WILBUR J. cham: 
 
 iiiiiii
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 0¥ CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 IN MEMORY OF 
 
 CARROLL ALCOTT 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 CARROLL ALCOTT MEMORIAL 
 LIBRARY FUND COMMITTEE
 
 L
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 LETTERS OF 
 WILBUR J. CHAMBERLIN 
 
 WRITTEN FROM CHINA WHILE UNDER COMMISSION FROM 
 THE NEW YORK SUN DURING THE BOXER UPRISING 
 OF 1900 AND THE INTERNATIONAL COMPLI- 
 CATIONS WHICH FOLLOWED 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY 
 
 PUBLISHERS
 
 Copyright, 1903 
 By FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
 Publisbed in September, 1903
 
 C3S6 ^ ^ 
 
 To 
 
 the vast army of men unnamed who serve their, 
 
 country with pen and brain 
 no less truly and with no smaller share of heroism 
 than they who bear the country's colors into battle, 
 and 
 especially to the memory of three brothers wha 
 early spent themselves, and who, 
 in great crises, laid down their lives 
 in loyalty to duty, 
 this volume is dedicated in token of^ 
 deepest appreciation. 
 
 1520189
 
 EDITOR'S NOTE 
 
 In preparing for publication the letters which form the 
 contents of this book there has been no attempt to polish 
 or to make more readable the hastily written letters, in- 
 tended only for the entertainment of an indulgent family 
 and intimate friends. From the public, therefore, similar 
 indulgence is asked, since to many the frankness and 
 simplicity of the letters will constitute their greatest 
 charm. With few exceptions they are addressed to the 
 author's wife, and the superscription, also the most affec- 
 tionate and characteristic messages to family and friends 
 with which the letters uniformly close, are left to the 
 imagination of the reader. The letters cover a period 
 of just one year in the writer's life. 
 
 The object in publishing the material has been, not to 
 call attention to an individual as such, but to pay a well- 
 deserved tribute to his profession. If in any small degree 
 the self-portrayal of keen, honest, earnest, affectionate 
 character shall lead to a greater appreciation of the men 
 who travel far and wide, around the world if need be, at 
 the call of duty, equally alert and ready, whether to view 
 some splendid pageant or to face danger and sudden 
 death, the printing of these simple letters will be justified. 
 
 G. L. C.
 
 INTRODUCTORY NOTE 
 
 It is with a degree of emotion which might not be quite 
 understood by others, that I undertake the loving duty 
 of writing a few words of introduction to this most inter- 
 esting book. 
 
 It was my privilege to know Wilbur J. Chamberlin, the 
 author, in all his walks for many years. The familiar 
 days and nights spent with him on many a newspaper 
 field in the United States demonstrated his courageous, 
 tender, faithful, and truthful soul. Only those thus asso- 
 ciated with him could estimate his marvelous ability, or 
 speak of the esteem and fondness in which he was held 
 by newspaper men, statesmen, politicians, and all sorts 
 and conditions of public men. His career reflected credit 
 on his colleagues, whether on the Nczv York Sun or on 
 other newspapers. 
 
 This book is made up of Mr. Chamberlain's letters to 
 his wife and sister while at Peking and other cities in 
 China as the correspondent of the Nczu York Sim. They 
 breathe a humor distinctly his own; they attest uncon- 
 sciously his probity of purpose; and they give a faithful 
 and accurate insight into the everyday life and customs 
 of the people with whom he dwelt in the Chinese Empire 
 in the troublesome times which followed the Boxer insur- 
 rections. 
 
 The qualities which make this book valuable are 
 summed up in the editorial of the Nczv York Sun of Fri- 
 day, August i6, 1901, which said: 
 
 " Wilbur J. Chamberlin, who died on Wednesday at 
 Carlsbad, was one of the best reporters that ever served 
 this newspaper and its readers. 
 
 " His honesty of purpose, modest fidelity, clearness of 
 vision, and power of graphic and accurate narrative were 
 manifest in small things and in great; and the course of 
 his duty in the last years of his life brought him into the 
 
 yii
 
 viii INTRODUCTORY NOTE 
 
 presence of some of the most memorable happenings of 
 the world's recent history. 
 
 " Such men are the real historians. There is no higher 
 journalistic function than that which Mr. Chamberlin 
 performed for fourteen years on the Sim with entire 
 loyalty to his paper and to his own professional and per- 
 sonal honor." 
 
 Edward G. Riggs.
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 Sunday^ August 5, 1900, 
 
 It is Sunday morning now, about 10 o'clock, and I'm 
 speeding on toward Chicago. The railroad runs along- 
 side of Lake Erie, and I have been looking at the water 
 for an hour, thinking. We got into Cleveland this morn- 
 ing at 8 o'clock. I had been up for two hours. I had an 
 upper berth, and didn't sleep very well last night. We 
 took on a dining-car at Cleveland and I got the morning 
 papers there. I glanced over the China news at break- 
 fast, and I can tell you I wasn't at all happy at seeing it 
 so favorable. It is a paradox, of course, but the worse the 
 news is now the more favorable it is, for the reason that 
 the worse it is, the sooner the trouble will be over. 
 
 I have traveled so much on this railroad, by the way, 
 that the people know me. When I went into the dining- 
 car this morning, the conductor greeted me with a " Hello ! 
 Back again ? Where now ? " I told him I wasn't going 
 far this time — only to China — and he came very near fall- 
 ing through the floor. Then he said he was going to have 
 me leave with a good impression of him, anyway, and he 
 sent the best waiter to me and gave me the finest meal that 
 the car could put up. I had musk melon first, then some 
 broiled salt mackerel ; after that, broiled chops, poached 
 eggs on anchovy toast, pop-overs and corn-meal muffins, 
 creamed potatoes, and coffee. Pretty fair for a dining- 
 car, wasn't it? I'll have lunch on the same car at I 
 o'clock. Will be somewhere near Elkhart, Indiana, then. 
 
 I wonder how Billy is getting on, and if he has begun to 
 sing yet. I hope he has, and I hope that from now on he 
 .will do his best to cheer up the best little woman in the 
 ^vorld. 
 
 We are running into that hot wave out here. It was
 
 2 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 cool and nice last night, but this morning it began to get 
 hot as soon as we left Cleveland, and it's getting unen- 
 durable now. I guess I'll have a broiling trip through 
 the West. I hope I'm all right for a lower berth from 
 Chicago on, for I dread uppers in hot weather. 
 
 I expect to get into Omaha, Nebraska, to-morrow morn- 
 ing, and my next letter will be posted from there, probably. 
 You won't get it until two days after you get this, though. 
 You see, I'm traveling in one direction, and the letter has 
 to travel back over the same road. 
 
 Good-bye; stay outdoors as much as possible. Don't 
 worry, and don't let the children worry you. Tell them 
 papa hopes that this time when he gets back home he 
 will not have to do any scolding at all. 
 
 Monday Morning. 
 
 You will notice that I have changed my paper and hence 
 my train. I got to Chicago yesterday afternoon at 4.30 
 o'clock, on time to the minute, and two hours later I started 
 out in this train. I can tell you I wasn't sorry to leave 
 Chicago, either. The thermometer there stood at 102, 
 and it was one of the hottest days of the year. It was 
 broiling. 
 
 One of my fellow passengers on the train from New 
 York was a tall, thin young fellow whose face was familiar 
 to me, but I could not place him. We watched each other 
 all the way out to Chicago. I noticed that he had a sword 
 with the rest of his baggage, and made up my mind he 
 must be an army officer. So when we got to Chicago I 
 said to him, " Are not you one of General James H. Wil- 
 son's stafif?" 
 
 " At your service, sir," he said. 
 
 He turned out to be Major Ives, General Wilson's chief 
 surgeon and an old Santiago and Porto Rico friend of 
 mine. He remembered me as soon as I spoke. I had had 
 him on the boat in Cuba once or twice. He had orders 
 for China and had missed the boat General Wilson took. 
 He was mighty glad to see me and I was to see him, too, 
 for we were both lonesome. He had left his wife and 
 four children, and that made a bond between us. We sat 
 up till midnight, talking over old times.
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 3 
 
 Well, the train is coming into Omaha now, and I must 
 close this letter if I want to get it posted here. We have 
 been running through Illinois and Iowa all night and now 
 we are just on the border of Nebraska. The weather has 
 cooled off remarkably and it is almost comfortable. Don't 
 forget my numerous injunctions. Don't worry. Keep 
 out of doors all you can and never fail to excuse my writ- 
 ing in these blooming trains. They are worse in the 
 West than they are in the East, and if they keep get- 
 ting worse you will have nothing but hen-scratches 
 from me. 
 
 Palace Hotel, San Francisco, Cal., 
 
 Thursday Morning, August 9, 1900. 
 
 San Francisco at last. I thought I was never going 
 to get here. The last two days over the Rocky and the 
 Sierra Nevada Mountains were almost endless. I told 
 you in my letter Tuesday that if the travel got any 
 rougher you'd get nothing but chicken-scratches from me. 
 Well, chicken-scratching time came Wednesday, and I 
 simply could not write with all the jolting and shaking up 
 there was. The train never stopped long enough for 
 me to write more than a line, so I gave up the undertak- 
 ing, trusting that under the circumstances you would 
 forgive me. 
 
 I told you, I think, in Tuesday's letter that it was getting 
 cold. Well, about an hour after I wrote that, we ran 
 into a beautiful snowstorm. How is that for August 
 in the Rockies ? It didn't last long, and it was followed 
 by a ride through a country that, once seen, is not to be 
 forgotten. In the afternoon we passed Salt Lake. We 
 must have run along the shores of it for at least a hundred 
 miles, and all the time we were climbing the mountains 
 and getting higher and higher above the water. Follow- 
 ing that came the Great Salt Desert. You haven't the re- 
 motest idea what that is, and you could not have unless 
 you saw it with your own eyes — forty miles of absolutely 
 flat country, the ground dazzlingly white or dirty brown 
 by turns. There was not a living thing in sight — not a 
 bird, not a blade of grass — just barrenness. In the dis- 
 tance, surrounding it, were hills on which there was not a
 
 4 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 tree. When we got well into the desert the dust began 
 flying — the most penetrating dust you can imagine. The 
 cars had double windows and they were closed tight, but 
 the dust was driven in just the same, and the interior of 
 the cars was so thick with it that we almost choked. This 
 kept up all night. I went to bed in dust, and in the morn- 
 ing I had to dig myself out. That's no joke, either. You 
 actually could have shoveled it off the bedclothes. It 
 was about nine in the morning when we got out of the 
 dust belt, and we began to ascend the next range of 
 mountains, which are snow-capped. 
 
 I was severely rebuked about this time by one of the 
 brakemen on the train. I stood on the platform of the 
 dining-car, waiting for a chance to get inside, when right 
 near us loomed up a whale of a mountain. It looked to 
 me to be a million feet high, more or less, and I turned 
 to the brakeman who was standing there and said, " Can 
 you tell me what mountain that is? " He looked at me. 
 He started at my feet and carefully scanned me to my 
 head and then back again, the look of supreme disgust on 
 his face growing more pronounced every second. Finally 
 he said, " Come from the East, don't cha ? " 
 
 " Yes," I said. 
 
 " Thought so," said he. " That ain't no mountain ; 
 that's a foothill." 
 
