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MUMBLINGS September 23, 2005
Seeing the Great Wall of China, you realize this is
truly one of The Seven Wonders of The World.
Often I am asked, of all the sights I have seen in the
world, which is the greatest…this is a difficult question, however. The
Great Wall is among the top wonders, but not one I would travel very far to
see again.
With The Grand Canyon, for example with its
enormity, composed of red earth, mountains, crags and valleys and with its
vastness, you would like to see it again and again.
Here is further information about The Great Wall of
China.
The section at Badaling, restored in 1957 for visitors, is
typical in structure of what the entire Wall once was. It has an average height
of 26 feet, is 22 feet wide at the bottom and 19 feet wide at the top.
Every 200-350 yards, battlements were built for watching
and shooting…the guard houses built at intervals were used as sentry posts
and headquarters for soldiers…beacon towers were built at commanding
points at each side of the wall with smoke used in the daytime and fire used at
night in case of an emergency.
The great Wall was also a roadway, wide enough to permit
five horsemen to ride side by side or permit passage for soldiers by columns of
ten…it is wide enough for two automobiles to pass.
Like a huge dragon, the Great Wall winds all the
way through the expansive deserts, extensive pastures, and towering mountains
and reaching to the seaside.
The guides tell you that the astronauts, when looking back
at earth from their station on the moon, were able to see the Great Wall of
China.
The figures are so staggering that no one, at least as far
as we know, has ever estimated the amount of manpower it took to build all of
these walls…an idea can be obtained from the following…in 555A.D.,
1,800,000 laborers were conscripted to repair a part of the wall some 300 miles
long.
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