SIEGI IN PEKING 

 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 And Her Story of the Siege 
 in Peking 
 
 A. H. TUTTLE 
 
 NEW YORK: RATON ft MAINS 
 CINCINNATI: JENNINGS & GRAHAM
 
 Copyright, 1907, by 
 EATON & MAINS
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 Chapter. Page 
 
 PREFACE v 
 
 I. A MISSIONARY IN PREPARATION 1 
 
 n. FROM AMERICA TO PEKING 13 
 
 in. THE GOSPEL m CHINA 23 
 
 IV. HOME IN PEKING 30 
 
 V. IN THE PEKING COMPOUND 41 
 
 VI. SCHOOL WORK 53 
 
 Vn. UNBOUND FEET 65 
 
 VIIL FIRST COUNTRY TOUR 73 
 
 IX. COUNTRY EVANGELISM 83 
 
 X. MARRIAGE 99 
 
 XI. UP THE YANGTSE 104 
 
 XII. CHUNGKING 112 
 
 XIII. EVIL OMENS 120 
 
 XIV. CHUNGKING RIOT 127 
 
 XV. DOWN THE YANGTSE 139 
 
 XVI. ASBURY CHURCH, PEKING 146 
 
 XVII. PEKING SUNDAY SCHOOL 152 
 
 XVIII. LETTERS TO FRIENDS 158 
 
 MRS. GAMEWELL'S STORY OF THE SIEGE 
 IN PEKING 
 
 XIX. THE GATHERING STORM 185 
 
 XX. REFUGE IN THE METHODIST COMPOUND 195 
 
 XXI. MASSACRE OF BARON VON KETTELER 207 
 
 XXII. MARCH TO THE BRITISH LEGATION 212 
 
 XXIII. IN SIEGE 226 
 
 XXIV. ORGANIZATION 238 
 
 XXV. INCIDENTS 251 
 
 XXVI. EDICTS, CABLFXJRAMS, AND MESSAGES 258 
 
 XXVII. RELIEF.. . 268 
 
 XXVIII. CORONATION. . ... 282 
 
 103953
 
 PREFACE 
 
 Mary Porter GamewelPs missionary career (1871 
 -1906) covers the heroic age of the Woman's For- 
 eign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal 
 Church in China. She was one of the first mission- 
 aries whom the Society sent to that country. Her 
 marriage eleven years later did not in any measure 
 interrupt her work, for having no children, she 
 continued full service, broken only by an occasional 
 vfsit to her native land. And during these home 
 visits, which were supposed to be periods of rest, 
 she was tireless in the use of her tongue and pen 
 for the great cause to which she had consecrated 
 her life. In 1906 her name was enrolled on the 
 scroll of the immortals "who were slain for the 
 Word of God, and for the testimony which they 
 held." 
 
 It was during the last years of her life that those 
 great events occurred that culminated in the aston- 
 ishing revolution in the attitude of the imperial 
 government of China toward modern scholarship 
 and Christian civilization, and which was the begin- 
 ning of a new era in missionary work in that coun- 
 try, which until then presented a stubborn and 
 murderous resistance to the gospel. 
 
 We owe it to the memory of the heroines, who,
 
 vi PREFACE 
 
 amid great perils and immeasurable sacrifices, pio- 
 neered the frontiers of heathendom, to record the 
 story while it is fresh in our memories. And we 
 owe it to the church of the future to furnish it 
 with the answers to the questions which a Christian- 
 ized China is sure to ask: "Who wrought this 
 miracle, and by what means was it done?" We 
 should do what we can to perpetuate the inspiration 
 of those early days into all subsequent ages. The 
 best way to do this is not to wait for some future 
 historian to tabulate the general facts, and study 
 their causes and relations. Philosophical history 
 is not half so vital nor truthful as the personal story 
 of individual actors in that history. As Aristotle 
 has said, "a thing is more than the sum of all its 
 parts." There must be added what he calls the 
 "ousia," its innermost reality, its essence, which 
 makes this sum a thing. So the best way to know 
 events is to know the individuals who lived in them 
 and made them. 
 
 Even doctrines are best understood in that way. 
 The best way to know Christianity is to know Christ 
 and the apostles. To feel the pulse of the church's 
 life, we must touch human hearts, hear their moans 
 and their songs, become familiar with their daily 
 thoughts, and walk with them along the homely 
 pathway of duty things too commonplace to de- 
 mand a page in formal history, and yet things that 
 make the very ousia of life. 
 
 For this reason, we have consented to collate the 
 material which Mrs. Gamewell has left, and as near-
 
 PREFACE vii 
 
 ly as possible construct an autobiographical sketch 
 of one woman whose life is fairly representative of 
 many others who prepared the way of the coming 
 of the Lord in China. There have been loaned us 
 for this purpose journals, personal letters, and 
 many articles prepared by her for the press. 
 Among this material are two things of great historic 
 value, which have not been seen, even by her inti- 
 mate friends. One is a journal of the Chungking 
 riot of 1886, which was written while she was a 
 prisoner in the yamen of the magistrate during that 
 tragic event. This journal was fortunately pre- 
 served uninjured by the Boxers who destroyed our 
 Mission property in Peking in 1900. The second 
 thing is her own story of the siege in Peking, pre- 
 pared by her for the press, from copious notes 
 which she had made during the siege. Fully three 
 fourths of this volume is from her pen. She was 
 herself a gifted writer, having a literary quality in 
 her style, which makes the facts she records quiver 
 with life. And the facts themselves are rich in 
 color, varied incident, and wide meanings. Here 
 we have poetry, romance, tragedy, and religion ; 
 and amid it all we discern the presence of Him who 
 rules the centuries, doing the work of eternity in 
 guiding one of his trusting children day by day, 
 along ways and by deeds of which the world takes 
 no heed, but which resistlessly are bringing his 
 kingdom to earth.
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 A MISSIONARY IN PREPARATION 
 
 Mary Q. Porter, who one day was to become Mrs. 
 Frank D. Gamewell, was the second child in a 
 family of three daughters and two sons. Her 
 parents were born in England, but she came to 
 them in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania, on the twen- 
 tieth day of October, 1848, some years after they 
 had made the United States their home. 
 
 Every positive personality, such as hers, has its 
 spring, like the River Jordan, in some Hermon, 
 which pours out its crystal streams in the fountains 
 of Dan and Banias. Its character is modified by its 
 tributaries and the country through which it 
 passes, but its elemental capacities, which are ever 
 present, are best studied at its sources. Her father, 
 Nathaniel Porter, came of an old English family 
 in Stratf ord-on-Avon ; and the name frequently 
 appears in the annals of that town back to the 
 days of Shakespeare. The father of Nathaniel was 
 a man of strong religious character and a master 
 of a college preparatory school in his native town ; 
 and his son received a most careful intellectual as 
 well as religious training. 
 
 After he came of age he was given a generous 
 1
 
 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 sum of money and came to America, where he met 
 Miss Maria Killingley, who had come here with 
 her widowed father in 1833. They were married at 
 Allegheny City, Pennsylvania, in 1845, and fifteen 
 years later settled in Davenport, Iowa, which was 
 their home for many years. Mr. Porter was a 
 gentleman by birth and by culture. He had a mind 
 alert and acute, was an exceptionally gifted con- 
 versationalist, and was widely informed on all the 
 great subjects that were agitating the minds of 
 men. Had nature added to his other native quali- 
 ties the genius for affairs, his daughter's career 
 probably would have been very different from that 
 which is here recorded. 
 
 Mrs. Porter was the daughter of Henry Killing- 
 ley and Maria Whittaker. She was born near Not- 
 tingham, England, and remembered how, when a 
 little girl, she "often gathered daisies in the shadow 
 of Nottingham Castle." Her mother died when 
 she was an infant, and her father brought her to 
 the United States, intending to make this country 
 his home. But his heart drew him back to where 
 the wife of his youth lay buried. His daughter, 
 however, had no longing for the land of her early 
 sorrow, and she decided to remain where she could 
 make her own career unhampered by ancient family 
 traditions. She, however, had been well born, and 
 her past, far more than she knew, was a force which 
 carried her to her destiny. She came of a people 
 of sterling worth, in whom conscience was the law 
 of life, and who placed duty infinitely abore gain.
 
 A MISSIONARY IN PREPARATION 3 
 
 She was one who would not weakly succumb to 
 difficulties but would bravely meet and, if possible, 
 master them. 
 
 During her residence in Allegheny City she be- 
 came intensely interested in the study of a case 
 of illness in her family; and with the generous 
 approval of Mr. Porter, hired a housekeeper to 
 care for her home while she pursued a course of 
 study in the Woman's Medical College in Phila- 
 delphia, from which she graduated with honor in 
 1859. Afterward she studied Homeopathy and 
 began the practice of medicine in that school, mak- 
 ing Davenport, Iowa, her home. It was a brave 
 thing for a woman in those days to enter a profes- 
 sion which heretofore had been monopolized by 
 men, and which was popularly supposed would de- 
 tract from the charm of femininity of character. 
 But she triumphed, demonstrating in her own per- 
 son what is now everywhere accepted, that every 
 noble calling is consistent with every womanly 
 quality. 
 
 Mrs. Porter was one of the foremost women of 
 Iowa in the organization of women for the relief 
 of suffering during the Civil War and the troublous 
 times immediately subsequent. She was intimately 
 associated with Mrs. Wittenmeyer in the organiza- 
 tion of the Soldiers' Orphans' Home of Iowa, which 
 is now located at Davenport. Thus Mary was born 
 and bred in an atmosphere of intellectuality and 
 conscientious endeavor. She grew up in the con- 
 viction that a woman's horizon was not to be
 
 4 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 bounded by the four walls of her home : that world- 
 wide views really sweetened and enriched the home 
 life. We have not been able to gather many inci- 
 dents with which to construct the story of her child- 
 hood. There are no traditions of any singular 
 precocity, prematurely revealing her exceptional 
 career. The aureole of the martyr spirit was not 
 suggested in the rosy-faced, happy child of those 
 early years. In all her correspondence, we have 
 found but a single allusion to it, and it was written 
 May 10, 1906, a few months before her transla- 
 tion: 
 
 "I am going down town to take a snapshot of 
 the old Fifth Street house. It is an old ramshackle 
 now, in a street taken up by the railroad. It used 
 to stand in the shadow of great trees and in a 
 street filled with homes of Davenport's best people. 
 And though the railroad was there, open green and 
 Court House Square, full of trees and covered with 
 grass, met the eye over the single track. You know 
 that the elevated way fills much of the street now 
 and cuts off the green expanse on the south. 
 
 "I started for China from that house. On the 
 floor of that house I sat out the night in miserable 
 wonder over a hurt delivered by one I had revered, 
 and held on when my inexperience could not see how 
 He was justified. 
 
 "That holding on saved the day for me and 
 brought results which shall abide until I see Him 
 and am satisfied. How plainly the way appears 
 when we look on it from the heights to which it
 
 A MISSIONARY IN PREPARATION 5 
 
 led! How one quivers to see the turning points 
 and crossroads at which it would have been so easy 
 to have lost the way! There God's constraining 
 power held, and we only just let him, so bewildered 
 and occupied within our limited horizon that we 
 could not see that he was doing anything at all! 
 
 "I ran to that house the day we heard at school 
 that southern guns had fired on Fort Sumter. 
 From there I went into the excited and illuminated 
 street the night that the country rejoiced over the 
 fall of Vicksburg, and from the windows of that 
 house I looked with sinking heart at flags flying at 
 half-mast because Lincoln was dead dead by an 
 assassin's hand. 
 
 "Yes, the days spent in that old house were, for 
 me, full of growing pains." 
 
 Her occasional reference in conversation to that 
 period of her life was more like the fragrance of the 
 marigold, heavily laden with the spirit of the past 
 rather than with definite memories. The secret of 
 her almost unbroken silence concerning those years 
 was probably the fact that the child had a premoni- 
 tion that the future was to bring her into a life in 
 which she would hold a place of conspicuous and 
 far-reaching usefulness. The thoughtful girl was 
 ever on the lookout, inquiring what might be the 
 work to which she was destined. She was living 
 more in the tilings to come than in the immediate 
 present. Nat that her childhood was unhappy, for 
 it was sweet with innocence, culture, and love; but 
 to her outreaching mind it was the enchanted stream
 
 8 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 bearing her ever down the years to where the castle 
 of her dreams stood, all glorious. 
 
 A companion of those early days writes of her 
 and another schoolmate, who with herself made a 
 trio of intimate friendships in work and play, which 
 continued on into mature years. She says : "Mat- 
 tie and I recognized that she and I were kindred 
 spirits, and that Mary was one with us, but with a 
 difference. She loved fun and frolic as well as 
 did we, and could play a full part; but we felt 
 that at the same time, with all her love for sport, 
 there was something more : a gentle seriousness and 
 earnestness of purpose that were a restraining in- 
 fluence whenever our lighter spirits might seem to 
 carry us beyond the bounds of innocent mirth or 
 strict propriety. But any rebuke from her would 
 come in the guise of gentle effort to turn our 
 thoughts toward something safer and better. She 
 was fond of singing, and often the diversion would 
 be a call to the piano ; and the singing of hymns 
 would close the enjoyment of a happy evening 
 spent in one or another of our homes." One of 
 these two companions of Mary testified to her 
 recognition of the more earnest and religious ele- 
 ments of her character by impulsively asking her 
 mother : "Why is it that Mary is always good and 
 I am sometimes bad?" 
 
 "After their dear schoolmate had confessed 
 Christ and united with the church these two young 
 comrades noted that the desire that they too should 
 share with her the joy she had found was manifest
 
 A MISSIONARY IN PREPARATION 7 
 
 in many loving ways in all their intercourse to- 
 gether, while in other things she was still the same 
 bright, merry, fun-loving companion as before." 
 She occasionally told of how, when a very little 
 girl, her imagination transformed the chairs in her 
 room into benighted heathen, and how she became 
 a missionary, destroying their idols and bringing 
 to them the light of the gospel. But she did not 
 tell that which we are curious to know: what 
 awakened this spirit in her heart. It is doubtful 
 whether she herself remembered what it was; and 
 it is almost certain that the unknown sower of the 
 precious seed never knew what he had done. What 
 a surprise it will be to him when the sheaves are 
 gathered ! 
 
 We have the testimony of her own lips that in 
 those days she was peculiarly sensitive to the sights 
 and sounds of Nature. One Sunday morning in 
 the summer of 1902, while outing on the coast of 
 Maine, we took a walk together two miles or more 
 inland to attend service in the Methodist church in 
 the nearest village. On our return, in order to 
 protect ourselves from the heat of the noonday sun, 
 we made a detour from the main road through a 
 dense forest, in the deep silence of which we could 
 hear voices which could not be heard under the open 
 sky. Mrs. Gamewell asked me if I could under- 
 stand what God was saying in this old cathedral 
 of nature. I replied: "I hear the voices; please 
 articulate them for me." She began with, "All 
 nature is an interpreter of the spiritual realm," and
 
 8 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 continued to talk till every leaf and stone, every 
 speck of sunshine and every shadow seemed vocal 
 spoken words of God. When we passed out into 
 the open sunshine I asked her when she first became 
 conscious of this identity of Nature and the eternal 
 Word; and she answered, "From my childhood." 
 
 This faculty, then, was in her a gift rather than 
 the result of culture. Its basis was an original tem- 
 perament, closely allied to that of a poet, a delicate 
 sensibility of organization which makes the human 
 heart a living jEolian harp, catching and render- 
 ing every rustle of Nature. 
 
 There were two things that occurred in those 
 years that powerfully affected her character and 
 determined her career : the Civil War and her con- 
 version. She was but thirteen years of age when 
 the scream of Bellona terrified the country. And 
 during the most impressible period of a girl's life, 
 when the observant soul is inquiring for the mean- 
 ing of things occurring within and without, the 
 entire land was absorbed in the tremendous conflict 
 raging between the North and the South. She saw 
 regiments of lorwans, in which were many of her 
 personal friends, marching away to the music of 
 fife and drum for the field of carnage. She heard 
 the sobs of many mothers and wives who had given 
 their dear ones, an immeasurable sacrifice for their 
 country's honor. She was still a girl when the war 
 closed; and she saw battle-worn veterans return- 
 ing home, with their ranks decimated, and in many 
 instances almost annihilated. But she was old
 
 A MISSIONARY IN PREPARATION 9 
 
 enough to understand that this was the price paid 
 for two things: the nation's unity, and the free- 
 dom of all its citizens; and it was borne in upon 
 her that this sacrifice was none too great for so 
 glorious a consummation. 
 
 In those days the natural instinct of patriotism 
 was intensified until it became with her a passion. 
 A feature of that passion was its breadth. While 
 she dearly loved her home city and her state, her 
 love widened out, its heat increasing with the vol- 
 ume of its flame, till it enwrapped the whole land. 
 So charged was her heart with this holy passion, 
 that when she rose, as we have frequently seen her, 
 and stretching out her hand, ejaculated, "My 
 country !" it sent an electric thrill to all who heard 
 her. 
 
 It was during the war, when she was but fifteen 
 years of age, that she publicly consecrated her life 
 to God, and was received in the Methodist Episco- 
 pal Church in Davenport, Iowa. There was 
 nothing phenomenal or spectacular in that experi- 
 ence. She often spoke of far more apparent 
 changes in the unfolding of her divine life, when 
 she passed crises in later years, than that that oc- 
 curred when she first confessed Christ. The proba- 
 bility is that she was an accepted child of God be- 
 fore that time, living a life of prayer and child- 
 like innocence. Her so-called conversion was but 
 little more than an open confession a stage in the 
 normal development of her spiritual character. It 
 was perfectly natural that the sentiments awakened
 
 10 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 in her heart by the great national conflict should 
 impress themselves on her understanding of her 
 spiritual life. Whether or not she was aware of 
 the process at the time, the fact was shaping itself 
 in her mind, of which she afterward became fully 
 conscious, that God's kingdom was wider than the 
 bounds of any church or country, that everywhere 
 men should be brought into the liberty of this 
 kingdom, and finally, that the soldiers of Christ 
 should hesitate at no sacrifice to secure this end. 
 Thus the missionary thought lay like the seed of 
 God's truth in her heart. It was a potent factor 
 in her spirit long before she discovered its bearing 
 on her lifework, for which God was preparing her. 
 Mary Porter studied in the public schools in the 
 several cities where she had lived during her child- 
 hood, and was in the High School of Davenport, 
 Iowa, when the Orphans' Home was transferred to 
 that city. When she was nearly eighteen years of 
 age she left the school to take a position of teacher 
 in the Home. After teaching for one year, she re- 
 turned to the High School, and by her indomitable 
 industry not only graduated with the class from 
 which she had been absent a full year, but took such 
 high rank and so impressed the principal, who had 
 been elected head of the Grandview Academy, 
 Grandview, Iowa, that he offered her the position 
 of teacher of Latin, physiology and English gram- 
 mar in that school. In a letter written many years 
 later she speaks of that year of doubled toil thus : 
 "I used to pray for such help when crowded to
 
 A MISSIONARY IN PREPARATION 11 
 
 desperation in my last year's work before gradua- 
 tion. I felt justified in crowding under the circum- 
 stances, and I had a right to expect God to bless 
 my efforts, and he did. I used to ask him to help 
 me with geometry, Latin, chemistry, and everything 
 in which I was likely to stagger from overwork. 
 I have sat down to my desk so weary and discour- 
 aged with everything that I could have almost 
 cried ; but in the extremity I would remember God, 
 and have felt his unmistakable help; and so the 
 puzzles disappeared and I wondered where I found 
 them. Now, in those days I could not have told my 
 faith, words would have stuck in my throat; in- 
 deed, I was in great measure unconscious of the 
 faith I exerted. In my extremity I called upon 
 him for things I had not heard men say we might 
 expect from God, and God himself taught me to 
 come again and again until my faith strengthened, 
 and I naturally looked to him without being driven 
 to it." 
 
 After graduation, in 1868, she accepted the posi- 
 tion offered her in the Grandview Academy, and 
 taught there for more than two years, continuing 
 her studies preparatory for a regular college course. 
 Though but twenty years of age, she was made 
 superintendent of the Sunday school and did much 
 religious work among the students. While there 
 her thought was turned to the foreign missionary 
 work; and at the close of the year she resigned 
 her position in the Academy and accepted a call 
 from the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society to
 
 12 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 devote her life to the cause of Christ in China. 
 After leaving Grandview she taught several months 
 in Davenport schools, during which time she made 
 her final arrangements to go to China, and left her 
 home for that purpose October 9, 1871. Hearing 
 that there was another Mary Porter in the city of 
 Peking, to which she was destined, she decided, in 
 order to avoid confusion, to place a middle letter 
 in her name. What shall it be? Q is the initial 
 letter of Quo, what? Let it be Q. Henceforth till 
 her marriage her name stands Mary Q. Porter.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 FKOM AMERICA TO PEKING 
 
 Mrs. Gamewell had purposed to publish a His- 
 tory of the Peking Station of North China Mission 
 of The Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of 
 the Methodist Episcopal Church, and had prepared 
 copious notes from which we extract the following: 
 
 "The North China Mission of the Methodist 
 Episcopal Church was organized the same year that 
 gave birth to the Woman's Foreign Missionary 
 Society (1869). In October of that year, while 
 Bishop Kingsley was present, the Mission passed a 
 resolution asking the bishop to appoint two single 
 women to organize a girls' boarding school and to 
 conduct evangelistic work among women. This re- 
 quest was sent to the Woman's Foreign Missionary 
 Society. The executive committee at its meeting in 
 May, 1871, authorized the New England Branch to 
 send to Peking Miss Maria Brown, of Mclrose, 
 Massachusetts, and the Western Branch to send 
 Miss Mary Porter, of Davenport, Iowa. They were 
 accordingly appointed and instructed to go to work 
 under the direction of the married women of the 
 mission, Mrs. L. N. Wheeler and Mrs. H. H. 
 Lowry. 
 
 13
 
 14 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 "At the same meeting of the executive commit- 
 tee Miss Beulah Woolston and Miss Sarah Wool- 
 ston, who, under the direction of the Parent Board, 
 had been doing missionary work in Foochow since 
 1859, and were now taking a well-earned rest at 
 home in the United States, were adopted by the 
 Woman's Foreign Missionary Society, and were 
 instructed to continue their work in Foochow in its 
 name and under its support. In 1871 these four 
 women tried to make a party across the continent 
 to San Francisco, but the Chicago fire was raging 
 and interrupted communication, so that they were 
 not able to make connection till Miss Porter met 
 the others in San Francisco. In those days nothing 
 was known by the missionary authorities in the 
 United States about the closing of navigation dur- 
 ing the winter between Shanghai and Tientsin. As 
 the Misses Brown and Porter had started too late 
 to reach North China that autumn, they went south 
 with the Misses Woolston and spent the winter in 
 Foochow." 
 
 The following is taken from a letter of personal 
 reminiscences written several years later : 
 
 "Close on to Christmas of 1871 we two that is, 
 Maria Brown and I sat in a room in Foochow, 
 China. The ceiling was high and the wide, long 
 floor was painted in stripes. A wood fire burned 
 in the grate and a big door opened into a bathroom. 
 When I Wanted to be alone, I went into the bath- 
 room and put my head out of the window into the 
 unoccupied space of the upper air. One day, with
 
 FROM AMERICA TO PEKING 15 
 
 my head out of the window, I struggled alone with 
 a load of responsibility with which, in my youth- 
 ful, opinionated state and crudity of spiritual de- 
 velopment, I scorned to trouble God. Suddenly 
 without request or thought of mine, my heart went 
 free and a specific conviction concerning the mat- 
 ters that troubled me seemed to flood my being with 
 knowledge as sure as if a voice had spoken from 
 Heaven. Thereafter no thought of those matters 
 could cause fear or trouble of any kind. Years 
 afterward everything turned out exactly as I was 
 made to know that day, and was confident through 
 all following days, they would. The experience 
 was a sacred wonder hid in my heart, and was the 
 beginning of a series of new and uplifting lessons 
 concerning God's care and love, by which he made 
 me more fit for the work which I was to do. The 
 experience stands in vivid relief among the Provi- 
 dences that attended the development of the school. 
 "Miss Brown and I had been sent out to open a 
 school for girls in Peking. What, then, were we 
 doing away down south in Foochow? At the time 
 of our outgoing the Woman's Foreign Missionary 
 Society was only two years old, and the women of 
 that Society did not know as much as they do now. 
 They did not know that the approach to Tientsin, 
 the port of Peking, freezes, and that vessels do not 
 run north from Shanghai after freezing weather 
 sets in. So they sent us out, to land in Shanghai 
 after the last vessel going north had departed. 
 But we were traveling with Miss Bculah and Miss
 
 16 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 Sarah Woolston. They were pioneer workers 
 among Chinese women and girls twelve years before 
 there was a Woman's Foreign Missionary Society. 
 They had established a school for girls in Foochow 
 and done a wide-reaching work through the church 
 there that endeared them to all hearts. The Misses 
 Woolston, their work and themselves being adopted 
 by the newly organized Woman's Foreign Mis- 
 sionary Society, were now returning to China from 
 a well-earned vacation. They took us with them 
 to Foochow, to wait there for the opening of navi- 
 gation, in the spring. Thus the same Providence 
 which had given us raw recruits the high privilege 
 of going to meet the new life in the new field in the 
 companionship of such veterans as the devoted and 
 talented Misses Woolston gave us also all the ad- 
 vantages of a winter spent in an old mission, where 
 we could learn lessons from such successful and 
 established work as that developed by Miss Beulah 
 and Miss Sarah Woolston. Though one day, when 
 it was told us that one of the pupils had rolled 
 downstairs and knocked out a tooth in her progress, 
 and that Miss Sarah had picked up the child and 
 the tooth, put the latter into its place, and band- 
 aged the child's mouth shut until the tooth had 
 grown fast again, we wondered if we should ever 
 be equal to the exigencies of school work in China." 
 While in Foochow the two young women studied 
 the characters and principles of the Chinese lan- 
 guage, but made no effort to acquire the pronunci- 
 ation of the South which differed so radically from
 
 FROM AMERICA TO PEKING 17 
 
 that of the North where they were to labor. As 
 soon as navigation opened they started for Peking, 
 where they arrived April 6, 1872. We have no 
 account of the trip written at the time; but in 
 1905 Mrs. Gamewell published an article in The 
 Chautauquan, in which she describes the journey in 
 part as seen in the perspective of thirty-three years : 
 
 "Our course lies northward from Shanghai over 
 troubled seas till we pass between the rocky pro- 
 montory of Shantung and the point of Port Arthur. 
 The Gulf of Pechili about the promontory of Shan- 
 tung is one of the roughest bits of water to be 
 found, and its choppy sea will usually bring to grief 
 the best of sailors. Sailing across the gulf, our 
 steamer anchors outside the bar which bars the 
 entrance to the mouth of the muddy and exceed- 
 ingly winding river Pei Ho (North River). Dur- 
 ing neap tide a steady wind will blow the water 
 oif the bar until there is not enough left to float 
 even so small a vessel as the little coast steamship, 
 so that our vessel must anchor outside and leave 
 us tossing on the short waves of the stormy Gulf, 
 waiting for less wind and more water, in misery 
 remembering sympathetically the man who was so 
 seasick that he feared he should die, and later on 
 was afraid that he would not. 
 
 "The captains of these coastwise steamers are a 
 picturesque set soldiers of fortune, with vocabu- 
 laries gathered from all parts of the world; and 
 with full steam ahead and with bubbling vocabu- 
 laries the vessel goes grinding over, while the sound
 
 18 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 of scraping and grinding during the passage testi- 
 fies to the fact that it has not only plowed the 
 waves, but also the sands below. 
 
 "The coast line near the mouth of the Pei Ho 
 presents only a long stretch of mud flats. In the 
 village of Ta Ku, on the flats, live the pilots who 
 own and navigate a great fleet of steam tugs which 
 serve over the bar and up the river. There is a 
 hotel at Ta Ku, and during the summer months the 
 people from Tientsin frequently resort there for 
 the sea air, but in recent years the greater part of 
 the foreign population seek Pei Tai Ho, which lies 
 eastward near Shan Hai Kuan, and is becoming 
 known as the Newport of China. Commanding the 
 entrance to the river are the Ta Ku forts, which 
 repulsed the British and French fleets in 1859, but 
 were taken the following year by a rear attack. 
 They now lie in ruin, battered and dismantled. 
 Having crossed the bar the little vessel steams 
 around the many bends by which the Pei Ho makes 
 its way to the sea, frequently running aground 
 and making some of the curves by deliberately 
 pushing her nose into the mud bank and being 
 pulled around by cables. 
 
 "Though Tientsin lies but thirty miles inland 
 from the sea, it is usually a day's trip by the crook- 
 ed, winding river, so that most passengers now leave 
 the steamer at the mouth of the river and hurry 
 on to Tientsin by the train which runs along its 
 banks. Tientsin lies on the west bank of the Pei Ho 
 at a point below the junction of the river with the
 
 FROM AMERICA TO PEKING 19 
 
 Grand Canal. The old city with its suburbs 
 stretches along the river for six miles or more and 
 up the canal an equal distance, and contains a 
 population of over a million, though if the census 
 were to include all those living in the houseboats 
 swarming the river and canal for miles, the popula- 
 tion would probably be found to be twice this 
 number. 
 
 "If you wish to reach Peking, you may now 
 hurry on by train, but if you wish to see China, 
 there are two ways of making the trip. One is by 
 native houseboat to Tung Chou, which is at the 
 head of navigation, then from Tung Chou by 
 sedan chair, or cart, or donkey. The other mode 
 of travel is by cart. A gentleman very soberly 
 told us that he knew a man who left Tientsin in a 
 cart, and with the first propelling jerk of the mules, 
 he left his seat on the bottom of the cart and never 
 landed there again until the cart drew up outside 
 the walls of Peking, having been shaken about in 
 his cart all day like a peppercorn in a continuously 
 shaken pepper box. . 
 
 "We chose the river and the houseboat. The 
 skies were clear, the winds in our favor, and the 
 men who were to pole, scull, and sail our little boat 
 were in high good humor. They shoved off with 
 shoutings that mingled with the shouts of hundreds 
 of other boatmen, many of whom, witli poles armed 
 with spikes and hooks, helped our boatmen pull and 
 push away through a jam of boats that throng 
 the river all the way from the settlement to the
 
 20 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 native city of Tientsin and beyond. As we ap- 
 proached the Pontoon Bridge, or Bridge of Boats, 
 as it is often called, a clumsy barge slowly dropped 
 from its place in a line of barges that formed the 
 bridge. Our boat was only one of many which 
 waited their turn to pass through the gap thus 
 made in the bridge. A crowd of foot passengers 
 and burden-bearers were waiting on the edge of this 
 break in this bridge ; but they did not seem to mind 
 the delay, so absorbed were they in the contempla- 
 tion of the foreigners, who seemed to afford them 
 quite as much amusement as a bear performance 
 or a monkey show. Above the bridge we passed 
 other bridges, and were at last out of the throng 
 of boats and well on our way up the winding Pei 
 Ho. As our boat swung around the various curves 
 we were often in sight of the ruined Catholic 
 cathedral which occupies a prominent site on the 
 banks of the river. This cathedral was burned 
 at the time of the Tientsin massacre in 1870. After 
 being restored it was again destroyed in 1900. 
 
 "The country between Tientsin and Tung Chou 
 is flat and uninteresting, but in the time of stand- 
 ing grain and full foliage, with clear skies and a 
 fair breeze, the passage up the Pei Ho is very 
 enjoyable. The wind filled our bamboo-slatted 
 sail, a competent and good-natured captain held 
 the rudder, and with the sliding panels that formed 
 the sides of our boat taken out we reclined at our 
 ease and listened to the purling waters and watched 
 the green banks not far away on either side. We
 
 FROM AMERICA TO PEKING 21 
 
 tied to the bank at night and sailed away in the 
 early gray of the succeeding mornings. The bot- 
 tom of this river in many places lies higher than 
 the surrounding country, and sometimes during 
 the floods the water breaks through the banks 
 and spreads many miles through the low-lying 
 fields. At such times boats instead -of following the 
 course of the river around its many curves, sail in 
 a straight course. I have had such boat trips in 
 which we passed over the tops of fields of kaoliang, 
 a kind of broom corn, which stood at least ten feet 
 high, and the villages built on land somewhat 
 higher than the surrounding fields appeared as is- 
 lands in the surrounding water. 
 
 "At Tung Chou, twelve miles from the east gate 
 of Peking, all boats land their passengers and 
 unload their freight, which are transported in carts 
 or wheelbarrows, or on mules or donkeys. Eight 
 li from Tung Chou (a li is a third of a mile) the 
 way to Peking leads over a famous bridge which 
 is called the Eight Li Bridge. When the English 
 and French marched against Peking in I860 it 
 was the scene of one of the fiercest fights." 
 
 The Rev. L. N. Wheeler and his little daughter 
 had met Miss Porter and her companion, Miss 
 Brown, at Tientsin, and had accompanied them up 
 the river. From Tung Chou they rode on donkeys, 
 a mode of conveyance so new to Miss Porter that 
 she found it impossible to retain her scat, and was 
 frequently cast to the ground. They, however, 
 regarded these mishaps as interesting events which
 
 22 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 gave color to an otherwise dull picture. The land- 
 scape about the city is monotonous in the extreme. 
 The somber gray walls rise fifty feet above the 
 plain, and over the city hangs a great cloud of 
 dust. The picture was certainly not one calculated 
 to relieve the ache of homesickness which oppressed 
 the heart of a young woman whose kin were on the 
 other side of the globe. The ridiculous donkey 
 ride probably relieved that dreadful mental strain 
 which he alone knows who looks in the dusk of the 
 evening upon a great crowd of foreigners who hate 
 him and his God, and who away from all his rela- 
 tives goes through the gates of a heathen city which 
 henceforth he is to call "my home." At the gates 
 the party took Peking carts to convey them in 
 greater privacy through the narrow and treeless 
 streets with great walls shutting from view the pri- 
 vate residences and their surrounding gardens. At 
 last, after almost half a year since she bade adieu 
 to her country and loved ones, she stood at the daor 
 of the Methodist Mission compound on Filial Piety 
 Lane.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE GOSPEL IN CHINA 
 
 Miss Porter entered Peking sixty-five years after 
 Robert Morrison, the first Protestant apostle to 
 China, had begun his lonely work in Canton. He, 
 however, had been hampered by governmental re- 
 strictions and that temperamental conservatism 
 which had preserved this great people practically 
 unchanged through millenniums from away beyond 
 the origin of Christianity or, possibly, that of the 
 Jewish nation. It was seven years before he bap- 
 tized the first native convert, and one year after 
 his death (1834) there were but two Protestant 
 missionaries in the empire, and the Christian Church 
 had but three native members. Two things were 
 required to prepare tfoe way for the kingdom of 
 God in that land. There must first occur certain 
 providential events to break down the external re- 
 strictions to the gospel; and then the evangelists 
 must find a way to let the gospel light into the 
 minds of a people who, so far from desiring it, 
 sincerely believed it to be a devilish wickedness, the 
 secret of their national shame and disaster. 
 
 The history of the propaganda of the faith else- 
 where would lead us to look for great world-move- 
 
 23
 
 24 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 ments, in which there was no conscious purpose to 
 spread the gospel, but which would inerrantly serve 
 that end. Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Mace- 
 donia, and Rome were the unconscious servants of 
 the Almighty in the ancient days. So in modern 
 times, nations with purposes of conquest and greed 
 have been unwittingly the avenging sword of the 
 Lord. It was England that became the providen- 
 tial instrument of opening the door for the entrance 
 of the gospel in China. In attempting to protect 
 the interests of commerce, after the retirement of 
 the East India Company from China, England be- 
 came involved in what is known as the opium war, 
 which ended in 1842 in the Treaty of Nanking, 
 which opened five ports for free foreign trade, and 
 incidentally threw wide open the gates for the mis- 
 sionary. War broke out again, in which the Chi- 
 nese government was humbled by British prowess, 
 and another treaty was ratified in 1860 which 
 granted the representatives of foreign governments 
 the privilege of residence in the capital city, 
 Peking, gave them passports to travel in all parts 
 of China, and a guarantee that they should have 
 protection in their religion. 
 
 Thus the way was prepared for the missionary 
 to carry his message to the very doors of the im- 
 perial palace. The Presbyterian and the American 
 Boards of Foreign Missions hastened at once to 
 enter the city. Romanism had already been there 
 for centuries. But it was not till 1869 that the 
 Methodist Episcopal Church sent its represents-
 
 THE GOSPEL IN CHINA 25 
 
 tives to that strategic center. It was during that 
 year that the Rev. L. N. Wheeler and the Rev. 
 H. H. Lowry went up from Foochow "to spy out 
 the land," and, like Caleb and Joshua, reported, 
 "It is a goodly land, and we are well able to pos- 
 sess it." They at once went to work with zeal to 
 lay the foundations of what has since become one 
 of our most conspicuous and successful missions. 
 The New Connection brethren at Tientsin very 
 generously loaned them for six months one of their 
 most efficient native preachers. And they were in 
 sympathetic touch with the other Protestant mis- 
 sions in the city. 
 
 The prohibitive barriers which the national gov- 
 ernment had opposed to the presence and work of 
 missionaries were broken by the force of war. It 
 now remained for these missionaries to find a way 
 by which to let the gospel light into the hearts of 
 the people. The problem was not as simple as those 
 familiar with the evangelism of the Western nations 
 would suppose. The conditions were altogether 
 different from those which the apostles encountered 
 when they went out under the command, "Go ye 
 into all the world, and preach the gospel to every 
 creature." The Greek mind, which for centuries 
 had dominated the thought of the world, was alert, 
 curious, ready to examine every new thing. The 
 Roman mind was as cosmopolite as it was imperial, 
 believing that within every widely prevailing faith 
 there was an element of truth ; tolerant, even when 
 perplexed with conflicting doctrines ; asking car-
 
 26 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 nestly, though sometimes despairingly, "What is 
 truth?" The Jewish people scattered throughout 
 the world had made the thoughtful mind familiar 
 with those great principles which opened their per- 
 fect bloom in Christ; and this ubiquitous people 
 furnished a starting place for the evangelists. In 
 addition to that, the Western world was exhausted. 
 It had outgrown its ancient thought. Every mod- 
 ern science was but a weak modification of an older 
 and better one; every song like the ^Eneid, was 
 an imitation of an older and nobler one like the 
 Iliad; every pleasure was an old one exaggerated. 
 Modern religion had become an artificial perform- 
 ance void of all vitality. The Western world was 
 consciously dying, longing for a fresh breath from 
 the creative source of life to rejuvenate it and send 
 it on a higher career of endeavor. To that dying 
 world the gospel was literally the breath of life, 
 which saved it not only spiritually but politically 
 and in every other way. 
 
 The conditions in the Eastern world were totally 
 different. We are not yet certain whence came the 
 Chinese. If they are not indeed the ancient Su- 
 merians, who appear on the remotest frontiers of 
 human history, having already attained a high civ- 
 ilization at Babylon, four millenniums before 
 Christ, it is certain that the civilizations of these 
 people are identical. They are the same in their 
 industry, their literary character, their instinctive 
 abhorrence of brutal war, with its military aris- 
 tocracy, and their principles of government. It is
 
 THE GOSPEL IN CHINA 37 
 
 also certain that they emigrated from that cradle 
 of the human race. While the historic races with 
 which we are familiar moved westward, following 
 "the star of empire," this people moved eastward 
 till they were stopped by the billows of the Pacific. 
 Unaffected by the great events which prepared the 
 Western world for the gospel of the kingdom, they 
 built up a civilization entirely their own, develop- 
 ing a literature, science, and art, which antedated 
 by centuries those of the European world. They 
 had their vices, their rebellions, their frequent 
 changes of dynasties, yet through it all the govern- 
 ment moved on in its ancient way, and the normal 
 development of the people was undisturbed. They 
 have had a history long enough to enable them to 
 fathom the deeps -of every religious system that 
 had ever reached them, and to properly estimate its 
 value. The mysticism of Buddhism had failed. Its 
 temples are neglected. So far as it relates to the 
 religious life of the people, that imported faith of 
 India is only a broken shell of a nut, the meat of 
 which was decayed. The atheistic faith of Taoism 
 had practically ceased to be a computable force in 
 the land ; an intellectual system as lifeless as Patris- 
 tic scholasticism is with us. The moral system cf 
 Confucius, beautiful as it is, has proved itself in 
 the long test of the years to be utterly inadequate 
 "to make the comers thereunto perfect." The 
 ethics of the ages are a spent force. There is no 
 hierarchy to deceive the people with a form of reli- 
 gion in the place of its reality, for the emperor
 
 28 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 is himself the representative of heaven and earth 
 and the people, and relegates none of his glory to 
 another. But the recent wars of China with for- 
 eign nations have shaken the faith of the people in 
 the divinity of their rulers. 
 
 Amid all these changes, there is one thing in 
 the faith of China which stands unmoved and ap- 
 parently immovable: the people adore the Past. 
 The holy thing is that which has been, coming down 
 to them from the dawn of time. They fear and 
 abhor change. The worship of ancestors is the 
 soul of their religion. If this invulnerable con- 
 servatism which so appalls the preacher of Christ 
 were the torpor of a stagnant mind or the decrepi- 
 tude of old age, it would not be so hopeless. But 
 while China outages all other living nations the 
 individual Chinaman has all the virile traits of 
 youth. He is described by such as have labored 
 with him for many years as "an emigrant of 
 ubiquitous adaptation ; a business man, a mechanic, 
 a trader, a sailor, a diplomat." He has not been 
 a soldier, for he has too lofty a conception of the 
 meaning of a man, to honor him whose chief busi- 
 ness in life is just to fight and butcher his fellow. 
 He explained China's disastrous war with Japan 
 thus : "We are literary ; they are only fighters." 
 
 We in these latter days have discovered that aid 
 China is, after all, a youthful Hercules who even 
 now is squeezing the serpents in his cradle. But 
 when Miss Porter entered Peking these latent forces 
 were not so apparent. It was her business, with
 
 THE GOSPEL IN CHINA 29 
 
 her colaborers, to believe that these forces were 
 there, find them out, awaken them by the gospel 
 power of life, and at last, when God's hour should 
 strike, send them forth not a horde of barbarians 
 to threaten Christendom, but a redeemed host car- 
 rying the banner of peace. How our missionaries 
 did this miracle, and by what means, it is the pur- 
 pose of these sketches to tell.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 HOME IN PEKING 
 
 The two apostles of Methodism in North China, 
 the Rev. L. N. Wheeler and the Rev. H. H. Lowry, 
 were reinforced in the fall of 1870 by the arrival 
 of the Rev. L. W. Pilcher, of blessed memory, and 
 the Rev. G. R. Davis, who, with the skill of a vet- 
 eran, is still doing efficient service in this field. 
 Their work, however, was necessarily preliminary 
 studying the situation, mastering the language, 
 erecting chapels and other buildings, and pioneer- 
 ing the outlying country. The official reports of 
 our brethren to the Mission Board during those 
 first three years of the North China Mission, are 
 both pathetic and inspiring. From the world view- 
 point the situation was as hopeless as was the evan- 
 gelization of Europe when Paul and Silas landed 
 in Macedonia. But these four men faced the de- 
 spairing conditions with a courage and faith worthy 
 the inspired missionaries. 
 
 A property covering a little less than two acres, 
 inclosed in a high brick wall, and lying not far 
 from the city gates, was purchased. It had been 
 formerly occupied by a chancellor of the empire 
 as a place of residence for his family of twenty- 
 
 30
 
 HOME IN PEKING 31. 
 
 seven wives and a large retinue of servants. Many 
 of the buildings in this compound had to be torn 
 down, and others erected and adapted to missionary 
 purposes. This work, however, because of financial 
 considerations, could not be done at once, and the 
 missionaries were compelled to adjust themselves to 
 their limitations, living in old Chinese houses 
 adapted as nearly as possible to American habits 
 of life. The appropriation for the entire work 
 that year was less than $7,000. Into this environ- 
 ment came the first representatives of the Woman's 
 Foreign Missionary Society, Miss Maria Brown 
 and Miss Mary Q. Porter. 
 
 In a booklet entitled Our Peking School, which 
 she published some sixteen years later, she gives us 
 a delicious reminiscence which is better than a pho- 
 tograph of her Peking home, for it reproduces the 
 glow of the atmosphere of her first day there, and 
 gives us charming glimpses into her own heart as 
 she stands upon the threshold of a work for which 
 she was destined to lay down her life: 
 
 " 'You must be vaccinated !' The doctor was 
 called ! The deed was done ! And Miss Brown and 
 I, having just landed in Tientsin, en route to Pe- 
 king, tarried there and nursed our wounded arms; 
 and were, by so much, better prepared to meet the 
 ills of the flesh, which, as well as the enemy of souls, 
 should confront us in days to come. 
 
 "First among memories of those first days, nat- 
 urally enough, stands one of this experience which 
 met us on the threshold of the new life to wliich
 
 32 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 we had come, and other memories throng in rapid 
 succession. They are so vivid, that one cannot 
 think how unreal they may seem to those who read 
 these pages. 
 
 "It was a hot April day in China hot enough 
 for a July day in America. We had come by boat 
 from Tientsin to Tung Chou, and were on the road 
 that lies between Tung Chou and Peking. It is a 
 stone-paved road, and the huge paving stones are 
 worn into deep ruts by the heavy wheelbarrows and 
 carts that for ages have wheeled back and forth 
 between the two cities. 
 
 "There were five of us, and we were riding on 
 donkeys the superintendent of our North China 
 Mission and his little daughter, a brother mission- 
 ary, Miss Brown, and myself. Our saddles were 
 stuffed packs, which long use had packed into any- 
 thing but comfortable shape. On our several packs, 
 three of our party balanced with no support for 
 the feet, as the stirrups were hung over the packs 
 on ropes, in a way that made it necessary to ride 
 astride, in order to make any use of them. Chinese 
 women, when they ride, either sit astride or cross 
 their feet in front, sitting tailor fashion on broad 
 packs. This latter is the more easily done, since a 
 driver runs after each animal and lends a steadying 
 hand over rough places. The fashion in riding in 
 China differing from the fashion of the West, there 
 were no sidesaddles for our use, so we undertook, 
 as best we could, to adapt the fashion of the West 
 to the saddle of the East. In my case this was all
 
 HOME IN PEKING 83 
 
 the more difficult, because the animal which I rode 
 had an evil propensity for leaping the inequalities 
 of the road. He volunteered many jumps into the 
 air, which brought me with as many involuntary 
 jumps to the ground. 
 
 " 'My saddle is just like a hill,' complained the 
 child riding ahead of me. An exclamation from 
 behind called attention to another uncomfortable 
 rider, who sat upon a donkey that was kicking out 
 vigorously, just as the driver threw himself over the 
 flying heels and with his arms around the animal's 
 body strove to hold him to the ground. Presently 
 there was a vision of our escort, with full-spread 
 umbrella, sailing over the head of the donkey upon 
 which he had been sitting, while for the instant 
 that animal stood head down and heels in the air. 
 Submitting as cheerfully as possible to its mishaps, 
 our party came on its way. Finally the city walls 
 came into view, its battlemented outline showing 
 through the veil of dust which hung over the city. 
 Within the shadow of the massive gate towers we 
 exchanged our precarious saddles for less uncertain 
 sittings in staunch Peking carts. These carts 
 seemed like large dry goods boxes on wheels, each 
 cushioned and lined and set upon the shafts with 
 an opening toward the front. As we approached 
 the cart which was to carry us the carter sprang 
 from his perch upon the shafts and, lifting the 
 stiff cushion upon which he had been sitting, pro- 
 duced a short bench. Placing the bench upon the 
 ground, one end against the cart wheel and his foot
 
 34 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 on the other end to steady it, he waited for us to 
 mount. From the bench to the shafts I climbed, 
 then backing into the cart, was seated upon its 
 cushioned floor. Drawing my feet under me, I 
 made room for my companion, who backed in and 
 took her place in front of me. The carter then 
 took up his bench, put it into place, with its ends 
 resting on the shafts and its legs projecting down- 
 ward; then, letting the heavy cushion fall, he 
 sprang upon the seat so formed, and with feet 
 dangling took up the lines and we were off. It 
 required constant adjusting on our part to keep our 
 heads from coming into violent contact with the 
 sides of the swaying cart, as the wheels, first on 
 one side and then the other, descended into the deep 
 ruts of the stone-paved way. 
 
 "Passing through the city gate, our carter soon 
 turned aside from the stone road, and then our cart 
 rolled along comfortably enough. We passed 
 through a place filled with mounds formed by the 
 debris of former buildings. We were told that the 
 houses once here were^ years ago, razed to the 
 ground, in order to rid the city of a gang of rob- 
 bers who infested this locality. Leaving this for- 
 saken place behind, our carter turned into Filial 
 Piety Lane and stopped before the gate of the 
 Methodist Mission compound. Up and down the 
 street as far as we could see were only dusty, gray 
 brick walls, with here and there heavy doors closing 
 the entrances to the houses which were behind the 
 walls, but invisible from the street.
 
 HOME IN PEKING 35 
 
 "We crawled out of our carts and stood upon one 
 of the great cubes of stone, two of which flank 
 the gateway. Stepping down, we entered the great 
 double gate, which was swung open by the gate- 
 keeper, who made his bow as we passed, and stood 
 within the walls of a brick-paved court. Beyond 
 the walls of this gate court were three homes. Two 
 were occupied by the two families then belonging 
 to the North China Mission, and the third stood 
 unoccupied, waiting the arrival of this new Mis- 
 sion's first representatives from the Woman's For- 
 eign Missionary Society. 
 
 "Well, we turned to the left and passed through 
 another gate, and went to exchange greetings with 
 the members of the family with whom we were to 
 make our home until we could set up housekeeping 
 for ourselves. Then, dusty and tired, we turned 
 again and were shown through another gate into 
 the house which was to be our home through so 
 many changing years. Here we found a room 
 fitted up for our present use. 
 
