a vast area enclosed within a high wall which makes a circuit of twenty-two miles, and is therefore the largest city in the kingdom. Near at hand are several heights crowned with tem- ples, and such-like sacred buildings ; while a number of yamens and religious edifices may be seen dotting the great open spaces where cultivation is carried on. But the city itself, as usual, is crowded into the narrowest limits, capable of supporting half a million struggling sons of Han. There were still many dreary acres of demolished streets with not a single occupant, but in other quarters the work of restoration was being actively carried on. This great Southern Capital" must probably have been at one time what Le Comte stated, "a splendid city surrounded by walls, one within the other, " the outermost, sixteen long leagues round." Such may have been its condition some fourteen hundred years ago, when it first became the Imperial head-quarters, or perhaps even so late as the fourteenth century, when Hung-Woo, the first Ming Emperor, is reported to have restored it to its pristine glory. But the place had already fallen sadly off at the advent of the Tien-wang, who conferred upon it the honour of making it the capital of a Chinese dynasty once more. It was said to have been at the recommendation of a very humble follower, an old sailor, that the *' Heavenly King," as he styled himself, decided on making Nanking the seat of his celestial government; but in other matters this self-made potentate was not so easily pursuaded. Why should he have been ? He professed to believe implicitly that he was a second son of God, sent down to redeem China. When the Imperialists were marshalling their forces around the great Ming tomb, and when his old soldiers and faithful adherents were starving in the streets, he gave orders that they should be fed on dew, and sing a new song till the hour of