 Of course all I could say was " Oh ! " 
 
 After we got out of the dust belt and began to climH 
 the second range of mountains, we ran into the most 
 marvelous lot of snowsheds you can imagine — forty miles 
 of them ! Think of forty miles of wooden sheds ! It was 
 like a tunnel forty miles long. After we got out of these, 
 though, the scenery was magnificent. At one place we 
 could look down a cafion, 5,000 feet below, and above, in 
 the distance, we counted eleven snow-capped peaks. 
 
 The ride through California was a ride through a gar- 
 den — miles and miles of peach, pear, apricot, and plum 
 orchards ; miles and miles of vineyards, and thousands 
 upon thousands of acres of wheat-fields. Our train was 
 two hours and a half late leaving Ogden, Utah. We 
 made up the whole of that coming through the mountain 
 deserts of Utah and Nevada, and got into San Francisco
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 5 
 
 practically on time. There was no mail out, so it was 
 useless to write you last night. I have seen nothing of 
 San Francisco yet, and so can tell you nothing about it, 
 except that it seems to be a pretty nice town. 
 
 I have read up on the China news, and to me the situa- 
 tion seems to be about the same as it was before I left 
 New York. It is not safe for me to turn back here, but 
 everything points to an early end of the trouble and my 
 turning back at Yokohama. If there is no change in the 
 situation I will be on my way there by the time you get 
 this letter. I will telegraph you the day I sail. From 
 now on until you receive further instructions you had 
 better address my letters, care of the Chartered ,Bank of 
 India, China and Australia, Yokohama, Japan. If noth- 
 ing happens I shall sail on the Peking, of the Pacific Mail 
 Steamship line, but you will know all this by telegraph 
 before you get this letter, so it is useless for me to tell you 
 here. 
 
 S. S. City of Peking, Monday, August 13, 1900. 
 I promised you in my letter yesterday that I would tell 
 you something about my fellow passengers in this packet 
 that is carrying me to the Far East by going west. There 
 is not a great deal to tell about them. We have about 
 seventy in the first cabin, of whom about seven or eight 
 are ladies. There is a Mr. A. and his wife; Mr. A., I 
 learned yesterday, is a friend of my friend Mr. Eddy, 
 whose letter to the Flint, Eddy & American Trading Co., 
 in Yokohama, I showed to you. A. is connected with 
 one of these concerns and is making his semi-annual trip 
 to Japan and China. He is taking his wife along for the 
 first time, though they have been married a long time. 
 They also have their daughter, a young girl, with them. 
 Mrs. A. and the girl are going to stay in Japan, while he 
 goes on to China and does the business that he has to 
 do. Another passenger is Lieutenant H., of the navy ; he 
 has orders to go to Hong Kong to join a ship, but he 
 doesn't know which ship. He was with Dewey at 
 Manila, and he knows D. of The Sun, whom I am going 
 to send home. The Lieutenant has a bulldog with him 
 for a mascot.
 
 6 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 Other passengers are sixteen contract doctors, with 
 orders to the Philippines or China. You know that in 
 our army we were short of regular doctors, and the govern- 
 ment offered to employ a certain number and give them 
 the rank of Lieutenant; all so employed are called con- 
 tract doctors. They get $1,500 a year. The sixteen 
 are of the lot ; they are most of them pretty nice 
 fellows ; but. Great Scott ! I'd hate to be hurt and have 
 one of them doctor me ; I think I'd feel better if I 
 doctored myself. Besides these doctors, there are two 
 others. Dr. S. and Dr. McW. from New York. They 
 are both of them hospital men, and they are going to 
 Hong Kong for service on the hospital ship Maine. The 
 Maine is the hospital ship that the American women fitted 
 out for service in the South African war. It has now 
 been sent to China, and they will join it there. They are 
 fine young fellows, and we have become quite friendly; 
 they insist that if I should ever get out of sorts in any 
 way, I must come straight to the Maine to brace up. I 
 don't suppose I ever shall see the Maine. Still it might 
 come in handy some day, and they are two good traveling 
 companions for the present at any rate. 
 
 Two other passengers are a French Count and his wife, 
 who has bleached blond hair, and who insists upon sing- 
 ing, though she can sing no better than I can myself. 
 She also plays the piano, but she knows how to do that, 
 so the passengers have forgiven her. The Count is an 
 image of the pictured Mephistopheles. He is tall and 
 thin, with a pointed beard that sticks straight out like that 
 of Carl Schurz. He seems to be all right, but he can't 
 talk English, so I haven't carried on any extended con- 
 versation with him yet. These are about the only interest- 
 ing passengers in the cabin, and I don't suppose that you 
 will be interested in reading about them, but on ship- 
 board things are monotonous and it is hard to find in- 
 teresting things to write about. Oh ! there is another 
 passenger ; his name is S., and he is a doctor, and he hasn't 
 left his cabin since the ship sailed from the dock at San 
 Francisco. He is homesick so badly that he is down in 
 bed. How is that for a doctor — sick in bed with home- 
 sickness? The Peking is sailing along at the rate of
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 7 
 
 thirteen miles an hour. She is not an Atlantic liner by 
 any means, but she is good and comfortable. 
 
 Now, I'll bid you good-by for another day, and will go 
 up on deck. It's getting very much warmer than it was, 
 and by to-morrow we expect to have typical tropical 
 weather. Quite a change from a snowstorm in the 
 Rockies ! 
 
 S. S. City of Peking, Wednesday, August 15, 1900. 
 
 Here is another day of the finest weather that the 
 weather man can shake out of the box, and though there 
 is nothing in sight but water, we are about four hundred 
 miles nearer land than we were yesterday. Yesterday 
 afternoon we passed the first ship that we had seen since 
 leaving San Francisco. It was the Hong Kong, of the 
 Japanese line. It was about 3 o'clock when it was 
 sighted, and the passengers all crowded on the starboard 
 rail and watched her until she had passed us and was out 
 of sight, in the direction of San Francisco. She was the 
 ship we expected to meet in the harbor of Honolulu, and 
 we expected to send back our mail on her, but we mis- 
 calculated, and it may be that now there will be a delay 
 of a day or two in Hawaii before a ship comes along to get 
 the mail. 
 
 We have had one death on board since we started. A 
 Chinamen in the steerage, died yesterday morning, of con- 
 sumption. He was sick when he came aboard, and it was 
 doubtful then if he could live the trip out. He was found 
 in his berth by other Chinamen, and they all came 
 running out on deck. Then I learned something about 
 Chinamen that I did not know before ; it seems that they 
 have a horror of the dead, and no good Chinaman will 
 have anything to do with a dead body ; he will not touch it. 
 In China all the burying is done by a certain set of men 
 who are ostracized. Other Chinamen will have nothing 
 to do with them ; everything connected with the dead is 
 evil. Yesterday morning, as I said, the other Chinamen 
 came running up on deck ; not one of them could be in- 
 duced to go below again. The doctor of the ship went 
 down and found that the man was dead, and embalmed 
 the body.
 
 8 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 It seems that another superstition of the Chinamen is 
 that no Chinaman that is buried at sea can ever reach the 
 " happy hunting ground," so that they have a horror of 
 being buried at sea. There is, in San Francisco, an or- 
 ganization known as the Chinese Six Companies. In the 
 district of Canton, China, from which nearly all the 
 Chinese who get to the United States come, there are six 
 dififerent dialects. The Six Companions embraces the six 
 dialects, and when a Chinaman comes to America, he pays 
 a certain amount to this organization and the Six Com- 
 panies promises to look out for him. One of the ways it 
 looks out for him is to see that his body is not buried at 
 sea. The Six Companies makes a contract with the 
 various steamship companies to pay them $25.00 for the 
 body of any Chinaman who dies at sea. Of this, the 
 doctor who embalms the body gets half, $12.50, for his 
 work, and the company gets $12.50. 
 
 Everybody in the Peking thought that there would be a 
 burial at sea when they heard that one of the steerage 
 passengers had died, but they slipped up on it. After 
 the doctor had finished his work the body was put in a 
 coffin and was dragged up on deck, and then it was lifted 
 up into one of the life boats over the deck, where it will 
 stay until the ship gets to Hong Kong; there, it will be 
 turned over to the men of the Six Companies to be buried. 
 If the body had been that of a man of any other nation- 
 ality, it would have been buried at sea. So you see that 
 the Chinese are not so devoid of feeling as they are 
 generally supposed to be, though the feeling is wholly 
 superstition in this case. 
 
 Well, I guess that's all you care to know about dead 
 Chinamen. I think the live men deserve some mention. 
 They are certainly a peculiar lot ; I have a heap more 
 respect for them than I ever had before. As servants 
 they are willing and obliging. There are some splendid 
 specimens of physical manhood among the crew of this 
 boat ; two or three of them are a great deal bigger than 
 the average big white man, broad-shouldered, muscular, 
 and seemingly as strong as oxen ; they are good workmen 
 too. I will tell you more about them when I have a 
 chance to study them more, to-morrow maybe; there is
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 9 
 
 no more time to-day, for they are around my ears now, 
 insisting on getting the table on which I am writing so 
 that they can prepare it for lunch. 
 
 S. S. City of Peking, Thursday, August i6, 1900. 
 
 I discovered last night that this ship I'm floating west- 
 ward on is a gilded palace of vice. Perhaps we might 
 leave out the gilded palace, for there isn't much gilt about 
 the old tub, but the vice is here just the same. I was in 
 the storekeeper's room about 9 o'clock, and he asked 
 me if I wanted to go up into the joint. I didn't know 
 what that meant, and so I said I did. You know there 
 is only one way to find things out in this world, and that 
 is to see them. He led the way up, forward, to the part 
 of the ship occupied by the steerage passengers, and then 
 down two chutes to the hold of the ship, and then back 
 to a little square room ; a dim light burned there. There 
 was a long table on which were lying six or eight China- 
 men, each with an opium pipe in his mouth. They were 
 smoking opium. I learned then that so common is the 
 vice among the Celestials that all the steamships that 
 travel between the United States and Chinese ports have 
 to have an opium joint aboard of them to accommodate 
 the victims of the drug. The joint, the ship's officer told 
 me, is always full. 
 
 My visit gave me an opportunity to see how the poor 
 devils of Chinamen live on board of ships, when they are 
 traveling in the steerage. The part of the ship that I 
 was in was given over entirely to bunks ; the bunks were 
 huge iron racks with strips of canvas spread across ; the 
 strips were laid five deep. The bottom one was almost 
 on the floor and the top one was almost touching the deck 
 above. There was just room between the strips for a 
 Chinaman to crawl in and lie perfectly flat. There the 
 poor fellows were stacked up like a load of cordwood. 
 I found that there were two or three hundred of them. 
 Many of them were consumptives who were returning 
 home to die. Stacked up as they all were, breathing the 
 foul air over and over again, of course it would be a won- 
 der if the germs of the disease did not spread, and if many 
 who were healthy at the start of the voyage did not end
 
 10 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 with the disease firmly imbedded in their systems. I can 
 tell you that ten thousand dollars would not tempt me to 
 make a trip under the conditions that these men travel 
 under. It's a wonder that they live at all. 
 