 "Early in the morning of the next day, I stepped 
 into the weed-grown court in front of our house. 
 A great dog bounded forth, and in greeting placed 
 his paws upon my shoulders, then dropping to the 
 ground, he marked the entire length of my gown 
 with two streaks of Peking mud. The act made an 
 impression upon my mind as well as upon my gown, 
 whereby I remember that it rained that April morn- 
 ing in Peking. A path through the weeds led to 
 a hole in the wall. It was a perfect circle, about
 
 36 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 six feet in diameter, nicely finished in masonry 
 the Chinese moon-gate. Near by was a small build- 
 ing, then used for a chapel. Beyond that, and 
 joining the court in which I stood, was another 
 court which was to be used for our girls' school. 
 From somewhere on the other side of the walls came 
 the sound of voices united in a sing-song of un- 
 meaning sounds. The boys of our mission school 
 were studying their lessons in a room just over the 
 wall. Turning about, I faced the little house in 
 which we had spent our first night in Peking. 
 There it stood under its heavy tiled roof. Three 
 rooms in a row and a veranda across its length. 
 It was a Chinese house which had been fitted with 
 board floors and glass windows, and, like nearly all 
 houses in Peking, was only one story high. All 
 this has changed with the sixteen years that have 
 passed since then. The weeds, after a struggle, 
 gave place to grass and shrubbery. The old wall, 
 with its moon-gate, and the little chapel, were torn 
 down, and beyond the old foundations a new wall 
 was built, which wall joins the new and larger 
 chapel over to the east, to bound the premises of 
 the Woman's Foreign Mission Society. Still fur- 
 ther to the east, and beyond a high wall, flourishes 
 a boys' school, in large, well-appointed buildings, 
 which school had its beginning in that school of 
 street boys who shouted their lessons that rainy 
 morning so long ago. 
 
 "The size of our house was increased to more 
 convenient dimensions, by throwing out a wing to
 
 HOME IN PEKING 37 
 
 the front and adding a kitchen to the back. Be- 
 cause of its peculiar dimensions our friends called 
 the house the Long Home. Here Miss Brown and 
 I set up housekeeping, and here we spent three 
 happy, busy years together. Here we were j-oined 
 by Dr. Combs (1873), who made her home with 
 us until her house and hospital were built. Here 
 Miss Campbell spent her short life of devoted labor 
 (1875-1878), and here she died. With zeal, 
 matched by the strong will with which she overcame 
 all difficulties, and unsparing self-denial, she gave 
 herself to the people with whom she had cast in 
 her lot. The few years of her missionary life were 
 filled with incessant toil. And now she rests. In 
 this same house we welcomed Dr. Howard (1877), 
 and to this home came Miss Cushman (1878), 
 bringing with her a quickening atmosphere of love 
 and energy, and here Miss Cushman and I wel- 
 comed Miss Sears and Miss Yates (1880), and later 
 Mrs. Jewell (1883). 
 
 "The workers, who through the busy years made 
 their home in that little house behind the walls of 
 Filial Piety Lane, are widely separated IKTW, and 
 the little house is only a memory in the hearts of 
 those who loved it for the associations of the years 
 in which they called it home. The house was 
 finally torn down (1896) to make room for the 
 school, which, planted in the court to the east, grew 
 until the eastern court was not large enough to 
 contain it." 
 
 After Mrs. Gamewell had left us for her eternal
 
 38 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 mansion Mrs. G. R. Davis (Miss Maria Brown), 
 who had shared with her the sacrifice, toil, and 
 victory of those early days of the Peking Mission, 
 in a letter of reminiscence, writes: 
 
 "I do not recall that Mary ever told me in detail 
 about her call to mission work, but I know there was 
 a positive conviction that she was called to the for- 
 eign field, which did not yield to the repeated ex- 
 pression of opinion from three veteran missionaries, 
 that our Mission Board had made a grave mistake 
 in appointing us to Peking, as there was absolutely 
 no work that a young woman could do there. 
 
 "We came out the year after the Tientsin Massa- 
 cre, when the prejudice against all foreigners was 
 still very strong in the North. We rarely went on 
 the street without seeing women placing their hands 
 over the children's eyes lest we bewitch them. 
 
 "We were friends from our first meeting in San 
 Francisco, and our close contact during the voyage 
 strengthened the bond. We used to walk the deck 
 together or lean over the side of the ship and sing 
 softly, 'If on a quiet sea, toward heaven we calmly 
 sail,' but it was not a quiet sea on which we sailed 
 in that late autumn of 1871. 
 
 "We felt our first genuine touch of homesickness 
 when we reached Shanghai. Many of our fellow- 
 passengers were missionaries, returning from fur- 
 lough, who lived in Shanghai, and the friends who 
 crowded around to greet them in the joy of their 
 greeting, impressed us with the consciousness that 
 we were strangers in a strange land. However,
 
 HOME IN PEKING 39 
 
 there was welcome and greeting for us in the hearts 
 and home of Dr. and Mrs. Lambuth. A few days 
 with them, and, as the last steamer for the North 
 had left the day before our arrival, we accompanied 
 the Misses Beulah and Sallie Woolston to Foochow, 
 and found a home and warm-hearted friends with 
 Mr. and Mrs. Sites. They were very kind to us 
 during the three months of our stay in Foochow, 
 and Mary charmed the children of the household 
 with her singing. They had never heard the songs 
 of the war until she sang them and they did enjoy 
 them so much. We were unable to secure a Manda- 
 rin teacher there, but a Chinese teacher gave us les- 
 sons in writing character, and discouraged me with 
 the assurance that I would never be able to equal 
 her in excellence. Although we did not learn much 
 Chinese, we did learn many lessons while in Foo- 
 chow. We saw the work as it then was, and heard 
 many stories of the early years, when faith not 
 sight held the workers to the task they had under- 
 taken, and we came North prepared not 'to de- 
 spise the day of small things' ! 
 
 "We had been asked many times during our 
 stay in the South: 'What do you expect to do?' 
 We had always the one answer: 'Anything that we 
 can find to do.' Our North China Mission was in 
 its infancy. A beginning had been made. Our 
 coming gave help and comfort to the other workers, 
 if we could not at first take any part in the effort 
 to reach our neighbors. Our home attracted the 
 women who lived near, and we had many callers
 
 40 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 during the time when we could only smile and show 
 them pictures and our various belongings in the 
 effort to convince them that we were friends. 
 
 "It was in our home, and at Mary's suggestion 
 that she and I knelt each day at noon to ask God's 
 blessing on the work. In some way Dr. Lowry 
 heard the matter referred to, and urged that it be 
 made a time for prayer for all the Mission. And 
 so through Mary's influence was established the 
 noon prayer meeting, which through all these years 
 has been a power in our Mission for harmony and 
 spiritual uplift. 
 
 "Our home was very dear to us both. Mary in- 
 sisted upon a division of household cares, and also 
 that I was on no account to do any part of her 
 tasks that she might chance to overlook. Nor 
 would she suffer me to please myself by doing 
 things for her, declaring that it would certainly 
 foster selfishness. She was full of enthusiasm, and 
 her bright young face, ready smile, and unfailing 
 cheerfulness, made her a general favorite. We 
 were happy in our home, but our work was like all 
 pioneer work hard and often discouraging. But 
 the only thing that counted was that there really 
 was work to do and work that was worth doing. 
 
 "She still lives in the hearts of many for whom 
 she labored here, and the influence of her life and 
 work must endure, a more lasting monument than 
 the beautiful stone which marks the last resting 
 place of the earthly tabernacle."
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 IN THE PEKING COMPOUND 
 
 Life in the Methodist Mission compound in the 
 city of Peking back in the seventies was very unlike 
 that that triumphs there in this first decade of the 
 twentieth century. In that area there are now 
 many sweet homes, schools, a hospital, a university, 
 and a splendid church, where hundreds of devout 
 Chinese worship the true God and his Christ. The 
 whole inclosure is pervaded by an atmosphere of 
 intellectual culture, social refinement, and spiritual 
 life, which is all the more vital because of the deadly 
 heathenism with which it is contrasted. But this 
 is the result of many years of patient and laborious 
 toil, demanding a courage and sacrifice worthy that 
 of the apostolic times. 
 
 Imagine a young woman who has felt the pulse 
 of the nineteenth century, and one to whom the 
 prize of distinction and large usefulness in her own 
 land had been extended, shut in a little world in 
 which are only eight of her countrymen. A gray 
 brick wall twelve feet high bounds her horizon. 
 Here are a few old buildings, not only foreign but 
 Oriental; picturesque indeed with their tiled roofs 
 and overhanging eaves curved up as if shriveled by 
 41
 
 42 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 the intense summer heat, but ill adapted to Ameri- 
 can modes of life. The Chinaman's idea of home 
 comfort and ours are as antipodal as are our 
 tongues. The average American sleeps in a better 
 room than the well-to-do official of China, who erects 
 his house with no idea whatever of sanitation, and 
 no idea of comfort as we understand comfort. 
 
 The missionaries had taken out the paper win- 
 dows and substituted glass, and they had laid baard 
 floors above the brick pavement on which the orig- 
 inal owner, though wealthy, was content to live. 
 But still the entire aspect was Oriental, ever deep- 
 ening the oppressive feeling of a far separation 
 from home. The blue sky is much of the time 
 obscured or dyed to gray by great masses of dust 
 which lay on the city like a thick cloud. When the 
 wind blows these dust clouds swirl and swish, pene- 
 trating every crevice of your home, and forcing the 
 retreat of broom and duster in inglorious defeat. 
 The dust, heavily laden with the poisons of a filthy 
 city, penetrates your garments, scratches your 
 skin, irritates your eyes. You breathe it, you taste 
 it, you smell it. A rainy day is a boon. How 
 unlike the spirit of our own land to speak of "a 
 lovely rainy day" ! Yet Miss Porter writes : 
 
 "The rain is pouring as if in haste to fill up the 
 measure of the Peking rainy season, all in this one 
 drenched Saturday. The dampness is like new 
 vigor to nerves tight drawn through the long dry 
 season of this climate. The seclusion of these drip- 
 ping days is favorable to letter writing, and the
 
 IN THE PEKING COMPOUND 43 
 
 patter, splash, rush, and pour make sweet music 
 to time one's thoughts and one's pen." 
 
 All this is very interesting for a mere visitor who 
 is there for a few weeks. Its novelty is a charm, 
 and its very discomforts add spice to the spirit of 
 adventure ; but to make this one's life, day by day 
 through long and weary years, is an endurance to 
 test the stoutest courage. 
 
 When Miss Porter would seek relief by venturing 
 outside the gates of the compound she is at once 
 confronted by the gateless wall -of race hatred, and 
 cannot enter sympathetically into the life of the 
 great world into which she has come with her mes- 
 sage of love. She is physically repulsive to the 
 Chinese. Her speech is barbarism. Her manner, 
 measured by Chinese etiquette, is coarseness itself. 
 What gentleman would be seen walking the streets 
 with his wife? Children cover their eyes and run 
 from her, screaming with terror till at a safe dis- 
 tance, when they will join with others in the cry, 
 "Foreign devil!" Many look upon her as an in- 
 truder, and are bold to let her know that she is 
 not wanted. They think her a meddler, coming to 
 attack their venerable faith, and race hatred is in- 
 tensified by religious passkm. A young and sensi- 
 tive woman must have hidden resources to endure all 
 this and hold to her purpose. As it is, it is safer 
 and pleasantcr to keep as much as possible within 
 the compound with her few companions, in spite of 
 its limited range and its dusty old Chinese houses, 
 so unlike her sweet home bcvond the seas. Her
 
 44 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 earliest work was in the main preparatory. Under 
 date of 1872 she writes : 
 
 "The friends here have been very kind, as we 
 have found them everywhere. Mr. Wheeler in 
 everything is thoughtful for our comfort ; his kind 
 heart appears in all his arrangements for us. They 
 had fitted up two rooms for us in the house that we 
 shall occupy, and made every arrangement that 
 could contribute to our comfort and make our 
 future home seem more homelike. Our lot joins 
 Mr. Wheeler's on the left and the school grounds 
 on the right. Additions are to be made to our 
 house, and the old building on the school lot is to 
 be replaced by a new one. The two houses are to 
 be connected by a covered passage. This work 
 will not be done short of three months, perhaps. 
 
 "The prospects for a school are encouraging. 
 Three girls have asked admission. We would like 
 to open school at once if there were only suitable 
 buildings for it. The work of our mission has only 
 just begun in Peking. The church membership is 
 very small and includes no women. We shall have 
 to employ a heathen woman as matron in the school, 
 of course with the hope that she may be converted. 
 Our teachers are all men. The women are very 
 ignorant and unfit for teachers." 
 
 Daily routine of study and teaching without re- 
 lief, threatens to become drudgery. And when to it 
 we add the oppressive loneliness of wide and long 
 separation from one's kindred, and the constant 
 drain on one's sympathies which the woes of hea-
 
 IN, THE PEKING COMPOUND 45 
 
 thendom occasion, there is danger that it will irri- 
 tate a fiery spirit till it finally becomes a nervous 
 wreck. Many instances are reported. Miss Porter 
 in one of her early letters refers to four missionaries 
 of whom she knew, whose minds had utterly given 
 way under the strain. The pressure is harder on 
 young women than on those who are married, for 
 these latter have diversion in the care of their fam- 
 ilies. It does ease one to shift the burden from 
 one shoulder to the other. 
 
 Recreation, in the American sense, is practically 
 impossible in the serious atmosphere -of initial mis- 
 sion work. To seek diversion in some earnest study 
 which does not bear directly upon the work is not 
 regarded with favor, and when such study becomes 
 absorbing it is openly condemned. "This one thing 
 I do," though enforced by no statute, is the im- 
 perative law of our China Missions. If Miss Por- 
 ter suffered the natural depression of her environ- 
 ment in those early days, we have learned of no 
 statement of it from her lips or pen. Yet not to 
 have suffered it would have been superhuman. But 
 she had her conflict unknown to the world, alone in 
 the wilderness of her temptation. She returned 
 from her struggle a victor, and took up her work 
 afresh with renewed strength. In a letter to one 
 very dear to her, she says : 
 
 "If I were not afraid that I should lose ground 
 or grip by doing so, I would acknowledge to you 
 that I carry about witli me a sense of failure all 
 the time, because of things that I do not get done.
 
 46 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 The secret is known between God and myself only. 
 I put on a bold front and refuse to acknowledge 
 that there is anything I ought to do which I can- 
 not do." 
 
 She says the secret was her own. This is doubt- 
 less true of the details of her conflict; but the 
 secret of her victory is apparent to all who knew 
 her intimately. It was due partly to the robust 
 healthfulness of her entire nature. She was in the 
 fullness of physical health, and seems to have in- 
 herited much of her mother's reverence for the 
 proper care of the temple of the Holy Spirit. She 
 was removed by immeasurable spaces from the mor- 
 bid view of the ascetic. Speaking of one whose 
 mind had become unbalanced in his work, she says : 
 "It all comes from unnatural modes of living: 
 Chinese clothes, single life, and solitude." She 
 adds: 
 
 "The matter of how missionaries ought to live 
 is often a question among missionaries themselves, 
 and no one is supposed to have reached the per- 
 fect solution. I personally have settled in the com- 
 mon sense view of the North China Mission. The 
 missionary who has the Spirit is always successful 
 in winning and helping souls: and his home com- 
 forts do not lessen his usefulness. The only differ- 
 ence between the man who has the Spirit and lives 
 poorly and the man who has the Spirit and lives 
 comfortably is that the latter is likely to keep his 
 health longer, and when it does break he knows it 
 was not for lack of comforts which he might have
 
 IN THE PEKING COMPOUND 47 
 
 had for the asking. It seems to me that the only 
 thing for a missionary to do is to wait on the Spirit 
 and keep the temple in as good repair as possible." 
 
 With this principle, she studied the matter of 
 food, dress, and exercise with the same reverence 
 and joy with which she would furnish and adorn 
 the house of God. Another element of her strength 
 was her healthful mental tone. The journals of 
 those years reveal no taint of morbidity. She 
 absolutely refused to let the walls of the compound, 
 or even the great wall -af North China, limit her 
 vision. She kept herself informed on all the great 
 movements in her own country and in the world. 
 Her comments on the political and commercial 
 events in America would have made creditable edi- 
 torials for our great metropolitan journals. She 
 was specially interested in all missionary efforts in 
 all parts of the world, and studied them in their 
 mutual relationship. 
 
 If we were asked to name what we reckoned to 
 be the distinctive feature of her mind, we would 
 say breadth. To such a mind there is no dull and 
 cheerless and wearisome monotony. Even the man- 
 gled foot of a Chinese little girl has relations and 
 significances widening out into the mysteries of the 
 kingdom. She once said: "Mary of Bethany lit- 
 tle dreamed how great a thing she wrought when 
 she poured that precious ointment on His person. 
 But it is given us to know that in doing so little 
 a thing as relieving a mangled foot we are doing 
 that for Jesus which he calls 'this gospel, which
 
 48 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 shall be preached throughout the whole world.' " 
 Another secret of her triumph was her inborn sen- 
 sibility to Nature's touch which kept her heart ever 
 fresh. In dust-clouded Peking there is very little 
 of Nature to be enjoyed. But she found it. We 
 have seen how the patter of the rain sent her pen 
 on rhythmical meditations. She loved to walk out 
 on the wall of the Tartar city to the observatory 
 where she could get the most commanding view of 
 the great metropolis and suburbs. In one of her 
 earliest letters she gives this bit of description, 
 which we repeat because of the glimpse it gives of 
 her heart : 
 
 "This point commands the finest possible view of 
 the entire city, though in its summer dress it looks 
 more a forest than a city ; and the thick foliage of 
 innumerable trees, through which the yellow tiles 
 of the palace building glimmer in pleasing contrast, 
 overshadow the low houses and obstruct the view 
 in all directions. The multitude of trees and birds 
 is a great redeeming feature of this filthy city of 
 dust and wickedness (that dust is near akin to 
 wickedness all housekeepers will allow). The trees 
 are inclosed in the walls by which all dwellings are 
 surrounded, and we may not enjoy their shade; 
 but we may walk on the city wall and en joy the sight 
 of their refreshing green, and breathe the pure air 
 which perhaps has swept the very woods beneath 
 whose shade we used to walk. The little birds that 
 flit about our high-walled courts are constant visi- 
 tors during both summer and winter, though the
 
 IN THE PEKING COMPOUND 49 
 
 liveliest imagination cannot fancy that they, or 
 those birds of loftier flight that fly shrieking 
 through the air, ever saw America. It is but fair 
 to add, all the birds do not shriek as they fly, only 
 those that have whistles on their tails. These whistles 
 are an ingenious sort of wind instrument made 
 vocal by motion through the air, as they speed their 
 flight, on the tails of pet pigeons that fly at large 
 in great numbers over all the city. The whistles 
 are tied to the birds before they take their daily 
 flight. The peculiar buzzing shriek can be heard 
 in all directions and for some distance from the 
 city, to the satisfaction of the peculiar inventive 
 genius of the Chinese mind." 
 
 But the principal reason of her triumph over 
 her depressing outward conditions was her com- 
 munion with God. The following extracts from 
 letters to members of her family reveal the secret of 
 her strength : 
 
 "No, I have had no regular wonder if you did 
 not mean irregular fits of homesickness. I have 
 longed to sec you all, thought of you until the 
 tears come not common with me but there is no 
 despondency in it. I fully believe God has kept 
 me from such feelings and in answer to prayer. I 
 think I have told you how buoyed up I have felt at 
 times when the most natural feeling would have 
 been heavy sadness. An Influence has supported 
 me all the way that I did not feel in past days. 
 When I remember the promised prayers and the 
 assurance from societies, Sunday schools, and
 
 50 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 churches that they are praying for me, it is no won- 
 der. Prayer seems to me a more substantial com- 
 fort the -older I grow, more like a real talk, and I 
 know and see the answers to some of my prayers, 
 and no doubt all are answered." 
 
 "Now, in answer to your question, 'anxious to be 
 back' does not describe the state of my feelings. 
 I am content to wait, but when the time does come 
 for my visit home I think none could be more joy- 
 ful. I long to see you all again. Sometimes I 
 ache with the feeling of how impossible it is for 
 me to see you now ; but, my sister, I think God has 
 given me a gift, a gift of faith that we shall be 
 united on earth, to comfort me. I used to pray for 
 you all with what was real agony because of my 
 dread of what might happen, but for a long time 
 that feeling has left me and a quiet sort of assur- 
 ance takes its place, and I am content, and I do 
 believe this assurance comes from God, that he who 
 cares for us so carefully, kindly, wisely, thus pre- 
 pares my heart for my work here." 
 
 When she consecrated herself to the work of a 
 missionary it was with the full conviction that she 
 was sent of Christ, and that his promise, "Lo, I 
 am with you alway," was given to her personally. 
 It is not to be supposed that at that time she fully 
 understood the measure of the sacrifice and peril 
 that her consecration would entail, but she never 
 lost the strength of her conviction or the cheer of
 
 IN THE PEKING COMPOUND 51 
 
 his presence. There came times when a tragic 
 death was imminent, and others when death would 
 have been a happy relief, yet never when in the 
 prosecution of her legitimate work had she any 
 fear. "Why," said she, "should I be alarmed when 
 I know that He whom I serve is with me?" 
 
 That this courage was really due to the sense of 
 Christ's presence when she was engaged in his ser- 
 vice, appears from the fact that fear did distress 
 her when peril came while she was engaged in some 
 other work, however innocent, which was not strict- 
 ly missionary. Once she went to see the celebrated 
 spring at Chi Nan Fu, and came unexpectedly into 
 peril. And then she suffered apprehension which 
 she would not have felt if in the line of duty : 
 
 "The nearest way from the spring to our carts 
 was through a large square, where on certain days 
 there are markets, or fairs. So large a company is 
 accustomed to gather at these fairs that it would 
 not be thought safe for foreign ladies to appear 
 there, and much more so since they are very seldom 
 seen on the streets. On this particular day our 
 friends thought there was no fair, and proceeded 
 to take us through the square. Too late to turn 
 back we discovered the square full of people, and 
 a fair in full play. We passed about half way 
 through without attracting the attention of the 
 people busy with their own affairs. Before we had 
 proceeded much farther attention was called to our 
 presence by cries on every side. A multitude of 
 idlers began to follow. People from the gates
 
 52 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 rushed out to swell the throng. They ran shout- 
 ing : 'Foreign devils ! foreign devils !' Then paus- 
 ing, we could hear only the murmur of the great 
 crowd following; then would come the rush of 
 pressing throngs and fearful howls. As is the only 
 safe and prudent way under such circumstances, we 
 walked quietly and deliberately, not desiring to 
 turn the affair into a chase, with no telling what 
 disaster to follow. The walk seemed very long; 
 and with that ever and anon howl in our ears it 
 was not altogether free from apprehension, for a 
 slight touch only is needed to turn an idle crowd 
 into a howling, destructive mob. I think that if I 
 had been on missionary business, instead of sight- 
 seeing, I should have felt not the slightest tremor 
 of alarm. As it was, I was not sure I was in my 
 right place, and was glad when we reached our 
 carts and were off through the gates once more." 
 
 This was a feature of her spiritual life which, 
 while not unique as a fact, is rarely understood and 
 interpreted as it was by her. The presence of 
 Christ in the world is not simply a blessed memory 
 of two thousand years ago, nor a sweet experience 
 that is ours occasionally when we are in a suitable 
 devotional frame. He is ever present personally in 
 his work. To be heart and will in his work is to 
 be in his presence. His omnipotence enfolds you. 
 His love inspires you. With such a conviction, we 
 can understand her courage which to other minds 
 seems reckless, but which in the result is seen to be 
 the power of God.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 SCHOOL WORK 
 
 The specific work assigned Miss Porter and those 
 associated with her as representatives of the 
 Woman's Foreign Missionary Society was to or- 
 ganize and maintain a girls' school and to do evan- 
 gelistic work among women. To organize a school 
 without a scholar, without apparatus, without the 
 language, and without an acquaintance with the 
 habits and mental attitude of the people, was a 
 task almost hopeless. It would have been actually 
 so only for the sublime faith of the young women 
 who came to Peking under the conviction that the 
 eternal God had sent them to do this thing. To 
 their faith nothing was impossible. If Miss Porter 
 had been able to cast her eye over the thirty-five 
 years of her missionary life and foresee the splendid 
 results as she did see them before she ended her 
 earthly labors, she could not have begun her work 
 with greater courage and zeal than she did that 
 first morning after her arrival in the mission com- 
 pound. 
 
 "She saw the triumph from nfar: 
 By faith she brought it nigh." 
 
 The following paragraphs from her pen give us 
 
 53
 
 54 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 admission into the schoolroom, and reproduce for 
 us somewhat of its life, as the mere annalist could 
 not possibly do. 
 
 "On the ninth of April we took possession of our 
 little house vacated for us by Mr. Davis and Mr. 
 Pilcher. To this house they made an addition of 
 one large room, and built beside it a small school- 
 house. In the following August (1872) we opened 
 school with two pupils present." 
 
 "The first little girl who came to our school ran 
 away again as fast as her bound feet could carry 
 her just as soon as she saw us. She had never be- 
 fore seen foreigners, and the first sight she found 
 very frightful. The child was captured and 
 brought back and put into the care of her aunt, 
 who had been engaged as matron for the school to 
 be. When the child had become reconciled to her 
 new home her feet were unbound, she was bathed, 
 and put into a suit of new clothes ; and our school 
 had its first pupil Hui Hsin, we called her one 
 of seven who remained." 
 
 "During the first year or two of the school's ex- 
 istence about sixty girls came and went away again ; 
 only seven came and remained. Those who brought 
 children to the school generally brought them only 
 that the school might relieve them of the support 
 of the children. Then, when their fears were 
 roused by silly tales about the foreigners, or their 
 neighbors taunted them with having sold their
 
 SCHOOL WORK 55 
 
 daughters ta the foreign devils,' they came and 
 took the children away. Sometimes the girls were 
 left in school only long enough to get nicely clothed, 
 and then were taken out of school and their clothes 
 sold or pawned. In one case, which was followed up 
 with a hope of saving the child, Miss Brown suc- 
 ceeded in making her way into a contracted, dingy 
 room, where she found the little girl, who, a few 
 days before, was in the school happy and well 
 dressed, now shivering and miserable, with only the 
 rags of some worn-out bedding for a covering. 
 Her garments had been taken to the pawn shop by 
 the wretched creatures who controlled the child's 
 life. 
 
 "In the years since its beginning the school has 
 made a good reputation for itself, and a Christian 
 church has gathered about the North China Mis- 
 sion. The difficulty of persuading people to leave 
 their children after they had been received into the 
 school has passed away, and the question now is 
 how to make room for all who want to find a place 
 in the school." 
 
 "Lucy was one of our first girls. When I recall 
 the school as it was in its first days, with seven little 
 heathen girls, on whom we had so little hold be- 
 cause they had no lore or trust for us in their dark- 
 ened hearts, and contrast it with the school that 
 now is filled with Christian girls, who, on the right 
 and on the left, hold up their teachers' hands, and
 
 56 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 whose influence is now felt strong and helpful 
 through all our North China work, I feel sorry for 
 those first girls. 
 
 "It was in taking care of them that we gained 
 that knowledge of the Chinese character and mind 
 which better fitted us for further work. On them 
 we practiced our first stammerings in a strange 
 language. Their opportunities are not to be com- 
 pared with those that the school offers now, with 
 its established precedents, its experienced teachers, 
 and its wholesome Christian atmosphere." 
 
 "Lucy was an only child of poor parents, and 
 spoiled. A slender, graceful, willful girl, with a 
 quiet but keen face, who with low-voiced persua- 
 sion or cutting sarcasm held sway over her com- 
 panions. She was fond of her books, but shirked, 
 whenever possible, all duties demanding physical 
 exertion. 
 
 "Lucy was always ladylike in her bearing, and 
 never came to open issue with her teachers; but 
 her ready wit could find something to turn into 
 ridicule for the amusement of her companions, in 
 any task assigned her. 
 
 "One day she was seated upon our sitting room 
 floor, with a circle of younger girls about her. Her 
 task was to prepare patches, and help the younger 
 ones to mend a pile of clothing that lay before them. 
 She did not look upon the task with any pleasure. 
 While I was in another room, I overheard her say- 
 ing in her usual quiet voice, as she held in view a
 
 SCHOOL WORK 57 
 
 roll of pieces of new cloth : 'Our teacher talks much 
 about the Bible doctrine, and is continually exhort- 
 ing us ; nevertheless, she herself does not follow the 
 Bible teaching. You see these new pieces and those 
 old garments, and you all know that the Bible says 
 you must not mend old garments with new cloth.' ' 
 
 "Closely associated with this memory of Lucy is 
 a picture of her mother as I last saw her. She 
 was a tidy, brisk little woman, who tried to save her 
 daughter at her own expense. She often did Lucy's 
 washing which Lucy was supposed to do herself, 
 and when the clothes were dried and neatly folded, 
 she allowed her to bring them to me as the result 
 of her own exertions. In the same way she tried to 
 do Lucy's sewing for her. Then one day this 
 mother, who in her mistaken kindness thwarted so 
 many lessons intended for her daughter's good, sent 
 word that she was ill and wanted to see me. I 
 found her in a room not much larger than the stove- 
 bed upon which she was lying. She was flat upon 
 her back, with her poor cramped feet drawn up, 
 and notwithstanding her pain and weakness, with 
 her hands extended upwards, she was at work on a 
 pair of stockings for Lucy. The poor woman con- 
 fessed that she had broken her promise to first con- 
 sult me, and had betrothed Lucy, urging as a rea- 
 son why I should be satisfied that she had found a 
 professing Christian for a husband for her daugh- 
 ter. She told me that she knew she was dying, and 
 with tears besought me to complete the arrange-
 
 58 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 ments she had begun. She gave as a reason for 
 breaking her promise, that she had an opportunity 
 for marrying Lucy to a man whose mother was 
 dead, and so she had settled the matter at once, 
 that Lucy might be spared the trials -of living with 
 a Chinese mother-in-law. In a land where the hus- 
 band's mother rules as she wills the life of her son's 
 wife, even a heathen mother realizes the unhappy 
 estate of a young wife. Dying, as living, this 
 mother had no concern for herself, if only she 
 could be assured of a comfortable settlement for 
 her darling daughter. 
 
 "The mother died and the daughter was married. 
 Lucy was a professing Christian ; but poor, spoiled 
 child, she did not have the grace to make a very 
 good wife. Lucy's husband was very proud of his 
 bright, graceful girl wife ; but his slower wit and 
 uncontrolled temper put him at the mercy of her 
 exasperating teasing. She laid traps for his tem- 
 per, and he walked right into every trap. One 
 day she tormented him into a rage. He, in the 
 midst of his storming, told Lucy that the Bible 
 teaches that the wife should obey the husband. 
 She answered him that in her Bible there was no 
 such word as 'obey.' He in turn demanded that 
 she bring her Bible and he would show her whether 
 or not it contained any such word as 'obey. 5 For 
 once Lucy was promptly obedient. The demand 
 was what she had planned and worked for. The 
 Bible was produced. The wrathful husband turned 
 to Paul's epistle. Sure enough, there was no such
 
 SCHOOL WORK 59 
 
 word upon the page. Lucy had prepared for this 
 scene. She had neatly encircled each objectionable 
 little word with the sharp point of a pin, and one 
 by one they had dropped out, and now the word 
 was no longer in her Bible. 
 
 "After a few troubled months Lucy became very 
 ill, and they said she must die. She sent for one 
 of her former teachers, who again directed her to 
 the Lamb of God; and poor, erring Lucy at last 
 entered into rest. She went from the arms of her 
 teacher to the Saviour, who loves and cares more 
 than we can love and care. 'A bruised reed shall 
 he not break.' " 
 
 "Another child there was whom we called Hui 
 An. She was an odd child, and was in high favor 
 with her missionary teachers, but nearly always in 
 disgrace with the old Chinese teacher. She had 
 unusual reasoning power, by which she compre- 
 hended our teachings better than the other pupils, 
 and made application of what she understood to her 
 individual life; but Hui An seemed to have little 
 faculty for memorizing, so she was in disgrace 
 with a teacher, whose teachings consisted in set- 
 ting tasks for the memories of his pupils. 
 
 "In the days when the school was small the girls 
 used to come each evening, one by one, into a quiet 
 room of our house, and kneel and repeat a prayer 
 after me. One day, as soon as the girls were out 
 of school, Hui An knocked at my door and asked,
 
 60 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 'Please may I say my prayers now ?' I told her she 
 had better wait for the usual hour, but she stood 
 there sorrowful and unwilling to go, and timidly 
 repeated her request. She was very much in ear- 
 nest, so, to her evident relief, I led her to the room 
 and listened while she made her prayer. She got 
 up from her knees with a satisfied and happy face. 
 I again asked why she came at this hour. By this 
 time she had gained a little more courage, which 
 courage seemed to have been taxed to the utmost 
 in making the first request, and, standing upon one 
 foot, toying nervously with her big sleeves, and 
 with downcast face, she said: *I love so much to 
 play that every day I just play as hard as I can, 
 from the time school is out until supper time, and 
 after supper to prayer time, so when I come in to 
 pray I just can think of nothing but the play, and 
 all out of breath I want to rush through the prayer 
 and be off to play again. And now,' she said, 
 'since I know that God knows about this kind of 
 business, and don't like it, I am afraid to do so 
 any more.' She went on to say that if she prayed 
 before she played, she could say her prayers and 
 think about what she was saying, so she came as 
 soon as school was out to have the prayers all right. 
 We were very happy over this token that God was 
 working in the hearts of our girls. 
 
 "Years after, when this little girl was grown, 
 and there were many Christians among our girls, 
 we found the girls in a room where quite a number 
 slept, working a plan by which they secured oppor-
 
 SCHOOL WORK 61 
 
 tunity for private devotions. When the retiring 
 bell rang, the girls took down the pile of quilts 
 that occupied one end of the long stove-bed. Then 
 each girl folded her quilt and betook herself, feet 
 first, into the snug pocket so formed. When all 
 were disposed side by side, feet to the wall and 
 heads out, one of the larger girls put out the light. 
 This was the signal for all talking to cease. Imme- 
 diately all the girls lying there in a long row raised 
 their voices in a hymn. The singing ended ; then 
 all was silent, while each girl covered her face and 
 breathed her prayer to the Father they had learned 
 to love since they first learned to fear him. 'We 
 love him because he first loved us.' " 
 
 "One year from the time when Maria Brown 
 and I sat at study by a wood fire in southern Foo- 
 chow we sat in Peking before a stove in which 
 burned a coal fire to keep out the cold of a north- 
 ern winter. Then we were studying the language ; 
 now we were considering certain questions which 
 ever since our arrival in Peking had been thrusting 
 themselves more and more into view and could no 
 longer be ignored. We had come in from a Sunday 
 evening service held in the home of a neighboring 
 mission and sat before the fire in the quiet of a 
 Sabbath night, facing those questions that we 
 might now meet and settle them once for all. 
 
 "Always, when I look down the years that have 
 passed since the year 1872, to memory's picture of 
 that little sitting room in Peking and those two
 
 62 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 sitting in the lamplight there, the picture seems 
 to glow with the soft radiance of a Divine Pres- 
 ence. And as, instructed by the experience of the 
 intervening years, I realize the far-reaching results 
 of that night's decisions, and how limited the ex- 
 perience and powers of those who made them, my 
 heart thrills with the glory of a sure conviction 
 that the Almighty Master was one in the confer- 
 ence that night, that his Spirit guided our minds, 
 and the decisions were his very own. 
 
 "The questions decided were, should or should 
 not the feet of girls admitted to our school be un- 
 bound ? And what should be the limit of our inter- 
 course with our brethren among the missionaries? 
 Nowhere else in China were the feet of girls in mis- 
 sion schools being unbound. Some missionaries 
 thought the movement to unbind the feet hurtful 
 to the progress of the gospel. And we had been 
 told that if we undertook to unbind the feet of 
 pupils, we should never be able to establish a school 
 for girls in China. Already some of our little band 
 of pupils had been taken away because we had 
 unbound their feet. 
 
 "The leaders of our Mission were men of vision, 
 judgment, and faith. They were young and had 
 the enthusiasm and courage to give full swing to 
 conviction and make no compromise with expedi- 
 ency. The knowledge that we could count upon 
 their support greatly strengthened our purpose. 
 We decided to unbind the feet, and in so doing 
 emphasize our teaching that the body is the temple
 
 SCHOOL WORK 63 
 
 of the true Gad and must not be profaned. Then 
 we should leave the results with the God whom we 
 tried to honor before a heathen people. 
 
 "As to the second question, we had seen a genteel 
 old lady, whose respect we prized, hurry in scan- 
 dalized agitation from our room because she had 
 seen us shake hands with a gentleman who appeared 
 at our door while she was present. By this and 
 other signs we had become aware that our reputa- 
 tions were at stake among a people whose concep- 
 tion of the possibilities of womanhood is limited by 
 the assumption that womankind are upright only 
 so far as they lack opportunity to be otherwise. 
 
 "The presence of single women in China missions 
 was an offense against all Chinese ideas of pro- 
 priety. Their position was beset by embarrass- 
 ments and perplexities; and so serious were the 
 embarrassments and perplexities attending their 
 presence that there were missionaries on the field in 
 those pioneer days who believed the introduction of 
 single women workers into China missions to be a 
 mistake. 
 
 "In conference that night Miss Brown and I 
 agreed that we should be misunderstood no matter 
 what course we might choose, and that any attempt 
 which we might make to conform to Chinese ideas 
 of propriety in our intercourse with other members 
 of the Peking circle not only would not abate the 
 offense which our presence gave but would promote 
 misunderstanding. We decided, therefore, that we 
 should conduct ourselves in all our relationships
 
 64 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 according to the conventions of our own Christian 
 land and trust to future developments to win for 
 us the respect and confidence, without which we 
 could not hope to teach and lead the people to whom 
 we had come. 
 
 "There is evidence of divine guidance in the fact 
 that we were brought to these decisions about the 
 time that our infant Methodist Church of North 
 China was born. Through these decisions, sup- 
 ported by the hearty cooperation of the brethren, 
 the infant church grew up familiar with the sight 
 of girls with unbound feet, and familiar with les- 
 sons concerning the sanctity of the body as the 
 temple -of God, which the unbinding of the feet 
 emphasized; and familiar also with the sight of 
 men and women associating and counseling and 
 working together on terms of equality and respect 
 in the home, the school, and the church ; and so the 
 new church grew into new ideas concerning the 
 dignity of womanhood and the passible partnership 
 of womanhood with manhood for the benefit of both. 
 
 "While the infant church was growing the girls' 
 school, with its pupils with unbound feet, was grow- 
 ing ; and it grew to be the largest girls' school in 
 China."
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 UNBOUND FEET 
 
 While at Foochow Miss Porter observed the crip- 
 pled feet of the Chinese women, and studied them 
 with a growing feeling of horror and shame. To 
 her mind it was immeasurably more than a national 
 fashion sanctioned by immemorial habit. It was 
 a distinctive mark of the heathendom of that land, 
 cruel, degrading and wicked. It was a desecration 
 of the temple of the Holy Ghost, the defilement of 
 which meant destruction. Its original purpose was 
 not, as later ages claimed, to beautify the form 
 divine, but to subject woman to the brutal tyranny 
 of man. For a Christian to even tolerate it where 
 her will could prohibit it, was for her to burn a 
 pinch of incense on the altar of a heathen deity. 
 
 Thus it became a matter of conscience with Miss 
 Porter; and when she began the organization of a 
 girls' school in Peking she, with Miss Brown, firmly 
 insisted on a rule that no girl be admitted until 
 she had unbound her feet. This was a rule that 
 had never been enforced in any school in the coun- 
 try. Wise men gravely doubted its wisdom, and 
 counseled that concession would be expedient and 
 more speedily accomplish the purpose of the rule. 
 
 65
 
 66 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 Moreover, is not that the divine law which casts 
 off evil not by assaults from without, but by the 
 unfolding of truth from within ? She was told that 
 this was a custom deep-rooted in the thought and 
 heart of the people, and that her attempt must 
 necessarily end in failure. Then to concede after 
 the attempt, would be regarded everywhere as a 
 surrender of Christian conscience to heathen prin- 
 ciple; and that would be to wound the body of 
 Christ in a vital part. 
 
 To all this she replied: "If the gospel we are 
 commissioned to preach is equal to meet the deep- 
 rooted depravity of the human heart, is it unequal 
 to meet a single outshoot of that root? If this is 
 simply a social habit, a matter of taste or even a 
 weakness of judgment, then we are at liberty to 
 concede. But this is a sin, and no more to be 
 tolerated in our school than the sacred images." 
 
 Her enthusiasm and faith, supported by the 
 strength of her reasons, triumphed. The mission- 
 aries heartily agreed to admit no girls in the school 
 with bound feet. The following paragraphs are 
 fragments gathered from various publications and 
 letters from her pen: 
 
 "A woman from an old and respected family, 
 who bears herself with the dignity and complacency 
 of a queen, gave herself and her family to God. 
 She brought her two daughters a distance of four 
 hundred miles to put them to school. Being fully 
 convinced that foot-binding is a sin against the 
 Creator and his children, she expected to have her
 
 UNBOUND FEET 67 
 
 daughters' feet unbound. The new shoes and 
 stockings were brought forth and the process of 
 unbinding began. Then, to the surprise of those 
 who beheld, and probably to the surprise of the 
 old lady herself, a struggle set up in the mother's 
 heart a struggle between the forces of old cus- 
 toms and prejudices and the power of the new 
 faith. Though at first she smiled in happy recog- 
 nition and said, 'God's will be done; let the feet 
 be unbound,' a moment later some power from the 
 past caught away the smile and left a face twitch- 
 ing with emotions and followed by slow tears. 
 With sighs and wringing of hands she walked 
 across the floor to return and beg: 'Unbind only 
 the feet of one and let the other child's remain 
 bound.' Then reproaching herself, she took up 
 her restless walk. Finally, she stood still and said 
 with earnest, sober face : 'Go on ; it shall be done.' 
 Thus ended one of the many contests brought <m 
 by contact of a heathen purpose with a Christian 
 principle a Christian principle held by the women 
 who opened a girls' school in the Methodist Episco- 
 pal Mission, Peking, in 1872. 
 
 "The principle might be stated thus. It is a 
 sin to crush and deform the feet that God gives 
 to his children. We missionary teachers will not 
 make ourselves party to this sin by appropriating 
 missionary funds for the support of children with 
 bound feet whose parents will not forsake this par- 
 ticular sin. Other little girls toddled into school 
 and were freed from the cruel bandages. They
 
 68 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 came with stunted bodies, pinched features, and 
 pale faces. After a while they found the use of 
 their released feet, and running and playing in the 
 open air as they never before were able to do, they 
 gained in vitality, then flesh, and, again, rosy 
 cheeks and bright eyes. In many cases the children 
 changed so markedly within only a few weeks that 
 their relatives failed to recognize them and were 
 perceptibly impressed when assured that the change 
 was due to release from the bandages. 
 
 "There were Chinese preachers who for years 
 sought places in schools for their daughters with 
 bound feet, then finally yielded before the steady 
 pressure of the principle and unbound the feet of 
 their girls. Then, first to excuse themselves to the 
 unbelieving, and finally from conviction, they be- 
 gan to preach earnestly against foot-binding." 
 
 "Mighty changes have been wrought in and by 
 the Peking Girls' School since 1872, when its first 
 pupils five little Chinese girls- gathered from hea- 
 then homes went because they had fallen into the 
 hands of barbarians, who, as they said, 'do not 
 know enough to know that we are only girls and 
 can't learn books.' We were warned that we could 
 never succeed in establishing a girls' school in China 
 if we should undertake to unbind the feet of the 
 pupils. Nevertheless, supported by the leaders of 
 our mission, we decided to do this as a service due 
 the true God whose temple the body is, and to leave
 
 UNBOUND FEET 69 
 
 the results to him whom we thus tried to honor be- 
 fore a heathen people. 
 
 "The school grew slowly at first ; but after a few 
 years its development was rapid, and it took the 
 place which it has held for years as the largest 
 school for girls in China. 
 
 "The best result of the unbinding of feet in the 
 Peking school was not foreseen by the missionaries. 
 The girls, by submitting to this break with estab- 
 lished custom, were brought into heavy trials cost- 
 ing them pain and mortification. But these long- 
 continued trials firmly borne developed strength 
 and independence of character. They learned to 
 think and act for themselves. The result was a 
 steady, strong uplift to girlhood and womanhood 
 which in turn carried upward the manhood of the 
 church as well. They were the undaunted leaders 
 in a movement which brought upon them and all 
 other girls in the school, much suffering through 
 evil report." 
 
 "The girls of the Peking school returned from 
 their first vacation. Among others were Clara and 
 Sarah Wang (Sarah Fawcett Wang). Clara and 
 Sarah were girls of about thirteen and eleven years 
 of age. They wept bitterly, and said that never, 
 never did they wish to go home again. They had 
 been made to suffer many indignities and insults 
 because they had come into their native village with 
 unbound feet, where girls with unbound feet had
 
 TO MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 never before been seen, and now they never wanted 
 to go home again. We told them of the difficulties 
 of all new beginnings, and how much they could 
 help all who should come after them if they could 
 have the courage tor bear the brunt of pioneer work 
 in these new beginnings. And we appealed to them 
 in Christ's name: 'Can you not do this for his 
 sake? Will you not help his cause by bearing this 
 hardship? Go home every vacation and tell your 
 villagers that it is for love of a new-found God 
 and a precious Saviour that you remove the band- 
 ages which deform the body which he claims for 
 his temple. Keep on telling, and after a while they 
 will understand; and you will have served your 
 Saviour and made things easier for all other girls 
 who shall unbind their feet.' Those girls responded 
 to such an appeal like soldiers to the bugle call, 
 and never after did they complain. They went 
 their way on their unbound feet a way which led 
 to many another break with ancient customs which 
 lay across the path of Christ's gospel. So our 
 young girls helped." . . . 
 
 "The growth of the girls' school kept pace with 
 the growth of the infant church and with that of 
 the boys' school, now the Peking University. Many 
 girl graduates are now the wives of preachers and 
 teachers who have been fitted for work in this uni- 
 versity. When opportunities for making money 
 have tempted the young men graduates from the 
 teacher's chair and the pulpit, such girls as Sarah 
 Wang have steadied their husbands and saved
 
 UNBOUND FEET 71 
 
 them to the church by the force of the character 
 whose development began while they stood resolute 
 under the scorning poured upon them because of 
 their unbound feet." 
 
 Dr. Rachel Benn has prepared for publication an 
 account of a visit to An Chia Chuang, the old 
 home of the Wangs in Shan Tung, in which 
 she says : "Clara Wang, one of Miss Porter's and 
 Miss Brown's earliest pupils came to visit me at my 
 room, and upon hearing of the serious illness of 
 Mrs. Gamewcll, expressed great sorrow and anxiety, 
 and then talked long and lovingly about her friend 
 and teacher. 'From the time I entered her school,' 
 she said, 'till she went back to her own country the 
 last time, Mrs. Gamewell has been my ting hao 
 peng yu (very dear friend) and helper. If she 
 should die, I shall be bereft indeed, for I have no 
 other friend like her. Mother took my younger 
 sister Sarah and me on the wheelbarrow with her 
 when she went to Peking, and unbound our feet 
 and put us in the girls' school. There were but 
 nine pupils then.' To my question, 'How many 
 years ago was that ?' she replied : 'About thirty-one 
 years.' 'Thirty-one years !' I exclaimed, 'and see 
 what has come to pass in that time. Think of all 
 the girls who have had their feet unbound, become 
 Christians, become educated, married Christian 
 men, and built Christian homes since then. Then 
 look at our Peking school now.' 'Yes,' she replied,
 
 72 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 her eyes glowing, 'and the T'ai An school, too. 
 Seventy-five pupils, and many more wanting to 
 come. And this school work I commenced by Mrs. 
 Gamewell's setting me to work when my husband 
 and I came here to live.' I told her of how, when 
 I came here in 1893 with Mrs. Gamewell and others, 
 she told me how she started the school, and added : 
 'That school is one of my treasures. Clara Wang 
 was one of my first pupils, and I have always loved 
 her.' And now, when the faithful teacher, tireless 
 missionary, and loving friend has laid down her 
 task and gone to her Father, how dear to find in 
 a remote country village, a pair of hands she has 
 trained and a heart which she has filled with love, 
 going on with the good work !" 
 
 The success of the movement in Peking, not 
 only in the growth of the school, but also in its 
 influence on the personal character of the girls 
 themselves, greatly encouraged the Christian 
 schools throughout the country to adopt and en- 
 force the same rule. Who can tell what influence 
 it may have had on the imperial government which 
 has recently issued a decree commanding the un- 
 binding of the feet of all women throughout the 
 empire?
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 FIRST COUNTRY TOUE 
 
 It is the policy of our Mission in Peking, as else- 
 where, to extend its work as rapidly as its means 
 will allow into all the villages and towns of that 
 section of North China where other Protestant 
 missions are not already established. It could not 
 be otherwise, for it is the genius of the gospel to 
 extend itself abroad ; and our work multiplied far 
 beyond our means to meet its demands. Many 
 souls lighted their torches at the central altar and 
 then went with its flame into all the regions round 
 about, and came into the shadow of the great wall 
 and beyond. While this created a promising op- 
 portunity for our missionaries, it also brought its 
 perils. Many of these new converts had the most 
 crude conceptions of Christian doctrine, which, 
 combining with their superstitions and their hea- 
 then habit of thought, would, unless corrected, 
 create a most untruthful and hurtful popular idea 
 of the gospel. It was very needful, then, for our 
 leaders to make up for their lack of numbers in 
 doubling their energies, and literally to make "an 
 offering of themselves for the people." 
 
