Yesterday night we left Beijing on a night train and this morning we arrived in Datong in the current Shanxi province. Leaving Beijing, we will continue our trip towards the West of China trying to follow the route undertaken by Grueber and D’Orville while searching for their traces!
This is why, once we arrived in the city of Datong, we set out to find the remains of the Great Wall which, according to our Jesuits’s travelogues (and locals), was in the surroundings.
Grueber and D’Orville describe in their travelogues how they travelled to the wall outside of Beijing and in their words: ” …the walls are so wide that six horses in a line may run easily along it without hindering one another, These walls are said to be visited frequently by the natives of the town, sometimes for enjoying the fresh air that blows from the sandy desert adjacent, sometimes for other recreations, to relax the mind. The length of the wall to the next gate is so great that one can scarcely travel the distance in eighteen days.”
A drawing of the wall visited by the Jesuits in the China Illustrata
Today, many years after the Jesuits passed by here in 1664, only some parts remain but is still a very beautiful place enjoyed by the locals who live in a village at the foot of the wall.
