George Macartney, Some Account …

Thursday, September 5th.

… After breakfast we set out from Coupekiou, in order to visit this celebrated wall, which we had heard such wonders of, and after passing through the outermost gate on the Tartar side, we began our peregrination on foot, there being no other method of approach. In less than half an hour, after traveling over very rough ground, we at last arrived at a breach in the wall, by which we ascended to the top of it. I shall here minute down all the particulars relative to it, which I can either recollect myself, or have been reminded of by my companions.

The wall is built of a blueish colored brick, not burned but dried in the sun, and raised upon a stone foundation and, as measured from the ground on the side next Tatary [240] is about twenty-six feet high in the perpendicular. The stone foundation is formed of two courses of granite, equal to twenty-four inches. From thence to the parapet, including the cordon, which is six inches, are nineteen feet four inches, the parapet is four feet eight inches. From the stone foundation to the cordon are fifty-eight rows of bricks, and above the cordon are fourteen rows; and each row, allowing for the interstices of the mortar, and the insertion of the cordon, may be calculated at the rate of four inches per brick. Thus then fifty-eight and fourteen bricks, equal to seventy-two, give two hundred and eighty-eight inches, or [241] twenty-four feet, which, together with the stone foundation, make twenty-six feet. The wall on the inside, I presume, measures nearly the same. At the bottom, the walls are five feet thick, and diminish gradually as they rise, being only two feet four inches at the cordon, and one foot and a half at the top of the parapet. The space or terreplein between the walls, which is filled with each and rubbish up to the level of the bottom of the cordon, and paved with square bricks, is eleven feet in the clear, so that there is room fro two coaches or five horsemen abreast. This great wall is strengthened and defended by square towers at one hundred and fifty to two hundred feet distance. They are of different dimensions. I entered one which projected eighteen feet from the rampart on the Tartar side; there is no projection on the Chinese side. It is forty feet long at the bottom, and gradually diminishes aso as to form a square of only thirty feet at the terreplein. The perpendicular height is about thirty-six feet eight inches. This tower stands on four courses of stone, each course equal to fourteen inches, which gives fifty-six inches, or four feet eight inches; and above the stone work to the top of the parapet are ninety-six feet eight inches. The parapet of the wall is cut with embrasures at nine feet distance from center to center, and there are loopholes between the embrasures of twelve inches long and ten wide, and scarped away below, which appear much better calculated for musketry than for arrows. This circumstance, together with tat of the soles of the embrasures of the tower being pierces, as we observed, with small [242] holes, similar to those used in Europe for receiving the swivels of wall-pieces, would seem to countenance a conjecture that the Chinese had the use of some sort of fire arms in very ancient times; of all their writings agree that this wall was built above two hundred years before the Christian era.

it is carried on in a curvilinear direction, often over the steepest, highest, and craggiest mountains, as I observed in the several places, and measures upwards of one thousand five hundred miles in length form its commencement in the gulf of Pecheli in the province of Leatong, east of Pekin, to its termination in the province of Chensi, west of Pekin.

If the other parts of it be similar to those which I have seen, it is certainly the most stupendous work of human hands, for I imagine, that if the outline of all the masonry of all the first and fortified places in the whole world besides were to be calculated, it would fall considerably short of that of the great wall of China. At the remote period of its building, China must not only have been a very powerful empire, but a wise and virtuous nation; or at least to have had such foresight, and such regard for posterity, as to establish at once what was then thought a perpetual security for them against future invasion, choosing to lead herself with an enormous expanse of immediate labour and treasure, rather than to leave succeeding generation to a precarious dependence on contingent resources. She must also have had uncommon vigilance and discernment, so as to profit by every current event, and to seize the proper moment of tranquility for executing so extensive and difficult an enterprise. But be- [243] sides a defence against her enemies, she possible had other objects in view. She might intend it to shut out from the fertile provinces of China the numerous and ferocious beasts of the wilds of Tartary, to ascertain and fix her boundary, and to prevent emigration. Till the establishment of the present dynasty on the throne, she seems to have entertained no project of foreign conquest; and it is still a favorite point of her policy to confine her subjects within the limits of the empire. Those who depart from China without license are inevitably punished with the utmost rigor, if ever brought back.  The wall is still, in some places which I saw, quiet perfect and entire, and looks as if recently built, or repaired, but in general it is in a ruinous condition, and falling fast to decay, very little care being taken to preserve it. Indeed, at present, its utility in point of defense seems to be almost at an end; for the empire now reigning has extended his territory so far beyond it, that I doubt whether his dominions without the wall are inferior to those within it.

It was not without a little management that we contrived to examine this wall so much at our leisure, for some of our conductors appeared rather uneasy, or impatient at the length of our stay upon it. They were astonished at our curiosity, and almost began to suspect us, I believe, of dangerous designs. Vantagin and Choutagin, though they had passed it twenty times before, had never visited it but once, a few of the other attending mandarins had never visited it at all. … [244]