 Our Mission, which began more than thirty years 
 73
 
 74 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 before the Boxer outbreak in 1900 with but two 
 missionaries and their wives, and which at the time 
 of Miss Porter's arrival had not one female con- 
 vert, is now an Annual Conference with sixteen 
 missionaries and their families from the Mission- 
 ary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
 and eleven missionaries representing the Woman's 
 Foreign Missionary Society, eighty-two native 
 preachers and a membership including proba- 
 tioners of six thousand. Our most distant sta- 
 tion is about four hundred miles from Peking. In 
 pursuance of her work, it became necessary for 
 Mrs. Gamewell to make occasional itineraries to 
 these distant stations. Her first tour to Tsun Hua, 
 eighty miles from Peking, was made in 1880, two 
 years before her marriage. She says : 
 
 "The object of this trip was threefold; we very 
 much desired to meet the women of our country 
 charges and establish work among them. Then we 
 think the best way to find women for our training 
 school we hope to establish, is to go into the coun- 
 try and look for them among the women of the 
 churches. Finally, so much disturbance has been 
 raised about the girls brought to Peking from 
 Tsun Hua District that we felt it best to send 
 them home for the summer; but feared to lose 
 them if foreign ladies could not go too and coun- 
 teract as much as possible the reports in circula- 
 tion." 
 
 While in the first instances these journeys were 
 a relief from the routine of school work in Peking,
 
 FIRST COUNTRY TOUR 75 
 
 and she wrote copious journals of the novel situ- 
 ations, and sketched a number of portraits of the 
 interesting characters she met, the trips proved to 
 be wearisome both to body and mind. At times 
 even her hopeful spirit seemed to tremble under its 
 weight of oppression. The novelty soon wore off, 
 and only the great burden of heathendom lay heav- 
 ily upon her heart. Every moment of her time was 
 filled with exhausting efforts to relieve it with the 
 limited means at her command. Were it not for 
 the fact that she knew the secret of the Lord, the 
 holy place -of communion where he reveals his cove- 
 nant to those who fear him, she would have sunken 
 sick and faint. From the journal of her first coun- 
 try trip, made in 1880, we give a number of ex- 
 tracts in the order of their record. In the next 
 chapter we give selections from her other journals, 
 the last of which was written in 1883, with no pur- 
 pose of preserving chronological or topographical 
 order. Our object is not to give a history of a 
 country or a mission, or of any particular itinerary, 
 but simply to afford a glimpse of a loving heart 
 trying to bring the light of the gospel into be- 
 nighted heathen minds. It is due to Mrs. Game- 
 well to say that these notes were never made with 
 an idea of publication, but were hastily written for 
 personal friends in the rush of a wearisome itin- 
 erary. 
 
 "On the morning of the seventh of July [1880] 
 we passed through the great gate and left the city 
 for our first country trip. Miss Barr, of the Prcs-
 
 76 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 byterian Mission of this city, Mrs. Wang (a 
 Bible woman), four young girls going home for a 
 vacation, and myself made up our party. 
 
 "The conveyances were carts, one of which was 
 for the woman and girls, drawn by three mules. 
 One of the mules was harnessed between the shafts, 
 the other two attached by means of cable ropes, 
 fastened on or near the axle. These ropes left the 
 animals free to pull or roam at will over the coun- 
 try, through a circle of which they form the radii. 
 However, these meanderings are divested of comfort 
 by means of a whip resembling a fishing pole and 
 line, handled by the carter. Another cart was 
 provided for Miss Barr and myself. Into this 
 we packed our bedding. Oriental inns do not pro- 
 vide beds; travelers carry their own, and much 
 prefer to do so. We also put in our cart our 
 satchels, books, and many other things. 
 
 "On the back of the cart was strapped a large 
 box containing dishes, kitchen utensils, and food. 
 In the front was left sitting room for the carter 
 and both of us, though in fair weather one was to 
 ride the white pony, all saddled and bridled and 
 made secure behind the cart, to trot along at his 
 ease until wanted for more active service. Two 
 mules drew our cart a large creature belonging 
 to a Presbyterian doctor of divinity, and a little 
 Methodist mule in the ropes. Our little Methodist 
 mule, however, often fell from grace and wandered 
 most perversely, often entangling the feet of our 
 Presbyterian mule in the ropes. Perhaps something
 
 FIRST COUNTRY TOUR 77 
 
 concerning the perseverance of the saints may have 
 confused her doings, for certain it is that whenever 
 our Methodist mule meandered or capered, our 
 mule of Presbyterian training took a stand. In 
 many a rut she perseveringly stood until we were 
 quite convinced that if we were not saints we needed 
 to be. 
 
 "We were overtaken on our first day out by a 
 heavy rainstorm, which prevented us making as 
 long a stage as we expected. We crossed two fer- 
 ries, forded one river on a beautifully pebbly bot- 
 tom, saw much beautiful country with broad fields 
 and standing harvests, passed through little vil- 
 lages, and found good inns all the way. On Satur- 
 day the tenth we entered the mountain region, and 
 from then till our arrival in Hsin Tien Tzu that 
 evening our road lay through the most beautiful 
 country I have seen in North China. 
 
 "A cordial welcome was given us by the mem- 
 bers of our little church in Hsin Tien Tzu, and 
 especially by the family of Mr. Yang, in whose 
 court the little chapel is situated. In this chapel 
 we bestowed ourselves and our goods, purposing to 
 make our home there as long as we stayed. One 
 of the girls we brought with us is a daughter of 
 Mr. Yang. It was pleasant to see the joy her 
 return made in that Chinese home. A crowd soon 
 collected about us, and it was an hour or more 
 before we were allowed to change our clothes or 
 refresh ourselves by washing our faces. But finally
 
 78 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 the crowd left, and we cooked and ate our evening 
 meal. After that Mrs. Yang went with me to take 
 two of the other girls to their home nearly four 
 miles away. We found the girls' parents in their 
 little house in the midst of green fields near by a 
 melon patch and a deep cool well. The father 
 brought out a bench and set it in the shade, spread 
 a covering of coarse cloth over, and brought us 
 sweet little melons from the field near by, and water 
 fresh from the well for us to drink. 
 
 "The sun had gone down behind the purple 
 shadowed mountains when we took our leave. The 
 fields are not such patches as we see about Peking. 
 Many cornfields join over invisible boundaries and 
 give the appearance of large fields like those in the 
 States ; so also the grain fields. The hum of insect 
 life, the twitter of birds, the cool, bracing air, the 
 broad fields are like home the first time that any- 
 thing in China has seemed worthy of a comparison 
 with the noble, inspiring, bracing sweetness of 
 country living at home. This likeness to home the 
 steadfast hills, the quiet summer sky, the still hush 
 of closing day, the honest, cordial people all im- 
 press me till I am more spontaneously happy than 
 since the happy-go-easy days of long ago. 
 
 "By and by Mr. Yang met us at a turn in the 
 road with a long open cart. We all got in, with 
 the girls and the boys in a merry mood, who chatted 
 and laughed all the way through, very much like 
 young people at home very unlike anything I
 
 FIRST COUNTRY TOUR 79 
 
 had seen before in impure, untrue China. They 
 seemed, as Miss Cushman would express it, 'like 
 folks.' 
 
 "The cool twilight ride through dewy harvests 
 yet standing, helped the happy illusion, and I could 
 almost imagine the years rolled back again, and I 
 a light-hearted schoolgirl going for a vacation to 
 the old familiar farmhouse. The new moon, a 
 beautiful crescent, looked over my shoulder out of 
 a sky yet tinged with the golden hues of sunset. 
 And it was my right shoulder too! 
 
 "At Hsin Tien Tzu the pastor asked me to take 
 charge of the Sabbath service. They brought me 
 the Bible and hymn book, and men and women 
 gathered in little companies, asking me to teach 
 and pray with them. So it came to pass after the 
 beautiful Saturday already mentioned that I en- 
 tered upon a Sabbath full of work. 
 
 "Almost as soon as it was light the first comers 
 entered. After breakfast I talked to the women 
 who came until service time. Then, when Chris- 
 tians from all points of the country around had 
 come in, we held service, I reading and talking and 
 praying. Afterward I held class meeting. All the 
 men spoke. There were a few earnest, honest faces 
 there that made me feel that it was worth coming 
 a hundred miles to see them, so unlike the wily faces 
 everywhere seen previously. There were evidences 
 everywhere of patient, faithful work by the mis-
 
 80 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 sionarles and their helpers, the native preachers and 
 teachers. 
 
 "We took our way over the mountains to Wang 
 Shu Chuang Tzu. We reached a pass high among 
 the mountain peaks and began to descend. The 
 view was refreshing and delightful beyond all de- 
 scription to eyes long accustomed to dusty Peking 
 and its dirty environs all about us the clear moun- 
 tain air, near at hand moist banks of dripping 
 grass and shrubs, and just below, fields of abundant 
 harvests with all their varying shades of refreshing 
 green, and here and there a grove. All around the 
 plain were encircling mountains, peak on peak ris- 
 ing higher and higher until their sharp outlines cut 
 and pierced through somber clouds which hung all 
 around the horizon. Awesome and grand the stead- 
 fast masses lifted against the changeful sky, always 
 the same strength and majesty, whether swept by 
 the shadow of the soft summer cloud that floats in 
 fleecy folds up its rocky sides or stormed by the 
 hurtling thunderbolts of the tempest cloud in its 
 awful grandeur and sublimity. 
 
 "In the valley we found the little village. Men 
 and women came to see and hear, though one might 
 think, judging from their manner, that a foreign 
 lady could be seen any day coming over the moun- 
 tains in sight of these villagers. I was talking to 
 the women, and after some time rose to go into 
 the next room, when I found that a company of 
 men and boys had collected and were sitting quietly
 
 FIRST COUNTRY TOUR 81 
 
 on benches ranged near the door where I had been 
 sitting. 
 
 "One woman said abruptly, pointing to a sun- 
 browned farmer sitting near: 'That man used to 
 pray a lot, but he prays none now.' The man 
 flushed a little and remarked in explanation that 
 his crops were worse than his heathen neighbors,' 
 and that did not look like getting anything in 
 answer to his prayers. He insisted that he de- 
 served better things because he prayed much. He 
 evidently had more of the heathen idea of prostra- 
 tions and humiliations to please the gods than the 
 Christian idea of prayers. After some talk I told 
 him of a little boy who never tried to mind his 
 father, never cared to know what his father wanted 
 him to do. One day, being asked if he were a good 
 son, he replied : 'Indeed I am. I am always asking 
 my father for good things.' He was interested and 
 pleased. The carter took up the subject, and 
 talked well, too. Finally the man said: 'Enough, 
 enough. I will begin again.' Here again we had 
 reading and prayers. 
 
 "I reached Peking after an absence of ten days, 
 and thus ended my first country trip, which I hope 
 will be succeeded by many more. Such trips have 
 not been made by ladies in this part of the country, 
 and many were anxious, not knowing what might 
 befall us on the way. But we felt the sure presence 
 of God before, around, and everywhere. We were 
 well received ; no crowds or impudence at inns ;
 
 82 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 cordial welcomes everywhere from natives. We be- 
 lieve many friends have been made, much evil speak- 
 ing quieted, and our women assured by seeing us 
 whom their heathen neighbors had declared had no 
 existence. 
 
 "If I have written much about the scenery, it is 
 because it was a constant inspiration to me. Some- 
 thing was constantly saying: 'The Hand that 
 spread the plain and piled the mountains is making 
 a plain path before you.' 'Lo, I am with you 
 alway' seemed to breathe in the air all about us. 
 The quiet heights by which we were surrounded, 
 and the throng that came at daybreak, and left 
 with the close of day, reminded me so often of the 
 words spoken respecting Christ: 'He went up into 
 a mountain apart to pray.' I realized that our only 
 place of quiet rest would be the hills and mountains. 
 The reminder brought Christ, his work, and spirit 
 very near through those short, busy days. There 
 was rest in the glimpse we had through our win- 
 dow of a distant mountaintop, seen above the roofs 
 of mud houses near at hand. I could not be im- 
 patient with the throng in sight of this reminder of 
 those other throngs of long ago, and of how Christ 
 met them and found his only rest among the soli- 
 tudes of the mountains, where he prayed and pre- 
 pared for toil yet to be endured."
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 COUNTEY EVANGELISM 
 
 "Except on the main roads, the inns are dirty 
 and forlorn in the extreme. All we have put up 
 in during this trip have been much alike in dirt 
 and cheerlessness. We are just in from a long, 
 hard ride in the cold. We may have a large room 
 or a small one, well smoked, begrimed, and dusty, 
 with a greasy table well coated with dust, a chair 
 and bench, an earthen floor, a frame with four legs 
 for a bed. The bedding must be provided by the 
 traveler. Chinese and foreigners all carry their 
 own beds. In some inns toward the South, and all 
 in the North, the provision for beds is a brick 
 platform built across one end of the room. Often 
 men come into crowded inns and sleep on a bench 
 in the court, or in any available place. To sleep 
 among the animals in a Chinese inn is a much dif- 
 ferent matter from sleeping in a hotel stable in the 
 United States or any other Western country. These 
 inns in their Oriental style remind me of the Scrip- 
 ture narrative of Mary and Joseph stopping in the 
 stalls, or stables, as implied by the statement that 
 the Babe was laid in a manger because there was no 
 room for them in the inn. 
 
 83
 
 84 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 "In China the rooms for travelers are arranged 
 about one or more courts. The stalls for animals 
 are in the same court, and carts, barrows, donkeys, 
 horses, and everything that puts up in the inn, 
 enter the same gate and share a common court. 
 The rooms for travelers are bare of everything 
 except a table and bench or two. 
 
 "I arrived at the little mud village of Shang 
 Chia Chai at five o'clock in the evening. A little 
 cook stove in the chapel and an iron bedstead in 
 the little room adjoining add to our comfort home 
 luxuries much above those to be had at the inns 
 along the road. To be sure, the floors are paved 
 with dirt-colored bricks, the windows are paper, the 
 seats are benches without backs, plus three native 
 chairs that offer as little comfort as chairs can be 
 made to offer. Indeed, with high legs, shallow 
 bottom, and high backs curved away just where 
 one's back wants to feel support, and curved toward 
 the occupant just at the nape of the neck, these 
 chairs seem designed to thwart all expectations of 
 ease. But the cook calmly sets to work and gets 
 a supper, quite such as we might produce from onr 
 Peking kitchen. We sleep soundly in our little 
 rooms about ten by eight feet, and feel happy, and 
 call ourselves exceedingly well off to have such 
 comforts so far from home. 
 
 "On Saturday I took one of the Bible women 
 and went to spend the day with the family Li in a 
 village about one and a half miles away. I car-
 
 COUNTRY EVANGELISM 85 
 
 ried some sewing in my ulster pocket and employed 
 my hands and eyes on it while resting my throat 
 and head from an hour or two of talking to a large 
 company <rf women and girls who crowded the 
 rooms and court. I also took a lunch in my pocket, 
 thinking thus to provide against making my host 
 and hostess feel that they must prepare food for 
 me. Poor as they may be, and cost what it may, 
 every Chinese house one visits must give something 
 to eat, or else offend against the commonly received 
 ideas of hospitality. My preparations would not 
 release them, nor likewise my protestations. A 
 meal was served me, and I had to eat in order to 
 assure the little woman who prepared it that I was 
 not afraid it was unclean. I could not give up the 
 idea that in visiting the various villages that encir- 
 cle our Mission station at Shang Chia Chai, I 
 should accomplish more if I stayed all day and 
 gave the noisy crowd time to tire and leave and 
 give opportunity to talk quietly with the few than 
 if, as before, I talked an hour or two to the crowds 
 and then left. For my other visits I have added 
 to my roll of sewing a parcel of lunch, still another 
 parcel, a gift of cakes, fruit, rice, etc., for each 
 family. So whatever they feel they must provide 
 for me, I shall not leave them poorer for my visit. 
 This carrying of gifts of such nature is quite in 
 accord with the usual Chinese custom. 
 
 "In this place our members are very fond of 
 singing. Indeed, they love singing everywhere; 
 but this place is an exception in that they sing wi-11.
 
 86 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 Every night this little room rings with hymns. 
 Some are the old, old hymns of the ages. Many 
 are Sankey's and others like them. 
 
 "The helper's wife brought her baby and came to 
 hear the singing. She remarked that her husband 
 was at home with the children, though he had 
 wanted to come, for he said he could follow the 
 teacher and learn the tunes ! The hymn book is the 
 most popular book in the church. 
 
 "Sabbath dawned bright and beautiful. By 
 noon the people had gathered from various neigh- 
 boring villages. The helper conducted a Sabbath 
 school and preached. In the afternoon I held a 
 meeting with the few Christian women who could re- 
 main. In the evening we did not omit the usual 
 singing. 
 
 "Monday morning I took a cart for a place 
 four miles away. Here they were expecting our 
 arrival, according to promise made last Sunday. 
 The people who immediately filled the rooms were 
 quiet and orderly, and listened as if that were what 
 they came for. Their faces were lighted with in- 
 terest, and it seemed as if Christ was really not 
 far -off . As I said to one who questioned by look 
 and tone, 'Why, if you really want his help, Christ 
 is even now close by your side. He looks into your 
 heart. He hears your words. He longs to have 
 you believe and follow him,' it seemed as if he 
 breathed upon us. I thought of Bishop McCabe's 
 words to the effect that at the moment when we 
 are engaged for the saving of a soul the unseen
 
 COUNTRY EVANGELISM 87 
 
 powers of the other world are gathered to work 
 with us for the same object, that such moments are 
 the crises for the souls for whom we labor. The 
 thought that the burden of longing for souls I felt 
 was shared by pure unseen spirits, sent for the 
 salvation of these same souls, that the compassionate 
 face of Christ looked upon us and waited the issue, 
 flooded me with a sudden sense of help and un- 
 worthiness. I was glad to hear Mrs. Li take up 
 the story, while I hid my face under my hat for 
 the tears that would come. Was Christ sorrowful 
 as when the young man of many possessions turned 
 away, or did his divine vision see the springing up 
 of seed in good soil, the dawning of light in dark- 
 ness, that comprehended it at least in part? 
 
 "The second day out from Chu Chia Chai, we 
 came to the Yellow River. We had heard that it 
 had overflowed its banks and that the roads were 
 impassable. And they also reported that it was 
 impossible to enter Chi Nan Fu, as the water cov- 
 ered the approach to every gate. Mr. Lowry, hav- 
 ing had large experience with Chinese reports, de- 
 termined to 'go and see.' Accordingly, we came to 
 the banks and found the river within bounds at the 
 ferry, a little out of our usual way, and the water 
 quite covering the roads below the point at which 
 we crossed. 
 
 "The inn at the place we came to was not so large 
 as usual, and moreover, was full. After some delay 
 an old and unoccupied shop was opened to us, and
 
 88 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 carts, horses, and mules all entered the same door. 
 Animals were tied in the court behind the house, 
 and carts, carters, and people all put up in this 
 one dark, windy old shop. Mr. Lowry slept on 
 the counter. Mrs. Lowry and I made a resting 
 place on the k'ang in one end of the room. The 
 carters stowed themselves away somewhere in or 
 behind the carts. We extinguished our lights, and 
 the utter darkness furnished a dressing room for 
 the little change we made in our clothing. 
 
 "At break of day we took some bread and butter 
 from our basket and then took ourselves to the river 
 bank. It was two and one half hours before we 
 began to cross the muddy and swift-flowing cur- 
 rent. The stream is so swift that boats cannot go 
 directly over, but, pushing off, they pull for the 
 opposite shore with might and main, and succeed 
 in landing about a mile below the starting point. 
 When ready for the return trip they scull and pole 
 along the bank until at the proper distance above 
 the desired landing on the other side, and then put 
 out again, as in the passage over. The boats look 
 much like our common flatboats or coal barges. 
 Planks are laid from bank to boat, animals un- 
 hitched, carts pulled over planks by men, animals 
 made to jump on, foot passengers walk on and 
 stow themselves anywhere they may find standing 
 room. Boatmen pole off and a man at the stern 
 plies the scull. We crossed the river on Saturday 
 morning and early in the afternoon were welcomed
 
 COUNTRY EVANGELISM 89 
 
 by missionaries of the Presbyterian Board in Chi 
 Nan Fu. 
 
 "After a journey of one hundred and eight miles 
 we reached this place (Yang Chia Ying). We had 
 spent two weeks at our former stopping place, and 
 felt somewhat at home. Now we arrive at a new 
 point and must begin our work over again. The 
 fire must be lighted, the dusty contents of the cart 
 deposited. The visitors come to 'open their eyes,' 
 as the Chinese saying is when one goes sight-see- 
 ing. So we, all dusty and tired, land with our 
 dusty baggage in a dusty room, rapidly filling with 
 the dusty inhabitants of the dusty village. This 
 one room, in constant use as a meeting room, must 
 be our sleeping room, dining room, kitchen, recep- 
 tion room, and still be used as a chapel. 
 
 "We had eaten last at 9:30 A. M., and supper 
 was not ready until 8 p. M. However, the helper 
 and wife and other members of the little church 
 gave us a cheery welcome, and with a little time 
 and care we finally settled comfortably. A shawl 
 separates one end of the room from the rest; and 
 here we feel somewhat more retired, and, conse- 
 quently, more restful. 
 
 "Three bright little girls cnme in to recite to me 
 the lessons they have learned with Mrs. Chao, the 
 helper's wife. The girls are older than they look, 
 eleven, twelve, and fifteen. They have been coming 
 in at odd times for almost one year, coming when
 
 90 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 they were not obliged to work. They recited the 
 catechism almost all through, one tract and part 
 of a book on faith all these committed to memory. 
 After they finished I gave each two pictures cut 
 from an illustrated paper, and they seemed much 
 pleased. 
 
 "This morning Mrs. Li the elder and Mrs. Li 
 the younger left for their homes, four days' jour- 
 ney from this place. I shall not see them again 
 until they come up to school next autumn. I got 
 up in the dim morning to see them start off in a 
 slow rain. I came in feeling lonesome and half 
 homesick. So partings haunt the days that follow 
 in their train. 
 
 "We went to a village four miles away to see 
 a woman who was interested and had joined the 
 church on probation. We found the room and 
 court swept as tidy as possible. After a long talk, 
 and we had prepared to leave, I called attention to 
 a paper god hanging on the wall, and said: 
 'Such things should not be in the house of a be- 
 liever in the true God.' I heard a woman of the 
 company whisper to the women whom I addressed 
 that the visitor might take down the gods for her, 
 and then nothing could hurt her! Upon this she 
 turned to me hopefully and asked if I would take 
 them down for her. I did, and brought them away 
 with me. This was repeated a day or two after at 
 another house. At a meeting held on the following 
 Sabbath these women were present. One of them
 
 COUNTRY EVANGELISM 91 
 
 told how she had no fear of the displeased gods 
 until night, and then in the dark she thought what 
 if the two were there and should beat her. She 
 thought of it until it seemed that they were really 
 there. Then she said : *I am not afraid, I am not 
 afraid, for my lady has come.' She said: 'I just 
 talked right out loud, as if someone was in the 
 room, and then I felt my fear gone and went to 
 rest.' She told this as God's mercy to her. She 
 is in the very first stages of knowledge of God's 
 existence. Her faith which led her to use the little 
 knowledge she had seemed very touching. Of 
 course I told her how Jesus was near, and to speak 
 to him when fear came, to tell the evil spirits that 
 Jesus had come rather than that the lady had come. 
 
 "Yesterday our party returned from a visit to 
 Nan Kung, the county seat. We had heard from 
 the helper that there were some interesting and 
 interested persons there, who wished to hear more 
 of the doctrine. We went up one day and returned 
 the next there and back a j ourney of about forty- 
 five miles. 
 
 "We reached Nan Kung inn at 2 p. M. Our 
 helper went out, while we prepared our dinner, to 
 find the people whom we came to see. The first step 
 in preparing our meal was to get from the cart a 
 pan that has a perforated bottom and stands on 
 three legs. In this we made a fire of charcoal. 
 We boiled rice in a fruit can brought for the pur- 
 pose, boiled potatoes in a butter can, made coffee
 
 93 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 in a pot of tin not larger than a good sized fruit 
 can, sliced some roast beef, and took a tablecloth 
 of black oilcloth out of a large tin box and covered 
 the greasy inn table. Over this we spread a white 
 tablecloth, and from the same box produced nap- 
 kins, plates, cups, knives, and forks, a can of jam 
 and another of condensed milk, a little bag of sugar 
 and a parcel of salt. By the time all the prepara- 
 tions were completed our dinner was ready. We 
 ate and were refreshed and ready for our work. 
 
 "The helper announced that the women were 
 ready to receive me in their homes and that the men 
 would call at the inn that evening. I took the cart, 
 and accompanied by the helper, went out. The 
 little town has wide and clean-looking streets. 
 After a short run I came to the gate and entered 
 to find the women who waited my coming. I sup- 
 pose I am the first foreign lady the inhabit- 
 ants of this quiet city had seen, yet they received 
 me quietly, as if such visitors came every day. The 
 home is not unlike all other homes of the poor Chi- 
 nese. The lady of the house had a babe of ten 
 days, yet was up and about and naturally looking 
 feeble and very far from well. This woman has 
 an interesting history. I had heard of her as a 
 learned lady and was curious to see her. She is 
 the only child of her father's first wife. He is a 
 teacher and at one time was rich. He wanted a 
 son but had only this girl. Her mother died, his 
 fortunes changed and he moved several times, teach- 
 ing in different places. All this time he kept his
 
 COUNTRY EVANGELISM 93 
 
 daughter's feet unbound and passed her for a boy, 
 kept her in the various schools he taught, and 
 taught her with the rest. She not only read, but 
 wrote, and she wrote so well that now she writes 
 mottoes and various characters for sale. The Chi- 
 nese have their own ideas of good writing and have 
 great admiration and respect for excellent writing. 
 When they talked to her of Jesus she said she would 
 write, 'One Ruler, Jesus Saviour' in large charac- 
 ters, and wrote the same in small characters, which 
 I brought away with me. 
 
 "This interesting woman, her father, and step- 
 mother are all interested, and all profess to believe. 
 The father and his wife were taken on probation. 
 The daughter and her husband both intended to 
 be taken on probation, but during my visit I dis- 
 covered that they had not taken down their paper 
 god. On speaking of the matter and asking still 
 more about it afterward, it came out that the hus- 
 band was afraid it would injure his business to take 
 down his gods. His wife was willing. We thought 
 that the man might feel differently on further in- 
 struction. The ideas of a heathen, who hears for 
 the first time, must have time in which to fall in line 
 with Christian thought. It is not easy to give up 
 in a day the superstitions that have ruled for ages. 
 
 "This woman who had passed for a boy so many 
 years was betrothed at twenty, and her feet were 
 bound then. Of course it was impossible to make 
 them small as the usual little feet. But they have 
 a way of crowding the toes so as to wear a sharp-
 
 94 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 pointed and short shoe. Often girls who are ex- 
 pected to do hard work are allowed to let their feet 
 grow larger than usual, but the shoe is shaped like 
 the other ones, and the foot is bound and made 
 pointed. 
 
 "We returned from Nan Kung in a bad dust 
 storm. Between here and Nan Kung is a place the 
 Chinese call Sand River. It is a bed of a former 
 river. Some say it is an abandoned bed of the oft- 
 shifting Yellow River, while others give other the- 
 ories as to what caused the sandy stretch. But all 
 agreed that any water would be an improvement 
 over its present condition. The wind was very high 
 on the day of our return, and everywhere the dust 
 was thick and obscured the sun; but when we 
 arrived on this sandy river-bed the air was as thick 
 as during the most violent snowstorm, and each 
 succeeding gust hid from view all objects much 
 beyond the heads of the animals drawing our carts. 
 Of course this dust covered our clothes, grated be- 
 tween our teeth, penetrated our hair, inflamed our 
 eyes, and rendered itself generally disagreeable. 
 The wind blew day before yesterday and today also, 
 giving us one -of its usual three days' blows of 
 North China." 
 
 "I took a cart and, accompanied by both Mrs. 
 Lis, went to visit church members about two miles 
 distant. The way people drop everything to fol- 
 low and watch us, and seem to take little account 
 of time; the freedom with which they crowd into 
 each other's homes all make the various scenes in
 
 COUNTRY EVANGELISM 95 
 
 Christ's life seem natural and easily understood 
 as they cannot be to thase familiar only with West- 
 ern modes of life. 
 
 "At the first house we visited in this village we 
 found old Mrs. Li and her husband. The narrow 
 passage, the court inside, the mud walls, and the 
 little rooms were all swept as clean as hard-packed 
 earth can be swept. Children, great and small, and 
 men and women immediately crowded every possible 
 bit of standing room. The crowd was respectful 
 enough, but so evidently came to see and hear in 
 the same spirit that small boys run after a circus 
 that it was almost useless to talk of the message I 
 came to bear. Indeed, as I walk the streets of some 
 of these villages, and see great and small scurry- 
 ing from all directions, running ahead and then 
 pausing to let me pass while they get a good look, 
 as I hear the call passed from one to another and 
 the hurry of feet behind, before and all around, as 
 I see and feel all this, I am often reminded of the 
 
 chorus, 
 
 The elephant now goes round, 
 The band begins to play. 
 
 "I have been amused to notice that the expression 
 with which some watch my movements and listen to 
 my words is identical with the expression I have 
 seen on faces intent on the antics of a monkey. 
 At this home of Mrs. Li, I was importuned to talk 
 each time I ceased, but it was with the same air 
 that one might poke a bear at a menagerie, and 
 the same air of satisfied amusement passed around
 
 96 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 as I began. Of course all there is left to do is to 
 give the message with prayer, and trust the words 
 may find an earnest soul among the many careless. 
 "The crowd made satisfactory visiting impossi- 
 ble. This daily meeting with and addressing 
 crowds, the strain of longing as set against a doubt 
 that such minds can receive the light, tries the 
 whole nervous system and leaves me tingling and 
 exhausted. I am glad to find a day for more quiet 
 work. 
 
 "I am in a room about twenty feet by ten my 
 bedroom while at An Chia Chuang, four hundred 
 miles from Peking. Overhead are beams support- 
 ing a tiled roof, all blackened by smoke of many 
 years; underneath is an earthen floor. The win- 
 dows are paper, a rude door is fastened by a mov- 
 able wooden bar. On a rude couch is spread my 
 little traveling mattress, a heap of boxes, water 
 jars belonging to a native preacher's family, a 
 table, and the bench on which I sit, the whole 
 lighted by a candle brought all the way from 
 Peking and you have my surroundings. In the 
 midst thereof I undertake to enlarge on my notes, 
 taken by the way, and prepare a few pages that 
 may interest my friends, who may be interested in 
 me and my work the Master's servant and the 
 Master's work, I trust. 
 
 "Just here my door is pushed open, and the dim 
 light shows an old woman, followed by a younger 
 one who carries a baby in her arms, and in turn
 
 COUNTRY EVANGELISM 97 
 
 is followed by several children. 'You are here,' the 
 old woman says. 'Read what you are writing, and 
 we shall hear.' 
 
 "I must stop writing and talk to the people. 
 This is a fair sample of the thousand and one in- 
 terruptions every day is subject to. These women 
 are picking at the lace at my wrists, remarking 
 about my age, and asking all manner of questions 
 as I write. After much talk with the women, and 
 prayers with a company of church members and 
 others in chapel, I am again by myself, excepting 
 that Mrs. Lowry sits on my trunk at the other 
 side of the table. She came in here to escape the 
 odor of garlic and onions that completely fills the 
 other room. 
 
 "This, my first day so far from home, has left 
 me tired in a peculiar way. The Chinese women 
 and girls pitch their voices in a very harsh key, 
 and the language itself is not musical. After 
 entertaining the constant stream of visitors for a 
 few hours, the nerves tingle with every new foot- 
 step and quiver in expectation of the high grating 
 voice very certain to follow. I bowed my head more 
 than once today to ask for staying strength and 
 patience to talk on while listeners were at hand. 
 Poor creatures! They were quiet and respectful, 
 much more so than usual ; but they have no idea 
 that the foreign maiden can have any objection to 
 being gazed at, or to answering their idle questions. 
 
 "There is absolutely no place where I can be 
 alone unless I put the people out. They come
 
 98 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 into my room unless the door is locked, and seem 
 to be conscious of no impropriety. I am reminded 
 of an odd remark made by an itinerating mission- 
 ary that the kingdom of heaven does come by 
 observation in China. 
 
 "Night. Have just come to my room to retire. 
 The moaning, monotonous cry of a child in some 
 near court reaches me here. I ask Mrs. Wang who 
 it is that cries and why ? She says : 'Oh, that is a 
 hungry child. They are terribly poor, and the 
 child continually cries for something to eat.' She 
 adds that as she had no money to give them, she 
 had taken a garment belonging to her second 
 daughter and given it to this little one's mother. 
 I sent Mrs. Wang to the kitchen for two bread 
 cakes, purchased for my use, to give to the child. 
 She has given them, and now the little one's moans 
 are hushed. Poor little one not yet three years old ! 
 Poverty and suffering everywhere! These poor 
 people seem so used to it that they mention, ap- 
 parently without emotion, the most trying cases 
 of dreadful slow torture of poverty and want."
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 MARRIAGE 
 
 In October, 1881, the Rev. Frank D. Gamewell 
 arrived in Peking, which was an event destined to 
 affect powerfully the career of Miss Porter. In 
 the light of subsequent events it is evident that 
 Mr. Gamewell was predestined to do a special work 
 at a critical period in the history of the kingdom of 
 God in China. Certain it is that his eventful life, 
 which seemed at times to be the result of thought- 
 less chance, without purpose or significance, proved 
 to be a plan of God preparing him to meet a fateful 
 hour in the unfolding of his own great purpose. 
 
 He was the son of John N. Gamewell, the inven- 
 tor of the Gamewell Fire Alarm and Police Tele- 
 graph. His family was closely identified with the 
 Methodist Episcopal Church, South, his grand- 
 father, two of his father's brothers and others of 
 his kin being in the ministry of that church. His 
 father's sister was the wife of Dr. Charles Taylor, 
 the first medical missionary of the Methodist Epis- 
 copal Church, South, in China. 
 
 Frank was born in the storm center of the South- 
 ern Confederacy at a time when intense political 
 passions were hurrying the country on to civil war. 
 
 90
 
 100 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 His early memories are those of that dreadful strife, 
 in which he saw his native town of Camden, South 
 Carolina, lurid with the camp fires of an invading 
 hostile host. 
 
 At the close of the Civil War he went with his 
 father's family to Hackensack, New Jersey, a 
 suburb of New York where his father's business 
 was located. He prepared for college at the local 
 academy, and chose for his profession that of civil 
 engineer. He matriculated in Rensselaer Polytech- 
 nic Institute of Troy, New York, and was well 
 advanced in his studies when he was interrupted by 
 a serious accident. Later, he resumed his course in 
 Cornell University, but before he had finished was 
 stricken with a severe and protracted illness which 
 prevented his graduation with his class. He then 
 concluded that God must have some other work for 
 him than that he had chosen ; and went to Dickin- 
 son College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania, where he grad- 
 uated in the liberal arts course in 1881. 
 
 His call to missionary work came to him near 
 the close of his college career in terms that could 
 not be mistaken ; and he was not disobedient to the 
 heavenly vision. 
 
 How his coming to Peking Mission may have 
 affected Miss Porter at the time does not appear 
 in any direct statement in her writings. In a 
 journal, in 1882, she speaks of "the event of events 
 that modifies all my inner life, and permeates all 
 my meditations, thoughts, and plans." This event 
 culminated on the evening of June 29, 1882, in the
 
 MARRIAGE 101 
 
 marriage of Miss Porter and Mr. Gamewell in As- 
 bury Methodist Episcopal Church, Peking, the 
 ceremony being performed by the Rev. George R. 
 Davis, who several years before had married Miss 
 Maria Brown, who was associated with Miss Porter 
 in the organization of the Woman's work in North 
 China. Although Mrs. Gamewell by her marriage 
 ceased to be an appointed missionary of the 
 Woman's Foreign Missionary Society, and her 
 name disappeared from the pay roll, she continued 
 in her regular work as before. At the ensuing 
 Annual Meeting, her appointment was announced 
 thus: "Woman's Training School and City Evan- 
 gelistic Work, to be supplied by Mrs. F. D. Game- 
 well." 
 
 The relation of the Woman's Foreign Missionary 
 Society to the Annual Meeting and the church had 
 not been authoritatively settled, and was the subject 
 of frequent discussion. All matters relating thereto 
 had been directed by the varying opinions of the 
 Bishops who had visited the field. Mrs. Gamewell 
 set herself with determination to have the question 
 definitely and finally settled by the supreme author- 
 ity of the church. 
 
 When Bishop Merrill visited the Mission in 1883 
 he recognized the chaotic condition of the legal 
 relation of the Women's work to that of the Gen- 
 eral Mission work, and expressed the hope that the 
 next General Conference would settle it. Pending 
 it, he made the following decision: "The Bishop 
 decides (1) that the ladies of the Woman's Foreign
 
 102 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 Missionary Society are not members of the Annual 
 Meeting ; (2) that he has no jurisdiction over their 
 work; (3) that he cannot appoint them to the re- 
 spective departments of their work; (4) that the 
 Annual Meeting cannot receive their reports." This 
 decision caused considerable dissatisfaction, for it 
 set aside a custom that had prevailed from the 
 founding of the Mission. Nevertheless, the meet- 
 ing appointed a committee to receive the women's 
 reports and present them to the meeting. 
 
 The General Conference having been memorial- 
 ized, enacted that "All missionaries sent out by this 
 Society shall labor under the direction of the par- 
 ticular Conferences or Missions of the church in 
 which they may be severally employed. They shall 
 be annually appointed by the president of the 
 Conference or Mission, and shall be subject to the 
 same rules of removal that govern the other 
 missionaries." 
 
 Subsequently one of our presiding Bishops at 
 Peking declared that under this law he could not 
 appoint women to work who were not regular mis- 
 sionaries of the Woman's Society. Mrs. Game- 
 well contested the point with the Bishop, and di- 
 rected his attention to the rule of the Woman's 
 Society which states : "Lady missionaries in charge 
 of work and all missionaries of the Woman's For- 
 eign Missionary Society are appointed by the presi- 
 dent of the Conference at the same time and in the 
 same manner that the appointments of the Con- 
 ference are made."
 
 MARRIAGE 103 
 
 The Bishop gracefully acknowledged the 
 strength of her contention, and calling her the con- 
 stitutional lawyer of the Mission, rendered his 
 decision accordingly. 
 
 In 1884, two years after his marriage, Mr. 
 Gamewell was appointed Superintendent of the 
 West China Mission, which had its center in the 
 city of Chungking in the province of Szechuan. 
 The Mission was in its infancy, having been started 
 in 1881. 
 
 It was a severe ordeal for Mrs. Gamewell to part 
 with her friends in Peking, and to leave the work of 
 which she was one of the organizers, and into which 
 she had put twelve of the best years of her life, 
 and in which she had hoped to toil till she was 
 summoned to her reward. It was like repeating 
 afresh the sacrifice she made when she abandoned 
 her country and kindred in obedience to the call of 
 God. But there was no murmuring. When the 
 pillar of fire moved on, she arose and followed. 
 
 Many years later she wrote a description of her 
 trip up the Yangtse, which was published in The 
 Chautauquan, by the courtesy of which magazine 
 we make the following extract :
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 TIP THE YANGTSE 
 
 "The great mass of the Yangtse's yellow water 
 met us in the arms of the blue Pacific Ocean, thirty 
 miles from China's yet-out-of-sight coastline. It 
 seemed very appropriate that a river, whose waters 
 could make such an impression upon the great deep, 
 should be called 'Son of the Ocean,' although the 
 authorities say that this is not a correct translation 
 of 'Yangtse,' and that the name was derived from 
 one of the provinces which the river drains. Our 
 vessel steamed from the blue into the yellow water 
 over a line clearly defined upon the quiet sea. 
 After a few hours we sighted the coast and soon 
 thereafter made our arrival at Shanghai. Shang- 
 hai is not upon the banks of the Yangtse, but 
 twelve miles up the Wusung River, which is a mile 
 wide where it empties into the Yangtse. Many of 
 the ocean liners are too large for the Wusung, so 
 passengers are transferred to tugs which carry them 
 up the Wusung to Shanghai. 
 
 "At Shanghai our party made preparations for 
 a long journey, for we were bound for Chungking 
 in Szechuan, which empire-province lies on the bor- 
 ders of Thibet. 
 
 104
 
 UP THE YANGTSE 105 
 
 "To be sure, one thousand miles of the journey 
 would be made in a luxurious river steamboat; 
 but beyond that were weeks of journeying in native 
 boats, when we should be dependent upon our own 
 bedding and food supplies. Fish, meats, fruit, 
 vegetables, butter, and milk in sealed cans, are 
 imported in large quantities, and such supplies, as 
 well as portable stoves and everything else needed 
 by the traveler in the Orient, can be purchased at 
 the large stores to be found in Shanghai and other 
 foreign settlements in China. 
 
 "The Yangtse River, whose current we were to 
 stem, and whose scenes we were to explore, winds 
 its way three thousand miles from the mountains 
 of Thibet, where it has its source at an elevation of 
 nearly two thousand feet above the sea level, to the 
 coast where the mighty river joins the mighty 
 ocean. In its course it receives waters from tribu- 
 taries which drain more than half of the provinces 
 of the empire an area of 54-8,000 square miles. 
 Sea-going vessels land their cargoes at Nanking, 
 two hundred miles from the coast; large steam- 
 boats carry cargo and passengers to Hankow, about 
 six hundred miles up the river from Shanghai, 
 whence they are carried in smaller steamboats four 
 hundred miles further up stream to Ichang. 
 
 "When one considers the situation as seen by the 
 Chinese he cannot wonder that ever since the en- 
 croachments of the foreigner in China began, trou- 
 ble has been making for themselves and for the 
 ever-advancing people from the West. Years ago
 
 106 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 native junks had all the coast trade of China ; they 
 swarmed the waterways that traverse the great 
 plain, that carry commerce almost to the gates of 
 Peking and reach the rich cities lying south of the 
 Yangtse. Steam has supplanted the junks, many 
 of which have rotted on the river banks. No won- 
 der their owners think they have good reason to 
 throw missiles at approaching steamboats, or to 
 join the mobs which so often assault the foreigner, 
 whose success has wrought Chinese failure! 
 
 "From Shanghai to Ichang by steamboat, our 
 way lay across three provinces, and touched upon 
 the borders of two others. Kiangsu, the province 
 in which Shanghai and Soochow are situated, is a 
 coast province. The Grand Canal florws through 
 its entire length from north to south, and it has 
 other canals and waterways. The city of Chin- 
 kiang lies at the entrance of the Grand Canal to 
 the Yangtse. Near the city may be seen two is- 
 lands, made picturesque and interesting by temples 
 and pagodas, whose roofs of yellow or green porce- 
 lain tiles tell of their imperial ownership. Farther 
 up the river we touched at Nanking, celebrated as 
 a literary center. It is considered one of the first 
 places of learning in the empire. From Nanking 
 our course bent southwest and brought us to Kiu- 
 kiang, on the south bank of the river and in the 
 Province of Kiangsi. This province has an area 
 greater than that of all New England. There is a 
 celebrated spot among its beautiful hills where Chu 
 Hsi, the great commentator of Confucius, lived
 
 UP THE YANGTSE 107 
 
 in the twelfth century, and which is visited by many 
 of the Chinese literati, who make pilgrimages to 
 this ancient home of their revered teacher and 
 philosopher. 
 
 "At Kiukiang one may find most beautiful porce- 
 lain, some of which is peculiar to that region. Not 
 far from Kiukiang are porcelain manufactories 
 which were established in 1004, and the best porce- 
 lain of the country is procured there. Still steam- 
 ing upstream, we arrive at Hankow, on the north 
 bank, in the Hupei province, and possibly visit 
 Wuchang, the city's twin sister on the south bank, 
 which is the capital of the province. The river 
 Han joins the flood of the Yangtse at Hankow. 
 At times the melting snow causes the river to rise 
 forty or fifty feet, and its increased volume greatly 
 augments the force of the Yangtse's powerful cur- 
 rent which is here a mile wide. 
 
 "From Hankow our course bent southwest, and 
 brought us to Yo Chou, where the Yangtse touches 
 the northern boundary of Hunan Province. The 
 people of this province are reputed to be turbulent 
 and bold. Soldiers recruited from Hunan are 
 known as 'Hunan Braves,' but this appellation does 
 not indicate that any great honor is accorded those 
 'braves.' For in China, public opinion finds its 
 ideals and highest ambitions in literature, philoso- 
 phy, and civil office. The pomp and glory of war 
 do not appeal to the Chinese mind. A cultivated 
 Chinese gentleman once made the pertinent inquiry, 
 'Why is it not more superior to lead the world in
 
 108 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 art, literature, and philosophy, than to be known 
 as a conqueror by force of arms ?' meaning, 'What 
 is there in the glory of arms to appeal to the peo- 
 ple, capable of high attainments in intellectual 
 pursuits ?' 
 
 "Proceeding up the Yangtse to within forty 
 miles of Ichang, one catches sight of the mountains 
 whose wild waters, deep gorges, and magnificent 
 views give decided change from the monotony of 
 scenery which prevails below Hankow, where the 
 country north and south of the river is compara- 
 tively flat. At Ichang, the head of steam naviga- 
 tion, we chartered a native boat for the trip up 
 to Chungking, which lies beyond the gorges and 
 the rapids six hundred miles farther up the stream. 
 The boat was eighty feet long, with four passenger 
 cabins, ten feet by eight, and a crew of forty-two 
 men, including the captain and pilot. The price 
 fixed for the boat was about one hundred and sixty 
 dollars, which sum was supposed to cover the food 
 and wages of forty-two men for one month, to pay 
 for extra men at the rapids, to provide large quan- 
 tities of bamboo ropes to be used in pulling our 
 boat over the rapids, and, besides, to give the cap- 
 tain his profits. 
 
 "The first day from Ichang brought our boat 
 into the gorges and the beginning of troubled and 
 dangerous waters. Three propelling forces were 
 provided for the boat. There was a great sail to 
 catch the favoring breeze when the waters permit- 
 ted sailing ; there were heavy-handled, broad-bladed
 
 UP THE YANGTSE 109 
 
 oars, hung on pivots on each side of the deck for- 
 ward of the passenger cabin, and eight lusty men 
 ready to stand at the same; and there were hun- 
 dreds of feet of bamboo rope in massive coils, wait- 
 ing the call of the 'trackers.' The pilot took 
 charge of a forward rudder a massive oar forty 
 feet long, projecting thirty feet over the bow. A 
 dip of this oar many times saved our boat from 
 capsizing. Close by the pilot was a drum, which, 
 beaten according to the order of the pilot, was to 
 direct the trackers; they must find foothold on the 
 cliffs that shadowed the swirling waters, and, with 
 ropes often one fourth of a mile long, pull the boat 
 over the rapids. Men in small boats were to watch 
 where the sharp rocks near the banks might catch 
 and sever the sagging ropes. 
 
 "The vertical walls of some of the gorges rise 
 a thousand feet from the water and seem to over- 
 hang the narrow stream which they inclose. 
 Through these gorges the wind fairly howls at 
 times; then the boats wait for it to subside before 
 they can sail through. If there be no wind, the 
 oars are brought into requisition. Beyond the 
 gorges, the towpath sometimes leads several hun- 
 dred feet above the river, along precipitous moun- 
 tains, and across the face of cliffs, where there 
 appears to be hardly foothold for a goat. At 
 each rapid, there is a little settlement of trackers, 
 who are employed to aid each boat crew in passing 
 the rapids. Often as many as one hundred extra 
 men are needed for each boat. The boats tic up
 
 110 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 or anchor below the rapids and wait their turn. 
 It sometimes happens that the boats are so numer- 
 ous that the last comers have to wait several days 
 for their turn. 
 
 "Contrasted with the monotony we had experi- 
 enced on the lower Yangtse, we had interest and 
 excitement enough when our turn came to be pulled 
 over the rapids of the upper Yangtse. Long tow- 
 lines were thrown to the trackers. The drum sig- 
 naled and the boat swung into the current. Then 
 we saw the men bending almost to the ground, as 
 they tugged at the long ropes, but the boat moved 
 so slowly against the rushing, roaring waters, that 
 it seemed not to move at all. At last, after a half 
 hour of tugging trackers, roaring waters, rolling 
 drum, and shouting pilot, our boat passed the two 
 or three hundred yards of rapids, and swung into 
 calmer waters, to repeat the experience at each one 
 of the series of rapids which infest the waters of 
 the upper Yangtse. 
 
 "For two weeks our course lay over turbulent 
 waters, through narrow gorges, under frowning 
 precipices, and in the shadow of lofty mountains. 
 A member of our party remarked that she felt op- 
 pressed by the continual grandeur of it all as 
 though she were passing through Hades. 
 
 "As we neared Chungking the mountains receded 
 somewhat, and a more restful hill country filled the 
 foreground. One day, a month after we left 
 Ichang, we swung around a bend of the river in 
 sight of the city. The vast and solemn solitudes
 
 UP THE YANGTSE 111 
 
 out of which we had come left us with an impres- 
 sion of having arrived at the end of the world, with 
 the habitations of men left far behind, and the 
 great city, with its frowning wall encircling the 
 rocky spur on which the city lay, seemed an unreal 
 thing, a vision."
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 CHUNGKING 
 
 Chungking is a city of about two hundred thou- 
 sand inhabitants, situated on a bluff three hundred 
 feet above the Yangtse and the Chialing, a tribu- 
 tary from the north, commanding in clear weather 
 a magnificent view of the southern hills. But if the 
 Chinese have a love for Nature, their mode of life 
 in this city would not reveal it. The best properties 
 are inclosed in high walls which completely shut out 
 the view. However excellent these so-called com- 
 pounds may be for purposes of protection from the 
 madding crowd, they shut one in from the sweet 
 sunshine and God's free air. 
 
