lives of many. Poor Narahara, a Japanese officer, died this morning from
lock-jaw produced by a bullet which pierced his thigh. He has suffered
horribly for three weeks. Dr. Lippitt, after waiting four weeks for his
leg to be in a condition for the surgeons to make another search for the
bullet, had the pleasant news told him, after an agonizing examination,
that it could not be found. We are hoping that if the troops arrive soon
their medical corps will have X-ray machines, and that Lippitt’s leg may
be saved. He has suffered and is suffering much physical pain, but more
mental, I think, from the close proximity to the bed on which so many
men have died, all the details of which he has seen, and the climax was
reached during the night by the death of Narahara, whose wound was
almost similar to his, although lately Narahara’s wound has been
complicated by lock-jaw, whereas in the doctor’s case there have been no
complications. If we get out of Peking, Dr. Velde deserves from every
nation that is represented here a grateful acknowledgment of his
services during the siege.
The wife of the Russian Minister, Madame de Giers, a handsome woman with
a great charm of manner, has been a veritable angel of mercy in the
hospital. She has personally nursed most of the Russian patients, for
while all Russians of education speak either French or German, and the
hospital nurses understand their wants, to the poor sailors, who can
express themselves only in their own language, her nursing is a Godsend,
and she is on duty with her suffering compatriots an incredible number
of hours out of the twenty-four. A graduate trained nurse, working to
make a record, could do no more than she is doing, and her physical
strength, patience, and gentleness are a joy to witness.
No Minister’s wife in Peking can approach in any way to having helped
with the burdens of the siege as Madame de Giers. The old saw of
“Scratch a Slav and you find a Tartar” could be changed by those who see
them here in Peking in so many instances “making good” to, “Scratch a
Slav and you find a hero.” The past week while these negotiations,
communications, and messengers have been arriving the calm has been very
noticeable, only I must admit that it seems almost as if one would
prefer to say, “If it is war, then let it be war,” for under these
circumstances one would not, or, I should say, could not, have time to
appreciate to the full extent this fiendish weather, this war and siege
regimen, and the eternal and without end discussions about the troops.
As long as the continual attacks were going on we knew it was a matter
of life and death, and every man did his allotted work without a murmur,
but now, owing to the half-armistice that exists, the five-week strain
during this terrible weather is beginning to tell; everyone is seedy,
and most of the work is done by dragging one leg after the other, while
dysentery has a terrible hold on most of the people here. To me the most
pitiful of all scenes in this compound is the collection of
perambulators, huddled together in the shadiest part, with limp, languid
babies in them, some looking so ill that their parents must feel that
each day more of the siege brings their little ones nearer death.
Yesterday, July 25, another communication came from the Yamen, saying
that they again asked us to leave Peking, under, of course, their
solicitous care; that they feel that they can no longer protect us,
although in any circumstances they will continue to do all in their
power, and that they would like all the Ministers to send open telegrams
to their respective Governments that they are all quite well.
We suppose that the pressure of the world is being brought to bear on
such high Chinese officials as can be reached to find out how we are,
and they in turn are trying to force us to reassure our Governments by
these covert threats. At ten o’clock this morning the Ministers had a
meeting, and sent a unanimous statement, saying that Legations never
send telegrams unless in cipher, so they could not comply with the
Yamen’s request, and that, as for wanting us all to leave for Tien-tsin
immediately, we might consider the proposition if the Yamen would be
kind enough to give us complete and accurate information as to what kind
of a convoy they would give us, and what comforts would be furnished for
the women and children. Of course, we have no idea of going _anywhere_
with them as protectors; but it is well to keep up communication, as it
gives us time.
Surely it will be a surprise to the world to find us not dead, and to
hear how we held our own. Last night the hospital statement was as
follows: 165 men killed and wounded—12 per cent. killed, and 20 per
cent. wounded.
People’s larders are getting terribly empty, and the menu I quoted three
weeks ago is now in the dim and distant past. We live quite sparingly,
and are hungry most of the time. The chief comforts of our mess now are
the Selzogene bottles that Mrs. Squiers brought with us from our
Legation, in which we daily make enough soda-water to last throughout
the day.