 Another interesting sight that I watched once or twice 
 to-day was the feeding of these men. The steamship com- 
 pany charges them $50 fare and gives them the necessaries 
 of life, such as rice and a little meat. They furnish the 
 luxuries themselves. The regular fare is $325 ; so you 
 see the saving is very great. The luxuries that the 
 " Celestials " get consist of fresh vegetables, canned 
 mushrooms, and some other canned stufif. The ship's 
 cook cooks for them. Tables are provided for them to 
 eat from, but they scorn to use them. They eat in groups 
 of a dozen or less ; the food is all in pans which are set in 
 the middle of the groups. Each Chinaman has a little 
 round bowl and two chopsticks. He dips his bowl into 
 the rice and stacks it up full ; he packs it tight with his 
 chopsticks, and then he is ready to begin, which he does 
 much after the fashion of a hog. He bows his head and 
 holds the rice bowl to his mouth ; with the chopsticks he 
 shoves the rice into his mouth until the mouth is crowded 
 so full that he can hardly close it ; not until then is the 
 rice bowl lowered. As he munches the rice as best he 
 can, he digs into the general pan of meat and potatoes, 
 or whatever the other food may be. It is always wet, 
 stew-like. He manipulates the chopsticks with very great 
 skill. He picks up pieces of meat, or onion, or potatoes, 
 or the like, with as much ease as if he were using a fork. 
 He seldom drops anything that he gets between the 
 sticks, and at the same time he seems to make no effort 
 at all to hold the sticks together. Long practice has 
 made him perfect. 
 
 Well, as I said, he dives into the general pans, one after 
 the other, and conveys the stuff to his already crowded 
 mouth. Now, it wouldn't be so bad if "he" was only one, 
 but " he " numbers about twelve around a pan, and the 
 whole twelve " he's " dip their twenty-four chop-sticks 
 into the pans at one time. It's all interesting enough to 
 look at for a few minutes, and then it kind of palls on you. 
 Well, I guess you have read enough about it, don't you
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 11 
 
 think so? I have just told it to you because it interested 
 me for a few minutes, and I thought it might you ; too 
 much description, though, I guess would pall on you as 
 too much of the scene did on me. When I entered the 
 smoking room after watching the feeding process, some- 
 one asked me what was going on outside, and I told him 
 they were feeding the hogs. When I said to you in the 
 letter yesterday that I had a great deal more respect for 
 the Chinese than I had when I started, I meant it, but 
 really I would like to qualify the remark a little bit. 
 
 By the way, you recall the Count and Countess that I 
 told you about, she of the red hair and the gambling 
 proclivities. Well, she struck a stump last night. She 
 played poker all day yesterday and all last night until two 
 o'clock this morning. When she quit, I understand, she 
 was in the neighborhood of $300 out. To-day she 
 hasn't been near the smoking room, nor has the Count; 
 so I guess that they have had enough. When the game 
 was over she said sweetly, " O — oh, id was such a leetle 
 matter, such a leetle matter, eet doce not matter," while 
 the Count shrugged his shoulders and held his hands on 
 a line with his chin, palms upward. 
 
 When I write you to-morrow I think we will be in 
 sight of the mountains of Hawaii. We will not reach 
 the island where Honolulu is, and where we land, until 
 after sundown, and will, therefore, have to lie outside 
 until morning. We will go in Saturday morning, and 
 then I will have a chance to mail these letters that I have 
 been writing. I only wish that I could have a bunch like 
 them from you. 
 
 S. S. City of Peking, Friday, August 17, 1900. 
 
 I postponed writing this letter until to-night, because I 
 thought I could tell you in it that we had sighted Hawaii, 
 and would be in port to-night, but, up to the time when 
 the sun went down, we had seen nor hide nor hair of it, 
 and we certainly won't get in until morning, for it is 10 
 o'clock now, and we haven't even seen the lighthouse. 
 
 The day has been in all ways a most miserable one. In 
 the night a windstorm started that kicked up a big sea, 
 and that was followed by a regular tropical downpour of
 
 12 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 rain. I have told you what the storms were in Cuba ; 
 well, they are the same here, only they last longer. The 
 rain started early this morning, and it kept right on until 
 dark. It came in sheets, and most of the time it was so 
 heavy that it looked like a fog. You couldn't see much 
 of anything. 
 
 More than half the passengers in the ship are bound 
 for Hawaii, and, of course, at this time all of them are up 
 on deck, straining for a glimpse of the Honolulu light, 
 which is on the island of Oaliu. The Captain said to- 
 night that we would probably be in Honolulu for twenty- 
 four hours, we have so much freight for that port. That 
 will give us an opportunity to see something of the city. 
 After I have seen it I will tell you about it. I guess that 
 you have had enough of the ship in this batch of letters, 
 and so I'll not tell you anything more about it now. 
 
 S. S. City of Peking, Monday, August 20, 1900. 
 
 On the road again, traveling west. In my letter to you 
 Sunday morning I said that the Peking was to sail at 
 noon. That was the time she should have sailed, and I 
 cut my letter short. But she did not sail until nearly 12 
 o'clock last night. It took until that time to load up with 
 coal to carry her on to Yokohama. It was about as dull 
 an afternoon on the ship as could be put in, and so, with 
 five other passengers, I went off to Waikiki, the seashore, 
 again, and had another swim in the ocean. We all had 
 dinner at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel, and got back on 
 bonrd the Peking about 10 o'clock in the evening. 
 
 I promised to give you the details of the trip about 
 Honolulu. To begin with, as I have already written you, 
 we had a lot of Honolulu people in the ship, and, of 
 course, before we got to the Hawaiian Islands we were 
 all pretty well acquainted. One of the Honoluluians that 
 I became quite friendly with was a young civil engineer 
 named C. Another was a retired Chief Engineer of the 
 navy named D. ; another, a man named L., who stopped 
 at Honolulu, though he lives in Manila. C. took it on 
 himself to pilot the party, which I joined. Besides those 
 I have named, the partv included Dr. McW. and Dr. S., 
 both of New Yorkj Dr. H., of Westfield, Massachusetts,
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 13 
 
 Dr. W., of Camden, Maine, and a doctor from Michigan, 
 who weighed 340 pounds, and whom we called " Fat." 
 
 Well, I told you Honolulu is beautiful. No word de- 
 scribes it better than that. You have seen pictures of the 
 tropical countries, with the great palms and the hundred 
 and one flowers in constant bloom. They are supposed to 
 exist in Cuba and Porto Rico, and they don't, but they 
 do in Honolulu. Palms of all kinds known to the world 
 are there, and all manner of flowers of brightest hues. 
 Almost every home is surrounded by palms and mag- 
 nolias and twenty-five or fifty other kinds of trees. In 
 place of the crowding that is everywhere visible, and is 
 everywhere a curse in the West Indies, there is room 
 and freedom in Honolulu. The people live like civilized 
 human beings, with a house for almost every family, and 
 grounds around almost every house. 
 
 Our party went direct from the ship to the Royal 
 Hawaiian Hotel, which is built in the way I am going to 
 build my house when I build one — that is, around piazzas. 
 The piazzas of the Royal are bigger than the main hotel. 
 The hotel itself covers a great block of ground, and the 
 rooms, instead of being in the main building, where the 
 office and dining room and other general rooms are, 
 are in small cottages. Each cottage has four rooms, with 
 a bath and a porch for each, and each cottage is sur- 
 rounded by its own grove of trees. Four of our party 
 took one of the cottages for the day, and were as com- 
 fortable as you please. 
 
 We had lunch at the hotel, and then drove to the top 
 of an extinct volcano, called the Punchbowl. It was a 
 beautiful drive over a splendid road, through groves of 
 palm and banana trees and past fields of rice and patches 
 of taro, which in Hawaii takes the place of potatoes. The 
 crater up which the road leads is formed entirely of lava, 
 once molten, and now cold and hard. The interior of 
 the crater is just a great hollow, and is entirely covered 
 by vegetation. If you did not know it, you would never 
 suspect that the place had once been a red-hot volcano. 
 From the topmost point of the crater the view was beauti- 
 ful, and we could sec a lot of the other islands of the 
 group, including one that had a snow-capped mountain.
 
 14 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 I don't know what its height is, but you can imagine how 
 high it must be to have snow on its top in the tropics. 
 
 After the ride we all went to the beach. The water here 
 is only four or five feet deep clear out a half-mile from the 
 shore, and that makes a beautiful line of breakers. There 
 were hundreds in bathing. Nearly all of them had surf- 
 boards, and the natives were particularly expert in using 
 them. A surf-board is a flat board about the length of a 
 man's body, and to ride on it you must flop down on your 
 stomach at exactly the moment a wave catches up with 
 you. Then, keeping your feet and legs going like a 
 threshing machine, you ride ahead of the wave until you 
 lose your balance. You have no idea of the speed with 
 which the wave comes. You don't begin to realize it 
 until you see a man riding a surf-board ahead of it. The 
 most expert of the natives were able to ride a while on the 
 boards on their stomachs, and then to climb up and bal- 
 ance themselves, standing on the board and riding clear 
 in to the shore. It is a more difficult trick than walking a 
 tight rope, and a good deal more interesting to look at. 
 
 Besides the surf-boards, there were surf-boats. These 
 were long, curved, with two arms out one side, and a 
 sort of rider at the end of the arms to make a better bal- 
 ance. Two natives would take one passenger away out in 
 one of these boats, and then swing the canoe around, and 
 have it caught by a wave just as the surf -board was 
 caught. Then they'd all come kiting in to the shore at 
 what seemed a mile-a-minute gait, the spray dashing up 
 in front and all about them. It looked like the finest kind 
 of sport, but I didn't try it. After our bath, our party 
 had dinner with C. in the hotel annex at the seashore. 
 Then we went back to the hotel in Honolulu. 
 
 I had a chance then to go out and see the business part 
 of the town. Here, again, I found a tremendous differ- 
 ence between Hawaii and Porto Rico and Cuba. The 
 stores are modern stores. One could buy almost anything 
 he wanted. The prices were very high, but it was possible 
 to get things, and that is what cannot be done in the West 
 Indian Islands. In the evening there was music, and a 
 dance at the hotel. The grounds were lighted up with 
 colored electric lights, and the show was a fine one from
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 15 
 
 a spectacular point of view. After the music at the hotel 
 was over, we went out to see a Hula dance, but didn't 
 see it. 
 
 The place is a mighty expensive one to live in. Hack 
 fares are tremendous. The saloons all charge twenty- 
 five cents a drink, no matter what the drink is. Other 
 things are in proportion. There are only eight saloons 
 in the place. The strongest element in the population, 
 politically speaking, is the missionary element. Gover- 
 nor Dole used to be a missionary. The missionaries are 
 responsible for the small number of saloons and for the 
 general orderliness of the town. There are no gambling 
 places. The bad social element is all confined to a local- 
 ity far from the main part of the city, known as the 
 Corral. The greater part of the city population is made 
 up of Chinese and Japanese, but the Americans are in 
 control of everything. 
 
 We are off now on a twelve-day voyage, and I can 
 assure you there is a sameness about the landscape that 
 is mighty tiresome. I only wish you could be here 
 with me to enjoy it. I think we could both have a 
 good time where it is all loneliness for me. The ship has 
 only about half as many cabin passengers as it had, 
 but at Honolulu she picked up about 200 men, Chinese 
 and Japanese, for the steerage. The thing I am finding 
 it hardest to stand is the lack of news. Just think of it ! 
 I haven't heard a word of news since I left San Francisco, 
 and that isn't the worst of it. I won't hear a word until 
 I get to Yokohama. China may be all smashed to pieces 
 at this very moment, or the allied forces may be smashed. 
 There is no telling which. 
 