 Such a property had been purchased by our 
 Mission. Imagine four plastered mud walls rising 
 above the roofs of the houses, pierced by two gates, 
 one cm the south, opening on the main street, and 
 the other on the north, opening on a lane terraced 
 above the city which clung to the steeps below. 
 Within this inclosure were Chinese buildings two 
 stories high, built a few feet from the wall around 
 the quadrangle, and fronting on the open court 
 within. This court was a rectangle twenty-five by 
 thirty-five feet. It was overhung on all sides by 
 112
 
 CHUNGKING 113 
 
 the projecting roofs of the houses, wet with rain or 
 soaking mists, dripping with dampness like the 
 stones of a well. Day was far advanced before the 
 morning sun could touch the pavement of the court, 
 and at times by three o'clock in the afternoon it 
 was necessary to light the evening lamps. Ghosts 
 of rheumatism and pneumonia clad in garments of 
 steeping moisture walked defiant in this sloppy 
 cavern. 
 
 The houses of the Mission were so close as to be 
 practically one building, in which privacy was im- 
 possible for those whose senses were keen. In one 
 of these buildings was an orphanage, from which 
 the moans and cries of Chinese children were heard 
 through the livelong night, and never ceased in the 
 so-called light of day. 
 
 Until one had accustomed himself to these con- 
 ditions he found it all but impossible to breathe or 
 think. Let him go to the northern gate to inhale 
 the breath from the river and the hills, he might 
 possibly be startled by the corpse of a baby falling 
 inward with the opening door. That was not an 
 unusual occurrence. Wretched parents would adopt 
 this dreadful method to secure the burial of their 
 dead, for the law required those on whose premises 
 a corpse was found to give it burial. More fre- 
 quently on opening the door, a living babe would 
 fall in. In these instances it was always a girl, 
 and usually one that was sickly or possibly, de- 
 formed. After a few such uncanny experiences one 
 would rarely open that gate for refreshment.
 
 114 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 Such was the home into which Mr. and Mrs. 
 Gamewell entered on December 14, 1884. In the 
 Mission of Chungking at that time were six mis- 
 sionaries: the Rev. and Mrs. Spencer Lewis, Dr. 
 and Mrs. G. B. Crews, and two representatives of 
 the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society, Miss 
 Gertrude Howe and Miss Frances Wheeler. Little 
 did they dream how soon and by what tragic means 
 that heroic company was to be scattered abroad. 
 
 Mrs. Gamewell writes of her home thus : 
 
 "Our West China Mission has its present home 
 in a 'well,' or a series of wells. The buildings which 
 unite to form these wells are fine buildings; they 
 are well built ; they are supported by many expen- 
 sive pillars of wood; they are handsomely orna- 
 mented with elaborate carving. But our fine 
 houses, with only a 'well' for a yard, seemed a 
 prison; we pined for the free, pure air, a broader 
 sky, and more light; so our thoughts turned 
 toward breezy Ko Lo Shan and its ruined temple. 
 
 "There is not much pure air to be had in the city 
 or in any near neighborhood of the city. This is a 
 coal-producing country. Soft coal abounds, and 
 is the fuel in common use. This fact, by the way, 
 introduces a feature into the landscape of this coun- 
 try not often observed in the North, namely, chim- 
 neys. A mixture of clay and coal dust, which 
 gives off more gas than smoke, is used extensively 
 in the North, and the natives manage to dispense 
 with chimneys, as they could not if they used this 
 smoke-producing bituminous coal. A cloud of
 
 CHUNGKING 115 
 
 drifting smoke hovers over Chungking just as a 
 heavier cloud hangs over Pittsburg. The smoke, 
 added to the haze or fog, which enshrouds this 
 province for at least six months of the twelve, makes 
 the dirty streets and narrow courts of the city very 
 gloomy. But the inhabitants seem to rise superior 
 to their surroundings, or to be oblivious of all 
 things disagreeable. They carry contented coun- 
 tenances, and are much given to feasting. They 
 seem a cheerful people, careless of all things spir- 
 itual, and have a ready faculty of putting away 
 or disregarding entirely all serious subjects. 
 Women come in large numbers to the chapel, but 
 the cheerful reason which they so cheerfully give, 
 always is that they come for amusement." 
 
 After careful consideration it was decided to 
 tear down a portion of the Chinese buildings and 
 with the material erect a chapel elsewhere, thus not 
 only improving the condition in the compound, but 
 also facilitating evangelistic work among the na- 
 tives. A property also was selected and pur- 
 chased on the great road to the capital of the 
 province and the principal cities of Szcchuan, 
 about three miles from the city mission, and beau- 
 tifully situated on the high bank of the river. 
 Here it was proposed to erect a hospital, a girls' 
 school, and mission homes. Building was begun in 
 March, 1886, and it was confidently expected that 
 by December of that year the work would be prac- 
 tically finished. With this change not only would 
 the missionaries be more agreeably located, but the
 
 116 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 opportunities for mission work would be greatly 
 enhanced, for on this road great multitudes were 
 constantly passing to and fro who were ready to 
 pause for a few moments to see and hear the for- 
 eigners with their new doctrine. 
 
 The prospect for large usefulness was very 
 cheering. While the people did not want the gos- 
 pel, they certainly were in great need of it. Nor 
 was it difficult to get the ear of the common people. 
 Were it not for the literati and the official classes, 
 who were constantly appealing to their supersti- 
 tions and passions, the poor and distressed could 
 have been readily reached. As elsewhere, the hos- 
 pital with its beneficent work would win the respect 
 and love of a people who certainly were not void of 
 the human sentiment of gratitude. And the school 
 was steadily disproving the absurd and popular 
 superstitions concerning the "foreign devils," or 
 "ocean demons," as the words mean. 
 
 The little band of missionaries was anticipating 
 with great hopefulness their entrance upon their 
 new quarters with its enlarged facilities for their 
 work. Mrs. Gamewell's letters are bright with vis- 
 ions of great usefulness. The following are selec- 
 tions from a lengthy description of a day's trip she 
 and others of the Mission made to the celebrated 
 Ko Lo Mountain with its decaying temple : 
 
 "Our chairs were ready. Across the narrow 
 court loud voices were calling back and forth under 
 the huge roof, which, supported by its tall black 
 pillars, shades so many feet of our narrow quarters
 
 CHUNGKING 117 
 
 with cool shadows by summer and chill gloom by win- 
 ter. The men who were to carry us uphill and down- 
 hill, and uphill again, and land us above the clouds, 
 in a region of pure air, after much talking and 
 running to and fro, finally adjusted their shoulders 
 to their respective burdens, and turned their san- 
 daled feet toward the only gate which opens from 
 the landward side of the city. 
 
 "Issuing from the city gate, the traveler has be- 
 fore him range after range of low hills, and higher 
 hills stretching away as far as the eye can follow, 
 until they are lost in a background of lofty peaks, 
 sharply defined against the sky. The roads are 
 paved with slabs of stone, and where the natural 
 rock comes to the surface, it is cut flat and made 
 to do duty in place of the usual slabs of stone. 
 Over the steep places the stones are cut or laid in 
 steps, and it is not uncommon to find a hundred 
 or more of these steps in one ascent. 
 
 "The valleys and hillsides are dotted all over 
 with white farmhouses, which look clean and pretty 
 at a distance, but are dirty and unsightly when 
 seen near at hand. The farmers of Szechuan do 
 not live in villages, as do the country people of 
 the North, but in separate houses apart from each 
 other, each farmer in the midst of his fields. Per- 
 haps the general habit of living apart may account 
 for the more peaceful temper of Szechuan people, 
 as compared with the villagers of the North. 
 
 "Their whitewashed houses, in the midst of bam- 
 boo groves or the vivid evergreens, are very invit-
 
 118 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 ing when seen from a proper distance, while the 
 mad villages of the North, whether seen near at 
 hand or afar off, are never inviting." 
 
 "Some distance below the temple a heavy stone 
 wall encircles the peaks and incloses the temple and 
 its spacious grounds. It was a gate in this wall at 
 which we entered, and, ascending yet other steps, 
 we came to the temple itself. The temple is fast 
 going to ruin; it is full of gods, helpless to save 
 themselves, their abode, or their votaries. The 
 place is in charge of a reprobate and poverty- 
 stricken old priest, who is thought to gloat over 
 the falling of any part of the fast-decaying build- 
 ings, because he then can make a little money by 
 selling the timbers and tiles. At the same time he 
 would not dare to tear down any building, how- 
 ever dilapidated its condition, for fear of the 
 people. 
 
 "A noble tree covers one building with its grate- 
 ful shade. This tree is so large, and occupies so 
 conspicuous a place, that it can be seen miles away. 
 A forest of fine trees used to shade this mountain, 
 but the forest has faded away under the stroke of 
 avaricious hands, keen to make gain by selling the 
 timber. Now only shrubs and small evergreen trees 
 shade the mountain slopes. 
 
 "We selected rooms under the big tree, to be re- 
 paired for a retreat from the scorching heat of the 
 summer, ate our lunch, spread in the priest's room, 
 feasted our eyes upon the far-reaching views to be
 
 CHUNGKING 119 
 
 had on every side of the mountain, and then has- 
 tened our return to the city, fifteen miles away. 
 Back we came to our dull rooms and narrow courts, 
 but with new vigor in the blood, new inspiration in 
 the soul, and a renewed faith ; a spirit born of the 
 Creator of the mountains, the rivers, and the sky 
 seemed to accompany us, and ever and anon, 
 through the dull but busy days which followed, 
 called to mind those words, suggestive at once of 
 a beautiful day and of the help we have in God the 
 giver: 'I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from 
 whence cometh my help.' "
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 EVIL OMENS 
 
 The glowing sunshine was soon to be obscured 
 by a destructive storm. Ominous mutterings pre- 
 saged a furious outbreak. The contemptuous cry, 
 "Foreign devil!" had in it a murderous accent, 
 and coarse men became bolder in their insults day 
 by day. Men of the ruder sort seemed bent upon 
 provoking the foreigner to some offensive act which 
 might give occasion for assault. When a mission- 
 ary was climbing up the stone steps of the streets 
 of the mountain city, a great giant coolly threw 
 himself down across the path, while the leering 
 crowd yelled vile words. Occasionally our people 
 would suffer something far more serious than in- 
 sults and threats. 
 
 The following is from a journal written by Mrs. 
 Gamewell while a prisoner with other foreign 
 women in the yamen of the magistrate in the city 
 of Chungking: 
 
 "After months of delay and search and dis- 
 couragement a beautiful place commanding a view 
 of both rivers was purchased. It was purchased 
 from different parties in parts and at different 
 times, so that a month or more passed after the 
 
 120
 
 EVIL OMENS 121 
 
 first portion was made ours before the purchase of 
 the other parts was accomplished. All was made 
 ours by January 30, 1886, and the deeds were 
 stamped by the magistrate, and a fee paid for the 
 stamp, a fee of four or five per cent on the pur- 
 chase price. During all these negotiations and 
 official transactions there was not one word of pro- 
 test or hint of objection to our possessing the place 
 either from people or the officials. A month was 
 allowed for tenants to move before work was begun. 
 The Woman's Foreign Missionary Society had 
 purchased the first piece and had obtained posses- 
 sion a month before our purchase was completed. 
 They put up walls and a fence. Our place was 
 walled in, and then the sites chosen and plans laid 
 out for houses. Still not a word of objection. 
 Booms were fitted up and Mrs. Crews and I went 
 to live on the place. I came to the city each morn- 
 ing and back in the evening. Beautiful walk, 
 healthful exercise! Work went on and we enjoyed 
 our country homes and lived in expectation of en- 
 joying our new houses. 
 
 "On the 6th day of June Mr. Gamewell and Dr. 
 and Mrs. Crews went to town to conduct services, 
 and I remained for a quiet Sabbath of rest, and 
 to have a foreigner on the place to see that 
 the gate was kept closed and no material in- 
 terfered with. Soon after noon some persons de- 
 manded admittance and were denied. Soon there 
 began a clatter of stones on the tiled roof near the 
 wall. The people outside were throwing. The
 
 122 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 throwing became violent, and I went out to see who 
 was throwing, thinking that I might identify some- 
 one, and then Mr. Gamewell would enter a com- 
 plaint. Quite a little crowd was standing about the 
 lowest of the three gates, the gate intended for a 
 hospital gate. As I issued from the gate of the 
 property of the Woman's Foreign Missionary So- 
 ciety, some were throwing and more were looking 
 on. Before I came near enough to see who they 
 were someone saw me and gave the word and they 
 all ran away. I went in. The throwing was re- 
 newed. I went out again. The crowd, now larger, 
 ran again. I stood by the hospital gate and one 
 by one the crowd collected about me. I had in 
 my hand a five-foot measuring pole of stout oak. 
 As I stood and looked about, the people stood too, 
 and seemed afraid of me. If I made a move in 
 any direction, those who stood there took to their 
 heels. I talked to the people. They kept quiet and 
 seemed interested, but said that they had come to 
 see our place and wanted to come in. I asked if it 
 was proper for a crowd of men to ask to visit a 
 place when only a woman was there, or if they 
 would let into their homes a crowd who threw stones 
 and broke the tile roofing. I appealed in the best 
 terms I knew to the 'li' (customs) of the Chinese, 
 an appeal so often effective among Chinese. A few 
 respectable people left. Indeed, the servants say 
 all the first crowd left, and the final crowd was 
 made up of lewd fellows of the baser sort who gath- 
 ered afterward. However that may be, the crowd
 
 EVIL OMENS 123 
 
 increased until there were approximately two hun- 
 dred about the gate. The gatekeeper asked me to 
 come out once more, and I went, staff in hand. 
 
 "This 6th of June was the 5th of the Fifth Moon 
 (a great Chinese feast day) and the day of the 
 Chinese Dragon Festival. The people wanted to 
 come in and were rude. One of the servants said : 
 *Wait until the place is finished and we will invite 
 you in.' They replied: 'We are working people 
 and cannot come any other day. We intend to 
 come in today.' I told them that people who had 
 no *li' (manners) and wanted to go contrary to 
 their own customs were not to be trusted; they 
 would be sure to take things from the place if let 
 in. It was now so late that I knew the gentlemen 
 must be on their way from town, and I hoped to 
 gain time so that they might arrive. But the 
 people grew so rude that the servant who had asked 
 me to come out to the crowd now begged me to go 
 in. Our cook went for a chief of police. When 
 lie arrived the people only laughed at him, and he 
 could not disperse them. When I started in, some- 
 one threw at me and the crowd set up a howl. I 
 backed against a wall. The official and cook man- 
 aged to keep the crowds back until I got away. 
 While I stood outside the last time, a bright-faced 
 little girl stood beside me, and when I started in 
 she came out af the crowd and followed me back, 
 talking in a trembling and yet sympathetic voice. 
 She went on and asked if she might come to the 
 house with me, and if I would teach her to write.
 
 124 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 She chattered on so bright and cheery, a perfect 
 little sunbeam shining through a dark cloud. I 
 left the cook in the street, and, as it was almost 
 supper time and the gentlemen would soon be home, 
 I thought I would prepare supper. I heard a great 
 pounding at the gate and feared they might get in. 
 Remembering how they ran from me at first, I 
 thought that with Mr. Gamewell's gun I might 
 make them run again, in case they got in, and 
 perhaps keep the place until the gentlemen came. 
 They were expected now every minute. I put the 
 gun together the best I could, and took it, unloaded 
 of course, and went into the kitchen. The little 
 girl stood at the door and soon announced : 'They 
 are in. They are coming.' Sure enough, they had 
 broken down the immense hospital gate and were 
 crowding in. I took the gun and started toward 
 them. When a hundred or more feet away the 
 crowd caught sight of the gun and made off in 
 haste through the broken gate. I went down and 
 stood guard at the gate while one half of the great 
 door was shut and braced up with heavy stones. 
 I saw there would be a struggle if we attempted 
 to have the other half put up. So I stood guard 
 keeping out the crowd, hoping for the return of 
 the gentlemen. 
 
 "At this juncture the cook went to Fu Tou Kuan 
 for the magistrate. A man diverted my attention 
 by coming up with a child and pretending to be a 
 friend whom I did not recognize. Suddenly some- 
 one seized the barrel of the gun. The crowd sprung
 
 EVIL OMENS 125 
 
 to his assistance, the servants to mine. Two ser- 
 vants and I pulled one way and as many as could 
 get hold of the barrel pulled the other way. As I 
 pulled in desperation what thoughts crowded my 
 mind ! 'Frank's gun, a gift from his brother, now 
 dead. Just arrived, not yet used. How silly to 
 bring it out! What shall I do if they get away 
 with it ?' How we pulled ! We had an advantage 
 in having hold of the butt end. They threw at me 
 and pounded my fingers with their fists, while others 
 pulled. There could be only one end. They made 
 off with the gun, and I stood in distress and shame 
 to see it go. The stampede for the gun seemed to 
 frighten those outside, and the crowd gave away 
 and many ran right away. There was hubbub 
 about me. One said they did not believe in tobacco, 
 and I turned to see the servants looking at me in 
 great concern. The old gateman had some fine 
 tobacco in his hand which he offered to tie about 
 my finger. Then I saw that the index finger of 
 my right hand was cut almost to the bone. The 
 blood had flowed quite a little stream, staining the 
 soft stone quite red. My dress was spattered with 
 mud, my hair and neck on one side were all plas- 
 tered with mud, and on the same side a big swelling 
 was rapidly rising just below the temple. The 
 crowd had caught sight of me and fled in dismay, 
 afraid of being held accountable, no doubt, for a 
 worse task than they attempted to undertake. 
 
 "Just here the cook came in and said the official 
 Tu-kuan' would not attend to the affair. I sat
 
 126 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 down in the gate alone, and for a second hot tears 
 flowed from grief for the lost gun. Then the ser- 
 vants came, and directing them to put up the other 
 half of the gate, I hastened to make myself tidy 
 before Mr. Gamewell should get back. I dressed 
 my finger, and washed the mud off, and had only 
 time to hurry into my ulster and a tie, when the 
 official from Fu Tou Kuan walked in. Probably 
 hearing of a bigger disturbance than he had 
 thought possible, he came in to forestall disastrous 
 consequences to himself in case anyone should be 
 called into account for the disturbance of the day. 
 He said he would get the gun for me and went 
 away. He met the crowd venturing in again and 
 put them out, though the servants said his manner 
 was as if ridiculing foreigners at the same time 
 he was putting the men out of the gate. 
 
 "Soon after the official was g<me Mr. Gamewell 
 came in. A man had gone to town to call him, and 
 met him at the corner of the city on his way out. 
 In great anxiety he came on. He sat down and 
 only looked and looked at me after I showed him 
 that I was not seriously hurt. He suffered more 
 than I did. I did not even know that I was hurt, 
 until all was over. I did not know when I was hurt. 
 Probably the trigger tore my finger, but I did not 
 feel it. By and by the doctor came in. He had 
 heard alarming reports on the road and came in 
 looking pale. He dressed my finger most scien- 
 tifically, using carbolic acid, which benumbed the 
 finger and prevented any pain."
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 CHUNGKING RIOT 
 
 The Chinese have an instinctive antipathy for 
 foreigners. Every attempt to explain it by re- 
 hearsing the immediate occasion of its expression 
 is superficial and unsatisfactory. It is probably 
 the evolutionary product of what has been called 
 "the geologic ages of their national history." In 
 their millenniums of isolation they have developed 
 ideals of their own, unimpaired by close contact 
 with those of other nations, till the people have 
 come to look upon them as the final good, beyond 
 which there could be no better. 
 
 Their ideals and ours are not only different, but 
 really antipodal. This is the order in which they 
 grade men: beginning at the highest is the em- 
 peror, the representative of heaven ; next below him 
 is the scholar, who alone is qualified to rule; then 
 comes the farmer; after him the mechanic; still 
 lower, the trader; and at the bottom of the social 
 scale, the soldier. With this ideal in mind we can 
 imagine how the deepest instincts of the Chinaman 
 must have been shocked by his first contact with 
 the Western world. When the white-faced for- 
 eigner came to him in the representatives of the 
 127
 
 128 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 East India Company it was for trade. Then came 
 the soldiers who with terrible slaughter fought their 
 way to the very gates of the imperial city. Fol- 
 lowing these lowest orders, came mechanics, erecting 
 strange buildings and constructing railroads which 
 defaced the country and threatened native labor. 
 And in nearly every instance the presence of the 
 foreigner meant the extension of the opium curse, 
 the loss of valuable territory, and the humiliation 
 of their rulers. 
 
 It would be too much for us to expect the aver- 
 age Chinaman to distinguish between the foreigner 
 and the Christian. To him all foreigners are 
 Christians. Besides, his idea of a Christian is 
 largely that created in his mind by the Roman 
 Catholic Church, which came to that country in 
 1246, and after more than a century of propa- 
 ganda, was lost in Mohammedanism and Buddhism, 
 only to return again in 1582, from which time it 
 has continued till the present hour, having nearly 
 seven hundred thousand communicants. If the 
 church had confined itself to spiritual matters, the 
 results might have been different; but it has been 
 true to its traditions, and has meddled in civil 
 affairs to such a degree as that a bishop assumes 
 the rank of a Chinese governor, and moves among 
 the people with all the showy splendor of a civil 
 officer. The result is that the jealousy of the 
 officials is irritated, and the antipathy of the peo- 
 ple, more especially the student class which aspires 
 to office, is excited to the point of murderous hatred.
 
 CHUNGKING RIOT 129 
 
 This instinctive hostility to the foreigner becomes 
 almost a religious frenzy among the unreasoning 
 masses, when it is fired by popular superstitions. 
 The foreigner erects buildings above a given eleva- 
 tion, and thus obstructs the flight of irritable spir- 
 its and excites their rage against a helpless people. 
 The baptism of dying infants is a part of a devil- 
 ish science by which certain parts of the human 
 body may be put to the transmutation of metals. 
 The erection of orphanages is for this same fiend- 
 ish alchemy. Missionaries hang no streamers on 
 the trees of Szechuan in order to placate the spir- 
 its that are there. They spill no blood of a cock 
 on the prow of their boats when they start on a 
 voyage. They want little Chinese children so as to 
 tear out their eyes and use them for medicine. 
 Thus superstitions, which are sure to become domi- 
 nant when vital religion disappears, have made 
 this people as inflammable as tinder, when fired by 
 the student and official classes. 
 
 For these general reasons riots were of frequent 
 occurrence throughout the empire. One never could 
 tell when the volcano on which he was living would 
 shake with wrath and pour out the hissing flames 
 of mob fury. The most trifling incident might 
 prove the occasion of a most terrific explosion. 
 Such an outbreak occurred in Chungking in July, 
 1886. Mr. Gamewell names as the immediate occa- 
 sion of this irruption the presence of a large body 
 of military students during examinations, the high 
 price of rice and the consequent suffering among
 
 130 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 the poor, rendering it easy for the students to 
 incite the people to violence in hope of plunder, 
 and the inactivity of the officials who, if they did 
 not help the riot, at least did nothing to restrain it. 
 Dr. Arthur H. Smith says that "the people of this 
 remote province are not unfriendly to foreigners 
 excepting when they are stirred up to opposition 
 by their officials. A foreign bureau at the capital 
 of the province has been shown to be the active 
 agent for the diffusion of antiforeign virus over 
 this entire region, to the incomputable loss of un- 
 numbered persons. The rioters of 1886 openly 
 declared that they had authority from the emperor 
 and from the officials to extirpate Christianity." 
 
 If the purpose of the officials in exciting or 
 favoring the popular tumult was to expel Chris- 
 tianity from their midst, they could not have acted 
 in greater unwisdom. They started a cyclone 
 which they could not control, black with swirling 
 clouds of insane passion, full of uproar, deafened 
 to every call of mercy or reason, increasing in power 
 with every mad bound, whirling in its furious coils 
 the wrecks of missions and consular agencies, but 
 a power that was sure to stir the conscience of the 
 entire Christian world, and rouse the governments 
 of Christendom to force restitution and to open 
 the way for the entrance and security of all who 
 chose to enter the land. Mrs. Gamewell in the 
 darkest moment of that riot with clear vision saw 
 the outcome, and said: "They think thus to shut 
 the door, but are really swinging it wide open."
 
 CHUNGKING RIOT 131 
 
 The mad fury of a mob is far more to be dreaded 
 than a cyclone. It is cruel, pitiless, fiendish. Every 
 brutal passion, long held in leash, is let loose. 
 Every noble feeling of the soul, even the restrain- 
 ing sentiment of fear, is lost in an unthinking 
 impulsion. The muttering of a cyclone is music 
 itself in comparison to the shrieks of an infuriated 
 populace. One might as well reason with the 
 tumultuous sea, -or attempt to retain the thunder- 
 bolt in the cloud, as to resist this onrushing human 
 cyclone. 
 
 This terror struck our little company in Chung- 
 king. They heard it from afar, and saw it bound- 
 ing in frightful destruction from place to place. 
 It swept away every trace of the foreigner wherever 
 it struck. It paused not for a moment to attack 
 even the British consular agency, which was the sec- 
 ond property in the city destroyed. The Methodist 
 compound was the last attacked. Its inmates could 
 see the destructive work on the Roman Catholic 
 cathedral which was not far away, and they knew 
 that their turn would come next. There was no 
 time for counsel. Mr. Gamewell hastily sent a 
 man to secure a boat, hoping to escape to the river, 
 on the treacherous current of which they might 
 float away to where God might lead them. But it 
 was too late. The shrieking mob hud gathered at 
 the front gate which had been barricaded, and be- 
 gan to batter it down. The missionaries lifted their 
 hearts to God in prayer. None of them were ter- 
 ror-stricken, for even then, as Mrs. Gamewell said,
 
 132 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 they realized the promise fulfilled, "Lo I am with 
 you alway, even unto the end of the world." 
 
 While the mob was forcing its way through the 
 front gate of the mission premises an officer came 
 to the rear gate and urged the missionaries to has- 
 ten for their lives. It seems that the magistrate, 
 however much he may have sympathized with the 
 purpose of the mob to rid the city of all traces of 
 the foreigners, was very unwilling to have any of 
 them slain. He was wise enough to foresee the con- 
 sequences, and had planned to shelter them in his 
 yamen until he could arrange for their safe con- 
 veyance down the river. 
 
 Everything the missionaries possessed, excepting 
 what they carried on their persons, was swept away 
 as by a conflagration. The following are selections 
 from Mrs. Gamew ell's journal written while a 
 prisoner in the yamen. They were never revised 
 for publication; but they reveal so perfectly the 
 spirit of one in bondage for Christ's sake, that 
 we dare not attempt any alteration. What they 
 may lack of rhetorical finish is more than compen- 
 sated in the spiritual atmosphere of one of the 
 most significant periods in her personal history. 
 
 "Toward the middle of the afternoon [July 2, 
 1886] we heard that Mr. and Mrs. Woods had 
 gone to the magistrate's residence, and our servants 
 urged us to go too. The gentlemen barricaded the 
 gates and windows of the outside wall and sent for 
 Misses Howe and Wheeler to come in. We could 
 hear indistinctly the tumult of a mob about the
 
 CHUNGKING RIOT 133 
 
 Catholic cathedral. The gentlemen, that is, Dr. 
 Crews and Mr. Gamewell (Mr. Lewis being over 
 the river), went upstairs, and from there saw a 
 mob chopping into the windows and raging around 
 the place. We thought we might escape to the 
 river bank or take a boat and drop down the river, 
 but hesitated. In the meantime we sent for the 
 men whom the magistrate said should guard our 
 place. I procured a little box containing pins, 
 cuff buttons and a specially treasured keepsake. 
 As we talked in the court below suddenly a man 
 rushed in excitedly and said the magistrate had 
 sent for us to come to his yamen. We recognized 
 him as the man who had come with credentials the 
 day before. He had sedan chairs at the back gate. 
 We had sometime before sent Miss Howe's four 
 wards and Miss Wheeler's two wards with Sadie 
 Crews to the carpenter for safe hiding, so there 
 were five ladies, two gentlemen, and one little girl 
 in our party. Our chairs were hurried along by 
 the back wall. The gentlemen were obliged to walk 
 because the chairs were not sufficient. Dr. Crews 
 took off his coat that the crowd might not have it 
 to catch at. He shut his fist and strode along. 
 Instead of being carried to the yamcn, we were put 
 dawn at a house which opened directly at the wall. 
 It proved to be the home of a policeman. While 
 here a note was sent to Mr. Lewis telling him of 
 our situation, and a man dispatched with it. The 
 man who guided us to this place presently was 
 found missing. A crowd gathered and poured into
 
 134 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 our cramped quarters. The women of the house 
 became uneasy and wanted us to go. The gate- 
 keeper of the ladies of the Woman's Foreign Mis- 
 sionary Society came in and showed a package of 
 silver about his waist. The carpenter also brought 
 in his cash which served to pay chair hire. We 
 saw they were already looting our homes, and we 
 found that no distinction was made between us and 
 the Catholics. 
 
 "The crowd became very unpleasant, and just 
 as we were beginning to feel uneasy our escort 
 came in. He had a broken head and was spattered 
 with blood. He said he had been down to the 
 Catholic place. Likely he was, as his services as 
 chief of police would be needed there ; but it is also 
 possible that he was off helping riot. 
 
 "At first the crowd was disposed to block the 
 way when we attempted to go out. This escort 
 expedited our removal by shouting that he was to 
 take us to the magistrate's yamen. As he shouted 
 he pushed, and the crowd made way. One by one 
 we elbowed our way to the chairs at the door. We 
 had been there about an hour. Now we were car- 
 ried off into the darkness, each alone in the closed 
 chairs borne on the shoulders of men. My turn 
 came and I took the seat in the chair, about which 
 the crowd pressed closely, just as it was discovered 
 that there were no more chairs. Mine was the last, 
 and Mr. Gamewell was without a chair, and the 
 turbulent city had to be crossed before we reached 
 our destination. I wanted to wait, but was borne
 
 CHUNGKING RIOT 135 
 
 off, and the last I saw or heard was Mr. Gamewell 
 in the midst of a crowd who shouted boisterously 
 for him to sit down, that it would not do for him 
 to walk, etc. We were carried into the city and 
 across some of the great streets through which men 
 were carrying all manner of articles from foreign 
 houses to Chinese houses, besides the furniture of 
 natives who were moving out -of the dangers of our 
 neighborhood ; whether the furniture was from the 
 looted homes of more unfortunate natives we could 
 not tell. 
 
 "Again we were carried through a gate which 
 was not the yamen gate. The gate was deep and 
 dark, and there was an order not to bring a light. 
 We were hurried into a room which we learned was 
 the home of the chief of police who was conducting 
 our party. After a while we were asked to ascend 
 a ladder and were stored away in a dark, window- 
 less garret, and they asked us not to talk. Here 
 we sat on the floor in a corner for the space of two 
 or three hours, not daring to think what might have 
 happened to Mr. Gamewell. But I prayed and 
 seemed to receive the assurance of his safety. 
 Finally, word came that the magistrate had sent 
 for us, and this time we were really to go to the 
 yamen. An escort had come to conduct us. After 
 a ride of several minutes we arrived at the yamen, 
 and there found Mr. Gamewell where he had been 
 carried directly after we left him. He had suf- 
 fered anxiety for us, as he had expected to find us 
 at the yamen, and doubted the truth of any account
 
 136 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 that was given of our whereabouts. Because of his 
 urging, parties had been sent in different direc- 
 tions to find us. While in the garret some of our 
 party saw the flames of the Catholic cathedral, 
 which the mob burned after looting. Mr. Game- 
 well met me in the yamen court only to say that 
 we were in Chinese quarters and must conform to 
 Chinese customs. So we shall be stored away in 
 one court and the gentlemen in another. It was 
 hard after a separation in the midst of danger to 
 miss the joy of having the rest of the night in each 
 other's company and together await developments. 
 "Our party of ladies were led through a series 
 of dimly lighted rooms into another, and there we 
 found Mrs. Wood and Mrs. Copp and family. We 
 had heard from the chief of police that the Nichols 
 were in the keeping of another chief of police on 
 the other side of the city. Here we heard Mrs. 
 Wood's and Mrs. Copp's story of how about thirty 
 men took all the things out of Mr. Copp's house 
 and made off, of how the ladies and children had 
 fled to town, only to rest an hour or so when they 
 had to fly from Mr. Wood's house before the ap- 
 proach of a mob, Mrs. Wood, with Mrs. Copp's in- 
 fant and Ruby, a bag of silver-forks, etc., and a 
 sponge cake on a plate in her hand ! She had only 
 started when her chair was so torn that she left it 
 and called a street chair. The chairmen carried her 
 in her damaged chair to a chair shop, and there 
 transferred her and her baggage to a street chair. 
 They hurried swiftly away and landed Mrs. Wood,
 
 CHUNGKING RIOT 137 
 
 babies and baggage, in the yamen uninjured. 
 Mrs. Copp arrived without adventure. We were 
 not long there when Mrs. Nichols came in. She 
 had been through a hard siege. She was in the 
 house with poor, sick Mr. McMullan when the 
 mob burst through. They tore the silver pins out 
 of her hair and searched her person for valuables. 
 They pulled the bedding from under Mr. McMul- 
 lan and tore the room to pieces in spite of their 
 entreaties for mercy for the sick. They managed 
 to carry Mr. McMullan away, finally, Mr. Nichols 
 going with him to the policeman's house. Mrs. 
 Nichols missed them and made for her teacher's (a 
 friend) house. A brutal man seized her by the 
 collar of her dress and gave her a jerk forward 
 and then a violent push backward which threw her 
 on her face in the street. She got up and made 
 off. Some teachers in the crowd said the man 
 should not hurt her. The teacher class, however, 
 had much to do with starting the mob, but they did 
 not intend to take life. They are intelligent and 
 know the serious consequences of such violence. 
 Mrs. Nichols hid away in her teacher's house until 
 a man came and took her to the policeman's house. 
 The man carried her on his back through the crowd, 
 and finally brought her with the rest of her party 
 to the yamcn. We slept in our clothes and spent 
 an uneasy night. Next day we heard that n 
 wealthy Catholic named Lou had armed men and 
 undertook to defend his home, though he had given 
 up his shop to be looted. This Catholic is much
 
 138 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 hated. He held his own plucldly, and killed sev- 
 eral men who came for plunder. The killing only 
 excited the mob and made his case a desperate one 
 should he fall into the hands of the mob. 
 
 "The shedding of blood made the whale trouble 
 take on a more desperate aspect. Mr. Bourne, the 
 British resident, had been interested in our trouble 
 from the beginning, and gave us much valuable 
 assistance. It seems that the riot was anti-foreign 
 without distinction in favor of anybody, with more 
 violent demonstrations toward the much-hated 
 Catholics. Mr. Bourne was to be no exception in 
 the general attack. His house was attacked and 
 he left it. He was on his way to the assistance of 
 China Inland Mission, he writes, when the mob 
 dragged the leader of his escort from his horse and 
 injured Mr. Bourne himself. The magistrate was 
 thrown down several times in the press about Mr. 
 Bourne. The magistrate threw himself against 
 Mr. Bourne's person, and declared that an injury 
 to Mr. Bourne could only be made by first attack- 
 ing himself, and so saved him from further vio- 
 lence." 
 
 Homeless and with resources gone, the only thing 
 to do was to get down the river to the coast, send 
 those whose condition made it necessary to the 
 United States and take up the settlement of losses 
 with the Chinese Government in Peking.
 
 CHAPTER XV 1 
 
 DOWN THE YANGTSE 
 
 "July 13th, p. M. Now comes word that we all 
 shall go tomorrow night. All day we have heard 
 that all could n-ot be planned for, and now the 
 Tao Tai says all may go, and he will make out 
 passports. Why this sudden change? We can 
 only conjecture. Perhaps they have been waiting 
 for some word from the capital, and it has come. 
 But we cannot know. Read book of Daniel. God 
 is good. He has drawn us very close to himself 
 during these days of trial. Can we ever wander far 
 again? 'Shall know how his love went before us 
 each day, and wonder that ever my eyes turned 
 away.' 
 
 "July 14th, Wednesday. Last night came a 
 letter from Mr. Bourne saying the Tao Tai (in- 
 tendant of circuit) wanted a letter saying that 'as 
 bills of losses had been received, the weather being 
 warm, some of our party poorly, and nothing more 
 to be done, we desire to go to Ichang,' and that he 
 would have the letter written in Chinese and sent 
 around for Mr. Gamcwell to sign and send in, since 
 
 'This chapter is composed of unfinished notes from Mrs. Gamewoll's 
 peri. 
 
 139
 
 140 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 Mr. Gamewell has no Chinese writer here. Then 
 when the letter is received, the Tao Tai will send 
 passports for our entire party. Now, this morning, 
 they say we Americans are to start tomorrow morn- 
 ing and the English the next day. It rains, and 
 perhaps a rain will delay our going. Well, we are 
 in the care of Him who rules the rain and the great 
 waters and overrules in the affairs of men. He can 
 do all his will. And if it is his will, we shall be off 
 tomorrow. If it is not his will, we are better off 
 to be here. So we wait and pray and trust. 
 
 Whether the present situation is the result of 
 strong active hostility on the part of the people at 
 large, or is brought about by the direct work of the 
 literati who hate foreigners, or by the rough mili- 
 tary students, or whether the officials have directed 
 and stimulated known hatred to produce desired re- 
 sults, all this we cannot know. Any of these forces 
 or all combined may have set us adrift without 
 houses or goods or work. However the riot may 
 have been stirred up it is certain the only object of 
 the mob was to loot and get gain. At this time rice 
 is very high, and the people are, many of them, 
 desperate. 
 
 "Night. The magistrate, insulting and threaten- 
 ing, said he was taking care of us, but in America 
 they killed Chinese. . . . The magistrate says 
 they have engaged two boats for us (the American 
 party). Of course we do not know what to believe ; 
 but we know Whom we have believed. 
 
 "Later, July 15th. Passports for Mr. Game-
 
 DOWN THE YANGTSE 141 
 
 well and myself, ladies, and girls have come, and, 
 besides, word that the English are to go at the 
 same time. Mr. Gamewell signed a paper like the 
 one sent to the Tao Tai, but refused to add any- 
 thing to it. It seems to have been accepted. Yes- 
 terday the magistrate told his wife to get black 
 cloth to wrap our heads in to help disguise us, and 
 we are to wear Chinese clothes. Today the magis- 
 trate says we are to leave in the third watch, and 
 not in the daylight, as he first said. 
 
 "This occasion brings out one of our number's 
 wonderful capacity for emergencies. A simple 
 faith seems to possess him, and his countenance 
 shines confident and bright with the hope and 
 courage and strength that is born of God. So for 
 us, shut up where all depends upon God and there 
 is no place for self-reliance, all self-depreciation 
 and wavering disappears, and he is so steadfast 
 and strong. Faith docs its perfect work, and he 
 is capable of a very strong, pure faith. 'Bless the 
 Lord, O my soul.' 
 
 "After dinner. Boat papers for English and 
 Americans all made out. Passports in except the 
 first which was sent to the magistrate for Mr. 
 Lewis and Dr. Crews on Monday. Hope runs high. 
 We seem nearer going than at any other time. 
 
 "Still 15th, 9:45 p. M. Just read an invitation 
 to a feast to be eaten tonight before going to boat ! 
 Things all gone. 
 
 "July 16th, 5:45 A. M. Up all night. Feast at 
 one. To boats about two. Weighed anchor about
 
 142 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 5 :45. Left in darkness. Lanterns swinging in the 
 fog. Soldiers seen in the dim streets guarding our 
 way down to the boat, soldiers and yamen runners 
 guarding and pointing way. Magistrate came 
 down and sat in his chair and exhorted the boat cap- 
 tains. So in the darkness we steal out of the city 
 whose people have torn up every vestige af our 
 home and left us with none of the treasure we 
 brought with us two years ago. 
 
 "On our boat, Misses Howe and Wheeler and five 
 girls and ourselves. Other American boat, Mr. and 
 Mrs. Lewis, and Nellie, Dr. and Mrs. Crews, and 
 Sadie." 
 
 "After keeping us in his yamen for two weeks 
 the magistrate sent us at two o'clock in the morning 
 of a summer day on board a boat, and with a 
 strong guard saw us off on our perilous journey. 
 Our return trip to the coast was made in a season 
 when only extraordinary pressure would induce one 
 to venture on the waters of the upper Yangtse 
 The autumn and winter months are considered the 
 safe season for navigating the river above Ichang. 
 When the snows on the mountains begin to melt 
 the water pours into the narrow channel of the 
 river in great floods, rising sometimes in a few 
 minutes sixty feet above its ordinary level. Boats 
 cannot travel at night and then tie to the banks or 
 cliffs. There have been boats so tied which have 
 been swamped by the descent of a wall of water, 
 which came rushing through the darkness so swiftly 
 that the boatmen had only time to hear the roar
 
 DOWN THE YANGTSE 143 
 
 of the onrushing terror before it was upon them, 
 and their boats, tied fast, went down. There are 
 other dangers that make the navigation of the 
 upper Yangtse very perilous. What in low water 
 are rapids, in high water are whirlpools so numer- 
 ous and powerful that boats cannot escape them. 
 
 "When we left Chungking the floods were com- 
 ing, and the season was at hand when the boatmen 
 would refuse to risk their boats upon the waters. 
 As it was, we were put upon a freight boat because 
 the deck where we were to bestow ourselves was 
 several feet below the level of the deck of a passen- 
 ger boat; therefore, our weight would not make 
 the boat so topheavy and we would be in less dan- 
 ger of capsizing. Running away from threaten- 
 ing death, Death seemed chasing all about us. I 
 knelt on our deck and so brought my eyes on a 
 level with the deck in front, where our men were 
 standing to the oars. I could see shallow currents 
 running on top of other currents and the water 
 seemed to be going in every direction at once. 
 Then came whirling the great black depths of the 
 whirlpools ! It was brave work our gallant oarsmen 
 did. Standing face to the prow they rowed, the 
 wind slapping about them and howling wildly. 
 With great skill and precision they bent, might and 
 main, to the oars. For an instant's relaxation, each 
 man sat on the great beam-handle of his oar; then 
 with a spring, every muscle in action, they bent 
 again to the oars just in time to save us from 
 disaster.
 
 144 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 "So we went through the whole day. Our hearts 
 glowed with admiration and clorve to those sturdy 
 men of brawn and wondrous skill and courage on 
 whose skill and faithfulness our lives depended. 
 My face was quite near the feet of one of the two 
 hindermost men. I watched their rhythmic tread 
 as they kept step with the regular pat, pat of all 
 the other feet. After a while the man, looking over 
 his shoulder, shouted above the howling wind and 
 asked: 'Are you afraid?' I shouted back: 'With 
 such men as you at the oars, how could I be afraid ?' 
 Simple-hearted as he was, brave and skillful, his 
 face broke into a broad smile, and he shouted my 
 reply to the man in front of him, and he in turn 
 shouted it to the next, and he in turn shouted it to 
 the next, until the word had gone the rounds of 
 the whole lot. Each man as he heard it beamed 
 upon me with a smile of good will, which good will 
 was manifested all the rest of the way down the 
 river. Such is the power of a word of appreciation 
 and so akin to all mankind are those brave boatmen 
 of the upper Yangtse. 
 
 "These men on the boats of the upper Yangtse 
 are the only picturesque Chinese whom I have 
 seen. To begin with, they have no queue in sight. 
 The queue is wound around the head and covered 
 with a turban. Many of the boatmen are from 
 Hunan, that province of the turbulent and bold and 
 brave. The queue was imposed upon the Chinese 
 as a sign of their subjugation, when the Manchus 
 overthrew the government less than three hundred
 
 DOWN THE YANGTSE 145 
 
 years ago. These men of the upper Yangtse have 
 never been reconciled to the queue. They dare 
 not cut it off, for that would be treason to the gov- 
 ernment, and their heads also might be cut off. 
 So they hide the queue under a turban, and the 
 effect is very pleasant. They bind their legs from 
 ankle to knee with long bandages to save from 
 strain, or rupture of blood vessels, in hard climb- 
 ing. Their trousers end at the top of the band- 
 ages, and they wear sandals woven of straw upon 
 their feet. The combination, finished with short 
 jacket girded tight with a sash, is picturesque and 
 attractive. 
 
 "Our men brought us from Chungking to Ichang 
 in four days. We had taken just four weeks for 
 the journey up stream from Ichang to Chungking. 
 The difference speaks volumes concerning the cur- 
 rents on which we rushed to our destination. 
 
 "Doubtless the boatmen are still urging their 
 skillful way over the waters of the upper Yangtse. 
 But mighty changes are developing rapidly all 
 along the lower reaches of the river and pushing 
 surely and permanently into the innermost parts 
 of the great empire." 
 
 On reaching Shanghai Mrs. Gamewell returned 
 to the United States on account of her health, and 
 Mr. Gamewell spent the winter in Peking in the 
 settlement of losses incurred in the Chungking 
 riot.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 ASBUEY CHUBCH, PEKING 
 
 After Mr. Gamewell had settled with the im- 
 perial government the claim for indemnity for our 
 mission property, he returned to the United States, 
 and later was reappointed to Peking. It was a 
 great joy both for Mr. and Mrs. Gamewell to be 
 back in their old field. He was assigned a place 
 in the university and she fell naturally into the 
 old lines of work to which she had given many 
 years of her life. She was given special charge 
 of the training school, the object of which was to 
 drill in Bible doctrine and methods of work women 
 who had been carefully selected from church mem- 
 bers throughout the Conference. These women, 
 when trained, would return to their homes and be- 
 come most efficient forces in the work of the local 
 churches. Among them there arose many veritable 
 "mothers in Israel," like Mrs. Wang, whose sterling 
 character and energetic work remind us of those 
 women who were such effective forces in the early 
 history of American Methodism. 
 
 Thus many years passed for Mrs. Gamewell in 
 quiet routine of daily duty, unbroken by any 
 startling occurrence. She slept and rose night and 
 146
 
 ASBURY CHURCH, PEKING 147 
 
 day, and the seed sprang and grew up, she knew 
 not how: the blade, the ear, the full corn in the 
 ear. In addition to her training school there were 
 two things in which she took a very active part and 
 on which she put the stamp of her own individuali- 
 ty. One was the erection of the large and beauti- 
 ful Asbury Church. Dr. Lowry, after her decease, 
 wrote: "Her letters more than anything else made 
 possible Asbury Church in Peking, with all it means 
 in the life and work of the mission." The story is 
 fully told in one of her letters of appeal to Chaplain 
 McCabe, then corresponding secretary of the Mis- 
 sionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church. 
 The substance of this letter is here given : 
 
 "We are in trouble. Let me tell you our trouble, 
 and please help us. The Mission chapel is giving 
 way. We began to prop and mend it a year ago, 
 but now the walls lean worse, the cracks are wider, 
 and the timbers bend more threateningly. If you 
 could stand by the old weather-beaten chapel and 
 hear its history, so interwoven with all the Mis- 
 sion's joys and sorrows, and its hopes, past and 
 future, and realize how much depends upon our 
 Mission chapel, your voice would ring out with 
 energy of speech and song that would win for us 
 the help we need. It is no shame for the chapel to 
 fall. It has stood nearly twenty years and cost 
 only two thousand dollars when it was built. We 
 knew it could not be long-lived because there was 
 not money enough to build substantially. It is now 
 the oldest building in the Mission. Dr. Pilcher,
 
 148 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 then only three years in the field, superintended 
 the building. The inclosed is a photograph of the 
 interior, showing the casket in which Dr. Pilcher's 
 remains were buried and the decorations at the time 
 of the funeral. Within a month of Dr. Pilcher's 
 death (November, 1893) the chapel was discovered 
 to be tottering to a fall. 
 
 "Dr. Pilcher was superintendent of our afternoon 
 Sunday school. This Sunday school began as a 
 class of the Mission's Sunday school. The class 
 developed into two classes, one for girls and one 
 for boys. These classes grew so large that they 
 alone filled the chapel. The Sunday school had to 
 be held in two sessions, one in the morning for 
 Christians and one in the afternoon for the boys 
 and girls of the neighborhood. The young men 
 and women of our Mission schools are the teachers 
 in this afternoon school. The school serves as a 
 training-school for them as well as a means of 
 reaching street children with the gospel. 
 
 "The chapel has seating capacity for four hun- 
 dred, but often five hundred are present at the 
 afternoon Sunday school. Some sit on the altar 
 steps, and some are held on the knees of others, and 
 some stand up. Many of the children come shiv- 
 ering in rags from forlorn homes, in comparison 
 with which the chapel is a paradise of warmth and 
 good cheer. The Sunday school hour is the one 
 bright spot in each seven days for such. The chil- 
 dren wait eagerly for each returning Sabbath. 
 They shout as we pass on the street: 'How many
 
 ASBURY CHURCH, PEKING 149 
 
 days to next Sunday?' They gather in increasing 
 crowds about our gates from noon Sunday until the 
 bell rings and the gates are opened at three. These 
 are the children who once ran in terror at sight of 
 us, feared our 'evil eyes,' believed we used children's 
 eyes for medicine, and whose first stages of recovery 
 from terror were marked only by bad names called 
 from safe distances. The whole neighborhood has 
 been reformed in the matter of reviling by the in- 
 fluence of our Sunday school. 
 
