Oct. 3, 1900.
In the gulf of Petchili on the beach at Ning-Hia, lighted by the rising
sun. Here are sloops, tugs, whalers, junks, their prows in the sand,
landing soldiers and war supplies at the foot of an immense fort whose
guns are silent. On this shore there is a confusion and a babel such as
has been seen in no other epoch of history. From these boats where so
many people are disembarking, float pell-mell all the flags of Europe.
The shore is wooded with birches and willows, and in the distance
mountains with strange outlines raise their peaks to the clear sky.
There are only northern trees, showing that the winters in this country
are cold, and yet the morning sun is already burning; the far-off peaks
are magnificently violet, the sun shines as in Provence. Standing about
among the sacks of earth collected for the erection of hasty defences,
are all kinds of people. There are Cossacks, Austrians, Germans,
English midshipmen, alongside of our armed sailors; little Japanese
soldiers, with a surprisingly good military bearing in their new
European uniforms; fair ladies of the Russian Red-Cross Society, busy
unpacking material for the ambulances; and Bersaglieri from Naples, who
have put their cock-feathers onto colonial caps.
There is something about these mountains in this sunshine, in this
limpid air, that recalls the shores of the Mediterranean on autumn
mornings. Not far away an old gray structure rises among the trees,
twisted, crooked, bristling with dragons and monsters. It is a pagoda.
The interminable line of ramparts which winds about and finally loses
itself behind the summits of the mountains in the distance, is the
Great Wall of China, which forms the boundary of Manchuria.
The soldiers who disembark barefooted in the sand, gaily calling out to
one another in all tongues, seem to be the sort who are easily amused.
What they are doing to-day is called "a peaceful capture," and it
seems more like a celebration of universal fusion, of universal peace,
yet not far from here, in the vicinity of Tien-Tsin and of Pekin, the
country is in ruins and is strewn with the dead.
[Illustration:
_Copyright, 1901, by J. C. Hemment_
FRENCH CAVALRY ORDERLY WITH DESPATCHES]
The necessity for occupying Ning-Hia, of holding it as a base of
supplies, had been impressed upon the admirals of the international
squadron, and day before yesterday all the ships had prepared for a
struggle, knowing that the forts on the shore were well armed; but
the Chinese who lived here, warned by an official that a formidable
company of cuirassiers would appear at daybreak, preferred to leave the
place--so we found it deserted on our arrival.
The fort which overlooks the shore and which forms the terminus of the
Great Wall at its sea end, has been declared international.
The flags of the seven allied nations float there together,
arranged in alphabetical order at the end of long poles guarded by
pickets,--Austria, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, Russia.
The other forts scattered over the surrounding heights have been
apportioned, the one belonging to France being situated about a mile
from the shore. It is reached by a dusty road, bordered with birches
and frail willows, which crosses gardens and orchards turning brown at
the same season as our own,--gardens exactly like ours, with modest
rows of cabbages and pumpkins and long lines of lettuce. The little
wooden houses too, scattered here and there among the trees, resemble
those of our villages, with red tiled roofs, vines trained in garlands,
and little beds of zinnias, asters, and chrysanthemums. It is a
country which should be peaceful, happy, yet which has in two days'
time become depopulated through fear of the approach of the invaders
from Europe.
On this fresh October morning the sailors and soldiers of all nations
are hurrying and skurrying along the shaded road that leads to the
French fort, seeking the pleasures of discovery; amusing themselves in
a conquered land, catching chickens and pilfering salads and pears from
the gardens. The Russians are taking down the Buddhas and gilded vases
from a pagoda. The English are driving with sticks the cattle captured
in the fields. The Dalmatians and the Japanese--fast friends of an
hour's standing--are making their toilet together on the banks of a
stream, and two Bersaglieri who have caught a little donkey are riding
it astride, almost bursting with laughter.
And yet the sad exodus of Chinese peasants which began yesterday still
continues; in spite of the assurance given them that no harm would
be done to any one, those who were left felt themselves too near and
preferred to flee. Whole families departed with bowed heads; men,
women, children, all dressed alike in blue cotton gowns, and loaded
with baggage, even the babies resignedly carrying their little pillows
and mattresses.