 If this letter hasn't tired you, I suspect one of the others 
 that you get at the same time will, so I'll say good-by 
 again for the day. 
 
 S. S. City of Peking, Thursday, August 23, 1900. 
 This is Thursday, and, as I told you in my letter yester- 
 day, there "ain't going to be any to-morrow." We'll come 
 to Saturday next. I can tell you another thing, that for 
 a while to-day it looked a heap as if there wasn't going 
 to be any to-morrow for a fact. We have had a mutiny
 
 1C> ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 on board the Peking. We had to put twenty-eight of the 
 crew in irons, and for a time it looked as if we might have 
 to tackle the whole measly crew of steerage passengers as 
 well. The thing is not generally known about the ship. 
 The officers are keeping it quiet for fear of alarming the 
 passengers, particularly the women, and they've had their 
 hands full with the Chinese, without being bothered with 
 any hysterics. I happened to be around while the affair 
 was going on, and of course I learned about it. 
 
 It seems that, ever since the trouble in China started, 
 the members of the Chinese crew have been restless, and 
 two or three times they have acted more or less ugly, talk- 
 ing about " foreign devils " and all that. At Honolulu, 
 as I have already told you, we took on several hundred 
 more of the heathen. In this last batch were two husky- 
 looking fellows, full-blooded Chinese, who were bent on 
 trouble, but so far they have been smart enough not to 
 get caught at any deviltry themselves. Since they came 
 aboard, however, the ugliness in the crew has increased, 
 and early this morning one of the firemen hauled off and 
 banged a white watch officer in the face. That settled 
 the fellow's hash, of course. He was overpowered, taken 
 to the room of the First Officer, and promptly put in irons. 
 Then all sorts of threats were made, with much shouting 
 and howling and talk of forcibly rescuing the man. 
 
 The officers of the ship and the other white employees, 
 twenty-six in all, were expecting trouble at noon, when 
 the shifts change. About ten minutes before noon they 
 worked around quietly, without letting anybody suspect 
 what was going on, with the idea of keeping the China- 
 men separated as much as possible. The steward's force 
 all got jobs in the after end of the ship, and three or four 
 whites were mixed with them. The deck force were all 
 put at work forward, and two or three whites were there 
 too. Others of the white men went among the steerage 
 passengers, while the rest of the whites lounged around 
 the engine and stoke room, where the trouble was 
 expected. 
 
 At noon, when it was time for a new shift of firemen 
 to go in, the twenty-eight men in the shift went to the 
 head of the companionway and declared insolently that
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 17 
 
 they would not go to work unless the man in irons was 
 released. The biggest man in the crowd was the spokes- 
 man, and he drew up, evidently prepared to fight. Well, 
 it all happened quicker than I can tell you. A white man 
 jumped at him and let drive a terrific blow. It caught 
 that Celestial on the point of the jaw, and he whirled 
 around three times and dropped like a log. At the same 
 moment the men who had pretended to be lounging about 
 were all activity, and if any one of those Chinamen had 
 made a hostile move it would probably have been his last. 
 The twenty-seven, however, declared stolidly that they 
 would not work. Without any more ado they were 
 seized and the whole lot put in irons, and the order was 
 to stop the ship and stay stopped until the mutiny was 
 quelled. But before the ship had stopped the men gave 
 in, and said they would go to work. They were released, 
 with the exception of the man who was in irons at first, 
 and who caused the trouble. He is still sitting on the 
 bridge, his hands and feet shackled, and there he'll stay 
 until there is no more fight left in him. I guess the 
 trouble is all over now, and there is no more danger; 
 but if it isn't, there will be more than one Chinaman up in 
 the boat that I told you about in my last batch of letters. 
 There won't be any fooling with them. 
 
 Well, I guess that completes the story of the day on 
 ship-board, and I'll say good-by until day after to-mor- 
 row, which will be to-morrow. 
 
 S. S. City of Peking, 
 To-morrow Morning, August 25, 1900. 
 
 As I said to you yesterday, to-day is to-morrow. I'm 
 a day ahead of you now, and while you are struggling 
 through Friday, I'm well into Saturday. 
 
 We haven't had a peep from our Chinese friends since 
 I wrote you yesterday afternoon. They are ugly, but 
 they are scared, and there is no danger that they will 
 get over their scare before we land in Yokohama. They 
 will all be discharged when the ship reaches the end of 
 her journey, Hong Kong, and a new crew will be shipped. 
 
 I told you in other letters about the crew of contract 
 surgeons we have on board the ship. We call them
 
 18 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 " misfits," here. I wouldn't let one of them doctor a 
 cat. Well, we have had a heap of fun out of them since 
 the Chinese outbreak, and they have turned out a fine lot 
 of soldier-doctors, I can tell you. I don't mean all of 
 them, of course, for there are two or three who are not 
 bad fellows, but the rest of them are the worst lot of 
 duffers that ever wore the title of doctor. 
 
 The story of the trouble with the Chinese crew leaked 
 out in spite of the officers of the ship, and then the fun 
 began. We have aboard two cannon which were used 
 in the old days when the China Sea was full of pirates, 
 who once in a while would attack a merchant ship. That 
 was years ago. The cannon, of course, have not been 
 used since, except for saluting purposes. They are made 
 of brass, and they require a great deal of cleaning to keep 
 them bright and an ornament to the ship. 
 
 Thursday happened to be cannon-cleaning day, and the 
 cannon were being rubbed up about the time the story 
 of the trouble with the crew leaked out. The anxiety 
 that the doctors displayed for details showed their 
 nervousness, so two or three of us who knew all about it, 
 and knew, too, that the danger was over, told the doctors, 
 confidentially, that the cannon were being put in condition 
 for use the moment the outbreak came. We assured 
 them that there was no telling when it would come. 
 They swallowed it all. They kept getting more and more 
 nervous as night approached, and a number of them dis- 
 appeared. They were hunted for in their rooms, and 
 were discovered polishing up their swords, and loading 
 pistols that they could never have been induced to shoot 
 for fear they would hurt themselves. This was a tip for 
 us, and when these fellows came on deck again we took 
 them casually back to the after wheelhouse, where there 
 are two cans labeled " Gunpowder " and about thirty- 
 five rifles. We told them we understood that the rifles 
 were to be given out at dark, and that it was too bad 
 there were not enough to go around. 
 
 I can tell you that part of the crowd did not eat much 
 dinner that night. We had arranged to get four or five 
 of the Chinese cabin boys to talk Chinese up and down 
 the stateroom alleys in the evening, but then we thought
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 19 
 
 that some of the scared ones might accidentally shoot 
 somebody, so we gave that up and waited for develop- 
 ments. This morning we learned that four or five of the 
 doctors had barricaded their doors before retiring. 
 One man confessed that he had slept with his pistol in his 
 hand. Two others told how they had their swords beside 
 them, and their pistols under their pillows. They are 
 still convinced that the ship is on the verge of a more or 
 less bloody riot, and some of them are going around in 
 full uniform with swords and pistols, prepared for the 
 worst. It is, I suppose, mean to fool men this way, but 
 when you consider that they enlisted to go to war and 
 that they are supposed to be men of nerve, I think it 
 excusable, don't you? They'll get the worst joshing they 
 ever got, from now on, and the record of what they 
 have done in the ship will accompany them clear to 
 Manila. 
 
 I guess this about completes the story of the day. 
 I am afraid that these letters that I am writing you 
 are not interesting, and that it will bore you to read them, 
 but they are the best I can do now. You see, I'm in a 
 little world that is separated for the time being from the 
 rest of creation. The population of this little world is 
 under five hundred, and it is made up, like the big world, 
 chiefly of most uninteresting people. At least they are 
 uninteresting to you, away back in the East. A contract 
 to write a letter a day in this little world, and have the 
 letter interesting, is about as big a job as I have tackled 
 in some time. But I like to write, nevertheless, because 
 the letters bring me nearer to you and to the little ones I 
 have left behind. 
 
 S. S. City of Peking, Sunday, August 26, 1900. 
 I had a most enjoyable morning to-day, all things con- 
 sidered, and fooled myself delightfully. The last thing 
 I did before I left San Francisco was to buy a copy 
 of the Sunday Sim of August 5. That was the last paper 
 to reach there before I sailed. I put it away in my grip, 
 and studiously avoided touching it. This morning when 
 I got up I went to the big tank I told you about the other 
 day and jumped in and had a swim. After that I got
 
 20 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 shaved and dressed, and went down in the grip and got 
 The Sun. I strolled up the deck with it, lit a cigar, and 
 sat down to read, just as if I had been only a mile or so 
 away from New York. Everything in it, of course, was 
 news, fine and fresh, three weeks old though it was. 
 Maybe I didn't enjoy reading it ! I was the envy of the 
 other passengers, too, I can tell you. We had a fine joke, 
 possibly silly, but nevertheless with fun in it, about the 
 newsboy who had come aboard during the night with 
 the morning papers. I divided the paper up into as many 
 pieces as there were pages, and pretty soon half the pas- 
 sengers were reading, while the other half stood around 
 enviously, and had to take the good-natured joshing 
 about their being sleepy-heads, staying in bed too late 
 to catch the newsboy, and all that. 
 
 The pages are still passing around, and everybody is 
 happier than he was yesterday. I've succeeded in read- 
 ing about half the paper so far, and as all the pages that 
 I haven't read are busy now, I take the opportunity to 
 write the daily letter. 
 
 It is a beautiful morning out here on the Pacific. Half 
 an hour ago we passed a great school of porpoises that 
 played around the ship as gracefully as you please. They 
 have all left us now. The sea that yesterday was a mass 
 of foam and whipping waves is to-day almost as smooth 
 as glass. Yesterday it was stormy all day, and before 
 night came we were bobbing about in the water like a 
 huge cork. The waves were so high that we had to close 
 the port to keep the water from washing us out of our 
 staterooms. Last night it rained harder than ever, and 
 about midnight there was a downpour so heavy that it 
 beat down the sea and made things smooth; Then there 
 was a beautiful display of phosphorescence, the finest 
 I have ever seen. The sea was full of light. Down by 
 the side of the vessel the water sparkled so that the side 
 of the ship was lighted up. Most of the light was in 
 the form of sparks, but every now and again we would 
 see a great ball that appeared to be of solid blue-white. 
 It was really a beautiful sight, but only a few of the pas- 
 sengers saw it, because it was so rough, early in the even- 
 ing, that most of them took to their beds.
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA ^1 
 
 S. S. City of Peking, Tuesday, August 28, 1900. 
 
 Three days more of this, and then, if I'm lucky, I'll be 
 on land again ! The captain of the Peking told me this 
 morning that we would arrive at Yokohama on Friday. 
 I can tell you I'm not a bit unhappy, either. Sailing on 
 the ocean blue is all right, but when you are straight in for 
 upwards of twenty days, with never a let-up, it gets to be 
 about the most tiresome thing you can imagine. We 
 struck the Japanese Current this morning, and now the 
 ship's officers say we will make less speed until we arrive 
 almost on the coast of Japan. The Japanese Current is 
 almost the same as the Gulf Stream in the Atlantic. You 
 know the Gulf Stream starts down by Florida and runs 
 up the coast and then clear across the Atlantic Ocean, 
 where it washes the coast of Ireland and makes that coun- 
 try fruitful and habitable. The Japanese Current starts 
 near Japan and runs east across the Pacific, sweeping the 
 Aleutian Islands and the shore of Alaska. 
 