 "The children were induced to come to us, in 
 spite of fears and prejudices, by giving picture 
 cards, one to each child who slxmld come. The in- 
 terest is so sincere now that most of the pupils 
 would come if there were no picture cards given, 
 but we prefer to continue giving cards because 
 bright cards once a week are great treasures to 
 children who have so little. I know some pinched- 
 faced little folks exchange their cards for some- 
 thing to eat. One cold day I saw a child not more 
 than six years of age hand her card to a peddler 
 and receive in its place a cup of hot soup. The 
 eagerness of the child would make any heart ache. 
 Now this Sunday school is the only one of such size 
 and such intense interest in China. Visitors always 
 exclaim : 'I have seen nothing like it in China !' 
 The school lias been in existence as a school only 
 one year and a half. It is the rich fruit of years 
 of toil and waiting. Do you understand what it 
 would mean to shut our gates for weeks and months 
 with no promise as to the near future? Suspicion
 
 150 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 would follow disappointment, and the Chinese 
 would think we had ceased to want them in our 
 chapel, reasoning in the same way as when, believ- 
 ing all missionaries to be doctors, they think we 
 do not cure their diseases because we do not want to. 
 Work so slowly accumulated would disintegrate be- 
 fore our eyes and we powerless to help. Besides 
 the Sunday schools, every other department of our 
 Peking work depends in a measure upon the chapel. 
 The university students meet in the chapel for 
 morning prayers. Preaching services and prayer 
 meetings depend upon the chapel. The chapel is 
 the only assembly room for funerals and weddings. 
 Christmas is celebrated in the chapel. There is no 
 place for commencement exercises but in the chapel. 
 Annual Meetings have no accommodations outside 
 the chapel. What will become of these interests 
 when the chapel falls ? When the chapel was built 
 its size seemed so out of proportion to the num- 
 bers assembled and the work then under way that 
 our friends remarked : 'You must have great faith 
 to build so large a house with any hope of filling 
 it.' The faith has been rewarded. The work has 
 so outgrown the chapel accommodations that for 
 several years the Mission has felt the need of a large 
 church, but schools and country work have been in 
 such urgent strait, and we need such a big church 
 next time one is built, that the Mission has delayed 
 asking for an appropriation for a church, hoping 
 that the time might come when they could ask with 
 a hope >af receiving it, about ten thousand dollars,
 
 ASBURY CHURCH, PEKING 151 
 
 to build a church that would answer Mission pur- 
 poses for the next twenty years. 
 
 "If you find it in your power to help us to a new 
 church, you will be sending a broad beam of cheer 
 into the shadows, that will lift us up and strengthen 
 us to a degree that perhaps you little imagine." 
 
 The appeal was successful. Mr. and Mrs. Game- 
 well came to America and devoted much of their 
 time to this work. He studied plans with the aid 
 of a competent architect, and decided on the erec- 
 tion of a building which should be made chiefly of 
 brick and wood, and which should accommodate 
 fifteen hundred persons. He returned to Peking 
 and superintended the erection of the church. It 
 was when finished not only the most conspicuous 
 architectural feature of the Methodist compound 
 and the center of its life, but also the largest Pro- 
 testant ecclesiastical structure in China.
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 PEKING SUNDAY SCHOOL 
 
 Mrs. Game well was greatly interested in the Sun- 
 day school and devoted much of her time and 
 strength to it. The following is taken from one 
 of her published leaflets: 
 
 "At the time of the building of the first Metho- 
 dist church in Peking friends of the missions re- 
 marked, 'You must have large faith if you expect 
 to fill so large a church in your day.' Only a few 
 years passed and a Sunday school of four hundred 
 filled every seat. Every Sunday workers whose 
 hands were full of all sorts of work during the week 
 united in the work of the Sunday school, and the 
 Sunday school early became the chief joy of the 
 Mission. 
 
 "At first the students from the Mission schools 
 and the Christians and servants of the Mission were 
 the only pupils, but after a while a few children 
 of the neigborhood ventured in. The children had 
 heard their elders call the missionaries 'foreign 
 devils,' and they had been told that foreign devils 
 used children's hearts and eyes to make medicines, 
 so, of course, they were slow to venture within the 
 courts of the foreigner. 
 
 152
 
 PEKING SUNDAY SCHOOL 153 
 
 "A recruit from New England, Miss Cushman, 
 joined the Mission, and she brought with her a 
 talent for bringing things to pass and a quantity 
 of picture cards. The cards were such as every 
 business house used to issue, combining an adver- 
 tisement and a beautiful picture on each card. 
 She took charge of the class of street children, and 
 she gave to each child a card and promised to give 
 a card to every little girl who should join her class 
 in Sunday school. The cards proved very attrac- 
 tive; then, besides, other children could see for 
 themselves that the first children to attend Sunday 
 school had not lost their hearts or eyes. 
 
 "They ventured in, in constantly increasing 
 numbers, until at last the class was too large to 
 meet with the rest of the Sunday school. It had 
 to have a room all to itself. Then that room was 
 soon filled to overflowing. The children sat on the 
 seats and on the backs of the seats; they sat on 
 each other's laps; they sat on the floor; they sat 
 on the table and under the table. Indeed, the 
 teacher had to take her place before the children 
 should come in, and when they were all there she 
 had just standing room and no more. And when 
 visitors called the teacher could not move an inch 
 to receive them and they could only look through 
 the door, inside of which there was no room for 
 them, and pass on exclaiming: 'Wonderful! won- 
 derful!* 
 
 "Finally, the Mission determined to make a whole 
 Sunday school of this one class, and it was done.
 
 154 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 In the morning was the regular Sunday school, 
 with Christian members and students from the mis- 
 sion schools as pupils, and the missionaries as 
 teachers. In the afternoon the children of the 
 neighborhood and any adults who cared to come, 
 were the pupils in another Sunday school and the 
 pupils from the morning Sunday school were the 
 teachers. The afternoon Sunday school became a 
 training school, where the Christian students were 
 brought into contact with those who knew not God 
 and practiced the art of winning them for the 
 Saviour already so dear to their own hearts. 
 
 "Just here a trouble confronted the Sunday 
 school the supply of cards would soon be gone! 
 A letter was sent to the Woman's Missionary 
 Friend, asking that packages of cards be sent at 
 once by mail, and that cards be collected and 
 sent in boxes by freight later on. There was 
 a grand response to this call from Maine to Mary- 
 land and from the Atlantic to far beyond the Mis- 
 sissippi, and the parcels came pouring in. A mis- 
 sionary received missionary mail in Tientsin and 
 forwarded it to Peking. Ordinarily he hired one 
 donkey for a courier who should make the trip, but 
 when the cards began to come in he filled bags and 
 bags with card parcels and two or three donkeys 
 had to be hired to carry the mail to Peking. In 
 the spring the boxes began to arrive, and before 
 long there was a room in the mission packed from 
 floor to ceiling with boxes, bags and barrels of 
 cards. There were cards great and small; there
 
 PEKING SUNDAY SCHOOL 155 
 
 were beautiful Christmas and Easter cards, fresh 
 and new; there were rolls of large pictures and 
 there were chromos. The contents of the parcels 
 and boxes were sorted, and the largest and best 
 cards and pictures were kept for extra rewards and 
 for Christmas presents. 
 
 "Some of the card parcels were accompanied by 
 touching stories, as, for instance, one that came 
 from Michigan. It was sent by a lady, who wrote 
 that she was old and feeble, dependent upon friends 
 and without money of her own, so that when she 
 gave it must be because someone else first gave to 
 her. She had read the call for cards with rejoicing, 
 as if it were an answer given by God to her prayer 
 that in her feeble, shut-in state he would show her 
 how even she could do something for his cause. 
 She had not known that she had anything that she 
 could give, but here was a parcel of beautiful pic- 
 ture cards that had been the delight of a child long 
 since gone to heaven, and therefore very precious 
 to the now aged mother. Thanking God that at 
 last there was something she could give for his 
 cause, she sent the parcel and accompanied it with 
 her prayers. 
 
 "Is it any wonder that small things like picture 
 cards are made to accomplish such great things 
 when such love and such faith send them on their 
 way? 
 
 "There were cards for nil comers, and the Sim- 
 day school grew as the class before it had grown. 
 It grew until it filled the church, as the class had
 
 156 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 filled its class room filled it until all the seats were 
 crowded and the aisles, until the altar steps were 
 taken and the platform inside the altar rail. 
 
 "Then a second trouble threatened. The walls 
 of the church had cracked and now they were 
 bulging and it looked as if the heavy tiled roof 
 might fall in some day, and then there would be no 
 meeting place. Besides, how awful if it should 
 fall while the house was full of children! This 
 second trouble passed in as wonderful a way as did 
 the first. Stays were put against the cracked walls 
 and extra supports under the heavy roof. Then a 
 letter was sent to the homeland, out of which came 
 all supplies and much good cheer. The letter was 
 received by one whose great heart abounded in 
 ways and means of winning men and the contents 
 of their pocketbooks, and by return mail he for- 
 warded the first installment of a sum sufficient to 
 build a church large enough to accommodate the 
 work, as all then thought, for the next twenty 
 years. With the money went also a letter full of 
 cheer and inspiring energy. 
 
 "In course of time the church was completed, 
 and almost immediately it was filled by the still 
 growing Sunday school. By this time the Sunday 
 school had such fame that it was visited by travel- 
 ers as one of the sights of Peking, and workers of 
 sister denominations seemed to take as much pride 
 in the Sunday school and its beautiful house as if 
 it were all their own ; and all who visited the school 
 said: 'There is nothing else in China like it.'
 
 PEKING SUNDAY SCHOOL 15T 
 
 "The time had been when members of the Mis- 
 sion could not appear outside the Mission walls 
 anywhere in the neighborhood without being hailed 
 by some child at a safe distance, 'Foreign devil! 
 foreign devil!' Now the Sunday school has done 
 its work and the cry heard on every hand is: 
 'Teacher, teacher, how many days to next Sunday ?' 
 And from over walls of the neighbors' courts a 
 passer in the street may hear childish voices sing- 
 ing 'Jesus loves me, 5 'There is a land fairer than 
 day,' and other hymns learned in the Sunday 
 school, where these children find the -one warmest, 
 brightest, most joyous hour of all the week."
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 LETTERS TO FRIENDS 
 
 UNIQUE TRANSPORTATION 
 
 October, 1891. 
 
 I have traveled hundreds of miles and had many 
 and varied experiences roving about among the 
 North China churches. But within the present 
 month I have attained to a new experience. I have 
 made two country trips since the middle of October. 
 The second trip took me south of Peking through 
 a district that has been flooded by the breaking of 
 the river banks. The river now runs in a new bed 
 that it has made for itself. There are shallow 
 stretches of water between the north bank and the 
 deeper current. My carter put me into a boat to 
 cross the current. He drove the cart through the 
 rushing water five or six feet from where the boat 
 landed. That six feet of water afforded the new 
 experience. A man wha wore a combination of 
 trousers and stockings made of cow skin with the 
 hair turned in, all dripping as to this garment, 
 and dirty as to the whole of him, but large as to 
 stature, and good-natured, backed up to the boat 
 and said, "Get on my back," or words to that 
 
 effect, for he spoke in the Chinese tongue. I had 
 
 158
 
 LETTERS 159 
 
 seen the operation which he evidently had in mind 
 performed on several occasions, but had never no- 
 ticed just how the details were carried out. So I 
 gave way to two Chinese women passengers and let 
 them go first to their cart, while I watched with 
 keen interest the manner of their going. Then 
 came my turn. I placed each hand upon his broad 
 chest, as far from his neck as possible, then crooked 
 my knees into his backward extended palms. The 
 man thus burdened by my weight took three steps, 
 then turned around and backing to the cart de- 
 posited me upon the cushions of the same ! No one 
 laughed or seemed to see anything unusual in all 
 this. Such passages are common in the highways 
 of China, and are viewed with the most matter of 
 course air by women and girls as well as by men. 
 But this was my first passage of the sort. 
 
 IF MERELY JUST 
 
 April, 1892. 
 
 One of my girls spent most of this evening with 
 me, and I was much interested in her questions and 
 remarks. For one, she asked me what I thought 
 of a case where one found her conscience dictating 
 a certain course, and all one's friends dictating the 
 exact opposite, "How can one know just which is 
 right?" I was trying to justify a rather stern 
 course concerning a certain party when she replied: 
 "Yes, but if God were only just, there would not
 
 160 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 be one person left on the earth now." She added: 
 "One must be some yielding and some considerate 
 for the feelings of another. One can't be all just 
 and only just." 
 
 LOST AT NIGHT 
 
 In the darkness of the night we lost our way. 
 Bouncing in our cart over plowed ground in search 
 of the road, our ears were assailed by the cry of 
 the carter: "Yes, never mind, only eight more li, 
 honorable lady." Directly we saw a light and 
 drove in that direction, but it was only a grave in 
 the midst of the field with a fire burning on or near 
 it. Things were being burned for the spirits of 
 the dead by the devoted living. We often saw these 
 little fires as we rode over the country. There is 
 something weird about the dancing flames and the 
 dusky figures of those who tend them, as seen in the 
 dim light of the night. Finally we struck the right 
 road and came into An Chia Chuang. 
 
 HEARTACHE FOE A FRIEND 
 
 OSWEGO, New York, April 23, 1896. 
 For the first time I have a heartache for you. 
 A sudden sense of loss grasped me as I turned from 
 watching you pass into the statkm waiting room. 
 My eyes fill, as I think of you, my precious friend. 
 Until now the joy of all has dominated all my
 
 LETTERS 161 
 
 thought of you. Now the sense of loss keeps com- 
 pany with the joy. When I am rested again I shall 
 lose the pain in thankfulness for the rare friend 
 and wonderful love He has given me. 
 
 CAREFUL FOR NOTHING 
 
 OSWEGO, May 12, 1896. 
 
 I know it is possible "to be careful for nothing," 
 and "by prayer and supplication with thanksgiv- 
 ing make your requests known to God," and "the 
 peace of God which passeth understanding shall 
 Iceep your heart and mind through Christ Jesus." 
 The keeping by Jesus is fully set forth in the 
 first to the fifteenth chapter of Saint John. 
 That is the how. The way we are to get is by 
 being careful for nothing. It is possible to "bear 
 all things, believe all things, hope all things, endure 
 all things," and in perfect peace, content, and 
 cheerfulness; but we have our wishes returned to 
 us only when we have given up all. Already given 
 up, Christ will do this. We do not have to fight. 
 We only let go drop stop doing, thinking, 
 planning. Hanging to the edge of a high roof, 
 the child hears the father below say, "Let go." 
 With shut eyes and fear the child obeys, and drops 
 into the father's arms. Then the bliss of quiet 
 content ! It is not a fight unless we are disobedient 
 and knowingly cling to what we must let go before 
 Christ can possess us wholly.
 
 162 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 LOVE STRENGTHENED BY OBEDIENCE TO DUTY 
 
 MINNEAPOLIS, June 15, 1896. 
 My sister came to this place with me, and is 
 here to see me off. She is so distressed that my 
 heart aches for her all the time. And yet partings 
 have only strengthened the ties between my loved 
 ones and myself. It is the thought J;hat the Mas- 
 ter gave up heaven for earth that takes away the 
 force of a temptation that might oome with the 
 suggestion that this going into a far country is 
 unnatural and unreasonable. Love, after all, must 
 follow the Master without regard to the reason of 
 this world that limits all things to the scope of 
 present joy. 
 
 Mrs. Gamewell sailed from Vancouver returning 
 to China to rejoin Mr. Gamewell June 22, 1896, 
 on the steamship Empress of Japan. 
 
 LOVE FOR HER KIN 
 
 VANCOUVER, British Columbia, June 21, 1896. 
 
 My last days have been full to the brim. My 
 brother's two older boys joined the church and 
 took a stand that relieves my mind and fills my 
 heart with rejoicing. Then my brother himself 
 gave me comfort by his own attitude. The Master 
 has added many blessings through the days of 
 parting. Once you said something about years 
 weaning brothers and sisters from their first affec-
 
 LETTERS 163 
 
 tion for each other. With us it has not been so. 
 The long years of separation have intensified the 
 love, made strong the bonds, made more tender the 
 sympathy between us. Some of us with unlike 
 natures, find ourselves being knit together in un- 
 derstanding love by the power of the Master's work 
 through our hearts. No, as I love God more I 
 love my brothers and sisters more, and what they 
 are or are not has nothing to do with the fact of 
 the love existing in my heart, -and the same power 
 of love working in my heart makes the friendships 
 more precious. 
 
 SORROW OF PARTING 
 
 STEAMSHIP EMPRESS OF JAPAN, NORTH 
 
 PACIFIC OCEAN, July 1, 1896. 
 Yes, the last days seemed to me all that I could 
 bear and not break. Of course I knew I should 
 bear because it was not my strength that must 
 carry the burden of it all. I love to think how 
 near the Master comes to those on whom sorrow 
 rests for his sake. That is the sweetness of it all 
 for his sake. My faith failed in a degree, and I 
 was not as strong as I slxmld have l>cen at the last. 
 But here comes the reconciling comfort of it all. 
 He never fails. He always helps. He cared more 
 than I could. If I failed to l>c ready for his use, 
 he, nevertheless, found some instrument for his use 
 and he surely comforted and helped. I lost an
 
 164 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 opportunity. But the gracious help was furnished 
 another in time of need. Oh, the comfort that 
 comes in the sight of the sense of failure when we 
 realize that our lost opportunities are not neces- 
 sarily lost to others. 
 
 SUNLIT HILLS 
 
 HILLS FIFTEEN MILES WEST or PEKING, 
 August 20, 1896. 
 
 I saw the sun light up the tops of the hills west 
 of us this morning while yet the hills to the east 
 hid the sun himself from view. That means that I 
 was out of bed and on the veranda by five o'clock 
 this morning. I should love to take you out on 
 our veranda to look about. In front the plain 
 with its fields of standing grain, and here and there 
 a clump of trees marking a burying ground or 
 temple premises. To the right and to the left, spurs 
 of hills that run out to meet the plain and from 
 the half circle into which our houses are packed 
 and right up the mountainside. Behind us the 
 mountains and the sky meet several hundred feet 
 above the level of our house, which stands highest 
 up the mountainside. 
 
 GOD IN ALL 
 
 So also, it seems to me, it would be self-pity for 
 me to mourn any separation or other circumstance 
 of this life because of what it brought to me or
 
 LETTERS 165 
 
 deprived me of. I truly rejoice to believe that the 
 Master controls each event as it comes. I am so 
 glad that he is in it all, that nothing seems severe 
 as far as / am concerned. Sometimes for the mo- 
 ment, I do not think of all this glad lesson that he 
 has been teaching me for years, and so for the 
 moment, self-pity enters in; but, truly, any grief 
 that endures comes only from the fact that some 
 whom I love do not rest all things in Christ's hands, 
 and so live in his peace; and therefore they suffer 
 because of my movements, and I suffer because I 
 am the immediate cause of their suffering. But I 
 am learning to rest this trouble also with him. It 
 has rested there most of the time, but sometimes 
 thoughts of my loved ones sweep in and catch me 
 not securely anchored. Then there is sadness for a 
 season. 
 
 CREDIT CHRIST, NOT ME 
 
 Something in your letters makes me want to 
 write something about this. You credit me with 
 much that positively never was in me, for it is 
 Christ fulfilling his promise in spite of the natural 
 self that I know myself to be. If you think what 
 you see to be me, my "born" self, you lose the 
 good you might get from the right. If Christ cnn 
 do such work in me, what great hope there is for 
 any other mortal ! Please do not read anything to 
 my credit in these words. Please let them glorify 
 the Master only.
 
 166 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 JOY OF CONTACT WITH LIFE 
 
 PEKING, September 7, 1896. 
 I have lived a busy life for about twenty-five 
 years without much time for intellectual pursuits 
 outside of the studies incident to my missionary 
 work; but I enjoy contact with the other life as I 
 enjoy the woods and fields and solitudes that are 
 left on the other side of the ocean when I come 
 again to my post. 
 
 THE PULPIT AND POLITICS 
 
 PEKING, October 1, 1896. 
 
 The political situation interests me more than I 
 can tell. 1 1-ove my country intensely, and so many 
 dangers threaten her. They gather closer around 
 with each succeeding year. Hidden hostile powers 
 are at work as well as the outbreaking lawlessness 
 and greed of gain at the expense of all else, that 
 show their heads more and more boldly. God is over 
 all. If the nation trusts him and owns his power, 
 all is well. But will the nation continue to serve 
 him as a nation? I believe so much about churches 
 keeping out of politics is of the prince of darkness. 
 If church people do not assemble to worship God 
 as a preparation for keeping his law and doing his 
 service as a nation as well as individuals, what is 
 the use of a church in the world? The pulpit need 
 not declare for any one party in order to send its 
 people out to act on principle, to the overthrow of 
 powers that antagonize the welfare of the nation, 
 the municipality, and the home.
 
 LETTERS 167 
 
 DEPRESSION 
 
 A depressed spirit of foreboding envelops my 
 being and presses upon my consciousness. It seems 
 likely that the expected mail will bring bad news. 
 Intense sadness seems to seize all my unoccupied 
 moments. If life were totally ineffective and effort 
 vain, I might feel as something seems trying to 
 make me feel today instead of the steady calm with 
 which my soul recognizes God, and his steady power 
 in whom every effort is full of hopeful meaning. 
 The spirit may not fail today, but it will not soar. 
 
 Written on the following day: 
 
 EXULTATION 
 
 A buoyant spirit catches me on light feet and 
 swings with easy step through the day. Every- 
 thing comes easy. My spirits rise and rise like a 
 bottle of yeast, and my head may pop off with 
 exhilaration ! 
 
 Later. The clouds that have been gathering 
 all day are pouring grateful draughts upon the 
 thirsty earth. The trees toss their arms and wave 
 their leaves in glad enjoyment, and every shrub 
 and plant is bursting with intense delight. Ah, 
 yesterday we were tried and scraped witli a sand- 
 paper wind in lifeless air; today grateful moisture 
 and dewy freshness soothes the nerves, and lubri- 
 cates all the squeaking screws of one's system. So 
 Nature's moods depress or lift. Yesterday was
 
 168 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 bright, today it rains ! Yesterday the wheels drave 
 heavily ; today we fly on light wing ! 
 
 IN A CHINESE INN SOUTH OF PEKING, 
 
 November 6, 1896. 
 
 I am to resume my old work of conducting a 
 training school for women. My plan is to visit the 
 village churches and invite such women as seem 
 fitted for the school to come to Peking for six 
 months' instruction. I am out on such a trip now. 
 When this trip is made I shall open school and 
 settle to regular work. 
 
 FLOOD 
 
 It seems now as if I am to be delayed and pos- 
 sibly defeated in the carrying out of this trip. A 
 river, that lies between Peking and my objective 
 point, has broken its banks and inundated the 
 country to such an extent that carts cannot travel 
 the road. I have spent this day, from 8:30 A. M. 
 to 4 :30 P. M., making this point, twenty miles dis- 
 tant. Here we learn that our cart cannot progress 
 beyond three or four more miles. Our only resort 
 is to hire a donkey for me to ride and let the cart 
 mule carry my bedding and food on its back. Just 
 here the carter came in to find out what I propose 
 for tomorrow. I am very loth to return to Peking, 
 yet that is what I am intending to do. I have sat 
 in the lumbering cart through this day, and have 
 been covered thick with a fine, gray dust. Now,
 
 LETTERS 169 
 
 half way to my journey's end, to turn back is much 
 against my nature; but if I do not, all I can do 
 is to leave the cart here and ride a donkey for 
 twenty miles, in the course of which journey there 
 are three rivers to cross, and thick mud between the 
 river banks and the water, and many other serious 
 obstacles to such a course. I would take the don- 
 key and go through only I would not be in condi- 
 tion to do the work that I have in mind as the 
 object of this trip after such fatigue. Then there 
 is likely to set in one of our North China cold dust 
 storms from the northwest at any time. I am trav- 
 eling alone. If a gentleman were with me, we 
 would not think of anything but going on. 
 
 DRESS 
 
 You would be amused to see how I am dressed. 
 I have one of the American storm suits to begin 
 with. The skirt eight inches from the ground, a 
 shirt-waist, and an Eton jacket, and blue leggings 
 to match the suit. Then inside my shoes I have 
 chamois slippers ; under my jacket and waist I 
 have a chamois-lined silk waist, and the warmest 
 of flannels. I have bloomers under my short skirt. 
 Then to finish off with, I have on a Chinese wadded 
 garment that covers me to the edge of my short 
 skirt, and on my head a Chinese storm hood. I 
 brought with me a hot water bottle and several 
 blankets, a cotton mattress and wadded cover, and, 
 besides, a fur-lined coat !
 
 170 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 ALONE IN THE INN 
 
 I am sitting now in a room about ten by ten 
 and without fire. Half of the floor space is occu- 
 pied by a brick platform that is about as high as 
 an ordinary chair. On this platform my bed is 
 made up. The upper half of the front of my 
 room is lattice covered with paper. The lower half 
 is built of brick. The floor is level with the court 
 outside and is paved with brick. The papered door 
 opens immediately into the court, and in the court 
 are the carts and animals of the travelers. The 
 court is no better than an ordinary stable court. 
 Generally, the walls between these rooms, each of 
 which opens right into the court, are solid, but 
 this time I find a square of paper-covered lattice 
 between me and the occupants of the next room. I 
 took a brick from the floor to set against a hole 
 in the paper and filled a smaller hole with a wad 
 of paper. These are peculiar surroundings for a 
 lone woman, twenty miles from the habitation of 
 our kind. Yet I feel safer here than I would in 
 an equally rough place in America. The Chinese 
 will do nothing to disturb me. 
 
 A VISITOR 
 
 Just here there was a pull at my door and an 
 animated face looked in, then the whole person 
 came forward. A young woman from the next 
 room came in to see what I was doing ! She leaned 
 on the table before me and talked freely and cheer- 
 fully. It seems that as a child she used to go to
 
 LETTERS 171 
 
 the preaching in a missionary chapel in her native 
 town. She has married and had moved to her hus- 
 band's home. Now she is going to her native town 
 for a visit after an absence of four years. She 
 said to me: "You just come to our town and I 
 will bring a whole court full of people to see you." 
 As she talked a man's voice on the other side of 
 the latticed partition joined in, and we had a 
 pleasant chat. Now she has gone. 
 
 In the midst of my writing of the above the 
 carter came in to say that by going a long way 
 around he could get me to my desired station, only 
 we will have to finish our journey Sabbath morn- 
 ing, whereas I expected to get in on Saturday 
 evening. However, I am glad I shall not have to 
 return to Peking without having accomplished my 
 errand. Isn't this a good beginning for a diary 
 letter? I shall have to close it for the present and 
 give some time to replying to a number of letters 
 that came with yours. 
 
 AMERICAN FLAG 
 
 Did I tell you that when Mr. Gamewell and I 
 came up the river from Tientsin, in a houseboat on 
 my return from the States, that we flew your 
 little flag at the stern of our boat? My love and 
 longing for my country increases with the years. 
 I long to have God's purposes fulfilled in her. I 
 hope he may never have to destroy the nation to 
 save the people. "My native country, . . . Thy 
 name I love."
 
 172 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 OVEE A FI/OODED COUNTEY 
 
 Since writing yon last evening I have slept on 
 the brick bed with a hot water bottle to warm me 
 and my bedding. I rose at five, and was on the 
 road by half -past six. Tumbling and jerking our 
 clumsy way along, we came through a district that 
 has been flooded and now lies tracked and fur- 
 rowed, a waste of sand and mud, two or three feet 
 deep. We passed a village that was in ruins, all 
 fallen in before the flood that had subsided, but 
 which left a stream pouring through where was 
 once a village street. All signs of streets are 
 gone, and the ruins are covered a foot or two deep 
 with mud left by the subsiding waters. When the 
 river broke its banks a rapid stream made a bed 
 for itself through a district that lies in the way 
 from Peking to the place I am trying to reach. 
 We came to the stream at noon today. A boat put 
 off from the opposite bank where the current ran 
 swifter. My carter drove up into the water to 
 meet the boat. As we stood watching the boat from 
 a strip of land that emerged from the land it was 
 an odd scene that was transacted before our eyes. 
 Away out on the near side of the rapid current, to 
 be sure, but in the midst of the water, the boat 
 discharged its passengers! Some came tramping 
 and splashing in with trousers rolled to the highest 
 possibility. Others came on the backs of bare- 
 legged waders. 
 
 A wader took the lead of our mule and piloted 
 our carts and all clear across the stream. The
 
 LETTERS 173 
 
 water rose very high around us and almost flooded 
 the cart, but I was so glad to be relieved from the 
 necessity of taking passage on that boat that I did 
 not think of the water with any dread. 
 
 Just here the carter came in to arrange for to- 
 morrow and to get money to pay inn charges. 
 Here I am, far removed from friends and among 
 Chinese travelers and other inn people, yet I am 
 secure. This carter is a stranger to me, though 
 known to some members of our Mission. He brings 
 in my baggage, calls for water for me, pays my 
 bill, calls me in the morning, and is entirely respon- 
 sible and to be depended upon to get me to my 
 journey's end. He was so anxious about the seem- 
 ing frustration of my plan and probability of 
 having to return to Peking without having reached 
 my objective point that he spent yesterday even- 
 ing in running through the streets to different inns 
 looking for carters from this direction that he 
 might learn surely of the condition of the roads. 
 He spent so much time going about that he did not 
 get any supper, and had nothing to eat until today 
 at eleven o'clock. He found a carter who had come 
 from here and who told him about the roads, and 
 so we came on. I wanted to be at our chapel at 
 Han Tsun to spend this night and be ready for 
 the Sabbath service there. I never before was 
 obliged to arrive on the Sabbath day. I am sorry 
 enough. I shall be off by five in the morning, and 
 hope to arrive at nine, and be in time to avoid dis- 
 turbing any meeting by my arrival. . . .
 
 174 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 I am in an inn that is about fifteen miles from 
 my Peking home. 
 
 CAUSE OF THE FLOOD 
 
 Since I have written so much of this trip for 
 you, I must give you the sequel. I reached my 
 destination about half -past nine Sunday morning. 
 I got settled before meeting time; attended meet- 
 ing; spent most of the afternoon talking to the 
 women and the native helper, then spent the evening 
 with the helper, making plans for women to come to 
 Peking. This helper tells me that the floods came 
 because the people cut the banks of the river! The 
 railroad from Tientsin to Peking is to pass this way. 
 The embankment was nearly completed. The tele- 
 graph poles make a straight line through the coun- 
 try, following the lines to be taken by the trains. 
 The cutting of the banks is currently reported to 
 be at the instigation of a high-grade official, whose 
 special duty is to keep the river within its banks. 
 He hates the railroads. As the cutting was at a 
 point that let the floods sweep against the embank- 
 ment, destroying it for a long distance, it is easy 
 to believe the story exactly correct. 
 
 AN UNTRAINED CONSCIENCE 
 
 Perhaps I have told you of a teacher who told 
 in class meeting that when he was ill his heathen 
 mother brought him a bowl containing medicine 
 over which a charm had been said. He must honor 
 his mother, so he could not tell her he would not
 
 LETTERS 175 
 
 take it; he only asked her to place it beside him, 
 and after his mother left the room he poured it 
 into a hole under the brick platform on which his 
 bed was made. When his mother came he told her 
 he had taken it, and now he wanted to thank God 
 and acknowledge his mercy, because his mother did 
 not find out that he had not taken the dose, but 
 poured it under the bed. 
 
 CHRISTIANS FOR GAIN 
 
 When I see how the hope of gain brings false 
 hearts into the church, how the amounts (though 
 insignificant in our sight) used to forward our work 
 seem so great to these poor people, and inspires 
 hopes and desires to make some of the dollars thoir 
 own, how the money we use seems to stand between 
 us and the people we would reach, by force of the 
 bad motives it creates, I am almost discouraged. 
 But the women who come to me with such motives 
 return to their homes with a better idea than they 
 had when they first came. They have learned what 
 it means to sacrifice for the gospel's sake. I think 
 they think of giving rather than of gaining. 
 
 Even in providing ordinary comfort we give the 
 impression of wealth that inspires greed of gain 
 that destroys the little light that may have flickered 
 in such hearts. Then with such cramped, narrow, 
 comfortless modes of life known in the homes of 
 this people there is danger of creating feelings of 
 needs wliich they have no means of satisfying.
 
 176 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 Then, if these things be successfully guardeH 
 against, we are still in danger of giving the im- 
 pression of great wealth by what seems to us most 
 modest expenditure, and so lead the people to be 
 looking for chances to get a part of the wealth 
 for personal use. This may give some idea of the 
 perplexities that gather about our work at every 
 stage, and yet are not often mentioned. 
 
 BABES IN CHRIST 
 
 Well, it is just so about the reception af the 
 gospel in all directions among the heathen. We 
 come telling the glad story, heralding a great de- 
 liverance, announcing a great light. We know the 
 full meaning of the story, we know how great the 
 deliverance, we know how glorious the light, but 
 we forget how often we have heard the story; we 
 forget that we always knew of the great deliverance 
 and that the knowledge has made us largely what 
 we are; we forget that the light has flooded all 
 our way. And so we expect the heathen to rejoice 
 and abound in works of gratitude as we should if, 
 knowing all and desiring all, yet deprived of all, 
 it were suddenly brought into our lives. 
 
 Missionaries learn that it is not enough that the 
 heathen Jiear. Hearing all, they understand only 
 in part. The understanding requires growth. And 
 want of full understanding allows wrong motives 
 and false views to guide many days and acts. The 
 converted heathen is an infant indeed; and some 
 seem never to outgrow their infancy.
 
 LETTERS 177 
 
 IDEALIZED 
 
 PEKING, February 26, 1897. 
 I do smile in mixed sadness and amusement to 
 see how you idealize me and my doings. I used to 
 have a feeling of insecurity, as if on a pedestal 
 from which I must sooner or later have a fall, but 
 I am growing accustomed to the precarious posi- 
 tion and to a sense of security from the assurance 
 that the same love that put me there is supporting 
 me in stable equilibrium, and so far from falling, 
 I cannot get down if I would! 
 
 SANTA CLAUS 
 
 I have recently read criticisms concerning Santa 
 Claus that contain suggestions worth attention, I 
 think. It is possible to carry the merry-making 
 idea too far now, and the Christ Child does seem 
 neglected in the putting of Santa Claus so promi- 
 nently to the front on the very anniversary of His 
 birth. The Santa Claus idea would be a difficult 
 one to explain to a people who have a kitchen god 
 to propitiate once a year, and many -other deified 
 men in their pantheon. The plan of giving to the 
 poor on Christmas seems to give the Sunday school 
 more pleasure than elaborate preparations for the 
 pupils alone. It certainly puts Christmas empha- 
 sis in the right place. ... I found a class of 
 twelve women. I dismissed all but five by the end 
 of January, and gave all my time to the latter.
 
 178 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 DUST STORM 
 
 UNDER THE BANK OF THE PEI Ho IN A DUST 
 STORM, Noon, April 21, 1897, 
 
 In all my travel in China for the past twenty-five 
 years I now for the first time encounter a North 
 China dust storm on the river. That so common 
 an experience should have been so long escaped is 
 due to the fact that I have generally chosen a more 
 certain, if more tiresome, Peking cart for my jour- 
 ney rather than a slow river boat. The carts move 
 on in spite of the worst dust storm. I have been 
 in carts when the dust was so thick at times that 
 the lead mule of the tandem team was invisible be- 
 cause of the cloud of dust in which we moved! 
 Boats become unmanageable in high winds. High 
 out of the water and flat bottomed, they are likely 
 to capsize, so they must tie up. From noon yes- 
 terday until noon today the air has been thick with 
 dust. All yesterday afternoon the sun was obscured 
 by the dust until the light was dim like twilight. 
 The wind howled, and the water was high against 
 the boat, boiling from bank to bank. Swash, rush, 
 roar, rattle and bang the incessant noises have 
 kept up for twenty-four hours. I have on my bed a 
 honeycomb bedspread. The dust settled there as 
 everywhere else so thick that the irregularities of 
 the pattern were filled in and obliterated under the 
 fine covering of gray dust, fine like fine flour. I 
 held the paper I read on a slant to prevent a cover- 
 ing of dust from obscuring the print. Some were
 
 LETTERS 179 
 
 highly colored Home Journals. The covers were 
 so thickly covered with dust that all coloring was 
 invisible. The floor under my feet, the trunks, 
 chairs, and everything in the boat were padded at 
 least a quarter of an inch thick with the sifting, 
 gray, all-pervading dust. I tied my head up in a 
 double thickness of white cotton a flour bag by the 
 way. Presently I stopped to pick up something, 
 and there was a landslide from the top of my head 
 a very great quantity of moving sand in the 
 shape of dust had lodged. I covered myself with 
 a close-woven waterproof, that answers very well 
 the purpose of a duster. I drew on my gloves and 
 have worn them constantly. It is inconvenient to 
 write with gloves on, but the gloves save the irrita- 
 tion that contact of the hands with dust produces. 
 When I retired last night I removed my waterproof 
 and shook -off the covering of dust from the bed, 
 and with head still tied up crawled in. Pillows, 
 bed, and all else were soon covered again with the 
 gray dust, thick and fine. 
 
 I could not uncover food and have it fit to eat, 
 so I satisfied myself until evening with a piece of 
 sweet chocolate and some raisins. Then I had a 
 cup of coffee and some bread and butter. By keep- 
 ing the cup upside down until the moment I could 
 pour and drink, and by spreading the butter on the 
 bread under cover of a sheet of paper, I managed 
 to get a lunch without -very much dust.
 
 180 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 THE GEEAT WALL 
 
 October 9, 1899. 
 
 I am two days distant by cart from Peking, and 
 a very rough road lies between. It is through the 
 north pass and penetrates the Great Wall which lies 
 in view from the road, rising over mountain peaks 
 and descending into valleys in a most marvelous 
 manner. Battlemented towers add to the pic- 
 turesqueness of its outline. Tomorrow I start 
 home, and travel another two days through pic- 
 turesque scenes that would be more enjoyable if 
 there were not so much dust and wind. 
 
 IN A CAMEL INN 
 
 I was somewhat belated at noon on the way up, 
 and, accordingly, did not reach the usual nooning 
 place. Instead, my cart drew into a camel inn. 
 While I was there hundreds of camels came and 
 went, feeding at long stone troughs laid end to 
 end under the edge >of the terrace. On the terrace 
 half a dozen men were kept busy, cutting fodder 
 for the animals. The feed storehouses lay close 
 under the shoulder of the mountain that rose at 
 that point. It was too poor a place to be called by 
 so poor a name as a hut. Half the floor place was 
 occupied by an earth platform beaten hard to the 
 height of about two and a half feet. It was from 
 side to side of the room and backed against the 
 back wall. 
 
 They had made ready for me by spreading a
 
 LETTERS 181 
 
 clean straw mat over this substitute for bed, chairs, 
 and table. The mat was not large enough to con- 
 ceal a heap of most vile-looking cotton. It was 
 gray and black and lumpy with much use, and 
 looked as if it might crawl. But it didn't. So I 
 ate my lunch and tried not to see more than I had 
 to. A sudden noise made me turn as I stood and 
 ate. There was a huge camel just at the door. 
 He had thrust open the door in an attempt to 
 munch a broom on which still hung some grains of 
 broom corn. If he had come in, there would have 
 been no room for me. Fortunately he was tied by 
 a strong rope made fast to a skewer thrust through 
 his nose ; besides, his humps rose much higher than 
 the door. Even he must have seen that to enter 
 was impossible, as it was undesirable. 
 
 A GIFT OF EGGS 
 
 Today I visited a village near here to call upon 
 a possible candidate for the training school. On 
 leaving, the old lady insisted on presenting me with 
 about one hundred eggs! With sublime inconse- 
 quence she insisted upon my acceptance in spite of 
 the bouncing and bumping that she knew lay be- 
 tween me and my Peking home. I protested as I 
 had no fancy for a baptism of eggs for myself or 
 my belongings. Finally she put about two dozen 
 into a little bag and ran after me to the cart with 
 them. The carter did not fancy the gift more than 
 I did. He no doubt had visions of a cart damaged 
 by broken eggs. The Chinese preacher was with
 
 182 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 us. He was about to mount his donkey. The 
 carter said : "Give the eggs to the preacher. They 
 will make a soft seat for him." Finally the carter 
 put an end to the contest by placing the bag of 
 eggs into the bosom of his voluminous garment, 
 and his tightly drawn girdle kept them in place. 
 
 MISEBY IN A TEA-HOUSE 
 
 Later. Now I do wish you could see me. No 
 words can do the situation justice, yet I shall try 
 to give you a peep into it. Maybe I thought the 
 hut a few days ago the bottom notch of misery ! 
 Today I have learned that one had not reached the 
 last possibility of discomfort if one at the end of a 
 dusty, rough, exhausting day of travel, may have 
 a room to one's self, even if the room be a hut and 
 surrounded by munching dust-ladened camels. 
 
 Today at noon my cart drew up at a wayside 
 inn, where I had been told I could get some sort 
 of a room and hot water for my coffeepot and feed 
 for the mule. What I found was a smoke-black- 
 ened shed, with whole front open, full of men, some 
 smoking. A big pot was set in low masonry against 
 an earthen, brick-paved platform, through which a 
 flue under the pot made its way. I was hot, dusty, 
 and tired almost to the point of exhaustion. Oh 
 for a room and a few minutes of quiet! 
 
 They spread some bedding that looked as if it 
 had not been washed in ten years on this hot k'ang,
 
 LETTERS 183 
 
 or brick bed, and invited me to mount and rest. 
 And the crowd meant to have a good look at me. 
 
 I had come thump, bump, jerk and rattle-bang 
 half way down this picturesque but rough pass. 
 The only mitigating circumstance of the situation 
 was a soft-voiced woman who took me by the hand 
 and said in so kind a tone : "You are so very tired ; 
 do rest." I sat on a box and rested my head upon 
 my arms thrown over my traveling bag which stood 
 on the edge of that ovenlike k'ang, to which all 
 voices invited my unwilling body to rest. So I sat, 
 and old as I am, and experienced as I think I am, 
 I could not prevent a few tears wetting that same 
 bag. But my eyes were shut and so the dirt and 
 horror were shut out. I remembered that it was 
 just the hour for our noonday prayer meeting in 
 Peking, and the memory let in many restful 
 thoughts. I lifted my head, mounted the k'ang 
 and proceeded to open my lunch. 
 
 A MINISTERING SPIRIT 
 
 Home. I wrote these last pages seated on the 
 k'ang in that wayside tea shed. The lovely woman 
 sat beside me much interested in seeing me write. 
 She wanted to know what it was all about. I told 
 her I was telling my sister about her kindness to 
 me. She asked: "Is your sister in Peking?" She 
 was much impressed when I told her of the long 
 journey the letter must make to reach you.
 
 184 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 In the painting of "Christ before Pilate" by 
 Munkacsy, an impressive feature is a sweet-faced 
 woman who holds a baby and stands in a corner, 
 looking timidly and yet so kindly at Christ. Some- 
 thing about this gentle woman in that wayside shed 
 reminded me of that face in the picture, both in 
 striking contrast with their surroundings, both 
 furnishing a sweet note in the midst of a very 
 harsh discord.
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 HER STORY OF THE SIEGE 
 
 THE GATHERING STORM 
 
 This and all subsequent chapters relating to the 
 siege are entirely from the pen of Mrs. Gamewell. 
 
 In a scrapbook among notes and letters and other 
 matter connected with the Peking situation of 1900 
 I have a telegram that reads: 
 
 TIENTSIN, June 6, 1900. 
 
 GAMEWELL, Peking: Railroad interrupted. Other approaches 
 unsafe. Wait 
 
 We had leave of absence. The school year was 
 ended. The North China Conference convened in 
 Peking had closed its sessions, and our trunks were 
 packed for the journey to America. Certain school 
 and mission matters demanded his attention, so Mr. 
 Gamewell proposed to remain a day or two longer 
 in Peking and to send me with a Conference party 
 to Tientsin to await him there. I did not get off 
 with that party, and so was spared the strain en- 
 dured by those who at Tientsin and elsewhere for 
 long weeks watched for some word from husbands, 
 wives, parents, children, or friends shut within walls 
 from whence came no message to a waiting world. 
 
 186
 
 186 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 Mad crowds and burning stations threatened the 
 train on which Conference people rushed through 
 to Tientsin. Then came the telegram. 
 
 In the last of May I had stood in Legation Street 
 and witnessed the arrival of a contingent of foreign 
 troops. They were the last arrivals of a force of 
 four hundred and fifty soldiers who were sent from 
 the war vessels at Ta Ku to Peking, in response to 
 a call from the Minister. 
 
 After the departure of the Conference party, 
 though the stations were destroyed, there was hope 
 that the destruction would go no further, and 
 Minister Conger told us that he was sending a 
 party from the Legation under escort of the sol- 
 diers, to the station, hoping to find there, sooner 
 or later, a train to Tientsin. We expected to join 
 that party. In the scrapbook with the telegram is 
 a note from Minister Conger that proved to be the 
 end of that expectation. In the note he tells of a 
 telegram of the same import as ours, received by 
 himself, and his note closes with what was also the 
 final word of the telegram "Wait." Who then 
 dreamed that we should wait seventy-six days, or 
 imagined in any degree the. character of the events 
 that were to crowd those intense days? 
 
 A later telegram from Tientsin announced that 
 Tsun Hua was in danger. Two missionaries of our 
 number, whose families were in Tsun Hua, armed 
 themselves, said hurried good-bys, mounted their 
 horses, and sallied forth into the disturbed streets, 
 hoping to reach the station and find a train that
 
 HER STORY OF THE SIEGE 187 
 
 would take them to Tientsin, from whence they 
 might make a swift trip to Tsun Hua. But the 
 wrecking of the railroad was begun. The riders 
 found no train, and were soon again with those 
 who with apprehension had seen them set out, to 
 watch with them the gathering storm. 
 
 One day a man hurried into -our courts and ac- 
 costed the first person he met. He was haggard 
 and travel-stained, and he clutched nervously at his 
 garments and looked anxiously about as he talked. 
 "Has no one of my family arrived ?" was his inquiry 
 at the beginning and at the end of the tale he told. 
 The same tale was told by most of the refugees 
 that were daily increasing in number within our 
 gates and within the gates of every other mission 
 in the city : attack, destruction of property, flight, 
 separation, agony of uncertainty. 
 
 A student of the university and his mother hid 
 in the standing corn while the persecutors burned 
 their home and hunted for them. Then in the 
 darkness, not daring to call to each other, they were 
 separated. The student arrived in Peking and not 
 finding his mother there, was bent on returning to 
 look for her, but a later arrival said, "Too late." 
 In his flight he had passed the dead body of the 
 missing mother. Day by day the tales of violence 
 increased in horror. Gentlemen who were in the 
 streets of Peking in the days close upon the great 
 crash, reported that everywhere signs were hung 
 out: "Swords Made Here." And it was also re-
 
 188 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 ported that the steel rails from the destroyed rail- 
 roads were used in the manufacture of the big 
 Boxer swords. If true, it was a queer reversal of 
 the Scripture saying that swords shall be beaten 
 into plowshares and pruning hooks. 
 
 The Boxer movement swept close upon the city, 
 and, finally, Boxers were practicing within the city 
 walls. We heard their sinister horns and thought 
 of the big swords, and wondered. We wondered 
 also about the imperial troops which were swarming 
 through the gates and whose banners streamed from 
 the city wall. 
 
 From the Legation we heard of the calls for help 
 that were coming from Pao Ting Fu. Then one 
 day some of the friends from Tung Chou, twelve 
 miles away, arriving in Peking called at our Mis- 
 sion, and we heard how the Annual Meeting of 
 the North China Congregational Mission, held at 
 Tung Chou, had closed in the midst of thickening 
 danger, and how Dr. Ament, departing from Pe- 
 king in the night, had taken a train of carts to 
 Tung Chou, and made possible the flight thence to 
 Peking, of the missionaries and the native Chris- 
 tians in their charge. 
 
 On the destruction of the railroad, the Ministers 
 in the Legations united in another call for troops, 
 and asked the authorities in Tientsin to send a force 
 large enough to make a safe escort for foreign 
 women and children from Peking to Tientsin. 
 
 Among the last letters that drifted in before 
 communication with the outside world was finally
 
 HER STORY OF THE SIEGE 189 
 
 cut off was a letter which told how in a council 
 called in Tientsin to consider the request from Pe- 
 king for more troops, Captain McCalla had arisen 
 and said : "My Minister says that he is in danger. 
 I am going to his relief. If anyone wants to go 
 along, come on." We thrilled with the further 
 recital of how British troops had charged down the 
 platform and cleared the way, and a train pulled 
 out of Tientsin with a machine gun on a truck in 
 front of the engine, and sixteen hundred troops in 
 the coaches behind the engine. Thenceforward the 
 coming of the troops was the foremost hope of 
 every heart, and the day of their arrival the objec- 
 tive point of all our activities. Through long days 
 and weary nights of increasing peril watch was kept 
 for the troops that never came. 
 
 Following the arrival of foreigners and native 
 Christians from Tung Chou, there was a running 
 to and fro between Missions and Legation, and 
 finally out of this movement a plan was evolved, 
 in accordance with which all American missionaries, 
 except Miss Douw and three in the Legation, with 
 the native Christians in their charge, assembled in 
 the compound of the Methodist Mission, and Minis- 
 ter Conger sent twenty soldiers from his guard of 
 fifty, who, commanded by Captain Hall, undertook 
 to hold the place until the additional troops should 
 arrive. 
 
 Hearts beat high with patriotic pride when we 
 beheld the boys in blue march in and take possession 
 of the house put at their disposal. Their presence
 
 190 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 was the touch of a hand from the homeland, strong 
 to deliver and to comfort us, voluntary exiles in a 
 far country. 
 
 Mr. Gamewell had, early in the progress of 
 affairs, called masons and built solid brick work 
 over the outside of all gates in our walls that could 
 be dispensed with, thus providing against their 
 being fired by the Boxers, who were daily assuming 
 a more threatening attitude in the city. He also 
 had barbed wire stretched across the courts to pre- 
 vent a rush of the enemy in case they should break 
 into our premises. After the coming of the soldiers 
 the work of fortifying went on briskly. Walls were 
 built across the wide compound and deep ditches 
 were dug beyond the barbed wire checks. Every- 
 thing possible was done to make the church secure 
 and habitable, so that even if the courts were over- 
 run, we might be able to hold ont and make a good 
 defense from the church. 
 