Last night I was walking round the compound with M. Knobel, a Minister
Plenipotentiary, who has not seemed as yet to develop any special
attributes during the siege beyond the very common one of being
intensely hungry—so very hungry, in fact, that as we passed the bungalow
given to the Russians, which boasts a few trees, Knobel’s hungry eyes
descried in the gloom six or more fat hens, belonging to some woman in
the Legation, roosting high up on the branches. There was no sniping
going on, and we took advantage of the quiet to walk once again round
the compound, and noticed that, though it was early, everyone seemed to
have turned in to get what rest they could before being awakened by the
usual nightly attack.
The night was also getting blacker, and by the time we got round to the
Russian bungalow again Knobel’s fell purpose had seized him in a
determined grip. He whispered to me, “If you will watch, I will get a
chicken. There will be no noise, and to-morrow we will have a real
dinner and eat that chicken.” It flashed through my mind that at home,
if clever darkies could not steal chickens without making a racket, I
did not see how Knobel, who has probably never in his life come nearer
to one than to pay his steward’s bills, could expect to be successful.
However, there was no time to argue. Knobel had left me standing in the
road, watching his figure disappear in the darkness. A rustle, a slight
squawk, and my Minister friend was by me again, with a squirming bundle
under his coat. We ran, as if the Boxers were after us, straight to the
Chinese courtyard, where we found our fat cook. Fortunately he had done
his daily duty on the “gang,” and was obviously delighted to receive our
stolen booty—“All lighty. Me flixy good dinner to-mollow,” and winked
comprehendingly as he saw that Knobel had been holding Miss Chicken’s
neck so tightly she could not utter a sound. With a sigh of relief,
Knobel turned her over to the cook, and with another but deeper sigh of
anticipation of to-morrow’s dinner, he stealthily started by a
roundabout way to return to his quarters.
Colonel Shiba, the Japanese commander, who has won the sincerest
admiration from everyone, states to-day that he confidently expects the
troops by July 28.
_July 28._
This day, which was to have been so auspicious, brings us the worst news
of the siege. It is to the effect that as late as July 22 no troops had
yet left Tien-tsin for our relief.
A little Chinese boy, of the Presbyterian mission, aged fifteen, small
but clever, was sent out by us, on the night of July 5, for Tien-tsin,
with a letter to the British Consul, Mr. Carles, telling him of our very
terrible plight, and how we must have relief soon, and writing him in
the strongest terms of our danger. This boy, after being let down over
the Tartar Wall by a rope, made his way to Tien-tsin without many
adventures, beyond being seized at one place and made to do coolie work
for eight days. He then escaped, but, once arrived at Tien-tsin, he had
great difficulty in getting through the outposts of the foreign troops
who are apparently carefully guarding that part of Tien-tsin, which is
in their lines. It is insisted here that the British Consul must be
lacking in intelligence. He neither questioned the boy, who could have
told him a great deal about our condition, nor did he give the boy any
letters from the other Consuls, simply sending his own.
It took the boy a long time to walk back to Peking, and, finding the
Water Gate too dangerous to enter by daylight, he waited until dark, and
it was this letter that spread such a gloom over everything this
morning. This communication of Mr. Carles was most unsatisfactory in
every way, and the only excuse for this letter was that he was afraid it
would fall into the hands of the Chinese. He wrote: “The rest of the
British contingent, under General Gaselee, coming from Singapore, are
expected on the 24th. Most of the Japanese troops are in Tien-tsin, and
mobilized. The Russians are only landing at Taku. There are many Chinese
troops between Tien-tsin and the coast. If you have plenty of food, and
can hold out for a long time, the troops will save you. All foreign
women and children have left Tien-tsin, and plenty of soldiers are on
their way to your succour.” This was all very disheartening; but we
realize more than ever before how long we still may be besieged, and the
consequent economy of stores which should be practised, and there is
talk of commandeering all private food-supplies.
The last sentence of his letter was hopelessly confusing. We did not
know whether the troops had already started, or whether he was speaking
of the Singapore contingent. Most people now feel that no reasonable
Foreign Office should take two months to get a military relief party
ready.