 Things have been getting duller and duller on the boat 
 since we left Honolulu. Everybody is tired, and every- 
 body is grouty and impatient with everybody else. We 
 are all a lot of children, are we not ? The only thing that 
 has happened to-day to vary the monotony was a little 
 rain this afternoon. It did not last long, but enough of 
 a sea was kicked up to send the timid ones below and to 
 bed for fear of sickness. 
 
 Grand Hotel, Ltd., Yokohama, September 2, 1900. 
 
 The captain told the truth, for once at least. We got 
 our first glimpse of the coast of Japan just a little while 
 after I had finished my letter to you yesterday, and we 
 anchored in the Yeddo, or Yokohama, Bay at just about 
 dark. The steamship did not come up to the pier here, 
 but anchored away out in the stream. First it was outside 
 of a breakwater, and there we were surrounded by steam 
 launches and boats. One of them was a launch painted 
 sky-blue, with a yellow smokestack. She was the quar- 
 antine boat, and she carried four doctors, who insisted 
 on examining everybody on the ship. The examination 
 of the cabin passengers was more or less perfunctory, but 
 that of the steerage passengers and the crew was more
 
 22 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 rigid, though it seemed to me farcical, for it was not 
 rigid enough to discover any disease if the people ex- 
 amined had any. The examination took the best part of 
 an hour. 
 
 In the meantime the Japs on the other steam launches 
 pleaded with the passengers who crowded the rail of the 
 Peking to go to this or that hotel. The launches were all 
 hotel launches, and the men on them were runners for 
 the houses. Everybody on the Peking was half crazy for 
 news, and they lined the ship's rail and pleaded with the 
 runners as hard as the runners with them. The 
 first news we got was that Peking had been re- 
 lieved, and that the first armies to enter the city were 
 the American and Japanese. Then we heard that all the 
 ministers were safe, and that the allied forces were occu- 
 pying the city, most of which was in ruins. Finally we 
 got a little bundle of papers and a lot of little pink printed 
 slips that gave us a summary of what had happened; but 
 it was a thin summary. 
 
 The examination of the passengers took so long a time 
 that it was nearly dark when we started to go inside the 
 breakwater to anchor for the night. The launches all 
 followed us in, and the moment we stopped there was the 
 wildest scramble I ever saw for the boat. The runners 
 made it, of course, and they had seen every passenger in- 
 side of two minutes, I think. I was with Louis Able, the 
 assistant manager of the Standard Oil Company in Japan, 
 and Lieutenant Holcomb of the United States Navy. We 
 took the Grand Hotel launch and were landed ashore, and 
 about two minutes after that I was getting my first jinrik- 
 isha ride. 
 
 You never saw one of these contrivances for human tor- 
 ture, nor had I until that moment. Lll send you a little 
 Grand Hotel book by this mail, and you will find a picture 
 of one of them in that. They are one-man carriages, on 
 two wheels, with a regular carriage body. They have 
 shafts like a regular carriage, and when you step into one 
 the man who owns it gets between the shafts like a horse 
 and starts off with you at a dog-trot, which he keeps up 
 as long as you are in the rig. These fellows, they tell me.
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 23 
 
 run as much as forty miles a day and never tire. If you 
 are particularly heavy, or if you are going through a hilly 
 country, you hire two men, and the second man pushes. 
 We only took a man each. It's a funny sensation when 
 the runner first steps between the shafts and starts off. 
 On each shaft is a lantern made of paper — regular Chinese 
 or Japanese lanterns, such as we have in the 
 States — and these furnish light at night. Well, to get 
 back to the sensation. When the runner lifts up the 
 shafts you are forced back into a reclining position, and 
 then you are in mortal terror of going over backward 
 until you reach your destination. My first ride was about 
 ten minutes long. It took us that time to reach the Grand 
 Hotel. There was a regular procession, I guess as many 
 as twenty-five of the things in a line, each with a guest of 
 the hotel aboard. I wasn't sorry to get out of the con- 
 trivance, I tell you. 
 
 The Grand Hotel is an American house run by Ameri- 
 cans, and if it had not been for the Jap servants, I could 
 have imagined that I was at a fairly good hotel in the 
 United States. The place fronts on the bay and has broad 
 verandas, with tables and chairs everywhere. Everybody 
 there, including the Japs, talks English, so there was no 
 trouble at all in getting along. Our party did not lose any 
 time in going into the dining room. Twenty days of 
 ship's fare had just about made us ready to eat anything. 
 Maybe it was because we were so hungry that the food 
 tasted so good. I really think that at the time it seemed 
 to be about the best food ever put before a human, and 
 we all ate as if it were the last meal we expected to get or 
 the first we had ever had — I don't know exactly which. 
 
 Nothing would do after the meal but we should have 
 another jinrikisha ride, and we went all over the bloom- 
 ing town. I've been in some queer places in my travels, 
 but I don't remember any that approached this. The 
 streets are narrow, and there are practically no sidewalks. 
 Everybody rides in these queer wagons. The price of 
 them, by the way, is 20 sen an hour. A sen is half a 
 cent, so in our money it costs 10 cents an hour. There 
 isn't much excuse for walking, is there, at that price.
 
 24 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 particularly as you get plenty of exercise in the ricky, 
 as it is called for short? But think of running an hour 
 for lo cents, and real running, too ! 
 
 In our journey around in the evening we went through 
 the bad as well as the good parts of the town. The bad 
 part is fenced in. Tea-houses are on both sides of the 
 street there, and the women squat in them behind bars. 
 The whole front of the houses is barred like animal cages 
 in the circus, and these women looked for all the world 
 like caged animals, as they squatted in their rags and 
 smirked and tried to look pleasant. We got back to the 
 hotel about ii o'clock, and went to bed on shore again. 
 I had a bully night's sleep, but of course woke up too 
 early. You see, on the ship I have been going to bed at 
 9 o'clock and getting up at five. 
 
 Well, I woke up at five this morning, and went to the 
 window of my room. I found it opened on a canal, or 
 creek, that was jammed full of boats. It was just day- 
 light, and the men in these boats were stirring about and 
 getting ready for their day's work. They were a funny- 
 looking lot, indeed. Their clothes consisted of a long 
 sheet of cloth and a sash — no shirt or trousers, no coats, 
 but just the sheet. They got their boats out by pushing 
 on the bottom of the creek with long poles, and when they 
 were clear of the creek they put up masts, hoisted great 
 square sails, and went off as nice as you please. 
 
 While the boats were going out, the streets filled up with 
 the laboring classes, men and women on their way to 
 work. The women were dressed exactly like the men, 
 except that their hair was done up diflferently. Their 
 shoes were blocks of wood like this "77" » one block 
 on which the foot rested, two little smaller blocks on 
 edge, nailed to the bottom of the flat block, and all held 
 on by a strap fastened on either side of the block of wood, 
 and a thin strap fastened on the end of the block and 
 going up from there and joining the mainstrap. When 
 the shoe is on, this second strap goes between the big 
 toe and its next-door neighbor. The foot can't be easily 
 kept in place if it is lifted clear of the ground, so the 
 wearers go clattering and scuffling along, each shoe mak- 
 ing as much noise as a team of horses. The wearers
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 25 
 
 mince along, too. They take little short steps, and turn 
 in their toes in most astounding fashion. 
 
 Now for the disappointment. When I got here 
 I found a cable telling me to go straight to Shanghai, 
 as quickly as possible, and get a new man there. That 
 means that I'll have to go back aboard the Peking to- 
 night. She sails for Kobe, Nagasaki, and Shanghai at 
 daybreak to-morrow (Sunday) morning. We go through 
 the Inland Sea and the Yellow Sea, and I'll have another 
 chance to write you letters on yellow paper. I'll tell you 
 more about the Japs in my letter to-morrow. 
 
 S. S. City of Peking, Sunday, September 2, 1900. 
 
 Yokohama has disappeared, and we are bound for 
 Kobe. There is not much more to say about the former 
 than I told you in the letter I wrote from the Grand 
 Hotel. Saturday I spent sight-seeing and transacting 
 what business I had to do. 
 
 I told you about the jinrikishas, and how men took the 
 place of horses in drawing other men around. Of course 
 they have horses, too, but they are few and far between, 
 and the natives don't altogether understand them. When 
 a lady goes out driving, for instance, a native always runs 
 ahead of the train. I don't know whether it is to warn 
 people or to catch the horses if they start to run away. 
 
 I visited some of the shops in the native city. They are 
 nearly all of them built like our country woodsheds. They 
 are only a story high, and have sloping roofs, with no 
 fronts. The goods are all displayed on tables that slope 
 down like the vegetable stands in front of our grocery 
 stores. The goods are, some of them, very fine, espe- 
 cially the carved woods and the silks. You know Japan 
 silks are the finest in the world. The prices of things 
 were away up out of sight because it was steamer day, 
 when the natives put up the price of everything, know- 
 ing that visitors are not acquainted with the regular 
 prices. I did not buy anything for this reason, and the 
 further one that T saw nothing that could not be pur- 
 chased in China for a great deal less money, and there 
 was no use buying and having the trouble of carrying 
 the goods around,
 
 26 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 I went to tiffin, which is the name they give lunch out 
 here, with Mr. George M. Andrews and his wife, and 
 Mr. Abel and Lieutenant Holcomb, about whom I have 
 told you. The place where we had the meal served is 
 owned by Mr. Andrews, who is a business man here. It is 
 up on a high bluff, overlooking the Yokohama Bay The 
 view from there was beautiful. After tiffin I went to the 
 United Club with Abel and met several friends of Mr. 
 Eddy, who gave me the letter I told you about before I 
 left. I had a pretty good time there, and then dined at the 
 hotel. That wound up the visit to Yokohama. We all 
 came aboard the steamer at 9 o'clock and sailed at five 
 in the morning. Kobe is only a twenty-four-hour run, 
 and we will get there in the morning, when I'll write 
 again. 
 
 The Oriental Hotel, Kobe, 
 
 Monday September 3, 1900. 
 
 I've time here for just a line, which will catch the 
 steamer that takes the letters I posted at Yokohama. It 
 will go by rail to Yokohama and catch the steamer there. 
 
 We left Yokohama on Saturday night, or rather Sun- 
 day at daylight, had a fine trip, and got in here a little 
 while ago. We stay only a few hours, and then leave for 
 Nagasaki. I'll mail longer letters to you from there. I 
 expect to reach Shanghai the 6th, and then I'll know just 
 what sort of job is before me. The dispatches in to- 
 day's papers seem to indicate that the trouble is about 
 over. 
 
 S. S. City of Peking, Tuesday, September 4, 1900. 
 
 I am very much afraid there has been a bad mix-up in 
 my letters to you. As I told you before I started, there 
 are several lines of steamers running out here, and some 
 of them are faster than others. The northern route, that 
 is, the Canadian Pacific steamers, takes only twelve days 
 from Vancouver. Well, all steamers carry mail. When 
 the Peking got to Yokohama I mailed the letters I had 
 written on the way. The next mail steamer was the Rio, 
 leaving September 5. When I got to Kobe yesterday, I 
 found I could get another letter off on that steamer, and I
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 27 
 
 wrote it. Then, later, I learned that the Empress of India 
 was expected along in three or four days, and that letters 
 mailed Z'ia Vancouver would reach Brooklyn three or four 
 days before mail that started earlier on the Rio. Without 
 thinking, I marked that letter " via Vancouver," and of 
 course, you received it before you got the other lot. I 
 suppose that when you got only the one letter you thought 
 I had forgotten to write as I promised. Well, forgive me, 
 and I'll try not to have it happen again. You will get by 
 the same mail with this letter one I wrote Sunday on the 
 Peking and did not take ashore with me to mail because I 
 didn't think there would be any chance of getting it off 
 quicker than if I mailed it at Nagasaki, which is our 
 next stop. I guess that will explain the whole muss. 
 