 The frames and glass were removed from the 
 windows, and the spaces built in with brick and 
 loopholed. Large quantities of bricks were piled 
 on the roof to be hurled upon any attacking party 
 that might venture near. Drains were let into the 
 church ; its doors were covered with irom to protect 
 them from torches. Trunks were piled in the en- 
 trances ready to barricade the doors. Water was 
 boiled in big cauldrons set on furnaces built in the 
 yard, and the water so purified, was stored in the 
 church in barrellike jars brought in for the pur- 
 pose. Hundreds of boiled eggs, stacks of Chinese
 
 HER STORY OF THE SIEGE 191 
 
 biscuits, and cases -of condensed milk were provided 
 against the time when we might be shut indefinitely 
 into the church. Barricades were built across the 
 streets in front and rear, and platforms were con- 
 structed on the inner surface of our walls for the 
 sentinels. The material for all this work was taken 
 from brick walls and partition walls, and it often 
 had to be carried from one extreme of the Mission 
 premises to the other. Boys and women carried 
 bricks piled on their clasped hands or in their up- 
 turned garments. Sometimes they staggered with 
 loads in baskets swung on poles, and the poles on 
 their shoulders. In the procession there were little 
 mites of children with pathetically serious faces, 
 toddling in the long line, each carrying one brick, 
 or two, or three, according to its strength. There 
 was work for all, and even the babies shared the 
 labor. 
 
 It is contrary to Chinese ideas of propriety that 
 a student or educated gentleman should dig, but 
 our students, teachers, and preachers took a cheer- 
 ful share in all the hard labor. There was only one 
 exception that I ever heard -of. A student when 
 asked to dig in a ditch held back in genteel sur- 
 prise. There was no time for persuasion ; military 
 discipline was the order of the day, so the demur 
 was met with a prompt "Dig or go out into the 
 streets." The surprise was not lessened by this 
 command. "Why, in the streets they will kill me," 
 the student exclaimed. "Very likely," was the grim 
 reply. Questioning eyes looked into determined
 
 192 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 eyes for a moment. Then the student went into 
 the ditch, a wiser and better man. 
 
 Two missionaries of the London Mission, with 
 refugee Chinese Christians, joined our number, and 
 the British Minister, Sir Claude McDonald, sent 
 over a number of rifles. Thereupon a company of 
 missionaries were armed with the rifles and each 
 appointed to his particular post. Then a sergeant 
 of the guards put these missionary soldiers through 
 a regular drill every day. 
 
 The missionaries and Chinese gathered into our 
 courts were many times the number that the build- 
 ings were designed to accommodate. There was 
 sufficient bedding, however, for the missionaries, 
 though obliged to abandon most of their posses- 
 sions, brought with them their trunks and bedding. 
 Beds were spread upon all available floors until all 
 were accommodated ; five ladies on the floor in one 
 room, a family in another room, three gentlemen 
 with one bed and the floor their only accommodation 
 in another room, and so on until everybody had a 
 resting place, however limited. 
 
 Then the occupants of the overflowing houses 
 divided themselves into housekeeping groups ac- 
 cording to the number of kitchens available. Men 
 with guns protected those who went into the streets 
 to procure supplies for the tables. While some 
 attended to all these affairs others were busy look- 
 ing after the nearly seven hundred Chinese within 
 our gates. They provided for all possible in the 
 schoolrooms and Chinese houses. They put up
 
 HER STORY OF THE SIEGE 193 
 
 pavilions in the courts for the great company for 
 whom there was no cover elsewhere. They brought 
 in food supplies and arranged for the feeding of 
 the multitude. Urgent activity filled all the days, 
 and much questioning and uncertainty added to the 
 wear and tear. 
 
 In our courts one heard varying opinions on 
 almost every phase of our situation. One group 
 discussed solemnly whether they should not have 
 remained in their own Mission and if they might 
 not thereby have saved their own and Mission prop- 
 erty. There were those who confidently expected 
 the speedy arrival of the troops, and who still be- 
 lieved that this storm, like many another, would 
 blow over. Some believed that the safety of the 
 Chinese, whose number was constantly increasing 
 within out gates, lay in their being scattered as 
 remote as possible from foreigners, while others as 
 intensely urged that their only chance to escape 
 destruction was to abide with the foreigners. 
 
 In this connection occurred an incident that illus- 
 trates a phase of Chinese character. During those 
 days of dire uncertainty I went into a kitchen where 
 our cook was then cooking for a combination of 
 odd ends of families that crowded that particular 
 house, and said to him that now was his chance to 
 escape. I offered him money to take himself and 
 family out of the city, and I warned him that as 
 things then looked he would probably be killed if 
 he stayed among the foreigners. lie turned and 
 looked quietly at me while I spoke, his dark eyes
 
 194 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 glowing in a face already lean and careworn, then 
 said: "The lady herself is not going, is she?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "She is not afraid to die?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Neither am I. I shall not go." 
 
 His choice probably saved his life, but he did 
 not know it at the time of choosing. He was a 
 church member, though not much esteemed for pure 
 piety, but when tried by the strokes of those ter- 
 rible days he rung true, and true he was to the 
 end. He followed our fortunes into the Legation, 
 and was our cook there. 
 
 A large and ancient tree, which the children, who 
 in times of peace played in its shade or perched 
 among its branches, called the giant tree, stood in 
 the midst of our court. The trunk of the great 
 tree was made a bulletin board, and on it were 
 tacked all notes, messages, or bits of news that 
 reached us from the rapidly contracting world 
 without. During the busy days many a pause was 
 made before this bulletin board with hope of finding 
 there some word concerning the coming troops.
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 REFUGE IN THE METHODIST COMPOUND 
 
 In my scrapbook is a letter from United States 
 Minister Conger whose contents were spread one 
 day upon the bulletin. It reads as follows : 
 
 June 13, 1900. 
 
 MY DEAR MR. GAMEWELL: A note just received from Captain 
 McCalla written at 4 P. M. yesterday, reports him with 1,600 men 
 of all nationalities at Lang Fang (thirty miles from Peking), 
 pushing on as fast as they can repair the road. 
 
 That was the last that Peking heard of McCalla 
 and the relief corps for many a long day. Let- 
 ters were sent to meet him, but the bearers were 
 turned back unable to make a way through the 
 disturbed country. The day of the letter was also 
 the day of the burning of our street chapel, a few 
 minutes walk from the Mission premises. A great 
 crowd gathered, and when they turned from the 
 destroyed chapel, seemed inclined to come our way. 
 To prevent such danger Captain Hall called eight 
 of his men and charged up the street, whereupon 
 the crowd fled. When they returned a soldier re- 
 marked : "It was the yell the boys let out that sent 
 the crowd flying." 
 
 That night the skies were lurid with fires started 
 wherever there was foreign property that could be 
 
 destroyed. The shops of Chinese who sold foreign 
 195
 
 196 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 drugs or other imported goods were Included in the 
 great destruction. A startling spectacle burst upon 
 the city when the conflagration caught the great 
 structure over the chief gate of the city a gate 
 opened only for the ruler of the people. It seemed 
 an awesome symbol of the self-destruction of the 
 Manchu dynasty. 
 
 After the burning of the property of the Congre- 
 gational Mission Dr. Ament ventured into the 
 neighborhood looking for any of his people who 
 might be in hiding there and needing help. On 
 his return he was followed by a boy, who, as Dr. 
 Ament was about to enter the Methodist Mission 
 gate, came forward and begged, "Oh, sir, take me 
 in with you." He was forlorn and dirty past 
 recognition. "I am your Sunday school pupil," 
 he pleaded, and he told how the shopkeeper to 
 whom he was apprenticed had turned him into the 
 street lest the Boxers should attack him for har- 
 boring one who frequented the habitations of the 
 hated foreigners. As he talked Dr. Ament grad- 
 ually discovered in the haggard and grimy counte- 
 nance the lineaments of a familiar face. The gate 
 opened to him and he sank contented upon a nearby 
 bench his wandering and peril among the horrors 
 of the streets were ended. It was this same lad, 
 who afterward in the darkness of night, left the 
 Legation lines and, let down over the city wall by 
 means of a rope, made his way to Tientsin and back, 
 and brought word to the besieged from the outside 
 world.
 
 HER STORY OF THE SIEGE 197 
 
 In the vicinity of the many fires which raged, 
 fearful deeds were done, and heroic rescue parties 
 issued from Legation lines and brought in muti- 
 lated victims who yet survived the slaughter; but 
 of all this we in the Mission heard little, until the 
 fury of the storm swept us all soldiers, diplomats, 
 customs people, students, travelers, correspondents, 
 priests and people, missionaries and native Chris- 
 tians within the Legation lines. We had a hint 
 of such matters now and then in the notes which 
 Minister Conger sent tcr us almost every day. In 
 one he wrote: "The British killed seven Boxers in 
 the streets today. They are learning that they are 
 not invulnerable." No doubt that the fame of our 
 fortifications and a fear of what was being prepared 
 behind the Mission walls operated to delay an 
 attack, and lessons such as the above must have 
 given check to what might otherwise have been 
 swift destruction. 
 
 A characteristic story from the camps of the 
 enemy drifted our way. It was to the effect that 
 it was reported among the Boxers that a strange 
 being had come from foreign lands for our pro- 
 tection, and had lighted upon the dome of the 
 church in our midst; and their leaders announced 
 that many additional days of practice would be 
 necessary to give the Boxers power to overcome this 
 strange being and prepare them for successful at- 
 tack. We looked up at the soldier on the peak of 
 the church dome, where an outlook was kept during 
 those first days of riot and bloodshed. It seemed
 
 198 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 quite possible that the trim figure outlined there 
 against the sky, and appearing in magnified pro- 
 portion, should look fearsome to the unaccustomed 
 eyes of the natives, and appeal powerfully to their 
 superstitions. Not only on the church, but all 
 around the walls, on the barricades and up and 
 down the courts, the soldiers kept guard da} 7 and 
 night a band of twenty between the helpless in- 
 mates of the Mission and the destroying thousands 
 without. A watch was kept against incendiaries. 
 
 The Christians covered their heads with white 
 cloth that the soldiers might distinguish them from 
 any who might approach our lines with hostile in- 
 tentions. The young men of Peking University, 
 because of their command of the English language, 
 were appointed tor stand with the sentinels. When 
 a challenge rang out in English the Chinese com- 
 rades of the sentinel immediately repeated it in 
 Chinese and so warned every approaching party 
 of his danger. On dark nights and in beating 
 rains, as well as through fair days and moonlit 
 nights, the constant vigil was kept. Our students 
 evidently gloried in comradeship with the brave men 
 in uniform whose presence gave cheer to foreigner 
 and Chinese alike. 
 
 There were three students who were appointed 
 to a hazardous undertaking, which appointment, 
 for obvious reasons, was not made public. When an 
 attack should press to overwhelm us these students 
 Were to drop from different parts of the Mission 
 walls, find a way through the attacking force, and
 
 HER STORY OF THE SIEGE 199 
 
 run to the Legation to bring promised reinforce- 
 ments. They knew that three were appointed to 
 insure that one might succeed, and that it was not 
 expected that all would survive the attempt, yet 
 with good courage they girded themselves and 
 watched for the signs that should signal the be- 
 ginning of the desperate race. 
 
 One day I met our captain in the midst of our 
 transformed courts and told him that I should be 
 glad to serve in case of an attack anywhere and 
 in any capacity that he might suggest. I was 
 thinking of parts taken by women in the fights of 
 pioneer days, and that perhaps the captain might 
 be glad of some such service. Besides, I had been 
 in the midst of an affair in West China some years 
 before, wherein I had discovered that one could be 
 badly wounded and yet feel no hurt ; and in this 
 case an active part in which I could be killed and 
 not know that I was hurt was more attractive than 
 a passive waiting my turn in a general butchery. 
 The captain heard me through and then replied: 
 "The most helpful thing a woman can do in a fight 
 is to keep out of the way." As I meditated these 
 rather stunning words the captain seemed to take 
 a second thought. Then with still unsmiling coun- 
 tenance he said : "There is one thing you can do. 
 When the firing begins you can take charge of the 
 hysterical women and try to keep them quiet." 
 Without humorous intent he had uttered a bit of 
 richest humor. I repeated the captain's saying to 
 my comrades over whose hysterical performances I
 
 200 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 was thus appointed to preside, and watched the 
 serious faces of those brave women break into a 
 smile that went around at the captain's expense. 
 However, every heart was warm for the captain and 
 his handful of brave men who stood between us and 
 peril. 
 
 A thorough organization was effected, which 
 gave to women as well as men enough to do to 
 fill all the days, and sometimes the night as well, 
 with incessant activity. There was a set of com- 
 mittees which went into operation when an alarm 
 was given, to set in motion toward the church every- 
 body in all the courts of the Mission, and to receive 
 them there and dispose of the different groups in 
 their appointed places. At first the alarms were 
 sounded on the church bell, but later on a different 
 plan was adopted a plan that gave no sign to the 
 hosts outside. In accordance with the new plan, 
 women sentinels took turns day and night at 
 watches of two hours each, on certain verandas, and 
 chairs were provided for these sentinels. When an 
 attack seemed probable, a soldier would warn a 
 watcher on a particular veranda, and she would 
 warn the watchers on other verandas, who in turn 
 would inform the various assemblies in various parts 
 of the premises ; then all would take their appointed 
 places in the general movement to the church. The 
 Chinese, like veteran soldiers, responded promptly 
 and intelligently to these organized movements. 
 Without noise or panic they obeyed with precision 
 and speed.
 
 HER STORY OF THE SIEGE 201 
 
 An incident that was somewhat thrilling to one 
 at least, led to the appointment of one person to 
 each house, whose duty it should be to see that no 
 one was left behind when noncombatants betook 
 themselves to the shelter of the church. Hard work 
 such as filled our days should have brought weari- 
 ness and sleep, but at first it did not affect all so. 
 An excitement that was like calmness for two or 
 three consecutive days and nights made weariness 
 and sleep impossible. Often through the small 
 hours of the night, out in the moonlight that 
 flooded the courts, I watched the stars and stripes 
 as they floated in the soft radiance from the roof 
 of the church, or walked with the sentinel on his 
 beat and heard him talk of home or the fight in the 
 Philippines. At length weariness overtook me. A 
 friend put me into a quiet corner and I fell into a 
 profound sleep. I awoke suddenly in a deep still- 
 ness. Silence had taken the place of urgent activi- 
 ty. Startled, I stepped to a window and spoke to 
 a passing soldier. He told me that an alarm had 
 been given and all but the guard were already shut 
 into the church. Between me and the church lay a 
 heavy barricade with closed gate. If an attack had 
 been made, I should have found myself among 
 fighting men, and possibly very much in their way. 
 But the approaching troops who had caused the 
 alarm passed by. Then the possibilities suggested 
 by this incident were met by the creation of an 
 office which completed a very effective organization. 
 
 When it was finally ordered that we spend all our
 
 202 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 nights in the church, four women armed themselves 
 and every night retired to the floor of a vestibule 
 of the church. One took to her resting place a 
 formidable iron poker nearly as long as she was 
 tall, another an ax, another a revolver, and still 
 another a patent nail puller that carried a mur- 
 derous beak. These women were determined that 
 should the fight come their way, no enemy should 
 assail the helpless Chinese in the church until they 
 had felt the force of at least one stroke of the poker, 
 one swing of the ax, one shot from the revolver 
 and one fell blow of the nail puller. 
 
 There were many times when an attack seemed 
 imminent. One night we left our arms in the vesti- 
 bule and sat cm the church steps and listened to 
 what was most fearful of all the sounds that came 
 to our ears through all the tumult of those weeks 
 of peril. Close at hand the Mission wall shut us 
 in and a sentinel kept watch. The city wall rose 
 in heavy outline against the sky not many rods 
 away. On the other side of that frowning wall 
 arose a hoarse babble of voices a multitude crying 
 in unison. Billows of sound, borne by the wind, 
 surged against the wall, to recede and return again 
 and again. For three hours the air boomed with 
 the roar of a multitude whose cry was, "Kill, kill, 
 kill the foreigners." The disturbance seemed to 
 be just over the city wall and opposite the Mis- 
 sion. Some were deeply anxious lest the Legations 
 should not have heard it, but there was an opinion 
 against trying to reach the Legation with a mes-
 
 HER STORY OF THE SIEGE 203 
 
 sage at that hour of the night. Mr. Hobart, un- 
 observed, departed and went alone to the American 
 Legation, though the night was far spent and one 
 could not know in what condition he would find 
 the streets. On his return he reported that Minis- 
 ter Conger and Captain Myer had been on the city 
 wall and discovered that the whole southern city 
 had turned out to burn incense and prostrate them- 
 selves, and then had stood and united in the cry, 
 "Kill, kill." The cry did not die away gradually, 
 but ceased suddenly, which seemed to those who lis- 
 tened a sign of sinister import, indicating that 
 there was leadership and organization, and there- 
 fore a more formidable peril for us. We thought 
 the morning might bring an attack, but the per- 
 formance of the night was part of a preparation 
 for a day for the accomplishment of whose horrors 
 yet other days and nights of preparation must be 
 spent. 
 
 As those summer days went by we noticed that 
 our soldiers wore their heavy uniforms and inquired 
 concerning the discomfort of such attire. They 
 told us that one day, while at dinner on shipboard, 
 the order was given to report on shore at -once for 
 Peking. There was no time to consider the possible 
 heat of a summer in Peking, or to prepare other 
 clothing than that they wore. They had come in 
 haste as they were, in response to the call from 
 Peking for Legation guards. The women took a 
 collection among the missionaries, and while it was 
 yet possible to make purchases at the shops they
 
 204 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 procured enough navy-blue drilling and brass but- 
 tons to outfit the twenty soldiers with lightweight 
 suits. We had had no experience in making men's 
 clothes, and thought it possible that the soldiers 
 might object to any fit we might make, but we 
 hoped for the best, and after consulting the cap- 
 tain as to the regularity of the proposed proceed- 
 ing for all were under military rule those days 
 we entered upon the undertaking. We ripped a 
 suit of Mr. Gamewell's for a pattern. Then one 
 of our number cut coats and another cut trousers. 
 To be sure, the soldiers were tall and short, heavy 
 and slight, but the pattern was medium, and there 
 was to be a basting and fitting of each suit. While 
 two cut, many basted. Then in capacity of a fitter 
 I took the garments to the soldiers' headquarters, 
 and pinned and fitted until every suit was adjusted. 
 And there was patriotic fervor in the pinning of 
 every pin that pinned the seams of those garments 
 of blue, fervor born of the fires kindled during the 
 war that raged in girlhood days, when our town 
 on the Mississippi was always a-flutter with flags, 
 and full of arriving and departing troops. 
 
 We found that the soldier boys, sweltering in 
 heavy uniform, were not half so anxious about the 
 fit of the lightweight suits as they were eager to 
 be clothed with the same. The delight with which 
 any soldier who happened to be at headquarters 
 when a suit was delivered immediately appropriated 
 that suit, without regard to fit, was stimulating to 
 the unaccustomed workers on suits of blue, and
 
 HER STORY OF THE SIEGE 205 
 
 gratifying as well. But when the first lot of 
 finished suits had been appropriated after this 
 somewhat promiscuous fashion we thereafter sewed 
 upon each completed garment a piece of white 
 cloth, on which was written the name of the soldier 
 for whom the suit was intended. By this device 
 we gave to each soldier a better fit, and saved to 
 ourselves somewhat of credit as fitters. 
 
 Four pockets seemed a large addition to the work 
 of making those close-fitting jackets, so we ven- 
 tured to inquire in as disinterested a manner as 
 possible how many pockets were essential to com- 
 plete a soldier's jacket. "Four" was the emphatic 
 and unhesitating reply. Sa four it was. Four 
 pockets and a row of brass buttons and a little 
 standing collar adjusted under the direction of the 
 soldiers, and the jackets were pronounced satisfac- 
 tory. Concerning one point only were these brave 
 soldier boys particular, and that was that there 
 should be no hint of flare where the trousers meet 
 the feet, for the soldiers of the marine corps were 
 anxious that no extra width of trousers should cause 
 them to be mistaken for sailors. When the suits 
 were on and the cartridge belts and the gaiters 
 adjusted, and we watched the soldiers passing to 
 and fro, four pockets and a full row of brass but- 
 tons each, we congratulated ourselves on our suc- 
 cessful attempts at tailoring, and said one to 
 another: "The suits we have made might easily be 
 mistaken for the soldiers' regular uniform." 
 
 The days passed in a ceaseless round of activities
 
 206 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 mingled with hoping, questioning, wondering, and 
 listening night and day for the coming of McCalla 
 and the relief column. Outside our lines the im- 
 perial troops swarmed the city wall and streets, and 
 the horns of the Boxers could be heard from every 
 quarter of the city, and fires clouded the days and 
 made lurid the nights. 
 
 These days of stress were brightened on <me 
 occasion by a call from Dr. Morrison, the Peking 
 correspondent of the London Times. Notwith- 
 standing the state of the streets, he came from the 
 Legation to our lines, and moving about our courts, 
 his reposeful countenance and stalwart frame 
 seemed to radiate courage and helpfulness. Later 
 on we heard how he declared in the midst of the 
 Legations, "I should be ashamed to call myself a 
 white man if I could not make a place of refuge 
 for these Chinese Christians," and how he, with 
 Professor James, sought for and found the place 
 within the Legation lines into which the Chinese 
 were afterward received. And we heard how he, 
 with a band of men of like daring, ventured into 
 the west of the city where a Catholic mission had 
 been destroyed, and succeeded in conducting from 
 there hundreds of refugee native Christians, some 
 of whom were so desperately wounded that they 
 died the night following their rescue.
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 MASSACRE OF BARON VOX KETTELEE 
 
 Minister Conger called, bringing with him an 
 atmosphere of hope and good courage. Besides, 
 hardly a day passed without bringing a letter from 
 him. A letter written June 14, reads as follows: 
 
 MY DEAR MR. GAMEWELL: There is nothing new in the situa- 
 tion. Of course the ruffians are still attacking and burning un- 
 defended places, but I still feel sure they will keep clear of foreign 
 troops. 
 
 I have today seen a most intelligent view of your situation sent 
 to Captain Myers by Captain Hall. I think you can safely trust 
 his judgment. 
 
 We nave no information today from the relief, but we can 
 rest assured that they are pushing on in the best possible way. 
 Some of our messengers, if not some of the troops, should be 
 expected in the morning. 
 
 Keep up your courage and feel that even though you are driven 
 into the church, if it ever comes to that, you have still an invulner- 
 able position. I still believe the Lord is on our side, in this as in 
 every good fight. 
 
 If you have any important news, send it by bearer. 
 
 Sincerely yours, E. II. CONGEK. 
 
 A letter of the next day reads : 
 
 June 15, 1900, 12 M. 
 
 MY DEAR Mil. GAMEWKLL: We have nothing new to report 
 this morning. Everything seems remarkably quiet, and we hope 
 all of your people are .sharing the tranquillity. 
 
 The English killed seven Boxers last night on the back street 
 north of their Ix^gation, so they are learning that they are not 
 impervious to bullets. 
 
 As soon as we get any word from the troops coming, will send 
 you word. Yours .sincerely, E. II. CONGKH. 
 
 207
 
 208 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 As the days passed out of the chaotic conditions 
 that surrounded us there was evolved, with con- 
 stantly increasing intensity, a more definite trend 
 of affairs. June 19 brought a startling communi- 
 cation which reads as follows : 
 
 MY DEAB MR. GAMEWELL: The Chinese government has noti- 
 fied us that the Admirals at Ta Ku have notified the Viceroy that 
 they will take possession of all the Ta Ku forts tomorrow. This 
 they consider a declaration of war by all the Powers and hence 
 tender the Ministers their passports, and ask us to leave Peking 
 in twenty-four hours. We nave replied that we know nothing of 
 this, but if the Chinese desire to act upon such information and de- 
 clare war themselves, that, of course, we will go as soon as they 
 will furnish us the necessary transportation and send reliable es- 
 corts to take us all (of course including our nationals) to Tientsin. 
 
 We have demanded a meeting with the princes and ministers 
 tomorrow morning, and then will know more definitely of the 
 matter, of which I will duly notify you. 
 
 I would, if possible, keep it from the Chinese for the present 
 and not talk much about it anyway. 
 
 Please read this letter to Captain Hall. 
 
 If we had a thousand men here and any knowledge of where 
 other troops were, we might then refuse to go, but under the cir- 
 cumstances there is only one thing to do. It is bound to take us 
 some time to get ready to start, and in the meantime something 
 may happen. 
 
 Keep a good lookout through the night and do nothing to 
 invite an attack. There is less danger, however, while we are parley- 
 ing than before. 
 
 Sincerely yours, 
 
 E. H. CONGEH. 
 
 Before this communication from the Chinese gov- 
 ernment had been received by Minister Conger the 
 forts at Ta Ku had been taken, and the relief col- 
 umn approaching Peking had been attacked by the 
 Chinese imperial troops and driven back, all of 
 which was known to the Chinese government al- 
 though unknown to us. It was characteristic of
 
 HER STORY OF THE SIEGE 209 
 
 Chinese diplomacy, however, that they should state 
 their case as they did in this communication of 
 which Minister Conger tells in his letter of the 
 19th. 
 
 No response was received tor the demand for a 
 meeting with the princes and ministers of the Chi- 
 nese government. On the morning of the 20th, 
 therefore, we were instructed to hold ourselves in 
 readiness to depart at a moment's notice, and take 
 with us only what we could carry in our hands. 
 The twenty-four hours given for -our preparations 
 and departure would expire at four o'clock on the 
 afternoon of the 20th. 
 
 We stood about our open trunks where they had 
 been placed in the church ready to be used in bar- 
 ricading. Tired almost beyond the possibility of 
 thinking, we questioned: "Which of these, our 
 possessions, is more essential than the others? 
 What shall I take and what shall I leave ?" Mothers 
 prepared food supplies for their children and 
 others made rolls of clothing. I remember with 
 interest the utter indifference with which I looked 
 upon our earthly possessions that day. 
 
 More serious than the consideration of what we 
 should carry with us was the consideration of what 
 should become of the Chinese Christians whom we 
 should leave behind. The failure of the Chinese 
 government to respond to the diplomats' call for a 
 council concerning ways and means of making the 
 journey from Peking to Tientsin, in the light of 
 the events of the past two weeks, gave us no hope
 
 210 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 that there was any thought or intention on the part 
 of the government that we should escape with our 
 lives. Therefore even though we made a start we 
 could not think of taking the Chinese with us. All 
 we could do was to help them scatter. 
 
 Over in the Girls' High School of the Mission 
 were more than one hundred girls, and what should 
 be done with them in this desperate hour? Their 
 teachers called them together and told them how 
 each should have money sufficient to support her 
 for two or three months, and then they were to be 
 sent forth to find hiding as best they could among 
 the families of the Mission's Chinese neighbors. 
 Into what testing of character this hour brought 
 those girls! There was no outcry, no panic, but 
 with white faces the girls and their teachers knelt, 
 and in that hour of deadly peril each one conse- 
 crated herself to God. "If life be given, then it 
 shall be a life of service ; if death, then God's will 
 be done" was the consecration prayer. They stood 
 and sung "Where he leads me I will follow." Then 
 their teacher followed with supplication in behalf 
 of her charges, and who can tell the agony of heart 
 with which her cries sought God in the black dark- 
 ness of that hour? "Before they call I shall an- 
 swer, and while they are yet speaking I shall hear." 
 
 While this was in progress at the girls' school, 
 and others were preparing the Chinese for the 
 separation, there was a sudden flurry of intensest 
 excitement at the lower end of our inclosure, and 
 Mr. Gamewell met me with the startling intelli-
 
 HER STORY OF THE SIEGE 211 
 
 gence that Mr. Cordes, the German interpreter, 
 desperately wounded, had just been brought 
 through our barricades by some of our students; 
 that he had told that Baron von Ketteler, whom he 
 was accompanying to the Chinese foreign office, had 
 been shot in the street by an officer of the Chinese 
 imperial army ; that he himself had been fired upon 
 and had barely escaped ; and having told his tale, 
 exhausted by loss of blood, he sank into uncon- 
 sciousness. 
 
 The soldiers of the Chinese imperial army had 
 swept into action. The first shot was fired, and 
 Baron von Ketteler, Germany's Ambassador, lay 
 dead in the streets of China's capital. 
 
 Swift runners carried the tidings to the Lega- 
 tions. 
 
 Other events had been sending their converging 
 lines toward the climax of that day. Dr. Morri- 
 son and Professor James had done their work, so 
 that in this crisis there was provided a place in the 
 Legation lines for the Chinese Christians. Orders 
 from Minister Conger summoned waiting soldiers 
 and missionaries: "Come at once within the Lega- 
 tion lines and bring your Chinese with you."
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 MARCH TO THE BRITISH LEGATION 
 
 Missionaries hastened to gather the Chinese from 
 the courts, pavilions, and rooms into which they 
 were crowded. A lady carried the message to the 
 girls' school. She found teachers and pupils still 
 on their knees and the principal leading in prayer. 
 So intensely was she engaged that it was only when 
 the messenger laid her hand upon the suppliant's 
 shoulder and emphasized with a decided little shake 
 the thrice repeated summons, that her presence or 
 message made any impression. Then with what 
 swift transition agony gave place to rejoicing as 
 all who heard the message realized that the threat- 
 ened calamity was averted there was to be no 
 separation. 
 
 As the missionaries hurried out to take their 
 places in the forming line each caught up some- 
 thing that oould easily be carried. Some odd selec- 
 tions were made in that time of intense and rapid 
 action. One lady, for instance (last to leave the 
 house), picked up a halter, a hot water bag and a 
 comfortable. However, during the long siege that 
 followed, each article served a purpose: there was 
 a horse for the halter, many a pain to be soothed 
 212
 
 HER STORY OF THE SIEGE 213 
 
 by the hot water bag, and where every one of a 
 multitude slept upon the floor or on a brick bed 
 the comfortable was in demand. 
 
 In the line, forming for the march to the Lega- 
 tion, were missionaries who had already lost all 
 their possessions, in the destruction which had re- 
 duced to ruins their respective missions. And all 
 knew that when they passed beyond the en- 
 circling walls of the Methodist Mission they left 
 the homes there and all that they contained, the 
 hospital and schoolhouses, completed after years of 
 waiting and toil, and the beautiful church, to a 
 fury of destruction that would surely sweep that 
 way. But there had been so much strain of anxiety 
 lest there might come an order from the Legation 
 demanding a separation of missionaries and native 
 Christians, and an accompanying uncertainty as to 
 what course could or ought to be pursued under 
 such circumstances, that the order which called for 
 no separation caused a rebound of relief which 
 made them for the time being unmindful alike of 
 the property left to destruction and of the dangers 
 yet to be faced. 
 
 First in the line were missionary women and 
 children; they were followed by soldiers of the 
 German Guard, who bore upon a stretcher the 
 wounded interpreter. Then came the Chinese Chris- 
 tians men, women, and children in all about 
 seven hundred. The long procession, under guard 
 of the boys in blue, passed through the Mission 
 gate where a sentinel was no longer to stand, on
 
 214 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 through the barricades in Filial Piety Lane that 
 for two weeks had served their purpose and over 
 which would now soon pour the destroying flood; 
 across the great thoroughfare which had, only an 
 hour or two since, rung with the rifle shots that had 
 struck dead Germany's Ambassador, and from which 
 his interpreter had barely escaped with his life. To 
 the right, less than a half mile away, the Baron's 
 body lay. To the left, almost within speaking 
 distance, loomed the huge gate tower, flanked on 
 each side by the massive gray wall of the city. Sol- 
 diers of the imperial army thronged the wall and 
 looked down upon us as we passed into Legation 
 Street. Did they think that we were obeying orders 
 and leaving the city, or did they see in us victims 
 of a general slaughter, to be accomplished after 
 we were penned in with those already gathered 
 within Legation lines? Whatever they thought, 
 no hostile move was made as they watched our 
 progress. 
 
 On ordinary days this great street was filled with 
 a jostling noisy crowd, wherein mingled top-heavy 
 wheelbarrows, pushed and balanced by straining 
 men, and dragged by men, mules, or donkeys, 
 freight carts and passenger carts, each with its 
 shouting driver and cracking whip, slow-moving 
 camel trains, pacing mules with jingling bells and 
 elegant riders, and dodging, darting, more or less 
 imperiled pedestrians ; but on this day, except the 
 soldiers and our procession, the streets were deserted 
 and a great hush seemed to have settled upon the
 
 HER STORY OF THE SIEGE 215 
 
 city, as if in awe of the enormity of the crime com- 
 mitted, or holding its breath for an expected ex- 
 plosion. 
 
 In the brooding stillness we walked the familiar 
 streets. The hot sunshine, the dust that rose under 
 our feet, the gray walls and gateways on either 
 hand, the barricades, and the soldiers at the gates 
 seemed parts of a half-waking dream, from which 
 our dazed senses must soon fully awake. 
 
 At the barricade in Legation Street the Chinese 
 were halted, but finally were passed through and 
 their course bent northward, and on into Prince 
 Su's palace, which was opposite the British Lega- 
 tion, with a broad street between. 
 
 Major Conger watched the company of Chinese 
 pass, and with tears in his eyes exclaimed: "We 
 are bringing them here to starve !" Already about 
 two thousand Catholic Chinese had been appointed 
 a place in Prince Su's premises ; with their number 
 swelled by this incoming of Protestant Chinese, and 
 no food supply, sufficient for the assembled multi- 
 tude, known to us, and the looked-for relief column 
 yet delaying its coming, no wonder famine seemed 
 imminent ! 
 
 From the heat and dust of the street we passed 
 to the shade and broad walks of the United States 
 Legation. The Legation lay so near the city wall 
 that it would be a very unsafe shelter, in case Chi- 
 nese soldiers should open fire from the wall, as the 
 bullet-riddled interiors proved before many days. 
 Inside the Legation gate we halted while somewhere
 
 216 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 was discussed and settled a plan for disposing of 
 our company of seventy missionaries, men, women 
 and children, so suddenly become guests of the 
 Legation. While we waited Mrs. Squiers, wife of 
 First Secretary of Legation, afterward Minister to 
 Cuba, whose generous hospitality neither the alarms 
 and anxieties of many days nor the uncertainties of 
 that fateful morning could check, served refresh- 
 ments to tide over the noon wherein dinner was 
 impossible. Word was passed that we were to pro- 
 ceed to the British Legation. On our way there 
 Dr. Morrison joined us. As he came up he re- 
 marked: "I am glad that you have brought your 
 Chinese with you." 
 
 His bearing and words brought reinforcement of 
 courage and good cheer; and we appreciated them 
 the more when we learned that it was largely due to 
 his efforts and the stand taken by him that a place 
 had been provided for the Chinese, and the mes- 
 sage that had brought them made possible. It 
 was noon when we finally arrived inside the British 
 Legation walls and were appointed to a shelter in 
 the Legation chapel. 
 
 We were the last of many arrivals. Early that 
 day all foreigners in the Legation lines, as well as 
 the missionaries, had been preparing for the exodus 
 which they must make if the Chinese government 
 should insist upon the execution of their order, de- 
 livered that morning. News of the shooting of 
 Baron von Ketteler had given pause to their activi- 
 ties and precipitated all differing opinions as to the
 
 HER STORY OF THE SIEGE 217 
 
 nature of the situation, and what course should be 
 pursued, into an instant resolve to make a stand 
 in Peking. All of the Legations, except one that 
 was remote from the others, were to be held. There- 
 fore the entire section of the city, wherein the Lega- 
 tions were located, was to be garrisoned by our band 
 of four hundred and fifty guards. 
 
 The British Legation was less exposed than the 
 other Legations, therefore Sir Claude and Lady 
 MacDonald offered its shelter to all women, chil- 
 dren, and unarmed civilians. They gave every 
 available room, and all the halls and long corridors, 
 of their own residence to the incoming flood. Fam- 
 ilies of members of the Legation staff combined 
 forces in the crowded quarters to make room in 
 their vacated houses for people from oilier Lega- 
 tions and the customs service. Even the great open 
 pavilions, through which ran the main approach to 
 Sir Claude MacDonald's residence, were utilized. 
 In one, the French Hotel deposited all its people 
 and their effects, and other refugees joined them 
 there. 
 
 The piled-up goods of the occupants were the 
 pavilion's only outside walls or inside partitions. 
 As with the first pavilion so with the second, and 
 in and around every possible shelter, the same con- 
 gestion of hurriedly assembled folks and goods 
 was in evidence. With our arrival the congestion 
 spread to the chapel. We dropped our bundles, 
 big and little, upon the seats and in the corners; 
 and an overflow of mattresses and other bedding
 
 218 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 which the servants had carried choked the aisles 
 and vestibule. 
 
 There were now assembled within the Legation 
 lines more than three thousand people, representa- 
 tives of seventeen nations. Nearly one thousand 
 were foreigners, of which number about four hun- 
 dred and fifty were soldiers American, British, 
 German, Japanese, French, Russian, Italian, and 
 Austrian. 
 
 The interruption to our toils, given by the call 
 to leave the Methodist Mission and come into the 
 Legation lines, made upon our tired senses an im- 
 pression of relief from labor, as though we had 
 now only to go within the Legation lines and wait 
 for the arrival of the relief column, for whose com- 
 ing we listened even as we walked the long way from 
 the Mission to the Legation lines. But we had no 
 sooner arrived at the British Legation chapel and 
 our bundles been deposited there, than our labors 
 began again. Resting places must be found for the 
 crowd in the chapel, and food was needed for the 
 multitude within the lines. We set ourselves to re- 
 ducing the confused condition of the chapel to a 
 semblance of order. Some seats were carried outside 
 to make more floor room, others were placed face to 
 face and beds spread upon them. Each party se- 
 lected a section of the floor space and deposited 
 there what bedding had been saved from the wreck. 
 
 A party proceeded to bring in from two stores 
 in Legation Street supplies of canned meats and 
 vegetables, a bag of coffee, some white flour, and
 
 HER STORY OF THE SIEGE 219 
 
 besides, a most useful array of porcelain-lined ware 
 plates, cups and saucers, pitchers, basins and 
 pails, big and little. And there were knives and 
 forks and spoons also, all of which were much 
 needed utensils. All of these things the inmates 
 of the Legation appropriated by order of the pro- 
 prietors of the stores, who also had refuge in the 
 Legation. There were other goods in the stores 
 which served other purposes in later days. While 
 one party went to the stores, another, accompanied 
 by a squad of Chinese, returned to the Methodist 
 Mission to secure more of the food and bedding 
 stored in the church there. 
 
 Though some of the supplies had been carried 
 into the Legation lines with us, the bulk of the 
 supplies in the church had been abandoned, owing 
 to our hurried departure from the Mission. This 
 return to the Mission was a movement full of risk, 
 but more than three thousand people had to be fed, 
 and there was not in the lines enough food for the 
 first meal, and the relief column was not yet in 
 sight. 
 
 A series of incidents connected with the bringing 
 of the food supplies, which the Chinese carried for 
 us when we marched together from the Mission, 
 show how very misleading appearances may be, 
 and suggest the propriety of always suspending 
 judgment until inquiry shall justify a verdict. 
 After the missionaries' last tin of butter had 
 been long gone, and there was no more canned milk 
 for the babies even, it was reported that the odor
 
 220 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 of frying butter was often noticed among the Chi- 
 nese Christians and that they openly ate canned 
 milk. Butter and milk are not articles of Chinese 
 diet ; if the Chinese had butter and milk, it must be 
 that they had appropriated butter and milk from 
 the supplies of foreigners. The talk was whispered 
 about and the reproach grew. Then one day it 
 came to the ears of a lady conspicuous for her 
 thoughtfulness for the Chinese, and for self-forget- 
 ting kindliness, and she explained that when the 
 exodus from the Methodist Mission began, and she 
 saw that much of the food supply gathered into the 
 church was to be left behind, she ran among the 
 Chinese Christians and said, "Go and get all you 
 can carry and take it with you," which they pro- 
 ceeded to do. Now, a gentleman, about the same 
 time that the Chinese went to help themselves, called 
 a few Chinese to follow him and rushed into the 
 church and loaded them up with supplies to carry 
 for the missionaries. The Chinese, sent by the lady 
 to help themselves, appeared while he was handing 
 out the things. They thought the gentleman was 
 helping them to supplies; the gentleman thought 
 they had flocked to his assistance. Both parties got 
 off without coming to an understanding; accord- 
 ingly, a small supply of foodstuffs was deposited 
 with the missionaries' effects at the chapel and a 
 much larger supply went with the Chinese into 
 Prince Su's premises. Soon after bullets began to 
 fly down the street which separated the Chinese and 
 foreigners an order was issued which prohibited
 
 HER STORY OF THE SIEGE 221 
 
 us from crossing the bullet-swept street. So, com- 
 munication being very limited, the Chinese con- 
 sumed the foreign stores of butter and milk, for 
 which they had no great relish, without ever hear- 
 ing that the foreigners had any lack. 
 
 Still another incident confused matters and de- 
 layed an understanding, which would have exon- 
 erated the native Christians from a charge of 
 unfeeling greed. After Mrs. Squiers had served 
 refreshments on that memorable twentieth of June, 
 she gave in charge of certain ladies several boxes of 
 canned foodstuffs for the missionaries. The ladies 
 called Chinese and had the boxes carried from the 
 United States Legation to the chapel in the British 
 Legation. Then the gentleman who in the Metho- 
 dist Mission had loaded up so many Chinese with 
 supplies came looking to see if they had been de- 
 livered at the Legation chapel. Finding what Mrs. 
 Squiers had given and having no one to tell him 
 whence they came, he went away satisfied, and the 
 inquiry which would have set matters right was not 
 made. 
 
 While, half dazed with weariness, we were still 
 receiving things sent in from the stores in Legation 
 Street, and Chinese ladened with bundles from the 
 Methodist Mission, and at the same time trying 
 to introduce something like order into the crowded 
 chapel, the grand climax of the day arrived. 
 
 Promptly at four o'clock, just twenty-four hours 
 after the receipt of the government's order for 
 foreigners to leave Peking, troops of the Chinese
 
 022 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 imperial army opened fire upon the Legations. 
 When the firing began we thought of the party 
 gone to the Mission, and were greatly relieved to 
 hear that they were within the lines. Then came 
 the report that Mr. James was killed. I heard a 
 gentleman say that he saw Mr. James, after the 
 firing, fall from a certain bridge into the canal. 
 I asked if he was sure that it was a foreigner who 
 fell. The gentleman answered: "Not at all." I 
 thought he was displeased with my question. Prob- 
 ably he was, rather, absorbed in contemplation of a 
 great tragedy preparing af which this tragic epi- 
 sode seemed but a detail. 
 
 Mr. Gamewell came with others to see how we 
 were faring at the chapel. I learned from him the 
 very last that was known of Mr. James before he 
 disappeared. Less than an hour before the Chinese 
 opened fire upon the Legations Mr. Gamewell met 
 Mr. James in the grounds of Prince Su's palace. 
 In a conversation that ensued Mr. James expressed 
 confidence that the Chinese government would pro- 
 tect us, even though the twenty-four hours, given 
 us to leave the city, should find us yet within its 
 walls. He mentioned in confirmation of his opinion 
 that within the hour Prince Su had assured him 
 that we were in no danger of an attack by the 
 Chinese army, and that the might of the Chinese 
 government would be given for our protection. 
 
 Shortly after uttering his generous words of 
 trust Mr. James manifested his confidence by ap- 
 pearing alone in the street, as he started upon yet
 
 HER STORY OF THE SIEGE 223 
 
 another errand of kind thoughtf illness. Almost 
 immediately firing began, and Mr. James never 
 returned. Mr. James, in whose breast seemed to 
 burn the last spark of faith in the possible integrity 
 of a Chinese official's word, to be found among us, 
 was the first of our number to die. 
 
 When the siege had been in progress six days, I 
 heard a circumstantial account of the tragedy by 
 which he met his death from Sergeant Saunders of 
 the British guard, who with a squad of soldiers 
 held a post in the extreme northeast corner of the 
 British Legation. One day, before orders had been 
 given which forbade women going onto the firing 
 line, I went with a party to Sergeant Saunders's 
 post. The sergeant gave us his field glass, and we 
 looked through the loophole and saw gruesome 
 sights dead bodies fallen in all sorts of positions, 
 lying as they fell, stiff in death. 
 
 The sergeant told us that on that fateful twen- 
 tieth of June he was at his post, which commanded 
 a bridge by which a thoroughfare north of the 
 British Legation crosses the water that flows in a 
 depressed channel down the street that lies between 
 the British Legation and Prince Su's palace. About 
 three hundred Chinese soldiers crossed the bridge, 
 going west. After the main body had passed on, 
 a straggler caught sight of and challenged Mr. 
 James. Mr. James turned about, as if to make for 
 the Legation. The soldier leveled his gun and Mr. 
 James threw up his hands. The soldier lowered his 
 gun and Mr. James began to run. The soldier
 
 224, MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 again raised his gun and shouted. After that Mr. 
 James made no further resistance. The soldier 
 took him in charge and they went off in the direc- 
 tion taken by the main body of Chinese soldiers. 
 There were shots fired soon after they disappeared, 
 and the sergeant thought that Mr. James was 
 killed then. 
 
 Mr. James's capture occurred just before the Chi- 
 nese army openly swung into action by attacking 
 the Legations. Among foreigners there was still a 
 hope that the threatening crash might be averted 
 by the arrival of the relief column; and, though 
 all along our lines they were preparing for the 
 worst, orders had gone out to hold fire until further 
 ordered, lest any shot of ours might precipitate a 
 crisis. The sergeant was not free, therefore, to 
 raise his gun in Mr. James's behalf. Not more 
 than ten minutes after this tragic episode the Chi- 
 nese army opened fire upon the Legations. The 
 siege was begun, and along our lines went the order 
 to shoot. And another order went forth. It com- 
 manded that all foreign women should stay within 
 the British Legation walls. 
 
 Over in Prince Su's palace a spacious room was 
 given to the Chinese school, but it was contracted 
 quarters for one hundred and fifteen girls. Straw 
 was spread upon the paved floor and the girls sat 
 upon the straw. Mrs. Jewell was with her charges, 
 hurriedly making last arrangements, when the fir- 
 ing began and orders were received to come into 
 the Legation. Commending the girls to the care
 
 HER STORY OF THE SIEGE 225 
 
 of old Chinese women appointed to that charge, 
 Mrs. Jewell turned to go. If ever the girls wanted 
 their teachers, upon whom they daily depended, it 
 was in that hour when the sound of the rifle broke 
 forth. Mrs. Jewell turned at the door for a last 
 look at her girls. She told us afterward that when 
 she turned "every head was bowed in the straw and 
 there was a murmur of prayer all over the room." 
 
 With a bewildering sense of unreality I heard 
 Mr. Gamewell tell, further, how Mrs. Jewell and he 
 issued from the palace gate, to be greeted with cries 
 from over the way: "Go back! Go back!" How 
 they listened to the ringing of the bullets which 
 were flying down the street, and after an interval of 
 waiting, stooping low, ran forward and were re- 
 ceived within the gates of the British Legation. 
 
 Elsewhere other women caring for other Chinese 
 were encountering other perils. But all were soon 
 called into the British Legation, and thereafter no 
 women were allowed to cross the perilous way that 
 lay between Prince Su's palace and the British 
 Legation. 
 
 So, with a final swing, the lines tightened around 
 the crowded area wherein we were to pass such 
 weeks of watching, toil, and danger as we had never 
 dreamed of. 
 
 With our march from the Mission into the Lega- 
 tion lines the semi-siege was ended. When troops 
 of the imperial army closed upon us and opened 
 fire the siege in Peking was begun.
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 IN SIEGE 
 
 Peking lies eighty miles inland from Tientsin, 
 which is its port of entry. Tientsin is situated on 
 the Pei Ho River fifty miles from its mouth, where 
 are the Ta Ku forts, off which were gathering the 
 war vessels of the nations. From Tientsin and 
 the war vessels alone could come any human help to 
 the besieged in Peking. The railroad was de- 
 stroyed, mails discontinued, telegraph lines down, 
 thousands of Chinese soldiers and Boxers swarmed 
 the city walls and pressed so closely upon our lines 
 that no word from the outside world could reach us 
 and no one could escape to tell the waiting world 
 anything concerning our condition. 
 
 Rifle fire opened upon us at four o'clock in the 
 afternoon of June 20, and never entirely ceased, 
 day and night, until the allies came on the four- 
 teenth of August and put the enemy to flight. 
 There were consecutive hours of many days and 
 nights when hundreds of rifles were let loose upon 
 us at once, and it often seemed as if the whole sur- 
 face of our walls were simultaneously covered with 
 bullets. Portions of solid brick walls were pulverized 
 by continuous discharge of rifles against them. 
 226
 
 HER STORY OP THE SIEGE 227 
 
 Mannlicher and Mauser rifles, provided with 
 smokeless powder, were trained against us in 
 great numbers : for the Chinese were equipped with 
 the best modern appliances and, as it proved, with 
 almost inexhaustible supplies of ammunition. At 
 times the firing was limited to sharpshooters, who 
 climbed into the trees and other high places, to 
 which they could not be easily traced because the 
 smokeless powder gave so little sign in performing 
 its deadly work. 
 
 One day one of our American soldiers, who was 
 a fine marksman, strode by where I was at work. 
 They told me that he and two others were detailed 
 to watch for a Chinese sharpshooter who had the 
 range of a certain walk of the British Legation 
 which was frequented by the women and children 
 of the Legation. For many hours they kept the 
 grim watch, and then the crack of a rifle was fol- 
 lowed by the falling of a human body, and the 
 laconic report was passed in: "We got him." It 
 was a ghastly episode, to the like of which we were 
 well accustomed before the day of our deliverance 
 arrived. 
 
