I leave the Hotel of _Ten Thousand Dreams_ about eleven o'clock, I call
one of those Chinese carriages, which look like palanquins on wheels, I
give the address of Mademoiselle Klork, and I am on the way.
You know, that among the eighteen provinces of China Petchili occupies
the most northerly position. Formed of nine departments, it has for its
capital Pekin, otherwise known as Chim-Kin-Fo, an appellation which
means a "town of the first order, obedient to Heaven."
I do not know if this town is really obedient to Heaven, but it is
obedient to the laws of rectilineal geometry. There are four towns,
square or rectangular, one within the other. The Chinese town, which
contains the Tartar town, which contains the yellow town, or Houng
Tching, which contains the Red Town, or Tsen-Kai-Tching, that is to
say, "the forbidden town." And within this symmetrical circuit of six
leagues there are more than two millions of those inhabitants, Tartars
or Chinese, who are called the Germans of the East, without mentioning
several thousands of Mongols and Tibetans. That there is much bustle in
the streets, I can see by the obstacles my vehicle encounters at every
step, itinerating peddlers, carts heavily laden, mandarins and their
noisy following.
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