of Gog and Magog (the reader may have seen the statues of Gog and Magog in , the Guildhall, London but I won’t guarantee the likenesses). It is interesting to recall the fact that Marco Polo’s report like some of mine, alas!) was received with a spoonful of salt, and learned arguments were produced to prove that there could be no such thing. Even as late as 1887 there was a paragraph in an English newspaper declaring the wall ’to be a myth. But notwithstanding these scepticisms I can swear that it is a reality or at least that it was so seven years ago. Whether it has been spirited away by the War Lords sipcc then I cannot, of course, say. All things seem to be possible in China just now except peace and order. There it stands, then after nearly twenty-two centuries whilst the walls of Hadrian and Antonius in Britain built with a similar object to the Scots and Picts out (I should like to see the wall that would keep the Scots out), have crumbled away. I visited these latter along with Dr Collingwood Bruce, the learned historian of the Roman Wall, forty years ago and found it difficult to trace the course of tho walls at all. It was only at considerable intervals that any remains were visible. Its Constitution. Returning to our Chinese wall, the portion that I was able to visit and examine had a granite foundation, with two strong retaining walls of brick, filled up with stones and earth, tho surface being covered with bricks. Most of the walls of antiquity seem to have been, built this way. Of course during these twenty-odd centuries much of the wall has been destroyed; miles of stones have been taken by _ the peasantry to build their huts, just as the prelates and nobles of old Rome took the stones of the Roman to build their palaces. Even the present narrator was not guiltless, and filled his pockets with fragments of stone, flintheads and arrow-heads though he can truthfully say in extenuation of his vandalism that he left more than he brought away! One thing that puzzled me much was how these myriads of bricks were hauled up almost inaccessible places through uninhabited territories. . Ono account states that each brick was transported on a man’s shoulder, but another says they were carried up "by goats. I don’t know whether/this latter account is authentic, for the bricks are large and heavy, but the goat is a wonderfully strong animal for its size, and the account may possibly be true, but if so, I feel sorry for those goats! The Cost.

The building of this colossal wall was, of course, a tremendous undertaking. 300,000 troops were employed in addition to prisoners impressed for the work, and one is not surprised to learn that thousand perished of cold and exhaustion, just as centuries later multitudes perished in building the exquisite Taj Mahal. These glorious monuments of the past; these walls and pyramids and tombs, were brought into being at enormous cost, not only of money but [of hnm4* labour and suffering and life.

I am afraid that in viewing them we seldom think of this. In the case of the Great Wall, the cost in money alone nearly ruined China. For several centuries it answered its purpose fairly well and did actually check the inroads of the .Tartars, though I remember Toole, a brilliant actor and wit of my boyhood’s days referring to it, said, “The most important building in China is the Chinese Wall, built' to keep tho Tartars out. It was built at such enormous expense that tho Chinese never got over it. But the Tartars did. And the way they accomplished it was as follows: One went first and t’other l went arter.” Gone To Decay, The present condition of the wall is a striking illustration of the fact that the greatest works of man’s hand gradually but surely decay. One calls to mind the ruins of vast temples and palaces and tombs still to be seen in the Nile Valley at Thebes and Karnak, at Memphis and Gizeh; of the evidences of former architectural splendour to be seen in Mexico, in India, in Spain and in a score of other countries; and lastly in the most colossal of all, the Great Wall, stretching to nearly one twelfth the circumference of the earth; built so solidly; for long centuries defended so bravely; defeating the efforts of the Manchurian Emperor to pass it even as late as the 17th century; and now a ruin—useless, decaying, interesting only to tourists and the student. And so of course must pass the costly structures and monuments of our own age. So to their builders. It is a law of nature; a part of the groat scheme of the universe. All things as the old Greek philosophers taught, arc in a state of flux. But in the meantime we are here —to labour and to enjoy the fruits of our labour, and we need not repine.