_August 1._
This is a piping hot day, 108° in the shade. Our principal conversation
now is asking each other, “Is Colonel Shiba’s messenger reliable?” This
man brings in almost daily to the Japanese camp the most cheerful and
apparently accurate news that the troops are not far from Tungchou. If
he is reliable, we may expect them very soon, but we can hardly believe
his statements, owing to Mr. Carles’ letter. This is simply another
variation to our old song of the siege.
The day before yesterday a letter came to Sir R. Hart from the Yamen,
asking him to be so kind as to send a telegram to London telling the
people there of our safety, because the different Governments were
clamouring for news of their Ministers, and if he (Sir Robert) would
send this telegram, it would be received as truth by the world, but they
could not allow the Ministers to use their own codes.
Sir Robert answered immediately that the Ministers were quite right to
decline to telegraph without cipher, and that he distinctly refused to
send any telegram of such a nature as to reassure the world, because if
he telegraphed the truth, the world would be so horrified that they
would not believe his telegram. Well answered, Mr. Inspector-General.
I had the good luck to-day of being allowed to go over our defences on
the Wall, and saw all of our protective barricades while getting there.
Baron von Rahden and Mr. Squiers took me, and, needless to say, it was
most interesting and thrilling. The conditions I had heard discussed for
nearly two months I can now understand by seeing them all. I could also
now understand the all-pervading charnel-house smells which at times
during the siege have almost caused us to faint.
On each defended barricade loopholes have been made so that we can see,
to some degree at least, the enemy. In many instances the loopholes are
arranged with small mirrors, as the Chinese snipers often hit even these
peepholes when a sentry’s eye is seen, so that this further protection
has been deemed necessary.
I looked through one from a barricade in the Hanlin, and what I saw was
what I might see in looking through the wicket-gate of a horror chamber
at the Eden Musée in New York. A group of gorgeously-apparelled Boxers
with their insignia were pitilessly caught by death in a mad dash at
this barricade, and there they were, stiff and stark, nearly all in the
furious attitudes of assault! Even the standard-bearer was stiffly and
conscientiously gripping his gay-coloured pennant. A couple were shot in
the back as they had started to run, and were lying flat on the ground,
but a dozen or so, making up the body of the attacking party, held these
horrible life-like positions with the most incredible rigidity. The
sentry tells us that this hideous, almost theatrically posed,
death-group has been thus for a couple of days. The Chinese would not
come for their bodies, we could not, and there they were to remain until
the carrion-dogs finished them, or until they eventually decomposed.
The combinations of barricades here, there, and everywhere are glorious,
especially on the Wall, and well they might be, as they are made out of
the huge rocks that were used hundreds of years ago to pave this
wonderful piece of masonry. To stand and look down from the Wall into
the British compound makes one realize more than ever how delightfully
easy it would be for the Chinese, if they ever manned this part of the
Wall, to point their guns downward and annihilate us.
Forgetting this possible picture, let me look down and tell you what I
see on this beautiful, sunshiny August morning. Before me lies what we
could naturally call the _terre du siège_, and comprises the Japanese,
German, French, Russian, American, and British compounds, all of which
have their flags flying somewhere, although in most cases the original
Legation flag-poles have been shot down. Then comes as a pretty piece of
colouring, in contrast to the sacked, burnt, and charred Chinese houses,
all that remains of the Hôtel de Pékin, with its collection of flags of
all nations flying in seeming defiance from the upper windows.
Further up Legation Street one sees a dirty, tired-looking, slimy green
canal, running parallel to the British Legation, with a strong and high
barricade on the bridge that spans it, so that we still have
communication with those Legations on the other side—namely, the
Japanese, German, and French. Then between and around these oases of
compounds one sees an occasional big tree which has escaped burning, and
which makes the scene of desolation seem even more lonely and desolate.
Hundreds of houses, half burnt, half broken up, and wholly
uninhabitable, tell the story of how in those first horrible attacks at
the beginning of the siege they were used by the Chinese as cover, and
then looted and burnt. A stray dog of the large wolfish, mongrel type
that is so common in Peking can be seen picking his way about from place
to place with the queer look and walk that seem to mark carrion animals.