 Many have asked me: "Were you under fire?" 
 There was nothing there that was not under fire. 
 The hottest fire was received on the lines held by 
 our brave soldiers and where work on fortifications 
 was being pressed ; but no spot within the lines 
 was immune. A soldier, coming from his post for 
 brief rest, sat upon a bench under a tree. A rifle 
 ball, intercepted by a tree, glanced his way, struck
 
 228 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 and killed the soldier. The seat taken by the sol- 
 dier was often occupied by women or children. I 
 was going on an errand down a walk of the Lega- 
 tion when a bullet came my way with a sharp swish. 
 I had an impression that it had passed through my 
 skirts. In an instant I found myself about ten 
 feet from where I had been and did not know how 
 I got there. I turned to see a soldier falling. He 
 had been walking behind me. He stepped into the 
 place which I had just passed, and by so much 
 I escaped and he fell victim to the rifle shot. 
 
 One hot night a lady went with me to get a drink 
 at a well in the midst of the Legation. As we 
 made our way through the darkness we walked into 
 a beam of light that shone from a lantern across 
 our path. Instantly a bullet struck the ground 
 at our heels. 
 
 Before many days had passed shells from bat- 
 teries of Krupp guns began to scream overhead. 
 Solid shot ploughed through our roofs and fell into 
 some of our rooms. One shot passed over the beds 
 of two ladies, who, if they had been sitting up, 
 might have had their heads taken off. One plunged 
 through the wall of Lady MacDonald's dining 
 room, passed behind a large portrait of Queen Vic- 
 toria, and tore its way through the opposite wall 
 and fell into the court beyond. Hundreds of shells 
 and solid shots fell into our courts in one day, and 
 rifle shots cut leaves and branches from the trees 
 and lay upon the ground so thick that the children 
 gathered them in hatsful. A large branch of a tree
 
 HER STORY OF THE SIEGE 229 
 
 was cut through by bullets and fell across a thresh- 
 old beyond which lodged a company of women. 
 
 The enemy started fires close to our lines and 
 threatened to engulf us in a general conflagration. 
 They brought in coal diggers from the hills and 
 set them tunneling mines under our position. One 
 explosion left only two great holes in the ground 
 where had stood the residence of the French Minis- 
 ter and that of the First Secretary of Legation. 
 We were dependent upon wells within our lines for 
 water, and who could tell how soon the fires and 
 the needs of the multitude would empty the wells, 
 or what security had we against fever from con- 
 taminated water. After a few days the odor of 
 decaying flesh filled the air. The drifting horror 
 made night more hideous, and roused from sleep 
 even those who slept the sleep of exhaustion. I 
 have sweltered, with my head under thick covering, 
 in an endeavor to escape the pollutions that weight- 
 ed the hot night air. Surely, pestilence hovers in an 
 atmosphere like that. 
 
 With so many death-dealing agents in their 
 service, the enemy might well hope to accomplish 
 our destruction, without rushing our lines en masse, 
 as they might have done at any time when they 
 were ready to sacrifice their first ranks in the fierce 
 fight that must ensue ere our heroic defenders 
 should go down before their overwhelming hordes. 
 
 Surrounded by an army of unknown thousands, 
 rifle shots like hail cutting through the trees, shell 
 and solid shot falling in our courts by hundreds,
 
 230 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 mines exploding within our lines, and no telling 
 how soon one might tear the earth under our feet, 
 starvation staring us in the face, unsanitary con- 
 ditions in a filthy city filling the air with fever if 
 not pestilence what was to save us? 
 
 If dwellings in Peking stood open to the street 
 as do residences in America, we should have been 
 soon destroyed by the rain of bullets that then 
 would have swept through our courts at low range. 
 But in Peking, as in all cities of China, all premises 
 have walls, just as formerly in America all premises 
 had fences. One's front wall joins the front wall 
 of one's neighbors, on the right and on the left, and 
 forms part of a continuous wall that stretches the 
 entire length of the narrow street, and has a 
 counterpart in a wall over the way. Then all 
 premises are separated from adj oining premises by 
 other walls, as in America fences once marked the 
 dividing line between adjoining yards. These walls 
 are solid and anywhere from ten to fifteen feet high. 
 
 The height of our walls obliged the enemy to 
 fire high, until they could make shelter for them- 
 selves on the roofs and walls that commanded our 
 courts and build towers; and the fact that they 
 could not see us or observe what we were doing 
 behind our walls, no doubt worked in our favor 
 upon the superstitious imagination of the enemy. 
 In the meantime, behind what shelter our walls 
 afforded, our people adjusted themselves to the 
 demands of the novel and highly perilous situations 
 in which they found themselves involved.
 
 HER STORY OF THE SIEGE 231 
 
 Our four hundred and fifty soldiers were dis- 
 tributed among the Legations of their respective 
 countries, except the Japanese and Italians. The 
 Japanese Legation was quite inside the firing line, 
 and did not require special guarding. The Italian 
 Legation, being apart from the group of Lega- 
 tions, had been early destroyed; therefore, the 
 Japanese and Italian soldiers were stationed in the 
 park surrounding Prince Su's palace, to hold the 
 place and protect the Chinese Christians there. 
 Mr. Chamot, a daring Swiss gentleman, with his 
 equally brave American wife, occupied their hotel, 
 which was within Legation lines near the French 
 Legation, through the entire siege. All other for- 
 eigners were in the British Legation, though the 
 Minister, or some member of his staff, was always 
 present in each of the Legations where the soldiers 
 were stationed. 
 
 There were in the British Legation people from 
 seventeen different nations people from many and 
 divergent walks of life, representing many different 
 social, political, and religious customs and creeds. 
 There were Ministers representing eleven of the 
 powers of the earth at the court of Peking, and 
 other members of the different Legations; Roman 
 Catholic priests and sisters, Greek Catholic priests, 
 the Inspector General of the Chinese Imperial Cus- 
 toms with all his Peking staff; the president of 
 the Chinese Imperial University and the foreign 
 professors of that institution, the president and 
 foreign professors of the Chinese Government Col-
 
 232 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 lege, merchants, travelers, Legation and customs' 
 students, bankers, guests of Legations, the guards, 
 and not less than one hundred missionaries. 
 
 We had all food supplies in common, and certain 
 parties were appointed to superintend the division 
 of the same. To the American missionaries was 
 appointed a kitchen in a court near the main gate 
 of the Legation, and we were known as the Mission- 
 ary Mess. There was the Customs' Mess, the Sol- 
 diers' Mess, Lady MacDonald's Mess, and various 
 other messes, each of which was known by a some- 
 what descriptive name. 
 
 The Missionary Mess served its first meal on the 
 evening of the twentieth of June. Rifle shots were 
 hissing through the air, and we had orders to keep 
 under cover. Members of the mess sat upon bun- 
 dles and benches, the floor and the altar steps, while 
 others passed the porcelain-lined plates and cutlery 
 taken from the stores on Legation Street, and what- 
 ever odd ends of edibles they could lay hands upon. 
 When the meal was finished the dishes were passed 
 through a window of the chapel, to Chinese servants 
 there, who washed them and passed them back 
 again, and they were piled over the altar beside the 
 candlesticks in close proximity to a beautiful paint- 
 ing which decorated the chancel. 
 
 Then preparations for the night were begun. 
 The floor space was divided between families and 
 parties who spread their mattresses or comfortables 
 thereupon, or arranged chapel seats and spread 
 their beds upon them. Each family and party
 
 HER STORY OF THE SIEGE 233 
 
 appropriated to itself as little space as possible, 
 yet it was soon discovered that there was not room 
 for all on the chapel floor. Word came from Lady 
 MacDonald to one of our party that there was a 
 certain room at the disposal of herself and four or 
 five other ladies. Accordingly, a small party of 
 women started out to find and occupy the room. In 
 the twilight we threaded our way through that, to 
 us, unfamiliar section of the British Legation which 
 lay between the chapel and the students' quarters, 
 where we were to find lodging. The courts were 
 crowded with Peking carts, their shafts tilted high 
 in the air, and the houses all gave signs of being 
 full to overflowing; but nowhere did we see such 
 an eruption of people and things as met our eyes 
 as we came in sight of the long, two-story building 
 known as the students' quarters. The doors and 
 windows and all the length of both verandas seemed 
 bursting with goods and people. It was a confluent 
 eruption and seemed to have spread into the court. 
 There were many people about, but the only one of 
 whom I have at this time a distinct memory is a 
 little Japanese lady whom we passed in the court. 
 It was reported in Japan, after the raising of 
 the siege, that ladies of the Japanese Legation 
 declared that during the attacks on the Legations 
 the European ladies screamed and otherwise behaved 
 very badly, but the Japanese ladies conducted them- 
 selves with great calmness and courage. When the 
 report came to my cars there immediately arose in 
 my mind a vision of that demure little lady of
 
 234, MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 Japan, whom I met that first night of the siege 
 we were under fire. She was not screaming, but 
 neither were we. I never heard that any Japanese 
 ladies screamed when under fire. Neither did I 
 know of any European lady who was other than 
 courageous. 
 
 The first floor of the building we entered was so 
 crowded that it was with surprise we found vacant 
 rooms on the second floor; but the reason for the 
 unequal distribution of people and effects was made 
 plain long before morning. The first room we 
 entered was a back room whose windows overlooked 
 the north wall of the Legation. There was a bed 
 there, but we were told that a sentinel had his post 
 at that window, and we were directed into the room 
 immediately in front of the one where we stood. 
 That we found empty, though we could see through 
 the open windows, that the veranda was crowded 
 with people who had settled themselves and their 
 effects there rather than inside, because of the addi- 
 tional protection of the front wall. 
 
 We spread a bed on the floor, with the veranda 
 full of people in front and the sinister hiss and 
 sput-spat of rifle shot in the rear ; we lay down in 
 the darkness as we were. We listened to the rifle 
 fire and felt the darkness and the wakefulness of 
 the silent crowd. We wondered what the night 
 would bring forth. Was death really near? 
 Would the relief column come with the morning? 
 If not, how near and what the end? 
 
 The rifle fire thickened, the shots snapped and
 
 HER STORY OF THE SIEGE 235 
 
 hissed more constantly and seemingly at closer 
 range. There was an attack on the north, and the 
 Chinese rifles commanded the north windows of our 
 building. If our beds were not actually on the fir- 
 ing line, they were rather thrillingly near to it. It 
 was not difficult then to understand why the occu- 
 pants of the better protected rooms below preferred 
 to be crowded there rather than have more freedom 
 in these exposed rooms on the second floor. 
 
 We heard the guard come in, and I knew that 
 Mr. Gamewell was appointed a post at a north win- 
 dow, in the end of a hall that flanked our room and 
 the one behind it. After a while there were quick 
 footsteps, and armed men hurrying from post to 
 post in most direct line possible strode to and fro 
 through our room and stepped over us as we lay 
 on the floor. So passed that first night for us. 
 With the morning came an invitation from Lady 
 MacDonald to better shelter in her ballroom. Sev- 
 eral ladies had preceded us there, but on its spacious 
 floor there was room for all, and in the ballroom 
 we spent the remaining nights of the siege. I had a 
 piece of mattress, which someone kindly gave me, 
 and a laundry bag in which were shoes and other 
 odd ends of personal belongings served as my 
 pillow. 
 
 Many gentlemen of our party lodged that first 
 night in the Legation, on the verandas, under the 
 trees, on benches, anywhere where any degree of 
 protection could be found. On the second night, 
 when our group of women retired to the ballroom,
 
 236 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 all the gentlemen who found no room for themselves 
 on the floor of the chapel were invited into the ex- 
 tensive corridors of Sir Claude's dwelling, and 
 there, in a long row, they lay upon the floor through 
 the darkness of all the hot, noisy nights that fol- 
 lowed. Mr. Gamewell had his pallet at the entrance 
 of the corridor; at the other end a door opened 
 into Sir Claude's office, which was used as a conva- 
 lescent ward for the wounded. The Spanish Minis- 
 ter and his wife had a room opposite the office, 
 which they entered by way of the much-occupied 
 corridor. At right angles to the outside wall of 
 the corridor and opening into the little court 
 around which Sir Claude's dwelling is built, was 
 the room occupied by Baroness von Ketteler. I 
 have seen her in the gray of early morning, when 
 I crossed the court to find Mr. Gamewell, before he 
 should be off on his round of the fortifications, 
 standing at her window, white and grief-stricken; 
 and erne day she caught her black robes about her 
 and stepped toward me. We clasped hands. She 
 is an American, and she looked only a girl. She 
 was glad to take my hand because I also am an 
 American. "I am so alone," she said. The words 
 struck within me a pathetic note whose soft ringing 
 I hear whenever my thoughts return to the Baron- 
 ess, and the brave man whose death brought safety 
 to so many and such burden of grief to the stricken 
 wife. For the shots that had killed Baron von Ket- 
 teler had given the warning that had brought all 
 foreigners within the Legation lines, and saved
 
 HER STORY OF THE SIEGE 237 
 
 them from annihilation. Our hearts yearned the 
 more over her because we realized that we had pro- 
 fited by that which had brought sore grief to her. 
 The twenty-first of June, or the second day of 
 the siege, brought us, for a few intense moments, 
 face to face with what seemed the end. The British 
 Legation was, in a way, the citadel of defense. 
 We had been told that when the outer lines could 
 no longer be held, the soldiers would retire upon 
 the British Legation, and there all together the 
 last stand should be made. We were busy about 
 the chapel, when we saw soldiers hurrying into the 
 Legation and were told that already they had or- 
 ders to abandon the outposts. The odds against 
 us were so terribly heavy that we were less surprised 
 by this early retreat than conscious of a certain 
 stiffening of muscles and bracing of the inner man 
 to meet the oncoming crisis. A Continental officer, 
 who by virtue of the fact that he outranked all 
 other officers of all the guard, had been given chief 
 command, had judged the outer lines untenable, 
 and ordered to fall back upon the British Legation. 
 This judgment was met in the British Legation by 
 a strong counter current of opinion. The result 
 was that the soldiers immediately returned to their 
 former posts and, by common consent, Sir Claude 
 MacDonuld was made commandcr-in-chicf. Sir 
 Claude had been a soldier before he became a di- 
 plomat, and was therefore well fitted for the post 
 to which he was called.
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 ORGANIZATION 
 
 Sir Claude, who had heard, before our arrival in 
 his Legation, of the work done in the Methodist 
 Mission, at once requested the American mission- 
 aries to set into operation in the Legation the same 
 sort of organization which they had accomplished 
 in the Mission. Accordingly, there went into 
 operation a General Committee or Committee on 
 Public Comfort, whose members did much to miti- 
 gate the discomforts that necessarily prevailed. 
 
 There was a Committee on Sanitation composed 
 of a group of missionary physicians and others 
 who, assisted by squads of willing Chinese, per- 
 formed their part so faithfully as to greatly reduce 
 the sources of illness and contagion among us. A 
 Food Supply Committee kept up a constant search 
 among the shops and narrow streets within our lines 
 for supplies with which to sustain the lives of the 
 hundreds within the lines of defence. Mr. Allar- 
 dyce, of the London Mission, was asked to see that 
 all were served with meat in due season, and the 
 announcement of that fact on the bulletin board 
 read : "Horsemeat Allardyce." 
 
 A few sheep had been driven into the Legation 
 238
 
 HER STORY OF THE SIEGE 239 
 
 at the last minute. Their flesh was for the sick 
 and the wounded in the hospital, and Mr. Brazier, 
 of the Chinese Imperial Customs Service, was 
 put in charge, and an entry to that effect in the 
 list upon the bulletin board read: "Mutton 
 Brazier." 
 
 As days passed and the relief column did not 
 appear to release us or the enemy to destroy us, 
 and, besides, the water in the wells promised to hold 
 out, the besieged bethought themselves that it might 
 be possible to have some washing done. Lady Mac- 
 Donald put her laundry at the service of the Lega- 
 tion's numerous guests. Chinese washermen were 
 found, and Mr. Brazier, of the customs, undertook 
 that service also, and entered upon the office 
 of Superintendent of Laundry, which fact 
 was announced in the words, "Laundry 
 Brazier," to the multitude dependent upon their 
 exertions. 
 
 Another committee watched and measured the 
 wells to provide against waste of water or possible 
 contamination. A Fuel Supply Committee brought 
 in coal and kindlings from coal shops within our 
 lines, and a Fire Committee watched against possi- 
 ble incendiarism and gave the alarm that called to 
 extinguish flames set against our lines. A Labor 
 Committee listed and classified all Chinese engaged 
 on fortifications or elsewhere, so that they went and 
 came in squads regularly, relieving each other at 
 meal times and rest hours. When there was a call 
 for help from any quarter this committee could
 
 240 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 always tell where and when available squads could 
 be had. There was a committee also which kept 
 the names of foreigners who were available as lead- 
 ers and directors of squads of Chinese sent to labor 
 at various points. 
 
 Gentlemen of the Legations, gentlemen from the 
 Chinese imperial customs service, from the bank, 
 and travelers caught in the crisis while visiting 
 Peking, served in various capacities under the or- 
 ganization accomplished by the missionaries as well 
 as the missionaries themselves. 
 
 Among the refugee Chinese Christians there were 
 men of many different callings, and when any ser- 
 vice was needed there was always a workman to be 
 found whc could render that service. Accordingly, 
 when Sir Claude made out and spread upon the 
 bulletin board a "Directory of the British Lega- 
 tion" there appeared upon it entries such as the 
 following: "Milling Fenn," which meant that a 
 Chinese mill had been found and set in operation, 
 and Mr. Fenn, a Presbyterian missionary, was re- 
 sponsible for reducing to flour the many hundreds 
 of bushels of wheat found by the Food Supply 
 Committee. "Baking Tewksbury" meant that the 
 chairman of the Committee on Public Comfort, a 
 Congregational missionary, proposed, with the aid 
 of his Chinese, to change the flour into bread. 
 "Cobbling Hobart" announced to the readers of 
 the bulletin that Mr. Hobart, of the Methodist Mis- 
 sion, would see that Chinese cobblers would cobble 
 all shoes that needed cobbling.
 
 HER STORY OF THE SIEGE 241 
 
 With the going and coming of large numbers of 
 Chinese, who lived in Prince Su's palace over the 
 way and worked in the British Legation, it was 
 necessary tor watch the gates closely to prevent any 
 emissary of the enemy from entering in company 
 with the squads of workers. No one was allowed 
 through the gates unless he were vouched for by 
 some leader on the spot, or could show a pass. W. 
 A. P. Martin, D.D., LL.D., president of the Chi- 
 nese Imperial University, Arthur H. Smith, D.D., 
 Congregational missionary and brilliant author, 
 several French Catholic priests, and certain gentle- 
 men of the Russian Legation were appointed to 
 the gates and to the opening of a covered way which 
 was constructed between the British Legation and 
 Prince Su's place. The list on the bulletin board 
 announced the appointments to these posts thus: 
 "Gate: Day Watchmen, North Gate, Martin, 
 Smith. South Gate, French Fathers. Tunnel: 
 Russian volunteers." 
 
 The foregoing and many other entries in the 
 directory read oddly when taken out of their orig- 
 inal setting of stress and strain, where ever-present 
 death stripped life of its conventionalities, and set 
 human intercourse upon a foundation of utter di- 
 rectness and simplicity. 
 
 Sir Claude created a Fortification Staff and ap- 
 pointed Mr. Gamcwell Chief of Staff, requesting 
 him to choose such men as he wished to have ap- 
 pointed as aids. The Fortification Staff appears 
 in the directory among the military appointments
 
 242 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 thus: "Fortification Staff: Chief of Staff, Game- 
 well. Aids : Ewing, Chapin, Killie, Norris, Stone- 
 house, Biggen, and others." Mr. Ewing and Mr. 
 Chapin are missionaries of the Congregational 
 Board, Mr. Killie a missionary of the Presbyterian 
 Board, Mr. Norris a missionary of the English 
 Church, Mr. Stonehouse and Mr. Biggen both of 
 the London Mission. Mr. Stonehouse with wife and 
 children survived the perils of the siege ; then Mr. 
 Stonehouse was shot by Chinese near Tientsin, 
 where he was working to relieve the starving natives. 
 
 The missionary women also effected an organiza- 
 tion by which work in the crowded chapel was 
 efficiently and expeditiously turned off, and valu- 
 able aid given to those engaged on the fortifica- 
 tions. 
 
 The servants who accompanied so large a number 
 of missionaries constituted a considerable corps. 
 The Labor Committee consulted with the ladies at 
 the chapel, then left them the minimum number of 
 men servants and enrolled all the others for work 
 on the fortifications. The missionaries belonged 
 respectively to the Presbyterian, Congregational, 
 and Methodist Churches. Into the little kitchen by 
 the Legation's great gate, we installed three cooks 
 one for each denomination. A little room in the 
 back of the chapel known in days of peace as the 
 vestment room, was converted into storeroom and 
 pantry. A committee of three young women, one 
 from each denomination, was appointed to take 
 charge of the storeroom and pantry and to see to
 
 HER STORY OF THE SIEGE 243 
 
 the equal and regular distribution of the supplies 
 in their charge. 
 
 It was not possible for all to be served at one 
 table, so a division was made, and the meals were 
 served by denominations; not that denominational 
 lines had anything to do with the matter beyond the 
 fact that the lines fell where it was convenient to 
 make a division. We had every day a Congrega- 
 tional breakfast, a Presbyterian breakfast and a 
 Methodist breakfast, and dinner and supper were 
 served in the same order. The ladies in the pantry 
 made the bill of fare and set apart the quantity 
 allowed each party. There was an arrangement by 
 which the ladies of each denomination took turns 
 superintending tables and keeping the chapel as 
 tidy as possible. When one table had been served 
 the dishes had to be handed out of the window and 
 washed and returned for the use of the next set; 
 and when all had had breakfast the floor must be 
 mopped. This mopping was all the more laborious 
 by reason of the crowded condition of the chapel. 
 Tables and benches and bedding and bundles had 
 to be piled so that one section might be cleansed. 
 Then onto that spot things must be piled again 
 while the mopping proceeded to yet another square 
 af our floor, and so on until the whole was properly 
 gone over. On days when the firing was worst, and 
 we had orders to keep under cover, the children also 
 were piled upon the tables while the houscclcaning 
 went on. On one such occasion, a child exclaimed 
 in discouraged tone: "Oh, dear, when we are inside
 
 244 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 we are in the way, and when we are outside we get 
 shot." 
 
 The Committee on Public Comfort came to the 
 relief of the workers in the chapel on many occa- 
 sions. To keep out the bullets the chapel windows 
 were partially filled with so-called sand bags, or 
 bags filled with earth. These bags also kept out 
 much-needed air. One day the versatile chairman 
 of the Committee on Public Comfort appeared with 
 long screens, which he had taken from the British 
 Legation theater. These he proceeded to suspend 
 across the chapel, so as to swing free above our 
 heads. Then he connected them by means of a 
 rope and left a long end, by pulling on which we 
 could set the whole five screens in motion. This 
 arrangement was our "punka." With a door in 
 each end of the chapel open and the punka in mo- 
 tion we obtained a change of air. After a time 
 the flies became very numerous. They covered the 
 ceiling at times so completely that one could not 
 see the ceiling for flies. A gentleman coming into 
 the chapel one night did something to disturb the 
 flies that were roosting on the ceiling. He says 
 that the buzzing of the flies was so loud and per- 
 vading that he could not hear the artillery which 
 was booming outside. He is a good missionary of 
 the Congregational Board, and the flies surely did 
 buzz bewilderingly. 
 
 To keep the flies off our food, which was none too 
 palatable at best, paper fringes were pasted onto 
 the edges of the punka where they could sweep the
 
 HER STORY OF THE SIEGE 245 
 
 tables. At meal time a servant pulled the rope that 
 kept the punka in motion. When missionaries of 
 one denomination breakfasted or dined or lunched, 
 their own servants served tables and a servant of 
 another denomination pulled the punka. Out of 
 this adjustment of service developed an incident 
 which throws a side light upon the life we lived and 
 illustrates some possibilities of Chinese character. 
 The matter was known only to the servants and my- 
 self at the time, and for apparent reasons was not 
 published abroad. 
 
 A Methodist lady in charge reported to me one 
 morning that the Congregationalists were at break- 
 fast and much beset by flies and oppressed by heat 
 and no one was pulling the punka. She had inter- 
 viewed both Methodist and Presbyterian servants 
 on the subject, and each in turn professed igno- 
 rance as to why the punka was not in motion and 
 inability to tell whose turn it was to pull the punka. 
 Our home servant was sort of head man in the table 
 service, so I approached him and asked: "Why is 
 no one pulling the punka?" With countenance as 
 blank as a mask he glanced around and mildly in- 
 quired: "Is no one pulling the punka?" Again I 
 questioned, "What is the matter?" and received in 
 reply a baffling counter question: "Who knows?" 
 The tone was gentle and respectful and at the same 
 time admirably adapted to convey the impression 
 that the speaker was innocent both of knowledge 
 nnd responsibility in the matter. By every token I 
 knew that this son of a secretive and unconnnunica-
 
 246 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 tive race knew all that I wanted to know, but had 
 no intention of enlightening me. How could I win 
 him to a change of purpose and gain his help in 
 making breakfast less discouraging to the Congre- 
 gationalists ? A threatened "loss of face" is a 
 lever of great power among the Chinese. In this 
 case it helped move the immovable. "If this dead- 
 lock continues, I shall 'lose face, 5 " I told that serv- 
 ing man with the imperturbable face and square 
 jaw. Slowly his countenance relaxed and then took 
 on a confidential expression. When once he laid 
 aside his reserve he proceeded with fluency. There 
 had been hard words between the Congregational 
 servants on one side and the united forces of Presby- 
 terian and Methodist servants on the other side, and 
 the conclusion of the whole matter was, so he told 
 me, that "while Presbyterians will pull the punka 
 for Methodists, and Methodists will pull the punka 
 for Presbyterians, neither Presbyterians nor Meth- 
 odists will pull the punka for Congregationalists." 
 A twinkle about the eyes indicated that he was not 
 without appreciation of the humor of his words; 
 but when the tale was told a stubborn look settled 
 about his resolute jaw which indicated that though 
 he had answered my questions, he should do nothing 
 more. Then I made a direct appeal for his help. 
 I reminded him of the peril we shared with all, how 
 any moment might be our last, how all being worn 
 to a shocking degree, all must bear and forbear, 
 how he had it in his power to aid tired women by 
 using his influence to avert further trouble. The
 
 HER STORY OF THE SIEGE 247 
 
 appeal worked. There was a sudden and complete 
 change of front. In most considerate and conclu- 
 sive tone he said: "There now, rest your heart, 
 lady. Don't mind this business. Rest your heart." 
 Tone and manner indicated that he took all respon- 
 sibility upon his own competent self. And no one 
 is competent to deal with a Chinese quarrel as the 
 Chinese themselves. The punka began to move at 
 once, and it was the man who bade me "Rest your 
 heart" who was at the rope. That was the last 
 we ever heard of that trouble involving the denomi- 
 nations and the punka. 
 
 One day a teacher of a day school of former and 
 less perilous times, took the rope and kept the 
 punka swaying while the missionaries ate. One 
 overheard him afterwards relating his experience to 
 a group of Chinese. He said: "When I took the 
 punka, I thought now I shall see for myself what 
 they have to eat. When they came to the table 
 they looked so cheerful that I thought surely they 
 are expecting something very good. But coarse 
 bread was passed and the brown rice was served 
 still they looked happy. Then the meat was 
 brought on and it was nothing but horsemoat, and 
 everything just the same as we have and nothing 
 more. Truly they do share alike with us and are 
 glad to do it !" 
 
 The ladies in the pantry developed great in- 
 genuity in varying the bill of fare. One day there 
 were three cans of tongue for our mess of seventy. 
 The tongue was cut fine and mixed with brown rice,
 
 248 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 and we had rice flavored with tongue. There was 
 on hand a quantity of flavoring extracts but no 
 eggs and no milk. But there were a few raisins; 
 so the raisins and a little extract and sugar were 
 added to the left-over rice which was then served as 
 pudding. A quantity of millet was brought in. 
 Now millet when boiled is more adhesive than rice. 
 We sometimes had millet porridge. Left-over rice 
 and left-over millet porridge were mixed with water 
 and salt; a very small portion of flour, from our 
 one bag of white flour, was added to help hold the 
 mixture together, and baking powder made it rise. 
 This combination, cooked on gridles prepared with 
 drippings from horsemeat or mulemeat, returned 
 from the kitchen in the shape of griddle-cakes each 
 the size of a tea-plate very light, very brown, 
 very beautiful, in fact, the most popular article of 
 diet that graced our tables. The plates of cakes 
 en route from kitchen to chapel passed in sight of 
 the "Customs Mess." Soon a lady of the Customs 
 Mess called for our recipe for cakes ! She said that 
 her husband, seeing our cakes, had asked: "Why 
 can't we have good things to eat as well as the 
 missionaries ?" 
 
 That same little lady gave us points on cooking 
 horsemeat: "Cut in steaks, cover with hot water, 
 and simmer for three hours; then brown in fat 
 and add spice." There was a big cauldron in one 
 of the courts in which nearly half a carcass was 
 boiled at once. The long-continued boiling neces- 
 sary to cook so large pieces, seemed to take away
 
 HER STORY OF THE SIEGE 249 
 
 the wild taste that the flesh otherwise had, and when 
 finally our mess had orders which gave us a part of 
 such boiled meat, it found more favor than any 
 other form of cooked horseflesh. 
 
 One day the Pantry Committee ordered a treat, 
 and we had white flour biscuits. Probably no one 
 cared that she herself was to have white flour bis- 
 cuits, but each had great satisfaction in the pros- 
 pect of seeing others served with something that 
 could be taken with relish. Probably I should have 
 forgotten the service of white flour biscuits alto- 
 gether if it had not been that a mishap which im- 
 pended over the pan of biscuits set for the Metho- 
 dists' supper terminated in such a way as to associ- 
 ate in my mind a child and white flour biscuits, so 
 that the sight of biscuits suggests a vision of the 
 child and the name of the child suggests biscuits 
 and that scene in the chapel. 
 
 It was almost dark in the chapel when the Meth- 
 odists were called to supper. Two mothers of fami- 
 lies were spreading beds inside the altar railing. 
 A large dishpan full of biscuits was set upon the 
 altar steps. Turning from the table, I saw a small 
 boy hanging across the altar railing face down and 
 feet over the pan, apparently in the act of alight- 
 ing in the midst of the biscuits. I captured the 
 small boy and removed him from proximity to the 
 biscuits. A tired voice said from the shadows within 
 the altar: "Let him come here; I want to put him 
 to bed." Then I knew that it was not the little
 
 250 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 mischief that I taok him for that was hanging over 
 the biscuits, but a quiet, manly little fellow who 
 was as mortified at his predicament as we were 
 alarmed for our biscuits. He hid his face under 
 the covers and has held my regretful regard ever 
 since.
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 
 INCIDENTS 
 
 The unusual mode of life of the besieged gave 
 rise to many incidents whose humor is more ap- 
 parent now than it was then. When the day's 
 work was done and darkness settled, bedding was 
 unrolled and spread and all lay down for the night, 
 pretty nearly as they had spent the day. 
 
 Among those who slept in the chapel was a lady 
 who all her life in China had suffered from fear of 
 the Chinese, though she was very devoted to those 
 with whom she was well acquainted. It was one 
 of the marvels of that time that she was kept in 
 peace and calmly free from fear. One dark night, 
 when the attack was very sharp, a lady left her 
 place on the floor and went to lie beside another 
 who also lay awake listening tor the fury raging 
 without. In her passage she dislodged a large box 
 of buttons, which fell from a bench to the floor. 
 Someone aroused by the sharp rattle of buttons, 
 cried out : "Bullets are coming in here !" Then out 
 of the darkness issued our sister's voice in calm 
 assurance: "No, it is only buttons rolling on the 
 floor." 
 
 Bullets 'did enter the chapel occasionally. One 
 251
 
 252 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 night a bullet flew in at a window over the heads 
 of a Congregational party, struck the wall over a 
 Methodist bed and dropped, spent, into a corner 
 upon a Presbyterian. A non-sectarian missile, 
 surely ! 
 
 Bags were an important feature of the fortifica- 
 tions. Bags filled with earth were built into walls 
 around exposed sentinel posts. Bags supplemented 
 the height of walls. Bags filled the arches of the 
 hospital veranda and protected other buildings. 
 Bags protected men while they built walls impor- 
 tant to the defense of the Legation. Bags were 
 thrown into any breaches that were made in the 
 defenses. Bags were in constant demand through- 
 out all the days of the siege, and there were no days 
 when someone was not making bags. The chapel 
 was headquarters for bagmaking. Members of 
 the Supply Committee had visited tailor shops that 
 were in our lines. The tailors had run away, but 
 their sewing machines were there, and many pieces 
 of goods. Both machines and goods and supplies 
 of thread were brought in for use of the bagmakers. 
 In one shop a gentleman of our number found a 
 suit of clothes which he had ordered but which had 
 not been delivered. As there was a scarcity of 
 clothing, it was fortunate that he should find a 
 suit and peculiarly fortunate that the suit should 
 be one which had been made for himself. 
 
 The captured sewing machines and those in the 
 Legation homes greatly aided the bagmakers. 
 Women of the Legations, missionary women, Chi-
 
 HER STORY OF THE SIEGE 253 
 
 nese women and girls, Protestants and Catholics, 
 worked steadily making bags. Every day in the 
 week, including Sunday, the bag industry was 
 pushed. At times there were sudden calls for large 
 numbers af filled bags. Then we left our sewing 
 and went into the ditches and held bags while men 
 shoveled the earth into the bags ; then we tied them 
 securely to be carried off by hurrying men. One 
 day we saw Mrs. Conger in the deep, dusty ex- 
 cavation, holding bags open while a priest of the 
 Greek Church shoveled in the earth. 
 
 With the work to which one was appointed and 
 the emergency calls to which everyone was sub- 
 jected, all were kept busy all day every day. It 
 was a mercy that there was no time to meditate the 
 horrors of our situation that everybody was so 
 busy trying to save everybody that there was no 
 time to despair, though the relief column came not 
 and our situation daily grew more desperate. 
 
 Emergency calls often took missionaries to the 
 outside firing line, to direct the labors af the Chi- 
 nese who worked on the fortifications, as they knew 
 both the Chinese language and the Chinese people, 
 while the soldiers and many other foreigners within 
 the lines knew neither. 
 
 Mr. Fenn, of the Presbyterian Mission, had 
 proved his mettle when he ran the mill where he 
 found it until rifle fire made the place untenable, 
 and then, still under fire, mcrvcd the outfit into the 
 British Legation, where it continued to grind for 
 the besieged until the allies came.
 
 254, MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 He was sent to a hazardous post held by our sol- 
 diers on the city wall to direct the labors of a group 
 of Chinese who went with him. He had only ar- 
 rived on the spot when he was knocked over by a 
 flying brick, dislodged by a shell that struck the 
 barricade close at hand. Mr. King, of the Metho- 
 dist Mission, was sent at night with another group 
 of Chinese to work under cover of the darkness. 
 Something attracted the attention of the enemy, 
 who at once began a rifle fire so steady and close at 
 hand that the men could do nothing but lie low in 
 the trenches. 
 
 There is a touch of pathos in the story of how 
 those Chinese, always gallant followers of any lead- 
 er who can command their confidence, crept close to 
 Mr. King in the darkness, content if they might 
 but touch the person of the leader whose form they 
 could not see. A lady hearing the story remarked : 
 "And, no doubt, Mr. King also felt the touch of a 
 Presence which he could not see!" 
 
 Another man told us another story while, at the 
 end of a day of peril and toil, we served him his 
 belated meal of horseflesh and rice. The story has 
 connection with the most remarkable case that de- 
 veloped during the siege. There was a Norwegian 
 who figured as an independent missionary and horse 
 dealer. He was subject to violent fits of anger, 
 and always had a complaint of persecution against 
 first one and then another. His manner was so 
 extraordinary that only two opinions prevailed con- 
 cerning him. One was that he was a wicked charac-
 
 HER STORY OF THE SIEGE 255 
 
 ter, not to be trusted In any way, another that he 
 was insane and therefore irresponsible. In either 
 case it seemed unsafe for those against whom he 
 expressed his spite that he should be at large. One 
 day he was missing, and it was learned that he had 
 entered the lines of the enemy. It was expected 
 that the Chinese would kill him. Soon after his 
 disappearance the Chinese changed the range of 
 their guns and the shots were fired much lower. 
 After an absence of only a day or two, the Norwe- 
 gian returned. That he was allowed to live and 
 return was so remarkable that the inference that 
 he came in the interests of the enemy was justifiable, 
 as it was also certain that it was dangerous to have 
 a spy among us who could report weak points avail- 
 able for attack, weakness of numbers, or even start 
 fires and create confusion to aid the attacks of the 
 enemy. However, on his return he told us that he 
 had informed the Chinese that they were firing too 
 high to accomplish our destruction, and it seemed 
 improbable that any but an insane man would tell 
 such a thing under such circumstances. 
 
 It was seriously discussed as to whether the safety 
 of all did not demand that he be shot. But, finally, 
 he was put into custody with a guard at his door. 
 There he spent much time declaiming against every- 
 body in general and in praying. Both exercises 
 were conducted in loud, railing tones which dis- 
 turbed the soldiers whose only chance for rest was 
 an hour err two at a time in a room near the room 
 in which the prisoner was confined. The prisoner
 
 256 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 was in charge of a physician who was an elderly 
 Scotch gentleman. His kindly heart was bent on 
 saving the lives of women and children from the 
 menace of having such a character at large, and 
 at the same time he intended that the much-needed 
 rest of our brave defenders should not be disturbed 
 by the howlings pious or otherwise of the pris- 
 oner. So the good doctor was in the habit of cuff- 
 ing his patient into silence. 
 
 One day Mr. Stelle, a young missionary whose 
 talents greatly advanced the work of organizing 
 labor, and who is as kind as he is gifted, prepared 
 to accompany the doctor on his visit to his charge, 
 and asked that the doctor would allow him to try 
 the persuasive force of kindness, before the doctor 
 would proceed to harsher measures. This the doc- 
 tor readily agreed to. Twilight was settling as 
 they approached the door, and in the dimness of the 
 room beyond the prisoner was shouting prayers. 
 Something detained the doctor a few moments. 
 Mr. Stelle entered and proceeded to address the 
 noisy suppliant. His address was only begun when 
 the doctor stepped briskly in and began to cuff 
 Mr. Stelle, exclaiming with each cuff: "I'll teach 
 you to pray aloud. Didn't I tell you to keep quiet? 
 I'll teach you to pray aloud." The real culprit, 
 silenced by astonishment, knelt with clasped hands, 
 in the attitude of a plaster image of little Samuel, 
 and stared with wide eyes at the performance in 
 which he was supposed to have the part of victim. 
 
 The humor of the scene the mistaken doctor
 
 HER STORY OF THE SIEGE 257 
 
 cuffing and exhorting the wrong man, the right man 
 kneeling and staring, and his own predicament so 
 filled the involuntary substitute with laughter that 
 he could not speak to save himself. So dodging 
 as best he could the blows, he received several before 
 the doctor's eyes, becoming accustomed to the dark- 
 ness, saw his mistake. The humor of the narrative 
 was irresistible, and we joined Mr. Stelle in a laugh 
 such as was not often heard during the serious days 
 of the siege.
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 EDICTS, CABLEGRAMS, AND MESSAGES 
 
 The odds were so terribly against us that at 
 first no one in the siege would have believed that 
 the besieged could hold out two long months. But 
 all struggled to hold off the enemy until the mo- 
 mentarily expected relief column should arrive ; and 
 every new day that found us yet alive renewed the 
 hope and courage of the garrison, though every 
 day increased the number of wounded in the hospi- 
 tal and made sad additions to the graves of our 
 soldiers. Hard labor and hard fighting was the 
 order of all our days, and for weeks no word 
 reached us from the great outside world. 
 
 A great deal was heard about "inspiriting the 
 garrison" and every possible opportunity was seized 
 upon by our leaders to relieve in the least the high 
 tension of our days. Major Conger often appeared 
 among us, introducing some diverting incident and 
 furnishing some scrap of information. 
 
 One day, the third of July I think it was, he 
 came carrying a framed copy of the Declaration of 
 Independence which had hung in his office in the 
 United States Legation. Though the Legation was 
 held throughout the siege by our American soldiers, 
 258
 
 HER STORY OF THE SIEGE 259 
 
 it was under hot fire, and bullets riddled many walls 
 there. The Declaration of Independence had been 
 struck by a bullet, and it was diverting to notice 
 that the bullet had torn away that portion whereon 
 the revolutionary fathers had expressed themselves 
 in somewhat disparaging terms concerning King 
 George. 
 
 At last a first word from the outside world 
 reached us. It came in such odd shape and by so 
 unexpected a way that it was some time before it 
 was credited for what it really was. A rumor had 
 reached us of a messenger from the Chinese govern- 
 ment. Then Major Conger appeared at the chapel 
 door, and we gathered about while he read to us a 
 cablegram which had been sent in by the Chinese 
 government and which purported to come from 
 Washington. It was in a cipher known only in 
 Washington and the Peking Legation. It read: 
 "Conger send tidings bearer." It was an aston- 
 ishing token received amidst shot and shell through 
 the agency of the people who were responsible for 
 the shot and shell! What could it mean? Was it 
 genuine? What motive had the Chinese in sending 
 it in? Would they really forward to the United 
 States a reply, as their note accompanying the 
 cablegram promised? 
 
 There was a characteristic correspondence, after 
 which Major Conger sent to Washington, in ciplicr, 
 the cablegram which caused such commotion in the 
 world and was at first discredited in England and 
 Europe: "Surrounded and fired upon by Chinese
 
 260 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 troops for a month. If not relieved soon, massacre 
 will follow." Wu Ting Fang had represented that 
 it was Boxers who surrounded us, and that his 
 government was crippled by Boxers. Here was a 
 message out of the heart of Peking that made no 
 mention of Boxers and asserted that Chinese troops 
 were attacking the Legations. And the fact that 
 the Chinese government so readily received and for- 
 warded cablegrams indicated a freedom on their 
 part that made the Chinese government responsible 
 for the situation in Peking. No wonder that the 
 world was bewildered. 
 
 Soon after the dispatch of Major Conger's cable- 
 gram, a messenger, long gone, made his way back 
 into our lines. He brought letters from the Japan- 
 ese, German, and Russian consuls at Tientsin. 
 These letters were full of assurance of help mar- 
 shaling from all lands and to start for Peking on 
 the twentieth of July. July 20 was two days off, 
 and there were many days between starting from 
 Tientsin and arriving in Peking. But the heart- 
 beat of the great, living, throbbing world was now 
 felt by the beleaguered garrison, and it braced itself 
 for the days of holding on that must elapse before 
 the allies should arrive at the gates of Peking. 
 
 The excitement of those days was intensified by 
 a succession of incidents. The Chinese, who con- 
 tinued to fire upon us, sent in a cablegram from 
 France which announced the Ta Ku forts taken, 
 and a decoration awaiting M. Pichon, the French 
 Minister to Peking.
 
 HER STORY OF THE SIEGE 261 
 
 On July 20 a soldier of the Chinese army, who 
 had received a bribe from the versatile and astute 
 Japanese, brought to our lines a bundle containing 
 the daily issue of the Peking Gazette, from June 
 21 to date. The Gazette is a government organ in 
 which appear edicts and other government mat- 
 ters for public distribution. In the Gazette brought 
 in were spread edicts of the Empress Dowager, 
 providing rewards to her "loyal people, the Box- 
 ers," ordering their organization and control, and 
 other matter that witnesses unmistakably to the 
 guilt of the Chinese government. On July 29 a 
 letter from Tientsin dated July 22, was posted 
 upon the bulletin board, and we read: "Twenty- 
 four thousand troops landed. . . . Nineteen thou- 
 sand here. Russians at Pei Tsang. . . . There 
 are plenty of troops on the way if you can keep 
 yourselves in food." 
 
 We read and looked into each other's puzzled and 
 disappointed faces. Troops landed? Where? 
 Nineteen thousand here? What are they doing for 
 us? Have any started for Peking? If not, when 
 will they? What if we cannot keep ourselves in 
 food? Why no word af organized effort for our 
 relief when our message had been so urgent and 
 our messenger had risked his life to carry it and 
 to bring a reply ? 
 
 The answer to our questions came when the siege 
 was raised and we were received in Tientsin with 
 earnest joy, strong hand-clasps, and eyes brimming 
 with tears. Then they told us that when that letter
 
 262 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 was written the writer had lost hope because of the 
 delays of the military in Tientsin. He thought 
 the besieged would be dead before help could arrive, 
 and out of a heart burdened with such conviction 
 he wrote as he did. 
 
 One cause of the delay in Tientsin was that the 
 desperate fighting of the Chinese troops at Tientsin 
 and the successful beating back of the first relief 
 column had convinced military men that a large 
 army would be necessary for a successful march 
 on Peking, and they waited for still more troops 
 from over the ocean and to perfect arrangements 
 for transportation. 
 
 After a few days another messenger returned 
 with a letter from Tientsin. He was Dr. Ament's 
 Sunday school pupil mentioned elsewhere. He had 
 been gone twenty-four days, and they had been 
 days of great hardship and peril for him. 
 
 Though our condition remained as critical as 
 ever, its danger in no way abated, yet the garrison, 
 inspirited by the fact that messages could at last 
 make a way through the encompassing host, broke 
 forth into singing. 
 
 At the close of the day a group sat on the steps 
 of the pavilion known as the bell-tower, whereon 
 stood the bulletin board with its news from a far 
 country. They began to sing. As the strains of 
 "America" floated out upon the night air, in what 
 solemn radiance dawned visions of the homeland! 
 Facing death every moment of every day, the heart 
 had so certainly turned to the home beyond that the
 
 HER STORY OF THE SIEGE 263 
 
 home of this life had faded until it was as unreal 
 as the future life usually is. 
 
 Now with a bound the sweet possibilities of home 
 and friends were brought near. We joined the 
 singers, we sang "America," "Star-Spangled Ban- 
 ner," "Battle Hymn of the Republic," "Marching 
 through Georgia," and "Tramp, Tramp, Tramp, 
 the Boys are Marching," hoping intensely that 
 they were marching our way right speedily. Hav- 
 ing sung our own national airs, we tried "The Mar- 
 seillaise." Then from over the way in the pavilion 
 where the French had their quarters there arose a 
 clapping. British soldiers had drawn near. We 
 sang with them "God Save the Queen." (It was 
 "Queen" then.) Again there was a clapping of 
 hands. We sang "Watch on the Rhine" with the 
 Germans and their song was received with clapping. 
 Then the ladies and gentlemen of the Russian Le- 
 gation stood forth. They had a prima donna in 
 their number, and they rendered grandly Russia's 
 grand national hymn. And again a clapping of 
 hands cheered the singers. And these airs which 
 were cheered by French, Germans, English, and 
 Russians were the very airs to which their armies 
 had marched against each other in years past ! A 
 mutual peril had united their interests, brought to 
 the front the essential nobility of each, and de- 
 veloped an appreciation each of the other. And 
 these singers rejoiced to find a ground of mutual 
 sympathy, and for the time gave no thought to any 
 possible differences.
 
 264 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 About August 1 the Chinese, still firing upon us, 
 sent in another cablegram. It came from London. 
 It announced Major Conger's message received in 
 Washington; but "British Minister not heard 
 from." Also that after hard fighting the Chinese 
 troops had been routed in Tientsin, July 15, and 
 that arrangements for our relief were being made. 
 In the same cable came the inquiry: "Is the Chi- 
 nese government protecting you and providing pro- 
 visions ?" 
 
 A messenger sent from Tientsin made his way 
 into our lines with a letter to Colonel Shiba, com- 
 manding the Japanese group of our heroic defend- 
 ers. The letter stated that delay of relief was 
 caused by lack of transportation facilities. That 
 another letter would be dispatched as soon as "esti- 
 mated date of arrival in Peking is fixed." Then on 
 August 2 Messenger Yao returned, and his budget 
 af news was the most complete of all. In a double 
 brim to his coolie hat he bore five letters one from 
 the United States Consul at Tientsin, to Minister 
 Conger, one from Mr. Drew to Sir Robert Hart; 
 a line from Major-General Chaffee, a letter from 
 Lieutenant-Colonel Mallory, and a fifth letter from 
 Mr. E. K. Lowry, whose wife was with the besieged. 
 All of these letters, or extracts of such matter as 
 was of interest to all, were spread upon the bulletin 
 board. Hour after hour, men and women in group 
 after group, with wan but glowing faces, stood 
 before the bulletin board and read its messages of 
 hope. "Had lost all hope of ever seeing you again.
 
 HER STORY OF THE SIEGE 265 
 
 Prospect now brighter." "Our hopes and prayers 
 are for your safety and speedy rescue." "Ad- 
 vance of troops tomorrow (July 29) probable." 
 "Relief column of ten thousand on point of start- 
 ing for Peking. More to follow. God grant they 
 may be in time." "Will advance in two days ten 
 thousand strong. English, Americans, and Japan- 
 ese. Followed in a few days by forty thousand 
 more. Hold on. The Ninth and Fourteenth United 
 States Regiments already here (Tientsin). Fight- 
 ing this A. M. at Pei T'sang." 
 
 The peril of the besieged had not abated, but 
 there was great power to "inspirit the garrison" in 
 the fact that they had made connection with friends 
 beyond the lines of the enemy. As it happened, all 
 five of these last letters were from Americans. 
 Groups of Americans pressed about the bulletin 
 board reading and questioning and trying to absorb 
 every phase of meaning contained in these neces- 
 sarily condensed letters right from the hearts of 
 countrymen deeply engaged in our behalf. 
 
 When night fell there was a group that brought 
 a candle by whose light they continued to pore 
 over the precious messages so full of life! And in 
 the gray of early dawn upon the following day an 
 English gentleman came upon the scene and found 
 still other Americans reading and rejoicing. As 
 he passed the animated group he remarked: "I 
 retired last night to the tune of 'Yankee Doodle.' 
 I seem to have risen to the same tune." 
 
