Entitled: China's Common Carrier, Her Substitute For Railways, A Camel Square In Peking, China [1901] Underwood & Co [RESTORED] I removed spots and scratches, removed the curved upper border, adjusted contrast, tone, added a sepia and false Duotone.

The image above was found in the US Library of Congress under Reproduction Number LC-USZ62-137018. It is from the right side of a Stereoview pair.

This image was likely taken by James Ricalton (there exists another photograph of him sitting atop a camel in this same location at around the same time frame), who contributed many unattributed works of Asia, the subcontinent, mideast, and Africa, to the trove of photographs in various stereoview company holdings.

This image was taken in 1901 in Peking (the former name of what is now Beijing) and it was a time of much tumult across northern China (the Boxer Rebellion had just been put down). One clearly sees a uniformed Russian soldier (to the mid right) having some sort of dialogue with a local Chinese. Was he purchasing something from one of the legion of ubiquitous Peking street vendors, was he asking or demanding to see something, or was he confiscating a local's property? That much is lost to history. However his presence alone, under arms in a country and amongst people not his own, bespeaks volumes of the political turmoil that was roiling China.