[Illustration:
A GATE INTO THE IMPERIAL CITY
]
Standing in the same place, but looking westward, one sees such a
picture of beauty as one could never imagine even in one’s most
exquisite dreams—a song of green and gold, the fairyland palaces of the
wicked old ogress, the Empress-Dowager, these ideal gold-topped
pavilions, palaces, and pagodas rising out of a veritable sea of green,
which quivers and shimmers in the warm summer sunlight. In the old days
we were frankly told that it was dangerous to wander too near enchanted
palaces, and if this warning had been remembered, Kings and Queens would
not have sent their knights of diplomacy to live on the other side of
the Wall of this mysterious “Forbidden Purple City.” It was always a
hazardous thing to do, even in fairy stories, and it seems as if the
tale of what happened to these misguided knights may finish in the
regular good old way, “And they were eaten up and never seen any more.”
_August 2._
To-day there is posted on the Bell Tower—a sort of summer-house in the
centre of the British compound, where all notices are posted, and around
which people congregate at all times to hear the news—the translation of
the cipher letter that came yesterday to Sir R. Hart, which came from
the Customs in London, through the Yamen: “Keep up heart. Chinese
finally routed at Tien-tsin on July 15. Troops having great difficulty
in getting enough transports, but expect to leave for Peking after July
28. Is Chinese Government protecting you, and do you get food from
them?” They then refer to Mr. Conger’s telegram of the 18th.
Another choice bit of news comes to-day that two members of the Yamen
have just been beheaded because they are suspected of being
pro-foreign—Hsu Ching Cheng, Director of the Imperial University and
President of the Manchurian Railway, at one time Minister to Germany and
Russia; the other an ex-Taotai, a member of the Tsung-li Yamen, and an
ex-Minister to Russia. Such is the price one pays in China for having
assimilated broad ideas while enjoying diplomatic posts in Europe.
As I write, over in Mrs. Squiers’s house in the American Legation, where
since this half-armistice we have been allowed to come occasionally and
take a bath or read, I can see them taking away one of Mr. Squiers’s
favourite ponies to be slaughtered to-morrow. The supply of horses is
getting very low, and it will certainly be hard for the fighting men
when the rations are reduced from horse and rice simply to rice, but it
is really not pleasant to see one’s pet pony being taken off to help the
supply.
_August 3._
Good news came yesterday, late in the afternoon, by a messenger who was
clever enough to get through the Chinese lines. He brought in five
letters, mostly from the Consuls in Tien-tsin—from Consul Ragsdale to
Mr. Conger; from the German Consul to Von Below, the German Chargé
d’Affaires; from Mr. Lowry to his wife; from Captain Mallory to Captain
Myers; and one for Sir R. Hart. These letters are most cheering, because
they all prove that our troops must arrive soon, but they are stupid, in
that they give us none of the facts we are thirsting for; they don’t
even tell us approximately when we may expect relief.
They all take the attitude that the writers are pleased that we are not
dead, then give us some trifling details about themselves in Tien-tsin
and long, rambling accounts of what wonders they have gone through. Nine
days besieged! and the carpenters are at work on the consulate porch, as
a shell hit it; and Mr. Carles, the British Consul, even told us in the
intricate consular cipher that he had had bad dreams about us the night
before. The only letter that was to the point was from Colonel Mallory,
an American, who sent us some good details and dates: the taking of
Tien-tsin, July 15, etc.; the magnificent work of our marines; and last,
but not least, his definite assurance that the Americans at least in the
contingent would do all they could to start the advance-guard of 10,000
by July 28. General Chaffee’s note to the American Minister seemed to
promise good things from its very military brevity: “I arrived this
morning.—CHAFFEE.”
All the Consuls seemed overcome by the gravity of their own situation,
for all the ladies have left or are leaving Tien-tsin. The night these
letters came Von Below was sharing such dinner as we had with us. After
it was over we all sat on the floor and discussed the comparative merits
of the remaining stores, and he truly remarked that in these siege days,
instead of looking at and discussing _bibelots_ after dinner, one is
glad to examine, exchange, and count tins.