One scene was heart-breaking. An old Chinese woman--very, very old,
perhaps a hundred years old--who could scarcely stand up, was going,
God knows where, driven from her home, where a company of Germans
had established themselves; she went away, dragging herself along
with the help of two young lads who may have been her grandsons and
who supported her as best they could, looking at her with infinite
respect and tenderness. Seeming not to see us and looking as though
she had nothing further to expect from any one, she passed slowly
by, her poor face filled with despair, with supreme and irremediable
distress, whilst the soldiers behind her were throwing away with shouts
of laughter the unpretentious images from the altar of her ancestors.
The beautiful sunshine of the autumn morning shone calmly on her
well-cared-for little garden, blooming with zinnias and asters.
The fort which fell to the lot of the French occupies almost the
space of a town with all its dependencies, lodgings for mandarins
and soldiers, electrical work-shops, stables, and powder magazines.
In spite of the dragons that adorn the gates and in spite of the
clawed monster painted on a stone slab in front of the entrance, it
is constructed upon the most recent principles--plastered, casemated,
and provided with Krupp guns of the latest models. Unfortunately for
the Chinese, who had accumulated in the vicinity of Ning-Hia some
terrifying defences,--mines, torpedoes, fougades, and intrenched
camps,--nothing was finished, nothing completed anywhere; the movement
against foreigners began six months too soon, before they had gotten
into working order all the material Europe had sold to Li-Hung-Chang.
A thousand Zouaves who are to arrive to-morrow are to occupy this fort
during the winter; while awaiting their arrival we have simply brought
along a score of sailors to take possession.
It is curious to go among these houses, abandoned in haste and terror,
and to find ourselves in the midst of the disorder of precipitate
flight; broken furniture and dishes, clothing, guns, bayonets,
ballistic books, boots with paper soles, umbrellas, and ambulance
supplies are piled pell-mell before the doors. In the kitchens dishes
of rice are ready for the oven, with plates of cabbage and cakes made
of fried grasshoppers.
There are shells everywhere, cartridges strew the grounds, gun-cotton
is dangerously dispersed, and black powder is scattered in long trains.
But side by side with this debauch of war materials, droll details
attest the human side of Chinese life; on all the window-sills are pots
of flowers, on all the walls are household gods placed there by the
soldiers. The familiar sparrow abounds here, and is never interfered
with, it seems, by the inhabitants of the place, and from the roofs
the cats, circumspect but anxious to enter into relations with us,
are observing the sort of _ménage_ that will be possible with such
unexpected hosts as ourselves.
Very near us, a hundred metres from our fort, passes the Great Wall
of China. It is surmounted at this point by a watch tower, where the
Japanese are now established, and there they have planted their white
flag on a bamboo stick in the red sunlight.
Always smiling, especially at the French, the little Japanese soldiers
invite us to come up to see from above the surrounding country.
The Great Wall, seven or eight hundred metres thick at this point,
descends gently amid green grass on the Chinese side, but drops
vertically on the side toward Manchuria, where it is flanked by
enormous square bastions.
We mount, and at our feet we see the wall plunging on one hand into the
Yellow Sea, while on the other it rises to the summits of the mountain
and goes winding on through the fields as far as the eye can see,
giving the impression of a colossal thing which never comes to any end.
Toward the east we have a view, in this clear light, of the deserted
plains of Manchuria.
Toward the west--in China--the wooded country has a deceptive look
of peace and confidence. All the European flags hoisted on the forts
have a festive air amid all the green. It is true that on a plain near
the shore there are evidences of an immense movement of Cossacks, but
they are far away and the noise does not reach us, though there are at
least five thousand men among the tents and among the flags which are
stuck into the ground. Where the other powers send to Ning-Hia only a
few companies, the Russians on the contrary proceed in great masses,
because of their designs on neighboring Manchuria. Shan-Haï-Kouan, the
Tartar village which has closed its gates through fear of pillage,
appears in the distance, gray and mute as though asleep behind its
high crenellated walls. On the sea off toward the horizon, rests the
squadron of the Allies,--a fleet of steel monsters with black smoke,
friends for the moment, silently assembled in the motionless blue.
The weather is calm, exquisite, buoyant. The prodigious rampart of
China blossoms at this season like a garden. Between its sombre bricks,
loosened by time, asters, and quantities of pinks like those at the
seashore in France are pushing their way through.
This legendary wall, which has for centuries stopped all invasion from
the north, will probably nevermore see the yellow flag and the green
dragon of the Celestial emperors. Its time has gone by, passed, is
forever at an end.