 The Chinese Christians who worked on the forti-
 
 266 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 fications called this gentleman "the man that 
 smokes." Often when departing for work in peril- 
 ous places they have asked that they might have 
 for their leader "the man who smokes." Cool, 
 dauntless, quietly pulling on his pipe, he led and 
 worked in the face of bullets at close range. Prob- 
 ably the calm composure that could smoke under 
 such circumstances was as inspiring to the martial 
 possibilities of the Chinese as a bugle blast to peo- 
 ple of more emotional type. 
 
 As messages from the coast, where our friends 
 were rallying for a march on Peking, multiplied, 
 the Chinese made advances to the diplomatists that 
 promised help from the government, and at the 
 same time closed in about the Legations and seemed 
 at last ready to rush our lines en masse. They 
 seemed bent on forcing the besieged to assume such 
 relations of dependence upon the Chinese govern- 
 ment as should stop the advance of the allies on 
 Peking and hide from the world the fact that the 
 Chinese government was responsible for the crime 
 which attempted the lives of all foreigners in the 
 empire and which culminated in the siege in Peking. 
 The combination of overtures of seeming friendli- 
 ness and of sinister closing in of the soldiery seemed 
 to mean, "Pose with us as friends or die." 
 
 Someone proposed that Yao, the bearer of the 
 five inspiriting letters, go out again and meet the 
 advancing army. His face bore marks of suffering 
 endured on his last trip, as he stood and expostu- 
 lated after the following fashion : "Through God's
 
 HER STORY OF THE SIEGE 267 
 
 mercy I got through once and brought good news. 
 Why tempt him by going again when the army is 
 already marching?" Then he added meaning 
 that he had done his utmost for us: "I told your 
 story and shed tears before Mr. Lowry, and he 
 promised to arrive in Peking with the army within 
 one week. I told your story and shed tears before 
 Mr. Ragsdale (United States Consul), and he 
 promised an army to start immediately." 
 
 News of the advancing army was brought by 
 messengers sent from the army, and stir in the city 
 told of great excitement among our enemies. And 
 on the firing line, on the walls and trenches of the 
 fortifications, in the hospital, among the Christian 
 Chinese, our daily routine of work and care taking 
 was pursued as the garrison awaited the oncoming 
 crisis.
 
 CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 BELIEF 
 
 From copious notes which she had made during 
 that historic event and from other material she had 
 collected with that intent, Mrs. Gamewell had pre- 
 pared the story of the siege in Peking up to this 
 point. Major E. H. Conger, United States Min- 
 ister to China, wrote her from the Legation, 
 Peking, July 11, 1903: "You may make such use 
 of my brief notes as you please." It was her pur- 
 pose to include a chapter on the fortifications by 
 Mr. Gamewell. This has not been written, and for 
 obvious reasons no attempt has been made to secure 
 it now. 
 
 This chapter consists only of incomplete notes 
 written during or immediately after the siege. 
 They, however, without any elaboration, give a 
 sufficiently vivid picture of that joyful hour when 
 the allied forces of the civilized nations relieved the 
 beleaguered Legations. 
 
 August 6. Last night the men were building a 
 barricade in the west addition. They left off at 1 
 A. M. At two there rose a shout which was imme- 
 diately followed by rifle fire from the north and 
 west, much in the fashion of the first few weeks. 
 268
 
 HER STORY OF THE SIEGE 269 
 
 Today the yamen send word that they regret 
 the outburst, and explain by saying that they heard 
 a noise on our side, and thought that we were 
 coming out to attack, and therefore began firing. 
 They also send word that Ministers may send mes- 
 sages to their governments, asking permission to 
 leave, and the Chinese will forward the messages. 
 This is because repeated invitations have been sent 
 in inviting the Legations to go under escort to Tien- 
 tsin. The last excuse sent by us was that as the 
 Chinese are keeping their representatives at foreign 
 courts our Ministers are not at liberty to leave with- 
 out orders from their respective governments. A 
 shrewd answer, intended to avoid rupture until 
 troops arrive. The Chinese evidently will exhaust 
 all possibilities to keep the troops from coming to 
 Peking. They do not understand that the troops 
 will come even if we leave. The Chinese report that 
 the native barricades to the east are deserted. If 
 true, it may mean running away for fear of ap- 
 proaching troops, or it may mean preparations for 
 exploding mines. However, if they are anxious to 
 make peace, they will not want to do any more such 
 work. 
 
 August 8. It is just seven weeks today since we 
 entered this Legation, and we do not yet hear the 
 coming troops, though the Chinese report that all 
 soldiers are sent from the city excepting five bat- 
 talions of Jung Lu's, to meet the foreign troops. 
 Rumor says that the messenger learned that the 
 troops are fourteen miles away.
 
 270 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 Footsteps in the western ruins alarmed our Brit- 
 ish marines, and they fired the Nordenfelt gun. 
 Shots were exchanged now and then all day. One 
 of them struck near me. 
 
 August 9. A soldier talking with one of the 
 Japanese, asked if we had sent out a messenger 
 with a note in an umbrella handle. The question 
 gives color to his statement that such a messenger 
 had been captured by Chinese troops and had 
 turned Boxer. Such a messenger tried to get out 
 July 26 over the wall, and afterward by another 
 route, and was finally taken out by two coolies who 
 received ten dollars for the conduct of the messen- 
 ger beyond the troops, after they had brought 
 back a piece of jewelry which was agreed upon as 
 a token of successful exit. They say that the let- 
 ter in an umbrella handle was a decoy. Important 
 letters were hidden elsewhere upon the person of 
 the messenger. 
 
 Mr. Gamewell received a letter from Captain von 
 Strauch saying that the Chinese were digging be- 
 yond our barricade in Mongol Market, and asking 
 him to come and see what could be done about 
 chasing them out. The captain had gone into the 
 Russian Legation and there obtained a view of the 
 Chinese at work under our wall. After Mr. Game- 
 well went over, Captain von Strauch cleared the Chi- 
 nese out. Mr. Dupree crept through a hole into the 
 ditch and found a bag of powder and a fuse, which 
 he brought back with him. 
 
 August 10. This morning about three o'clock
 
 HER STORY OF THE SIEGE 271 
 
 there was hard fighting for half an hour, with much 
 firing quite like that on the first days. We heard 
 shots against our east wall and crash of glass from 
 the skylight in the back corridor. Captain von 
 Strauch told Mr. Gamewell this morning that Mr. 
 Dupree at about 5:30 A. M. crept again into the 
 Chinese ditch beyond our barricade to hear what 
 was going on. He heard a Boxer leader make a 
 speech and say in effect: "There are only a few 
 foreign devils in that place, and we must take it." 
 Then they began to come out. Four Boxers ap- 
 peared. Then the sergeant, knowing that Mr. 
 Dupree was in the ditch, thought it time to shoot, 
 and not wait for him to appear. Accordingly, he 
 gave the order, and the soldiers fired. They killed 
 one man and brought his sword. This incident set 
 the barricades on the west ablaze with fire. Those 
 on the north and northeast soon followed; and so 
 we had a fierce half hour, similar to that that pre- 
 ceded July 14, when proposals to stop shooting 
 came in. 
 
 Occasional shots came in all day. Mr. Pethick 
 says the increased firing by the Chinese indicates the 
 approach of our troops. Last Sunda}', August 5, 
 Mr. Hobart addressed all orur Chinese church mem- 
 bers on the subject of loot, and called on them to 
 deliver to a committee all valuable articles taken 
 from Chinese premises. A large trunk full of ele- 
 gant garments has been brought in, and more than 
 fifty taels in silver. 
 
 On Monday a messenger to the army went by the
 
 272 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 way of Tung Chou. He found his house destroyed 
 and members of his family slain. Some had been 
 cared for by heathen and saved. He met boat loads 
 of wounded and defeated Chinese troops near 
 Hsiang Ho. He met the advance guard of the re- 
 lief army at T'sai T'sun on Wednesday. He 
 marched with the middle column to a point six 
 miles south of Ho Hsi Wu, on Thursday p. M. 
 He left the army there and came to Peking by a 
 road west of them. The army has few Chinese 
 servants. They have pack mules, led mostly by 
 Japanese. He saw Russians and mounted Bengal 
 troops. 
 
 This despatch from General Gaselee was posted 
 by Sir Claude MacDonald: "Strong force of allies 
 advancing. Twice defeated enemy. Keep up your 
 spirits. August 10, 1900, south of T'sai T'sun." 
 
 Another from General Fukushima to Colonel 
 Shiba was dated, "Camp at Chang Chiang, fifteen 
 miles north of T'sai T'sun. August 8, 1900. Jap- 
 anese and American troops defeated the enemy on 
 the fifth instant near Pel T'sang, and occupied 
 Yang T'sun on the sixth." 
 
 On August 11 the following was posted: "The 
 allied forces consisting of Americans, British, and 
 Russians left Yang T'sun this morning (8th) and 
 while marching north I received your letter at 8 
 A. M. at a village called Nan T'sai T'sun. It is 
 very gratifying to learn from your letter that the 
 foreign community at Peking is holding on, and 
 believe me, it is the earnest desire of the Lieutenant-
 
 HER STORY OF THE SIEGE 273 
 
 General and all of us to arrive at Peking as soon 
 as possible, and deliver you from your perilous posi- 
 tion. Unless some unforeseen event takes place, the 
 allied forces will be at Ho Hsi Wu on the 9th, at 
 Ma Tou on the 10th, at Chang Cliia Wan on the 
 llth, Tung Chou the 12th, and possibly arrive at 
 Peking on the 13th or 14th, Monday or Tuesday." 
 
 August 12, Sunday. There was violent firing 
 early in the night. In the midst was heard a curi- 
 ous whistling that was not, however, distinct enough 
 for us to determine what it was. Then followed 
 unmistakable cheers, and the firing stopped at once. 
 Miss Dr. Gloss and I scurried into our clothing and 
 issued into the court to find news. Later we heard 
 that the Japanese whistled with their fingers in 
 their mouths, and the Italians cried, "Bravo, 
 bravo!" At any rate, the triumphant cheer pro- 
 duced silence. Perhaps the enemy thought that the 
 troops had arrived; perhaps their superstitions 
 supplied fearful possibilities from foreigners. 
 
 A French marine was killed, a German wounded, 
 and a Russian slightly wounded but not brought 
 to the hospital. A Frenchman who was injured 
 by the accidental discharge of a gun, died, also a 
 Russian. A French captain was killed about six 
 
 P. M. 
 
 August 13. Violent firing began again about 
 noon, and continued with brief intervals all through 
 the afternoon and night. A note came from Cap- 
 tain Hall to Mr. Squiers in the morning, reporting 
 that the Chinese were leaving the city by the Ch'ien
 
 274 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 Mn. He had counted five hundred in the first de- 
 tachment, and a few more than five hundred had left 
 shortly after. In the evening a thousand left the 
 Ch'ien Men at full gallop, going south. A large 
 number of men were seen coming in on the west, and 
 the Chinese there were much bolder about exposing 
 themselves to our fire. Twenty were killed during 
 the day. 
 
 This is the -first day mentioned by the Japanese 
 general as the date of possible arrival in Peking! 
 
 Persistent firing all night. Almost no sleep until 
 daylight. Some did not sleep then. A bullet came 
 into our east door. Entering the northeast window, 
 it struck at an angle the opposite wall and carried 
 a pattie of pulverized plaster back to the east wall, 
 a few feet from the window at which it entered, and 
 then struck the floor not far from the head of Mrs. 
 Brent's bed. 
 
 The rifle fire did more damage to fortifications 
 than any heretofore directed against the English 
 Legation. Rifles carry bullets that penetrate very 
 thick walls. Our Nordenfelt gun and the Aus- 
 trian machine gun both on the west, the former on 
 its stand and the latter in the second floor of stable 
 court house, all ready in case the Chinese should, 
 at last, make a rush. The din of musketry made 
 it impossible for us who slept in the ballroom to 
 hear what might be going on at the west where the 
 rush would come from if made at all. About 
 twelve midnight Mr. Gamewell came over to say 
 that the attack was the same as of old. The Chinese
 
 HER STORY OF THE SIEGE 275 
 
 were not coming from cover, but at their barricades 
 on all sides, were pouring in rifle fire. Bullets 
 knocked tiles and bricks from roof into our court, 
 gullets struck the church gable, making many dents 
 in proximity to the stone cross on top of the gable. 
 No doubt the fire was aimed at the cross. 
 
 Marvelous but true: not one person wounded 
 through the night, yet up to 10 p. M. Mr. Game- 
 well and Chinese worked on barricades, and many 
 others were about. 
 
 After weeks of hardship, hard work and brave 
 holding on, the marines are entrenched in a place 
 of great strength: walls, ten feet and more thick, 
 trenches one hundred and fifty yards long connect- 
 ing barricades at east and west extremities ; three 
 bastions outlook at the ramps, and the ramps so 
 fortified as to make passage up and down safe. 
 One cannot but wonder at the fortitude of those 
 who held the wall in the days before these safe- 
 guards were completed days when men passed up 
 and down under fire and crept from point to point 
 behind insufficient barriers. Captain Myers's 
 charge, for taking the Chinese barrier on the city 
 wall, in order to enable our men to hold their place 
 on the wall, was one of the most brilliant events of 
 the siege. The charge was made by the American 
 marines, aided by the British and Russians. 
 
 Telegrams from Chefoo, Shanghai, and Hankow 
 saying "All right" in those places. 
 
 French sent asking yamcn to let a messenger 
 go to Pci T'ang (Catholic cathedral). A reply
 
 276 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 came saying Impossible tor send messenger to Pei 
 T'ang, for there are foreign troops there, and they 
 would kill the messenger; that they cannot open 
 market for us, because our people fire upon those 
 who bring articles for sale; that these nightly at- 
 tacks are caused by Christians firing upon Chinese 
 troops. They begin the firing. 
 
 A message came from yamen saying that they 
 were busy and could not come, according to their 
 suggestion, and consult about stopping the shoot- 
 ing; besides, our men had shot and killed one 
 of their officers, and killed and wounded 
 twenty-six men, and we should see to restraining 
 our men. 
 
 August 14. Firing continued from eight in the 
 evening without intermission except the briefest. 
 The machine guns on the west, Colt's Automatic, at 
 the Canal fort, were fired frequently during the 
 night. About 3 A. M. Mr. Gamewell came to say 
 that the troops were really at hand. Gentlemen 
 gathered at the church where the ladies treated them 
 to cocoa and ccrffee. General rejoicing in our room 
 (ballroom), but I was the only one who got up and 
 dressed. I did not know of company at church. 
 We talked and were full of good cheer in spite of 
 bullets. However, the firing became less fierce after 
 the foreign artillery was unmistakable. They say 
 the Chinese gathered in a mass on the west and 
 seemed to be trying to pluck up courage to make a 
 rush, but after firing two or more hours, scattered 
 to usual positions. The leaders exhorted "Pu p'a,
 
 HER STORY OF THE SIEGE 277 
 
 Kuo-ch'ii," "Kuo pu ch'ii." ("Don't be afraid.' 
 Go on across." "We can't get across." ) 
 
 No doubt the presence of the fearful machine 
 guns on the west did much, if not everything, to 
 restrain the Chinese from rushing. Mitchell, an 
 American gunner, was badly wounded sitting be- 
 hind "Betsy," the international gun, exposed to fire 
 through the porthole made for the gun. A shell 
 exploded in Sir Claude's bedroom. The buildings 
 along the west are badly shattered by the firing. 
 The Chinese are giving the worst they are capable 
 of in these final hours possibly days. The troops 
 are supposed to be the advanced guard, in which 
 case they will wait for the main army and we can- 
 not tell when we shall see them. 
 
 A German marine recently discharged from hos- 
 pital was killed last night, August 13. The Japan- 
 ese doctor was wounded. Mitchell's arm was shat- 
 tered, and may be amputated. Man beside him 
 scratched by fragment of same shot. 
 
 August 14, noon. Heavy artillery at Chi H'ua 
 Gate. Men on wall watch shells breaking over gate 
 tower. Troops by thousands moving west. Some 
 think our troops are surrounding the city. 
 
 August 14, 2 :30 p. M. I was stitching sandbags 
 on Mrs. Douw's sewing machine when there came 
 a sound of running and of voices, calling. We ran 
 out and soon saw the turbancd heads of India 
 troops. On they came through the south gate, 
 shouting, glad to be the first, and who can tell how 
 glad we were to see them ! On they came up
 
 278 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 through the water gate almost on the run. First 
 the turbaned Sikh warriors led by British officers, 
 then the helmeted British, and last our boys with 
 slouch hats and such pitifully haggard faces. We 
 cheered and waved and wiped our eyes. 
 
 The Chinese opened a furious fire. It seemed as 
 if they could not know that the troops had arrived. 
 A Sikh who went to the gate to fire the Colt gun 
 was wounded in the face, and later on a United 
 States marine also was wounded. Our deliverers 
 had heard firing as far away as Tung Chou, four- 
 teen miles east of Peking, and thus knew for the 
 first time that we were still alive; but still feared 
 that they might be too late. They were hollow- 
 eyed and haggard from rapid marching and re- 
 peated hard fighting. 
 
 My heart throbbed with the sense of gratitude, 
 admiration, and devotion as we greeted the heroes 
 who came to our deliverance. There was, however, 
 a cold clutch on the thrilling gladness when I was 
 reminded of the soldiers, the missionaries, the 
 native converts, and others who were not. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Gamewell had engaged passage 
 to the United States several months before the 
 siege, and had planned to leave Peking the day 
 communication with the outside world was de- 
 stroyed. They returned to the United States soon 
 after the relief of the Legations. The following 
 appears in Mrs. Gamewell's notes : 
 
 August 22, 1900. Barricades prevented wagons
 
 HER STORY OF THE SIEGE 279 
 
 from coming to the English Legation to get us and 
 our baggage, so we started from the American Le- 
 gation. Mrs. Squiers, who gave us lunch on the 
 day of our entrance on the Legation premises, was 
 ready with lunch and hot coffee on this day of our 
 departure. About eighteen wagons drove to the 
 Legation gate, and our party in groups of three 
 and five were deposited with our baggage by turns 
 in huge army wagons drawn each by four army 
 mules. Seated on our trunks, we started on onr 
 way, speeded by those who remain for further de- 
 velopments. Through the ruins about the Ch'ien 
 Men, or Front Gate, we were watched by men from 
 the Philippines with home hunger in their eyes. 
 We went on through the east gate where the Rus- 
 sian flag was flying, down through the premises of 
 the North China College at Tung Chow, with no 
 vestiges of outside walls or of houses left. At 
 Tung Chow we took boats for Tientsin. The boats 
 got off about sunset. It rained a large part of the 
 night. The boats stuck in the mud and listed so 
 that water ran in and soaked parts of our beds. 
 The boats were large rice boats and slow to move 
 through the shallow waters. 
 
 Saturday, August 25, 1900. Arrived at Tientsin 
 about noon. A big mast gave way, caused by 
 bumping into something, and fell, barely escaping 
 crushing us. The poor corporal in charge was 
 dreadfully distressed, because it crushed the rudder 
 and he had to put in at the British Consulate. 
 
 A member of the Methodist New Connection
 
 280 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 Mission was at Wei Hai Wei when news of the 
 relief of Peking arrived. A small vessel came into 
 the harbor at Wei Hai Wei and flew the signal 
 "Peking relieved, Ministers safe," and repeated the 
 signal until it was taken up on shore ; and then hur- 
 ried off down the coast signaling wherever anxious 
 ones waited news from the army advancing to the 
 besieged capital. Men rushed out calling to one 
 another: "Peking relieved, Ministers safe." One 
 rushed to Mr. Headley's and shouted: "Peking 
 relieved, Ministers safe." Mr. Headley took his 
 hat and shouted : "Peking relieved, Ministers safe." 
 He met a friend and repeated the glad cry: "Pe- 
 king relieved, Ministers safe." His friend ejacu- 
 lated, "Good gracious! You don't say so," and 
 immediately ran off echoing: "Peking relieved, 
 Ministers safe." 
 
 From Tientsin Mr. and Mrs. Gamewell were 
 taken to Nagasaki, Japan, with many who had 
 passed through the siege, on the Peninsular and 
 Oriental steamship Ballarat, which had been im- 
 pressed by the British government as a troop ship. 
 From Nagasaki they went to Yokohama and Tokio 
 and in due time reached the United States. Mrs. 
 Gamewell's feelings about the changed condition 
 brought about by the siege in Peking and the events 
 of 1900 and the years following, are expressed in 
 the closing words of her booklet, China, Old and 
 New, the last words written by her for publication :
 
 HER STORY OF THE SIEGE 281 
 
 "The present crisis in China is a turning point 
 in the history of the world. English rule controls 
 the millions of India, and English and European 
 forces are supreme in Africa. But China is the one 
 great non-Christian empire of the earth, who flics 
 her own flag and rules her own people. If, with 
 her four hundred millions, she swings into line as 
 a military nation, without becoming Christian, she 
 will bring trouble to the Christian world. 
 
 "Selfish interests alone counsel prompt and gen- 
 erous action in China's behalf on the part of Chris- 
 tian nations. 
 
 "God has answered the prayer of the church by 
 his overruling, which lays China wide open for the 
 advance of the church. 
 
 "China calls across the water to us. 
 
 "By manifest providence God points the way 
 for us. 
 
 "Today is a day of supreme opportunity for 
 our nation and our church. 
 
 "It is a day of supreme responsibility as well. 
 If the church moves 'speedily and with large re- 
 sources' to meet its responsibilities, the cloud of 
 materialism already shadowing Japan shall be dissi- 
 pated, and can never drift thence to shadow our 
 own land. And our generation may see flying 
 above the dragon flag, the white pennant with its 
 sign of the all conquering cross of Christ."
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 CORONATION 
 
 Mrs. Gamewell was endowed with a remarkably 
 robust physical constitution, which in a normal 
 environment would have warranted a reasonable 
 expectation of an unusually long life. She also 
 had an equally healthy mind ; never given to mor- 
 bidity, never distrusting her convictions, never 
 allowing her aspirations to float away into vague 
 ideals which she could not reduce to practical meth- 
 ods. Her poetic dreams were kept sane by the 
 necessity of constant action. Furthermore, her 
 spiritual life was of the most healthful type. Her 
 letters and diaries never reveal any morbid intro- 
 spection. If she was ever given to microscopical 
 and chemical examination of her soul life, she never 
 exposed it to others. Her faith in the presence of 
 God, and his superintending will in all the events 
 of her life, was absolute. It covered all her think- 
 ing and gave character to all her deeds. She was 
 not haunted by foreboding fears or unduly dis- 
 tressed by the miscarriage of her plans. She not 
 only believed in the promise of the risen Christ to 
 those who carry the gospel to the end of the world, 
 "Lo I am with you alway," but she realized it. 
 
 ^
 
 CORONATION 283 
 
 This consciousness of the presence of the living 
 Christ was the secret of her calm in stressful hours 
 and the occasion of her fiery enthusiasm when ex- 
 ceptional energy was required. 
 
 There can be no doubt that it was this perfect 
 health of her mind and spirit that resisted for many 
 years the deadly sanitary conditions in which she 
 was compelled to live. By the fullness and might 
 of her inward health she cast off poisons and walked 
 as with a charmed life amid infections that other- 
 wise would have early wrecked her nervous energies. 
 It was truly her faith that enabled her "to tread on 
 serpents and scorpions, and to drink the deadly 
 thing and not be hurt by it." 
 
 But only one robed in immortality could forever 
 withstand the poisonous shafts that pierced her 
 mortal flesh. The air she breathed was nauseating 
 with the odors of decay, and thick with dust that 
 carried the pestilence that walketh by day. When 
 at home her outlook was bounded by the brick walls 
 of the Mission compound. When she stepped out 
 of its gates she moved into that awful spirit of 
 heathendom, which is impossible to define but is so 
 oppressively real. Then her mission brought her 
 in daily contact with unhappincss, pain, and sin 
 which she was helpless to relieve. She witnessed 
 oppression and vice in dreadful forms, and knew 
 that the only hope of recovery was in the Christ 
 whom these people rejected. It would require 
 nerves of steel and a heart of stone to endure this 
 day by day without breaking. To have gone to
 
 284 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 the stake would have been an easy task. But her 
 life was being consumed by slow fires. 
 
 An anaemic condition made her work at times very 
 exhausting and occasionally threatened serious con- 
 sequences. It was decided that she should return 
 to the United States for special medical treatment 
 and for a period of rest. But before she could 
 complete her arrangements, the siege occurred and 
 she was compelled to witness the obliteration of 
 every material result of all her years of toil in 
 North China, just as several years before, she had 
 seen it wiped out in West China. After this came 
 the horror of those eight long weeks of siege in the 
 British Legation. There is a point when the strain 
 will break the strongest cable, and it is a wonder 
 that her heroic spirit did not succumb at that time. 
 But August 1 4 brought relief, and eight days later 
 Mrs. Gamewell left the city never to return. 
 
 After Mr. and Mrs. Gamewell had come to Amer- 
 ica, her health seemed to improve, and they planned, 
 as soon as the way opened, to return to their work 
 in China, even going so far as to purchase furni- 
 ture and books, and packing them for shipping. 
 But in every instance, just before fixing the time, 
 there would occur some threatening symptoms in 
 her condition which compelled the postponement of 
 the date. 
 
 In the meanwhile Mr. Gamewell was appointed by 
 the Missionary Board of the Methodist Episcopal 
 Church as Field Secretary and afterward Executive 
 Secretary of the Open Door Commission, having his
 
 CORONATION 285 
 
 office in New York city. During the greater part 
 of their time he and Mrs. Gamewell made their home 
 with his sister, Mrs. A. H. Tuttle, Summit, New 
 Jersey. 
 
 During these years of enfeebled health, Mrs. 
 Gamewell was indefatigable in labor. While she 
 conscientiously followed the counsel of her medical 
 advisers, and at one time spent nearly an entire 
 year in retirement under treatment in a sanitarium, 
 her unimpaired spiritual force made it impossible 
 for her to be idle. It is astonishing what an enor- 
 mous amount of work this brave woman did after 
 her return from China. 
 
 She was constantly traveling over the country, 
 addressing conventions and Conferences, organizing 
 auxiliaries, and striving by personal interviews to 
 awaken the people to an appreciation of the su- 
 preme importance of this hour in the redemption 
 of China. 
 
 And her skillful pen was ever busy. She wrote 
 a number of charming tracts on subjects relating 
 to the work of God in China. Two articles in The 
 Chautauquan entitled respectively, "From Sea to 
 Peking" and "Up the Yangtse to Thibet," are of 
 historical value. A booklet entitled China, New 
 and Old, reads like a romance and has had an im- 
 mense circulation. Her most elaborate work, on 
 which she was toiling when her pen fell from her 
 hand, is an account of the siege in Peking, pub- 
 lished in this volume. The story had been written 
 out from her notes and is published without 
 revision.
 
 286 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 The following extracts from personal letters to 
 friends give but a suggestion of the spirit of her 
 mind. They might well be called airelles, which are 
 flowers of Russia, the fruit of which is said to ripen 
 in October, but grows sweet only by lying under 
 the winter snow : 
 
 "A certain chord is audible in the soul of the 
 needy. Divine love and wish uniting with human 
 wish and prayer makes the harmony of chord that 
 alone can reach the other soul. So God must have 
 human fitness in order to reach other human need." 
 
 "I suppose torn and threadbare linen would 
 make, in the hands of the manufacturer, as fine a 
 piece of paper as right new linen. So a torn and 
 damaged life left in His hands, may come forth 
 at last a fair, clear page on which beautiful things 
 may yet be written." 
 
 "You still cling to some idea of your own fitness, 
 and having missed the fitness you might have had, 
 you think God's perfect work cannot be done in 
 your character. The fact is that if your life had, 
 from the beginning, been perfect, it would count 
 nothing as fitness. It is loyalty, love, adoration 
 that throws all at his feet with never a thought 
 of self, fit or unfit, full of absorbing thought of
 
 CORONATION 287 
 
 him and outgoing to him only these that count 
 fitness. The bigger the failure of the life cast at 
 his feet has been the more intense the rapture be- 
 fore the presence of the divine Master." 
 
 "It seems a small thing to trust the outcome of 
 the greatest issues of our day to Him whose love 
 and power are so mighty as compared with any 
 force that this world can produce to try His might. 
 And it seems a great thing to rest our little cares 
 upon One whose love and infinite wisdom guides 
 systems of worlds in their courses as easily as He 
 guides our lives through their little rounds." 
 
 "The story of the man who was blind from his 
 birth is one of the sweetest in the Bible (John 9. 
 1-38). 
 
 "He was loyal to Him who cured his blindness 
 though he did not know who He was, and though 
 learned men denounced 'the man called Jesus,' the 
 ignorant beggar, full of loyalty, said: 'He is a 
 prophet.' Though his parents feared, he stood 
 firm and suffered the worst that a Jew could bear. 
 'They cast him out.' Then 'Jesus heard, Jesus 
 found him,' and then followed that tender dialogue, 
 and the loyal heart of the beggar bowed in adora- 
 tion before his Lord. Direct, loyal, true, knowing 
 only that the good done to him could not have been 
 done by a bad man, he stood firmly by that truth, 
 and the result was that Jesus found him, came to 
 him, and the ignorant beggar gloried in a revela-
 
 288 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 tion that the learned could not receive. I almost 
 imagine I see the depth of tenderness in Christ's 
 face when he looked on one so lowly who had been 
 'faithful over a few things, 5 faithful to his limited 
 revelation, and so made the recipient of a fuller 
 revelation." 
 
 "On the whole, a tree is the most sympathetic 
 object in nature, not so awfully set as the moun- 
 tains, not so fickle and treacherous as the sea, more 
 substantial than the clouds, not so perishable as the 
 grass and flowers always there, steadfast and 
 strong, with its shifting lights and shadows, soft 
 sighing or brisk tossing, or drenched brightness, 
 seeming to enter into every mood of its friends. It 
 sighs sympathy, whispers peace, murmurs comfort, 
 waves refreshment, or shouts exhilaratingly, ac- 
 cording to whether the breeze be gentle or high, 
 whether the day be bright or dripping." 
 
 "Come out among the flowers and sunshine of 
 Christ's spiritual garden, full of the beauty of his 
 presence, quivering with inspiration from heaven. 
 The soul walking there, listening for the voice of 
 the Master, forgets the worm, self, that crawls, 
 perhaps, across his path. It does not occur to him 
 that it is worth while to him even to step and crush 
 the little creature, but with a smile of pity he leaves 
 it crawling there and goes his way full of the Mas-
 
 CORONATION 289 
 
 ter's commission. Self dies while the soul works 
 for other souls. 
 
 "I believe we must leave the killing of self to the 
 Master. If we undertake the work, we shall do mis- 
 chief, and perhaps bring our own souls into spir- 
 itual ill health, if not our minds into unstable 
 equilibrium." 
 
 "Talents may be revelations of truth as well as 
 powers of mind or body. Indeed, I think such an 
 interpretation floods the parable of the talents with 
 meaning and inspiration. Read the story of the 
 blind man (John 9. 1-35) and the parable of the 
 talents (Matt. 25. 14-30) together and see if you 
 do not agree with me. Do you not see that using 
 one truth helps to the understanding of a deeper 
 truth? And so knowledge unto everyone that 
 hath shall be given, but from him that hath not 
 shall be taken away even that which he hath." 
 
 "When another looks through the bent, unlovely 
 life and says in effect, 'I know your ideals are high 
 and true, I know you try for the best only,' one 
 forgets the pain of her own unloveliness in the sweet 
 sense of comradeship in the presence of a kindred 
 spirit. It is by the spirit that one apprehends the 
 life of another. And such recognition gives cour- 
 age in the assurance that one is on the right road, 
 that God is with us both. If he is there, our failure 
 shall come out his success."
 
 290 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 Written on a trans-Pacific steamer: 
 "A violin is wailing its heartbreaking strains to 
 the accompaniment of a piano. The strains come 
 to me from below mingled with the sound of the 
 sea that is like the sound of a steady wind moving 
 in the top of a forest man's heartbreak mingled 
 with the meanings of the Infinite and in harmony 
 with his purposes of love." 
 
 While at the seashore : 
 
 "I was out morning and night to see the high 
 tides that roared as they plunged landward, bound- 
 ing and retreating. A storm at sea made grandeur 
 for us here. I have been bursting happy as I faced 
 the great sea and its powerful, surging waves, and 
 listened to the deep, deep roar coming from far 
 out until it broke in a crash at my feet. No amount 
 of rain could dampen my exalted spirits." 
 
 "A flight of birds swept up from the plain joy- 
 ous wanderers of the air, circling near at hand. 
 In a twinkling they vanish, like a picture washed 
 from the slate. Where did they go? They went 
 not. They are still there, skimming and flying, 
 rising, falling, sailing, full of grace and exquisite 
 charm. But you saw them against the background 
 of sky. A mountain arose between the flight and 
 the sky and its earthly hue absorbs the vision ; but 
 they are there still circling in the clear air, only the 
 eye cannot discern them because the bright back- 
 ground of sky is changed for one of earth."
 
 CORONATION 291 
 
 "It is only ourselves who prevent the accomplish- 
 ment of anything the Lord gives us to do. He is 
 infinitely more interested than we in bringing about 
 results. Therefore we need to merge our will in 
 his." 
 
 "In John 15. 7, we are taught how to realize large 
 answers to our prayers. We must remember the 
 twofold condition the Lord here lays down: we in 
 him and his word in us. Love and Right. Let 
 our personal wish be lost in his word of Truth, and 
 our will be directed by personal love for him : then 
 'ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto 
 you.' " 
 
 "The only danger is that one's will becomes 
 weakened and his ideas warped by thinking too 
 much without wholesome food for thought think- 
 ing that becomes brooding. Thinking of one's 
 temptation and weakness overmuch makes one an 
 easier victim next time. If you wish to banish 
 wrong thoughts, apply the mind to good thoughts. 
 Let it run into a train of thoughts started by some 
 author, or seek the company of someone who can 
 help thought." 
 
 "Learn to await God's time, to walk in his way. 
 Be sure if, after you have looked to him, the way is
 
 292 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 thoroughly closed, he does not want you there, at 
 least not then." 
 
 "To young people amid careless life, happy life, 
 times of unrest and aspiration, longings and yearn- 
 ings unutterable stir within. Trust the stirring 
 within. It is the voice of God. It is your title to 
 heaven. You may not interpret into action just as 
 God intends, but trust and go ahead. God will see 
 that you go right. You may hear a voice saying, 
 'Come up higher, higher to the heights,' and you 
 see looming before you magnificent heights, and it 
 seems to you all glorious. You seek the way up and 
 find that you only go down. A voice says, 'Come 
 up.' Your footsteps seem forced downward. It 
 seems as if the voice was of the imagination and 
 that God mocks. Trust if for no other reason than 
 because for you there is no other better than that 
 same voice. Trust even though the way seems 
 down. Trust and God will take you over only what 
 will prove to be a valley between you and the real 
 upward way perhaps the valley of humiliation 
 which skirts the mountains of God. Trust and you 
 shall stand upon heights glorious with the glory of 
 God, so high above your own interpretation of 
 God's will and ways that your own interpretation 
 has sunk out of sight in the prospect that spreads 
 below, as the hills are hidden and are lost from the 
 mountaintop." 
 
 It is a delicate thing to attempt to sketch the
 
 CORONATION 293 
 
 inner life of one so far removed from the average 
 soul as hers. We can set our camera, but when we 
 have finished the picture it is only a photogravure as 
 unlike the radiant original as is the frontispiece of 
 this book. We can paint the form and suggest the 
 color of the violet, but what brush can paint its 
 fragrance? Her religious life even where it resem- 
 bles others' was original the product not of the 
 stencil plate, but a free-hand drawing, having an 
 incidence of light, a sentiment, a touch which no 
 artist can exactly reproduce. Her religion, though 
 having a form, was a life. 
 
 One of its elements was its strength. Her faith 
 was more than a pious feeling ; it was a conviction, 
 deep rooted in doctrine, fact, and experience. 
 While she had no patience with speculative discus- 
 sions of truth that aimed at no practical end, she 
 was herself fond of searching the inner depths of 
 those great Bible doctrines for which the evangelical 
 church stands. Many a time when our conversation 
 led to these fundamentals of saving truths, we have 
 been startled not only by the clearness of her appre- 
 hension of them but also by the way in which she 
 massed the reasons for them. And they stood in 
 her mind related, coordinated, a complete system. 
 
 This wealth of conviction was not wholly, or even 
 chiefly, intellectual. She had a feminine intuition ; 
 her insight was keen and her outlook was clear. 
 What she perceived to be true, her heart appropri- 
 ated with absorbing love, and she at once sought to 
 work it into practical life. The daily necessities
 
 294 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 of her earnest work in China made it impossible for 
 her to confound clear thinking with the joy of 
 truth, or to mistake pious feelings for the bloom of 
 character. To her feeling was a force to impel to 
 action a force which would really weaken the soul 
 unless it was spent in some useful work. 
 
 These were the features of her spiritual life that 
 most impressed those who were associated with her 
 in daily work strength of conviction and an in- 
 vincible energy in turning every force to practical 
 ends. A friend -once remarked to her that this was 
 the secret of the vigorous healthful tone of her in- 
 terior life, and her reply was deep with significance : 
 "Just the reverse. It is the inner life that explains 
 the outer." She had deep aspirations for the 
 divine, and gave herself to earnest struggle for its 
 attainment by prayer, meditation, and self-sacrifice. 
 The "open reward" which we observed had its 
 spring in the closet with the "closed door." Hers 
 was a spirituality which under different conditions 
 would have made her a mystic of the Fletcher or 
 Madam Guyon type. 
 
 In the spring of 1894 she came into an experi- 
 ence which she declared was something more than 
 the natural unfolding of her spiritual life. It 
 was a crisis, radical and far reaching. It illumi- 
 nated and vitalized all she had before, and put new 
 significance into all that came after. She gave it 
 no name, only it was manifested in her conscious- 
 ness by a profound sense of the abiding presence of 
 the personal Saviour. It was the raising of her
 
 CORONATION 295 
 
 affections to the height of a holy and self-renounc- 
 ing enthusiasm, together with an absolute rest in the 
 sovereign will of Him who enfolded her her work 
 and all things else besides and a perfect relief 
 from all sense of bondage in every service however 
 laborious, exacting, costly, or self-denying it might 
 be. She rarely spoke of this experience in any 
 detail, knowing full well that it would not be under- 
 stood. But in trying to help one very dear to her 
 through a spiritual crisis she wrote the following 
 letter: 
 
 "Let me tell you about something that has come 
 to me. For years I have loved goodness because 
 goodness is a lovely thing. I have tried to be good. 
 Later on I more and more tried to let Christ make 
 me good. Still later I came to know that all good- 
 ness is in Christ and that we can be good only in 
 the degree that we let Christ live in us. 
 
 "As the years passed I began to forget myself 
 some and to be more constantly concerned for 
 others, for their own sakes and for Christ's sake. 
 Lately I have felt that I would give my life to see 
 accomplished my desires for certain ones dear to 
 me. But my prayers seemed thwarted. The oppo- 
 site of my desires seemed to develop. I myself 
 came to feel more and more helpless, as if I did not 
 know what to pray for, how to live, what choices 
 to make, or anything else. One day, consumed by 
 a feeling of helplessness, knowing God is true and 
 right, I succumbed before a sense of helpless mis- 
 cry. With no desire but to know and do his will
 
 296 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 and to be a help to others, I seemed only to mistake 
 as to what his will was, and to hinder others. 
 Tired, undone, knowing Christ was near, but get- 
 ting no comfort from the knowledge, I sat weighted 
 and dully wondered how I should ever stand or go. 
 My misery had begun in anxiety for others, turned 
 to misery because my effort to help failed, and 
 seemed to fail because of something wrong in me, 
 and I could not see where the wrong was, and I was 
 so tired it seemed as if I could not try any more. 
 Slowly my eyes had been opening, and now I saw 
 myself as I suppose the tender Father had seen me 
 all the time. The chilling, heavy clouds gathered 
 closer. I sat inert, every possibility of resistance 
 gone. The billows seemed to roll slowly over me 
 and roll back again. Wave after wave, with no 
 voice to cry, no prayer to offer. I sat still, I knew 
 too much of Christ's and of God's love to let doubt 
 enter to kill faith at this critical time. Somehow 
 I seemed to feel that my misery was a part of God's 
 working. So, beaten, undone, I was still, still be- 
 fore God empty, entirely empty. If any human 
 heart ever was empty, mine was then. 
 
 "Then what a strong, soft brooding Presence 
 enfolded me, lifted me steadily until I rested! 
 Tired and just as undone as before, I yet felt his 
 arms. Deep peace crept in strong waves through 
 my being. 'As one whom his mother comforted' I 
 rested, every care rolled off. I knew with deep 
 assurance, 'All is well.' Past and future he cares 
 for, my burden gone, entirely taken by him.
 
 CORONATION 297 
 
 Gracious and full of power, I felt I knew him. It 
 was the Lord! If you understand me, I dare say 
 / saw him! Since then everything has been dif- 
 ferent. It is so easy to cast my care upon him. 
 
 "There is a purpose in my telling you all this. 
 I think there is help for you in it. Ask God to 
 help you understand the meaning that my words 
 may not make clear. . . . About serving God: 
 total surrender is one condition. Believe his Word. 
 It is for you to will that you will trust him. When 
 you put yourself into his hands, and assert no 
 will of your own as to what he shall do with you, 
 then wait and trust ; he will empty and fill again. 
 He will show you by his spirit what to do and 
 how to do it." 
 
 Much of this was hers during all the previous 
 years of her religious life. Only the sense of the 
 divine presence could have sustained that habitual 
 cheerfulness and that triumphant hopefulness which 
 characterized her in the depressing environment in 
 which she toiled. Everyone associated with her 
 there remarked the triumphant temper of her mind. 
 She was an optimist both by nature and by grace. 
 The most troublesome problems which often per- 
 plexed the Mission, never for a moment clouded her 
 vision of the final outcome. She knew that the sove- 
 reign Will was holding its straight line through all 
 these complexities. She saw the horses and chariots 
 of God among the hills round about Dothan.
 
 298 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 It was a faith quickened by the indwelling Spirit 
 that explains her splendid hopefulness. She was 
 ever br-aad-minded, and studied events in their rela- 
 tion to the great world movements rather than from 
 the center of her own particular work. For this 
 reason she was never overmuch depressed when her 
 projects varied from the line she herself had plan- 
 ned. Their orbit, like those of the planets, varied 
 from the perfect ellipse because they were a part 
 of the universe order. For this reason also things 
 which from a narrow and selfish view seemed meager 
 and purposeless acquired for her an unspeakable 
 significance and grandeur because a part of that 
 everlasting universe in which God is sovereign. 
 
 We are inclined to think that that experience of 
 1894 was the rapid and consummate bloom of a 
 flower, every element of which had been pulsing in 
 the plant from bulb to bud. And that splendid 
 outburst meant the approach of the end. God 
 spared her long enough for us to see what such a 
 life as hers would produce a sweet memory and a 
 holy motive to similar consecration. 
 
 During the summer of 1906 symptoms of arterial 
 hardening appeared, and by the advice of an emi- 
 nent specialist, she was taken to a sanitarium for 
 treatment. But as she did not improve, it was 
 thought best for her to return to Summit, New 
 Jersey, where she could be near her physician and 
 have the loving ministries of her home. The arte- 
 rial hardening, however, was rapid in its progress 
 and attacked the cerebral vessels. While her mind
 
 CORONATION 299 
 
 was perfectly clear until a few weeks before the 
 end, a form of aphasia occurred in which it was im- 
 possible for her readily to command words. She 
 was thus prevented during eight long weeks of 
 confinement to the sick room from communicating 
 by speech with those who loved her, and who would 
 have prized words from her lips at such a time as 
 gems of incalculable value. But they were not 
 without communications from her, truer perhaps 
 and with larger revelations of her soul, because not 
 confined within the bounds of limiting speech. Her 
 spirit seeking expression, beamed in her counte- 
 nance with a luminosity that was not of this earth, 
 a solar light such as no artist could possibly paint 
 about the heads of his saints. There was a spiritual 
 communion in that sick chamber, akin to that which 
 a soul has with God, and as real. 
 
 By a happy providence there was granted an- 
 other means, and one akin to that we have just 
 mentioned, of learning her innermost mind as she 
 approached the end of her earthly career. Mr. 
 Gamewell had recently given her a new Bible in 
 which she had marked such passages as specially 
 appealed to her during her last months. Thus the 
 Word of God was the spoken word of her soul to 
 those who were dear to her. These marked pas- 
 sages indicated unmistakably that she anticipated 
 the near approach of this significant hour, and 
 that she was ready for it. They revealed her per- 
 fect confidence in her Saviour and her full assurance
 
 300 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 of victory. The following are selections, the ital- 
 icized words indicating her own underlining. 
 
 "Study to shew thyself approved unto God" 
 (2 Tim. 2. 15). 
 
 "Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good sol- 
 dier of Jesus Christ" (2 Tim. 2. 3). 
 
 "And whatsoever ye do m word or deed, do all 
 in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to 
 God and the Father by him" (Col. 3. 17). 
 
 "And whatsoever ye do, do IT HEARTILY AS TO 
 THE LORD, and not unto men; knowing that of the 
 Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance : 
 for ye serve the Lord Christ" (Col. 3. 23, 24). 
 
 "But my God shall supply all your needs accord- 
 ing to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus" (Phil. 
 4. 19). 
 
 "For thou hast been a strength to the poor, a 
 strength to the needy in his distress, a refuge from 
 the storm, a shadow from the heat, when the blast 
 from the terrible ones is as a storm against the 
 wall" (Isa.25. 4). 
 
 "Because they received not the LOVE OF THE 
 TRUTH, that they might be saved" (2 Thess. 2. 10). 
 
 "And the Lord direct your hearts into the love 
 of God, and into the patient waiting for Christ" 
 (2 Thess. 3. 5). 
 
 "Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts: for 
 the coming of the Lord draweth nigh" ( Jas. 5. 8). 
 
 "For ye have need of patience, that, after ye 
 have done the will of God, ye might receive the 
 promise" (Heb. 10. 36).
 
 CORONATION 301 
 
 "And when the chief Shepherd shall appear, ye 
 shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not 
 away" (1 Pet. 5. 4). 
 
 "And who is he that will harm you, if ye be fol- 
 lowers of that which is good?" (1 Pet. 3. 13). 
 
 "For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; 
 but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind" (2 
 Tim. 1. 7). 
 
 "For he looked for a city which hath founda- 
 tions, whose builder and maker is God" (Heb. 11. 
 10). 
 
 "And so much the more as ye see the day ap- 
 proaching" (Heb. 10. 25). 
 
 "Casting all your care upon him ; for he careth 
 f or you" (1 Pet. 5. 7). 
 
 "And this is the promise that he hath promised 
 us, even eternal life" (1 John 2. 25). 
 
 "For I know whom I have believed, and am per- 
 suaded that he is able to keep that which I have 
 committed unto him against that day" (2 Tim. 
 
 1. 12). 
 
 "And now, little children, abide in him; that, 
 when he shall appear, we may have confidence, and 
 not be ashamed before him at his coming" (1 John 
 
 2. 28). 
 
 "And this is life eternal, that they might know 
 thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom 
 thou hast sent" (John 17. 3). 
 
 "It is a faithful saying: For if we be dead with 
 him, we shall also live with him" (2 Tim. 2. 11 ). 
 
 "But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear
 
 303 MARY PORTER GAMEWELL 
 
 heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, 
 the things which God hath prepared for them that 
 love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by 
 his Spirit" (1 Cor. 2. 9, 10). 
 
 "And let the peace of God rule m your hearts, 
 to the which also ye are called in one body; and 
 be ye thankful" (Col. 3. 15). 
 
 "If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those 
 things which are above, where Christ sitteth at 
 the right hand of God. Set your affection on 
 things above, not on things on the earth" (Col. 3. 
 1,1). 
 
 "He will swallow up death m victory; and the 
 Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces" 
 (Isa. 25. 8). 
 
 "And in that day ye shall ask me nothing" (John 
 16. 23). 
 
 "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where 
 is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and 
 the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to 
 God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord 
 Jesus Christ" (1 Cor. 15. 55-57). On the margin 
 of this passage Mrs. Gamewell penned : "In life as 
 well as in death." 
 
 "Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, 
 unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the 
 Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labor is not 
 in vain in the Lord" (1 Cor. 15. 58). 
 
 Those who feel most keenly the sorrow of their 
 bereavement are sure that her final appeal to them 
 is, "Be ye steadfast, unmoveable, always abounding
 
 CORONATION 903 
 
 in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that 
 your labor is not in vain in the Lord." 
 
 On November 17 her last audible word was 
 spoken, and from that time she lingered either 
 fully or partially unconscious till November 27, 
 1906, when her spirit took its flight. 
 
 She has left a precious memory, a character beau- 
 tiful in its union of gentleness and strength, a life 
 great in courage and in entire consecration to 
 others' good, a reh'gion which has its full expres- 
 sion in the words she loved so well, "All for Jesus." 
 When we looked upon those still lips once so elo- 
 quent with the gospel message, it was borne in upon 
 our hearts that this is a part of the immense price 
 of China's redemption. 
 
 The funeral services were private, and were held 
 in the parsonage of the Methodist Episcopal 
 church in Summit, New Jersey, which had been her 
 home for several years, and where she died. The 
 services were conducted by Bishop E. G. Andrews 
 and Bishop J. W. Bashford. We reverently bore 
 the "sacred dust" to Fairmount Cemetery in Hack- 
 ensack, New Jersey, where Mr. Gamewell's kindred 
 are sepulchercd. Rev. G. M. Fowles read the ser- 
 vice at the grave, and we returned to our work feel- 
 ing that loyalty to her memory impelled us to a 
 larger devotion than ever to the cause to which 
 she had given her life. Already "the blood of the 
 martyrs is the seed of the church."
 
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