 Now, I suppose you want to know what I did in Kobe. 
 About the first thing I saw in the Oriental Hotel there 
 was a pair of American scales, I jumped aboard and 
 weighed myself. I weighed 193 pounds, so you will see 
 that I haven't lost any weight. Kobe is a beautiful town, 
 as Japanese towns go. It is a modern city. The ancient 
 town is Hiogo. That is now the native part of the city 
 of Kobe. The place is as full of jinrikisha men as was 
 Yokohama, but with this difference : they wore clothes. 
 They were all dressed in skin-tight suits of blue cloth. 
 They had the usual soup-dish hats, and they were just as 
 husky runners. During the afternoon I visited a number 
 of shops and saw some beautiful silk work and painted 
 work, but all very high-priced. Clothes didn't seem to 
 bother the common natives at all. The women wore 
 nothing above their waists, as a rule, and the men wore 
 nothing below theirs. 
 
 They have a fine line of temples and Japanese gods in 
 Kobe, and I visited a few of them. You might think that 
 a temple was a place where people go in and worship, bu4: 
 it does not appear to be so here. It is the place where the 
 wooden gods live. Take the Ikuta temple, for instance. 
 It is only half a mile from the foreign settlement. It is 
 a big square building, with a fancy roof and four columns. 
 It is built up off the ground on stilts. There are no sides 
 to it. At the farthest end from the street, one on each side 
 of the temple, sit gods homely enough to scare you.
 
 28 ORDEREDTOCHINA 
 
 These gods are almost twice as big as ordinary men, and 
 are made of wood, with painted faces. One is for war 
 and the other for peace, I suppose. While the temple 
 where they sit has no sides, it is surrounded by a high 
 picket fence. There is a gate to this fence, and in front 
 of the gate is a horse-trough, to which the worshipers 
 come and dump offerings of rice or something else to ap-* 
 pease the gods and keep them good-natured. Off to the 
 left of this main temple are a lot of little temples. There 
 is one to the hogs, one to the horses, and one to several 
 other animals. In each of these temples is a wooden 
 image of the animal worshiped there, and in front of 
 each is the same sort of a trough in which the people de- 
 posit their offerings to keep the gods in good humor. 
 
 We had to sail from Kobe at 6 o'clock last night, 
 so I didn't get a chance to see much more than I have told 
 you about. We are due in Nagaski in the morning. They 
 have a still finer line of temples there, I am told, and I am 
 going to visit one and find out what it is all about. To- 
 day we are traveling through the Inland Sea. It reminds 
 me very much of a trip up the Hudson River, About 
 half an hour ago we passed a Japanese junk that was the 
 image of the boat that Columbus came to America in. As 
 I looked at it I could not help thinking of the pictures in 
 the old geographies, and I could almost see Columbus 
 standing in the stern, addressing his mutinous crew, and 
 telling them they'd see land or he'd bust. This style of 
 boat is the popular one here. There are hundreds of them 
 around. They all have the same general appearance, but 
 this particular one struck me all in a heap. 
 
 I send you all the love I can give, and that's all I'm 
 capable of. I long to see you and the children, but of 
 course that is out of the question for a little while. 
 
 S. S. City of Peking, 
 Wednesday, September 5, 1900. 
 I am writing this letter on the boat, although we are in 
 Nagasaki. I can get as early a mail from Shanghai as 
 from here, so I did not write it while I was on shore. We 
 got here last night about midnight, but we could not 
 come into port, and of course could not land, because we
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 29 
 
 had not Heen passed by the doctor. The Japs are pecuHar 
 about the quarantine business. They won't even take the 
 word of their own people, so, no matter how many ports 
 you g'o into in Japan, and no matter how many times you 
 are examined, you are to be examined again at every port 
 you touch. This is our third Japanese port, and we have 
 all been examined by three Japanese doctors. The Jap 
 doctors came aboard this morning, shortly after daylight, 
 and put us through the usual course of sprouts. After 
 that they told us we might go ashore, and everybody 
 went. 
 
 Nagasaki is on the extreme western end of the island 
 of Kiusiu. It is one of the oldest towns on the island, 
 and was the first place in all Japan to have trade with the 
 outside world. The Dutch got a trade concession years 
 ago, and they were permitted to occupy a little island just 
 out of the Inland Sea. Not one of them was permitted 
 to leave the island and go to the mainland, and to prevent 
 such a possibility Japanese guards were stationed every- 
 where on the island, and it was fenced in. When the 
 Japs wanted to trade with the Dutch they went to the 
 island, met the merchants at the gates, and did their 
 business there. The Dutch were permitted to have three 
 ships land at the island each year, and except for them 
 they had no communication at all with the outside world. 
 The gates of this island were closed at dusk every night, 
 and they were never opened until sunrise next day. 
 
 In the harbor here is the island of Pappenburg. It was 
 here that the first Christians who entered Japan 
 made their last stand when the Japs got after them. They 
 were all killed, of course, there being several thousand 
 Japs to mighty few Christians. 
 
 The most noticeable thing I saw about the town was 
 the graveyards. There were gravestones on every hill- 
 side, from the bottom of the hills to the top. The Japs 
 cremate their dead and bury the ashes, putting a head- 
 stone over the spot. As ashes don't take up much room, 
 the headstones arc closer than the stalks in a cornfield — 
 yes, a great deal closer. The Japs revere their dead, and 
 their graveyards are never disturbed. You can figure for 
 yourself; Nagasaki is several hundred years old, and, in
 
 30 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 addition to the ordinary causes of death, it has had visits 
 from about every known plague, particularly cholera. 
 There are more graves by thousands and thousands than 
 there are living people in the city. Looking from the 
 ship, up the sides of the hills, you see almost a solid mass 
 of stones. 
 
 The city is the headquarters for the tortoise-shell in- 
 dustry in the East, and much of the best tortoise-shell work 
 of the world is done here. When I went ashore this morn- 
 ing I had breakfast at the hotel, which faces the bay, and 
 then went out to look at the tortoise-shell curio shops. I 
 guess I went into forty of them, but it was the same in 
 these shops as it was in Kobe and Yokohama. It was 
 steamer day and prices had gone up soaring. Moreover, 
 the dealers wouldn't be beaten down in their prices. In 
 addition to the ordinary useful things, like combs and 
 brushes and hairpins, the Japs manufacture the shell into 
 many novelties, such as cigar and cigarette cases, minia- 
 ture furniture, little jinrikishas, and things of that kind. 
 There is hardly anything that you can ask for in the shape 
 of designs that you can't get, though the Japs are best in 
 carving the horrible-looking dragons that one nearly al- 
 ways associates with the Asiatics. I saw a lot of very 
 beautifully carved ivory work, too, but the prices for that 
 were away out of sight. 
 
 After I got through the tortoise-shell places, I went to 
 some sword-makers. You know the Japanese are famous 
 for their swords. They are the finest in the world. The 
 best of them will cut through iron and not turn the edge. 
 I saw many with the sacred dragon carved on them, and 
 some that were two hundred and three hundred years 
 old. Of course I had no use for a sword, and didn't want 
 to buy any. I just wanted to see them to satisfy my 
 curiosity. 
 
 The shops of Nagasaki, as a rule, are better than those 
 of either Yokohama or Kobe. Only one kind of goods 
 is sold in a store, and each has its workshop where the 
 goods sold are made. The workshop is right along the 
 sidewalk, and you can see the men working there at 
 whatever kind of thing is sold in the store. The show- 
 rooms are all upstairs, and the proprietor and his wife,
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 31 
 
 and usually his children, try to sell things to you. They 
 are extremely polite. All the Japs are, in fact. When you 
 enter a store, the proprietor strikes himself in the pit of 
 the stomach with his fist and pushes his stomach back, 
 and that makes his head come forward. He keeps on 
 coming until his head is on a level with his hips. By and 
 by his wife comes in and she stands in front of you and 
 punches herself in the stomach, and her head comes for- 
 ward in the same sort of bow. Then the children, one 
 by one, present themselves, each punches himself or her- 
 self in the stomach, and the work of buying or selling or 
 of showing goods begins. The Japs don't seem to mind 
 the trouble of showing goods at all, no matter whether 
 you buy or not, and if you have taken up an hour of their 
 time and bought nothing, it makes no difference. When 
 you leave, every mother's son of them pounds the 
 stomach again. When you come out of the store your 
 jinrikisha man thumps his stomach and bobs forward 
 his head, the same after the tenth store as after the first, 
 and when you pay and dismiss him he gives himself an 
 extra punch that sends his stomach so far back that his 
 head nearly raps the pavement. 
 
 After I had visited the shops I have told you about, I 
 went to a bazaar where they sell modern porcelain, and 
 I saw some dishes that would make your mouth water. 
 They were the only cheap things I saw, and I intend to 
 get some of them on my way back. I don't think I ever 
 saw any finer ware in all my life. It would grace a mil- 
 lionaire's table. 
 
 It was lunch time when I had finished here, and I went 
 with Lieutenant Holcomb, and Dr. Holland of Westfield, 
 Massachusetts, to a tea-house to get tiffin. The place was 
 half-way up a steep hill. To reach it we had to go 
 through the Tenderloin District. Here I saw another 
 curious thing. The district itself was the same as the one 
 I told you about in Yokohama, — the women in cages and 
 all that, — but at the corner of the street that began the dis- 
 trict I saw a little square house with a Jap policeman in- 
 side. As we approached this house the jinrikisha men 
 slowed up and went by slowly. The policeman, in the 
 meantime, was writing furiously, and every moment or
 
 32 ORDEREDTOCHINA 
 
 so looked up. I couldn't make out what he was doing. 
 Afterward I learned that it was the police custom to take 
 a description of every foreigner who goes into the dis- 
 trict and the number of the jinrikisha man who draws 
 him. This is for the protection of the foreigner. The 
 police know where he was seen last if he does not turn 
 up. 
 
 The tea-house where we had tiffin was, as I said, up a 
 hill. The jinrikisha men could not draw us up, so, when 
 we came to the foot of the hill, we had to walk. It was 
 a tough climb, but the view when we reached the house 
 was well worth going to see. We could see all the coun- 
 try around. After tiffin I went back to the hotel, which, 
 by the way, is the worst I have found in Japan, and I 
 was tired, so I came off to the Peking, and here I am. 
 