_August 7._
The day before yesterday an announcement was made in the _Peking
Gazette_, the Imperial newspaper organ of the capital (these occasional
bits of information we get by bribing heavily some fairly detached
Chinese sentry) to the effect that Jung Lu was appointed by the Empress
to devise means of carrying out the order that all the Legations were to
be escorted to Tien-tsin, and that he was to see that they were tenderly
cared for, and that any annoyance given to them on their way to the
coast should call forth an immediate punishment.
Then a letter came to us, stating that they (the Yamen) had had letters
from all their Ministers in the different countries saying that the
Governments wished their representatives to retire to the coast, and
that Jung Lu had been appointed to escort us. We replied, as usual, that
we desired first to communicate with our Governments on the subject, and
we also enclosed cipher telegrams. Yesterday came an answer, saying that
they had been sent, but, of course, with lack of telegraphic facilities
from Peking, it will probably be a week before our home Governments get
them. To-day Baroness von Ketteler took a simple tiffin with Mrs.
Squiers. Her condition has been such that she has not had one night of
natural sleep in the seven weeks since her husband’s murder.
I am sure everyone is sorry for Lady Macdonald, with that enormous mess
to keep going. The complaints that people actually have the impertinence
to make at her table, loud enough for her to hear, got so bad that one
day she rose from her chair and said: “I give you the best I have; I can
do nothing better; and, what is more, let me remind you that what is
good enough for the British Minister to eat is more than good enough for
anybody here.”
[Illustration:
_Copyright, Pirie MacDonald, New York_
GENERAL A. R. CHAFFEE
]
_August 8._
It is just seven weeks to-day since we came here for a few days until
the troops should arrive, and food is running very short. There is,
moreover scarcely any condensed milk in the compound Another European
baby died yesterday, simply from lack of food. It lay in its little
coffin looking so white and tired. Out of pity for the mothers the
hospital steward makes little rough coffin-boxes for their babies. All
mothers who have children and infants who are ill or weak seem
fascinated by these pitiful funerals, and they all go to them.
There is a good, busy old hen who lays an egg every day. She is given an
entire deserted courtyard in the American Legation, a part of which is
not in use, and I have fed her personally, or seen that she has been
fed, ever since I placed her there at the beginning of the siege. There
are three babies here, ranging in age from twelve to eighteen months,
who are slowly dying from lack of digestible food, I give an egg to each
mother every third day. The eggs are beautifully fresh, and the horror
of it all is that these agonized mothers know, and I know, that, could I
give the egg to them each day, instead of every third day, their babies
could probably live; but as I can’t, I have to divide them, and I cry
with the pity of it.
Unless the troops come soon it is dreadful to think of the fate of the
Chinese Christians in the Fu. Until now we have been able to give them a
certain amount of food daily, but we can only spare this supply a few
more days. These poor people will be forced to choose between leaving
the Fu, with an almost certain chance of massacre, probably of torture,
and staying where they are and dying of starvation.
No description of this place can give an idea of it as it exists to-day.
To turn to Doré’s engravings in Dante’s “Inferno” would help. Every tree
in the Fu, and there are many, has been stripped of leaves by these
starving people; the smaller branches pulled and the bark chewed off.
Diseased or not, these wretched people have been forced to remain here
all together, as there is no other place for them. Carrion crows and
dogs are killed and dragged to the Fu by sentries whenever possible, and
these ravenous creatures pull the flesh from their bones and eat it
without a pretence of cooking. Every morning when the two horses are
shot at the slaughter-house, for distribution to the messes, half of the
inedible parts are eaten with relish by these starving people.
The heat is intense, the ground in the Fu is brown and hard, the
children are naked, and the adults wear little, but one and all are
enveloped with the agony of relentless, hideous starvation. The white
rice which we have used in the compound has been finished, and we now
use the yellow or uncleaned rice, which is very sandy and gritty, and
which even the coolies in ordinary times would never think of using. It
is made into curries or eaten plain, but one has to swallow it in
spoonfuls without closing one’s teeth on it, or it would be too much
like chewing sand.