Evening Republican, Volume 23, Number 177, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 July 1920 — BEYOND CHINA’S GREAT WALL [ARTICLE]

BEYOND CHINA’S GREAT WALL

Mongolia, Desolate and Terrible Land, Has a Fascination for Traveler From the West. There is a magic about the Great Wall of China and the frontier towns in Its folds facing put upon Mongolia, that land of sandstorms and blizzards, desolate and terrible to the Chinese, and filled with their most inveterate enemies of old times, writes Elizabeth Coatsworth in Asia Magazine. Now the Mongolians have retreated further into the interior —always three days’ journey from civilization —and Kalgan no longer braces Itself against the waiting hordes beyond its walls. We passed/through the streets between low square buildings with paper windows often painted with gods and goddesses. Now and then we Were amused to see how a pirate tobacco advertisement showing a cut throat with long black mustaches, had usurped the god shelf of some shop and had fncense burned before Its unholy nose. Everywhere were gray dust and bleakness, but at each door was a cage with a lark in it. and at one dilapidated inn at least a hundred young birds were gathered about an old one to learn to singe

Around us. above the roofs, were the high, copper-colored mountains without-a tree upon them, but with the great wall looping and colling across the highest points and lonely watch towers outlined on every peak against a brilliant blue sky. The effect of the color combined with the long bare lines of the mountains was gorgeous beyond words. We passed beyond the Traitors’ gate and into—old Mongolia! The way opened out immediately into the pass, and near us a crowd had gathered about the body of a brigand executed the morning before. There was a remnant of stream, sharp bills on either side, and caravans of camels loaded with sheepskins were coming in from the ddsert. The beasts had been losing their hair in patches and many of them were wrapped in sacking to prevent their catching cold, adding to the somewhat ludicrous effect natural to a camel despite its stateliness. The Mongolians who led them on their quick scraggy ponies seemed little different in their appearance from the northern Chinese except for their heavy padded red coats and high, yellow peaked hats. And beyond lay the Great Wall like a living thing with the shining light on. Its side, seeking the most insurmountable heights, again and again disappearing from sight only to reqnpear farther and farther off along the horizon. There lay its all but sentient length with only here and there a break In the shell of smoothcut slabs of. stone, each of which weighed at least half a ton. Rome, too, once built a wall. But only ar-' cheohoglsts can find traces of that younger imperial frontier

Cents a Drink in* 1837. LoiS* after the last cellar has gone dry and the last drop of whiskey has been consumed there will remain a bottle of liquor that, according to tradition, is entombed in the cornerstone of the Universallst church at Montgomery, O. William Swaim, sev-enty-two, village historian and former schoolmaster of Montgomery, is authority for the tradition that a quart of liquor la concealed within the cornerstone of the church, which was bunt in 1837. “In those days Uquor was a respectable wAer,” says Swaim, i Preachers drank it just as other folk | did. It wate customary to .place liquor iin a cornerstone for the same reason that folks drank each other’s health in liquor.” Across the road from the church is a tavern that was a stopover for the farmers hauling their produce to the dty. Whiskey bold there for 8 cents a drink, Swaim re-calls-—Detroit Journal.