Chapter 21
The Great Wall—which is like a Chinese screen four hundred leagues long—was built in the third century by the Emperor Tisi-Chi-Houang-Ti, and extends from the Gulf of Leao-Tong, whose waters bathe its two wharves, to the Kan-Sou, where it is reduced to the proportions of a wall of ordinary size. It is an uninterrupted succession of double ramparts, defended by bastions and towers, fifty feet high and twenty feet broad, whose foundation is of granite and the upper part of brick, and which boldly follow the undulating outline of the mountains between Russia and China.
Where it approaches the Celestial Empire, the wall is in rather a poor condition, but presents a better appearance towards Mandshuria, and its battlements become magnificent stone ornaments. This long line of forti