 Since getting here I have been watching what I think is 
 the most curious sight I have seen since I started — the 
 coaling of the ship by the Japanese. We take on a thou- 
 sand tons of coal here, and when we anchored this morn- 
 ing the whole thousand tons in ships and barges were 
 waiting for us. In an hour they were alongside. In the 
 meantime, half a dozen boatloads of men, women, and 
 children made out from the shore and climbed aboard 
 the barges. There they stood, almost stripped, chatter- 
 ing like a lot of school children, waiting for the work to 
 begin. The moment the ships and barges were alongside, 
 the men rigged swinging scaffolds, each holding two 
 stands. The ports leading to the ship's coal bunkers were 
 opened, and the men rigged a big chute leading into them. 
 Then the boss of the job called time, and the men, women, 
 and children formed lines. Other men jumped on the 
 coal, followed by hundreds of little baskets. These men 
 had shovels, and they began digging into the coal and 
 shoveling into the baskets. A basket would hold just a 
 shovelful. The instant it was filled it was grabbed by 
 a man who tossed it to the next in line, and up and up it 
 went, from hand to hand, to the last man, who emptied it 
 into the chute and hurled it aside to catch the second 
 basket, and the third, and so on. A basket once started 
 never stopped, and at times they went up this human ele- 
 vator at the rate of sixty a minute. At every seventh
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 33 
 
 basket the man or woman who emptied yelled " Hoy ! " 
 which meant that a tubful should be tallied by a man who 
 kept a tally-sheet. The Japs measure their coal by the 
 tubful. The length of the human elevator depended upon 
 the distance the coal was from the chute into which it was 
 to empty. Sometimes there were as many as sixty in a 
 line, and the baskets came with a steadiness that reminded 
 me of an endless chain running' over a wheel. Swing 
 your arms back and forth in front of you as fast as you 
 can swing them, and I'll warrant they won't move as fast 
 as that coal did. To give you some idea of how fast it 
 came, I can tell you that a little over 250 tons were put 
 into the ship in the first three hours. 
 
 I couldn't help saying to myself, as I saw the perspira- 
 tion pouring from them, " Poor, miserable creatures ! " 
 and yet they seemed happy and contented. As they 
 worked they sang. Once in a long, long time a man or a 
 woman would let a basket slip, and when he grabbed 
 wildly for it he would be hit in the head by the next 
 basket, and before he recovered four or five baskets would 
 be on top of him. Then, for an instant, the stream of coal 
 would stop, and men and women would fairly double up, 
 laughing at the unfortunate. He'd get himself together 
 finally, and the stream would start again. 
 
 One of these human elevators was made up wholly of 
 women and girls. They worked as fast as, or faster than, 
 the men, and their song was simply " cluck, cluck, cluck, 
 cluck, cluck, cluck, cluck, cluck." Their voices were 
 musical, and hour after hour it was " cluck, cluck, cluck, 
 cluck, cluck, cluck," endlessly, while the endless stream 
 of baskets shot from woman to woman to the chute. I 
 got back to the ship some time before chow-time (they 
 call food "chow" out here, you know), and I watched 
 their work with the very greatest interest. I couldn't 
 help thinking how different the lot of the women in the 
 United States is from that of the Japanese women. 
 
 Which reminds me, by the way, that the women here 
 all work the same as the men. While I was on shore I 
 passed a new brick building in course of erection. The 
 hod-carriers were all women, and the bricklayers were, 
 many of them, women, too. The building was up two or
 
 34 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 three stories, and there the women were, working with 
 the unconcern of men in the United States. I have seen 
 nothing in the hne of unskilled labor that the women 
 didn't do as well as, and side by side with, the men, ex- 
 cept in the matter of acting as horses. They don't draw 
 'rickshas, and I haven't seen any of them harnessed to 
 trucks, as I saw men harnessed in Kobe. 
 
 But to get back to the loading of coal on the Peking. 
 In this line of women I have told you about I noticed that 
 several had the blackest kind of teeth. Their faces were 
 positively repulsive when they laughed. I thought they 
 were simply cases of decayed teeth, when I first saw them, 
 but they were so completely blackened from gum to edge 
 that I made inquiries, and found that the women with 
 black teeth were married, and those whose teeth were not 
 black were not. I was told that it was the proper thing 
 here for a woman, when she marries, to blacken her teeth. 
 This shows that she loves her husband and doesn't care 
 for the admiration of other men, for she makes herself so 
 repulsive that other men won't admire her. What do 
 you think of that for the depths of love ? The stuff they 
 use, I was told, is a berry dye, and in time it wears off, so, 
 in case of an emergency like the husband's death, the 
 women have a chance, after a while, to look pretty again 
 and catch another. 
 
 One of the most interesting scenes in this coaling 
 operation came when the workers all stopped for chow. 
 The men calmly took off the piece of muslin that passed 
 around their waists and between their legs, and then 
 jumped overboard. This cloth was all the clothing they 
 wore. Nobody seemed to think anything of their being 
 naked. They swam around a while and then pulled them- 
 selves back on the boat, dried themselves in the presence 
 of the assembled multitude, and put on the cloths again. 
 By that time their chow had arrived from shore. Each 
 man got a ball of boiled rice and a strip of dried fish that 
 looked like a banana peeling. They fell to, and from the 
 deck of the Peking they seemed to be eating snowballs 
 and banana peel. They took less than half an hour to 
 finish, and then began the endless stream of baskets, the 
 songs of the men punctuated every few seconds with
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 35 
 
 " Hoy ! " to the tally-man, and the continuous strain, 
 " cluck, cluck, cluck, cluck, cluck, cluck, cluck, cluck, 
 cluck," by the women. It was all mighty interesting, I 
 can tell you, and I only wish you could have been here to 
 see it. 
 
 Now I guess I have told you pretty fully the story 
 of the day. I hope it has interested you and the little 
 ones, as it certainly interested me. We are supposed 
 to sail at midnight, but it is not likely that we will get 
 away before 6 o'clock in the morning. We have 975 
 barrels of salt beef to unload yet. It is for our soldiers in 
 Taku, and it is going on very slowly. This letter has 
 been such a long one that I will try not to weary you 
 with another to-morrow, and I'll say good-bye until 
 Friday, when I hope to reach the end of my journey — 
 for the present at least — in Shanghai, though if we don't 
 leave here until 6 o'clock in the morning we very likely 
 will not get there in time to cross the bar, and 
 we'll have to lie outside until Saturday morning. That 
 will make us three days late, for we are more than two 
 days late now. 
 
 God bless you and the babies, and care for all of you. 
 
 The AsTOR House, Shanghai, 
 
 Saturday, September 8, 1900. 
 
 I took two days ofif, instead of one, for the reason that 
 there was only the same old humdrum on shipboard and 
 nothing at all to tell that under any circumstances could 
 possibly interest you. As you will see by the letter-head, 
 I have reached Shanghai and am now on the mainland of 
 China. Shanghai is up the Woo Sung River, fourteen 
 miles farther than the big ships go and nearly forty miles 
 from the China Sea. We had our first sight of China 
 yesterday afternoon, before we were in sight of solid 
 ground. It was when we met the mud-laden water of the 
 Woo Sung River. It was as brown as the dress you were 
 married in, and I don't think I liked it much better than I 
 liked that dress. About half an hour after that we made 
 out a warship ahead, and everybody crowded to the bow 
 of the ship to watch her. 
 
 It must have been an hour before we were in good
 
 36 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 seeing distance, and then we could see that she was 
 making the signal, " I have something to communicate." 
 We waited for her, and found that the something was our 
 pilot, who was to take us to Shanghai. It was the 
 American battleship Oregon, the famous old Oregon that 
 did the business at Santiago. Maybe we were not all 
 proud of her. We had to wait for the tide, and we 
 dropped anchor right alongside of her. All the rest of 
 the afternoon was spent in admiring the big ship 
 and in talking about her achievements. Captain W., 
 her Captain, came over to visit Captain S., our Captain, 
 and he took back to the Oregon with him a big box of 
 chow. The Oregon was four days out of Nagasaki, 
 bound for Shanghai, and she had to wait for a full moon 
 in order to go in. The moon affects the tides, you know, 
 and the biggest tide comes when the moon is full. The 
 Oregon was so deep in the water that she had to wait for 
 the deepest water she could get to cross the bar at the 
 mouth of the river. It will be full moon to-morrow 
 evening, and that will enable her to come up. When she 
 left Nagasaki her Captain thought there would be no 
 trouble in getting up to Shanghai, so he took only three 
 days' chow with him. He was as glad to see us as we 
 were to see him, and what he took from us will keep them 
 from starving to death, anyway. 
 
 When I left 'Frisco the Oregon had just gone on the 
 rocks in the China Sea, and everybody was afraid her 
 end had come. The rocks had torn a hole in her, twenty- 
 five feet long and wide enough for a fat man to walk 
 through. There certainly didn't seem to be any chance 
 to save her. But Captain W. and the men aboard 
 ship were American sailors, with a " never give up " 
 spirit. The only thing they had on board to patch the big 
 hole with was pine timber an inch thick. They sent their 
 divers down and put a lot of that in place, and then they 
 took a double canvas awning and fastened on the boards 
 with that. Then they got the big pumps working and 
 pumped her out and floated her. It was 600 miles across 
 the open sea to the nearest dry dock, and they boldly set 
 sail. There were more than a thousand tons of water in 
 the hold, and two big centrifugal pumps kept working night
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 37 
 
 and day, but the water ran in as fast as these pumps could 
 take it out. That made no difference. Away went the 
 Oregon to Japan, heading for the Inland Sea, where there 
 is a dry dock big enough to take her in, and though some- 
 times the water gained on the pumps, the men never lost 
 courage and the ship got into port all right. She was 
 put in the dry dock and patched with oak plank fourteen 
 inches thick, and outside of that a steel patch two inches 
 thick was put on. When she came off the dock she was 
 as good as new. 
 
 Well, we left the Oregon at 8 o'clock last night, and 
 started up the Woo^ Sung for Shanghai. We came to the 
 mouth of the river about 1 1 o'clock and anchored, to wait 
 for the doctor to come off and examine us. He got 
 around about 6 o'clock this morning, put us through our 
 sprouts, and told us we might go ashore. Then we found 
 our anchorage, a steam tugboat came alongside, every- 
 body climbed aboard of her, and the trip up the shallow 
 river was begun. We passed over thirty war ships of all 
 nationalities going up. We also passed a lot of soldier 
 camps. You see, the British, French, and German war- 
 ships have landed troops here, though there is no need for 
 them, and has been none. 
 
 The tug landed us at a little pier opposite the Shanghai 
 Club. The first man I laid eyes on was D. He 
 had come down from Peking to meet me, and had been 
 waiting for me nearly a week. He went through all the 
 fighting up there, and had left the Chinese city with 
 everything comparatively quiet. After I got my baggage 
 I came here to the Astor House, and here I am now. I 
 haven't had a chance yet to look around. I will have a 
 little time this afternoon, and I will write you again in the 
 morning. One thing is certain, I am as far away from 
 home as I shall go, and in that sense I am at the end of 
 my journey. 
 
 Kiss the babies for me. Tell the children that the first 
 thing I do will be to look for those little shoes that the 
 women here wear, and I'll buy some for them. I'll have 
 to look around a bit before I can find things for the boys. 
 Bless their little hearts !
 
 38 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 The Astor House, Shanghai, 
 
 Sunday, September 9, 1900. 
 
