Penny Magazine

No. 229 - THE PENNY MAGAZINE - Oct. 31, 1835

CHINA.--No. VI.
ROADS AND TRIUMPHAL ARCHES.

THE public roads of the Chinese, where difficulties like those we have mentioned in No. 226 do not exist, are described as admirable from their regularity, good repair, and comfort. The missionaries always picture them, after their descent from the bridges and craggy mountains to the campaign country, as being so pleasant and so nicely paved, that a traveller might fancy he was walking over the streets of a city. Wherever an irregularity of surface occurs, if an elevation, their industry has either levelled it or cut through it; and, if a hollow, they have filled it up. The roads are often paved with stones neatly laid in and fitted to each other; and, in regular succession, stone columns, not unlike our milestones, mark the distances. At each eighth of these pillars, which is computed a day's journey, there is an inn erected by government, and under the direction of the local magistrate, where every person travelling on the business of the state is entertained according to his rank. The common inns on the road are pretty numerous, but narrow and mean, and badly provided. In these imperial highways, as in their canals, the Chinese delight in straight lines; and, like the bridges, the roads are often ornamented with triumphal arches, and with temples and pagodas in which travellers may repose by day, but not stay all night, except indeed they be mandarins, when they may make very free with the houses of their gods, and with the idols themselves if they stand in their way.

In some provinces, the public roads are flanked by a row of trees on each side, when they look like a pleasant mall or promenade, or by walls, eight feet high, to prevent the passengers damaging the well-cultivated fields and gardens. At proper distances there are seats erected in a neat style for the repose of the weary traveller, which are well guarded both against the winter cold and the summer heat. There are also occasionally found along these roads men employed by rich and charitable individuals to distribute to the poor travellers tea, and, when the weather is severe, a sort of decoction of ginger, for which no return is required save that the wayfarers forget not the name of their benefactors.

According to law, there ought to be a tower with a certain number of soldiers for the security and police of the road at every half league, and each tower ought to be provided with flag-staffs *, to act as a sort of telegraph and make signals in case of alarm. It appears, however, that in many places the towers do not exist, while in many others they are described as being very mean and often unprovided with a guard, serving merely to mark the distances.

There post-houses are regular and well provided, with a mandarin appointed to superintend each of them; but, unfortunately, all the post-horses are the property of the emperor, who does not permit any one to use them except his couriers, or the officers and persons despatched from court.

The government publishes an Itinerary, or book of roads, where all the roads are laid down, from the capital to the different extremities of the empire, and proper directions given to travellers. The missionaries, however, from whom this account of the roads is chiefly taken, complain of insupportable clouds of dust in summer, and of snow and inundations in winter; and Mr. Barrow is probably right when he limits the excellence of the roads to certain districts and provinces, though, when taking his account of inconveniences and horrors from a disappointed and irritated Dutch ambassador, we think he goes beyond the fact, and must believe in the concording testimony of many missionaries, who were not generally disposed to make light of the difficulties and dangers they had to encounter on their journeys, that there are many roads in the empire, besides those he mentions, that can "be ranked above a footpath."

Triumphal Arches.--These arches, mentioned as being so frequent on the bridges and roads, are also found in great abundance within the cities where the great streets intersect each other. The Chinese call them Pai Lou. Our name of triumphal arch does not exactly apply to them, as they are rather monuments erected to the memory of those who have deserved well of the community, or who, leading a life of virtue, have obtained an extraordinary longevity. Some of them are of stone, but they are more usually of wood, painted, varnished, and gilt in the most splendid manner. They are uniform, consisting invariably of a large central gateway, with a smaller one on each side, like the entrances to the Chinese palaces. The whole is covered by projecting, shelving roofs, richly carved, on the friezes under which there is an inscription, generally in letters of gold.

On the roads, as near the bridges of the canals and rivers, and within the towns, the traveller frequently meets with taas, or lofty pyramids, some of which are of great strength and antiquity. They are from seven to nine stories high, of a square form, without bells, but surmounted by a bronze urn. They are said to have been dedicated to Fo and the spirits, but no religious ceremonies are now performed in them. Antiquaries have endeavoured to identify them with the pyramids of Egypt (which they resemble in nothing save in decreasing, though in far different proportions, as they ascend), with the sacred obelisks of the Hindoos, with the upright stones of the Celts, the theoalis of the Americans, the obos of the Tartars, &c., and thus to attach them to a primitive and universal worship that has disappeared from the face of the earth. Without admitting this identity of faith, we may observe that the glorious heavens spread above our heads have universally been considered the abode of superior and immortal essences, and that the pyramidal form, going off in an evanescent point,--vanishing as it were in those ethereal regions,--would naturally strike the imaginations of men in different climates and under different religious institutions.