Ports of the world - Canton/The Passing Walls
| THE PASSING WALLS |
The wall was erected on a granite and sandstone foundation; its width was about 30 feet and its height from 20 to 40 feet. The Cantonese very probably breathed a sigh of relief after the completion of the wall, for then, they thought, their city would be adequately protected against the depredations of the Manchu armies enviously looking down from the north at this prosperous city in the south of China.
But the wall, despite its appearance of solidity and strength, did not keep the Manchus from capturing Canton in 1652—somewhat over a century after its completion and, in the resulting battle within the city, there were scenes enacted which, in comparison, make the atrocities in European wars appear as the frolicking of children. Over 100,000 Cantonese men, women, children, and smooth-faced babies—were massacred by the invading armies, and tradition relates that the screams of the victims as they fell before the swords and spears of the conquerors were as the sound of the winds shrieking through the passes of a mighty mountain, so many there were who abandoned their earthly bodies in the same moment.
While the walls around Canton remained in existence until some centuries after the city was stormed by the Manchus, it was never considered an adequate defense against determined and organized attack. In later years it was tolerated more for its picturesqueness and its usefulness against raids by pirates than for its value in case of a major onslaught.
Several years ago the greater portion of the Canton wall was razed and its foundation converted into boulevards, the action marking one of the striking features of present-day progress in China.
Here and there along the boulevards the traveler sees the crumbling ruins of gates and towers, with heaps of jagged rock showing above the surface of the earth to mark the location of the wide wall, once the hope, and ultimately the despair of the defenders of Canton.
Nearly every old Chinese city has its wall. Many of them are more or less famous, but the most famous is the "Great Wall of China," which originally extended for a distance of over 1,500 miles across the Chinese Empire and resembled, in the distance, a huge serpent stretching its length as far as the eye could see—from one horizon to the other. The "Great Wall" was built as a defense against the Manchu armies in the fourteenth century, but, as with the Canton wall, proved of little avail against the determined advance of the conquering troops.
Since the rise of the Manchu dynasty, in 1644, the "Great Wall" has fallen into decay, except at a number of points where it is maintained as an aid to the customs service. The wall is about 22 feet high, 20 feet thick, with 40-foot towers at intervals of several hundred yards. It is composed of a brick or granite casing filled with earth and covered with a surface of bricks embedded in lime.
The "Great Wall" follows a more or less irregular course over mountains and hills, through valleys, and over plains. The wall is still intact for scores of miles, although here and there some of the towers have disappeared and the brick facing has fallen away, giving the wall the venerable appearance of ancient ruins.
In the third century B. C, between 1,500 and 2,000 years before the days of the "Great Wall," a system of earthworks was raised along approximately the same route as that followed by the wall. The earthworks were used by the Chinese in defending their country against the Tartar hordes and, tradition relates, served as a fairly adequate means of defense until replaced by the "Great Wall."
Many of the walls surrounding the cities of China are passing, just as those formerly around the city of Canton, and with the lapse of years it is expected the greater number of the ancient and medieval structures will be torn down, to live only in the memories of those Chinese who mourn the passing of the old order of things.