 Shanghai is a pretty fine town, considering it is far 
 enough around the world for New Yorkers to walk over 
 it. I spent about all of yesterday with D., trying to 
 get in touch with the situation, and to find out what had 
 happened during the month I was at sea. He told me all 
 about the fight at Tien Tsin and the march to Peking, 
 and the saving of the Legation, and after that about the 
 looting of the cities, in which, it seems, everybody took a 
 hand and carried off all that they could carry. The 
 trouble, so far as fighting is concerned, is unquestionably 
 over, but I am afraid I shall have to go on to Peking. 
 Don't growl at this, for long before you read it I shall be 
 in Peking and probably away again. I shall start D. 
 home by Saturday's steamer, and you will hear from him 
 when he gets there. He will send you a roll of silk. 
 
 But I started to tell you about Shanghai. It's a big 
 town — the biggest foreign town in the whole of the Far 
 East. Each of the larger nations has a " Concession " 
 of territory, and the people of those nationalities live in 
 the houses built in those Concessions. The Astor House, 
 where I am writing, is in the American Concession. I've 
 a big room here and a bath. The hotel faces a park 
 where there is music every night or so. Nearly all the 
 guests at the hotel are English, American, German, or 
 Russian. Of course the servants are all Chinese, but they 
 speak a sort of English that you can understand after a 
 bit. For instance, my room is " top side " ; that is, it is up- 
 stairs. If I go anywhere, I go " Nankin side," or " club 
 side," or " French side," or if I go to my room, I go 
 " top side." If I want anything I start out with " Have 
 got? " and if the heathen has it he says " Have got " ; if 
 he hasn't, he says " No have got." If I want him to do 
 anything, he says " Can do " or " No can do," and if I 
 want to do anything myself, and ask him about it, he 
 says the same — " Can do " or " No can do." If I want a 
 thing done as a white man wants it, I say " alle same 
 foreign," and if I want it Chinese style, it's " alle same 
 Chinese," and he shows a heathen pleasure as he yells 
 " Alle lighte, can do."
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 39 
 
 However, I'm getting off the subject again. I guess 
 I " no can do " it. I took tiffin at the Ckib with D. 
 and J. C. F., an American who is President of the 
 Nang Yang College, and the foreigner who is probably 
 closest to the Chinese of all the foreigners in China. He 
 is a pretty nice fellow. He was formerly a missionary, 
 and he comes from Newark, New Jersey. I guess you 
 have heard of that town. 
 
 The club here is like the club in Yokohama. It is a 
 club of foreigners. Any foreign resident can be a mem- 
 ber of it, and nearly all of them are, with the result that 
 when you sit two minutes on the front porch you are 
 bound to hear about every modern language spoken. In 
 the afternoon I got a lot of the papers and read what had 
 happened, to supplement what D. had told me, so 
 now I think I'm pretty well up on the China question. 
 
 You get around Shanghai just as you do in the cities of 
 Japan; that is, they have jinrikishas here. The men 
 who draw them are, as a rule, a great deal bigger than the 
 Japs, and they run much faster, so that really it is a fine 
 and a quick way of getting around. The money is all 
 silver, and it is worth the same as in Japan ; that is, one 
 of our gold dollars is worth two of their silver dollars. 
 The stores are all run by the foreigners ; that is to say, 
 the stores which keep goods that the foreigners want ; but 
 they all have Chinese clerks. The head man in all the stores 
 is the " shroff." The shroff (I don't think that is spelled 
 right) is a man who seems to be an expert accountant and 
 an expert in money. He tests every piece of money that 
 is taken in. If you buy a thing and pay, say, a dollar for 
 it, he takes the dollar, and, balancing it on his finger, he 
 hits it with another dollar and listens to the ring. If it 
 doesn't suit him he won't take the money, and no amount 
 of argument will induce him to do it. One of the store- 
 keepers with whom I talked told me that all this was 
 necessary, for the reason that at least a third of all the 
 silver in circulation is bad. The Chinese split it. Then 
 they take out a lot of the silver and fill the hole left with 
 brass, and stick it together again. Even at the banks this 
 test is applied, and there, where thousands of dollars are 
 taken in every day, you can see what a job it is. When
 
 40 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 a merchant has tested money and found it good, he puts 
 a stamp on it, so that if he pays it out and it comes back 
 again he will recognize it and won't be afraid to take it. 
 Here at the Astor House there is a notice reading some- 
 thing like this : " Guests who have their money changed 
 at the office will please see that all their silver dollars have 
 our mark, ' A. H.,' in order that trouble may be avoided 
 in case any mistake has been made. No dollars will be 
 exchanged unless they have our mark." Talk about un- 
 certain currency — if this isn't uncertain, I don't know, 
 what is. You feel like biting every piece of money you 
 get, to make sure that it is good, and most of it is so dirty 
 you are afraid to bite it. 
 
 I cabled the office to-day that I had arrived, and I sup- 
 pose you had a letter from Ward, telling you of that fact. 
 He promised to write to you when he got the first word 
 from me. 
 
 But once more I must get back to Shanghai. Yester- 
 day afternoon, after tiffin and after I had had a look at 
 the papers I told you about, I took a long "ricksha ride 
 through the district where the Chinese shops are. They 
 are set right out on the streets, like the shops in Japan, 
 and they seem to have no fronts. The counters face on 
 the sidewalk. The particularly noticeable feature about 
 them is the astonishing number of clerks. In nearly every 
 shop the space behind the counter is jammed with husky 
 Chinese — ten, twelve, and fifteen clerks to a store. They 
 are all naked to the waist, and when you stop to buy the 
 whole force starts in to sell. They go on the principle 
 that it is no trouble to show goods, and, if you don't look 
 out, before you know it you will have the entire stock on 
 the counter in front of you and a pack of Chinese telling 
 you what each thing costs, what any number of things 
 cost, or what you can have the whole store for. These 
 shops sell all classes of goods, from silks up or down. 
 After going through some of the stores I struck some of 
 the residence streets and took a look at the houses. They 
 are pretty fine houses, too. Most of them are made of 
 either brick or stone, and all of them look comfortable. 
 I spent the evening at the hotel, talking over the happen- 
 ings of the month with D.
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 41 
 
 There is a day's record, and I'll let it go at that. I'll 
 write again to-morrow, of course. 
 
 The Astor House, Shanghai, 
 
 Monday, September lo, 1900. 
 
 Shanghai seems to be a warm sort of a town, as well 
 as a fine one. It is hot as mustard here to-day. Every- 
 body is in white clothes except your humble servant, and 
 if it wasn't so near the season for winter I think he would 
 go out and buy him some. As it is, I guess he'll worry 
 along with what he has. 
 
 There wasn't much to do yesterday, so after breakfast 
 D. and I and Dr. McW. and Dr. S., whom I have 
 mentioned in my letters to you written aboard the 
 Peking, went out to see one of the big wholesale silk 
 houses. As you of course know, silk is the chief 
 thing that China sends out to the rest of the world. The 
 silk is all hand-made, and it is, I think, the best in the 
 world. This place we visited is on the Nanking road, not 
 far from the hotel. It is a Chinese place, and in four 
 hours I think I must have handled a great many thousands 
 of dollars' worth of silk. The Chinese merchant who kept 
 the store was surrounded by clerks, and three clerks just 
 busied themselves trotting out silks of all qualities, all col- 
 ors, and all styles. When we went in the merchant asked 
 us what we wanted to see, and we began modestly with a 
 request to see some pajama silk " alle same like foreigner 
 make night-clothes of." " Have got," said he. Now, 
 maybe you think he hadn't ! In less time than it takes to 
 tell it we were almost drowned in rolls of pajama silk, 
 from the quality coarse to the quality superfine. 
 
 Let me digress here a moment to tell you one 
 of the things about the heathen Chinee that attracted 
 my attention. It was his finger nails, or, I might more 
 properly say, they were his finger nails. I think they 
 would none of them measure less than three inches long, 
 from the tip of the fingers out. I am speaking now of the 
 boss Chinaman. His finger nails were simply marvels. 
 They were highly polished. How he kept from breaking 
 them I haven't the remotest idea, but he did, and seemed 
 to handle them with all the skill that one of those misfit
 
 42 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 doctors on the boat used to show m handling a knife when 
 eating. The numerous clerks who went at the beck of 
 this boss Chinamen all had long nails, too, but theirs 
 didn't average much over an inch beyond the tips of the 
 fingers. I wanted to ask them what the nails were used 
 for, but then I thought better of it. 
 
 Now, to get back to the silks. I could not but marvel 
 at their cheapness. The most expensive I saw was $40 a 
 roll. A roll contains twenty yards, and the $40, of course, 
 was Mexican money, so that was only $20 of our money. 
 A dollar a yard for silk that could not be bought in the 
 United States under $4 or $5 a yard, if it could be bought 
 at all ! It ran from that price all the way down to $7.50 
 a roll, — that is, $3.75 in our money, — and each roll liad 
 from eighteen to twenty yards in it. There were silks 
 so light you could hardly feel that you had anything in 
 your hand when you were handling them, and silks as 
 heavy as a piece of thick woolen goods, and all of them 
 of astonishing strength. I would pick up a piece of light 
 stuff and ask the price of it. The heathen with the long 
 finger nails might say, " Nine dollar roll." Then with all 
 the air of an expert in silk I would say, " Too much." 
 He would shake his head and say, " Quality belly good. 
 No can tear. Try." Then I'd get hold of the edge of 
 that piece of silk, and while the heathen grinned I'd put 
 forth every ounce of strength I had and try to rip it, 
 without succeeding even in stretching the threads or 
 spreading the weave. All real Chinese silk is hand-made, 
 and that is the chief difference between our silk and China 
 silk. Our silk is all machine-made, and this suggests an 
 idea, too. 
 
 Everybody, pretty nearly, has been blaming the mis- 
 sionaries for the hatred of the " foreign devils " displayed 
 by the Chinese. Is occurs to me right here that the in- 
 troduction of machinery and railroads probably has as 
 much, or more, to do with the trouble as the missionaries 
 could possibly have. Just think of it a minute. Every- 
 thing in China has been done by hand. All the carrying 
 has been so done, as well as all the manufacturing. Now, 
 the foreigners come in and introduce railroads. Every 
 pound of freight that these railroads carry was formerly
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 43 
 
 carried by the Chinese coolies. One railroad takes the 
 place of a thousand or ten thousand coolies, who have, 
 like their ancestors for generations, been carrying freight 
 for a living. These coolies are thrown out of employ- 
 ment. Every railroad is carrying passengers and every 
 passenger carried had formerly to ride in hand-drawn 
 contrivances or was carried by coolies. So the railroads 
 drive out of business all the Chinese in the passenger or 
 freight-carrying business. The Chinese are taught to do 
 one thing. The Chinese who are taught to carry don't 
 know how to do anything else. The result is that they 
 become the mortal enemies of the '* foreign devil " who 
 introduced the thing that put them out of business. I 
 guess, if the truth were known, it is the improvements in 
 the nature of labor-saving inventions rather than the mis- 
 sionaries that have aroused the hatred of the Chinese. If 
 that is the case, just think what is in prospect. Take the 
 silk industry alone, with its millions upon millions of 
 workers. Unquestionably, machines for making silk will 
 be introduced here. They are bound to be, and when 
 they are, then millions of the millions who know nothing 
 but silk making will be out of work. Then the hatred of 
 the foreign devil will be tenfold. It is not so hard to see 
 the cause of trouble when you hunt for it, is it ? 
 
 I said something about railroads and passengers. 
 There are two kinds of conveyances in use here for the 
 carrying of passengers that I had forgotten to tell you 
 about. One is the sedan chair. This is a box with a seat 
 in it. It has a cover, and the sides are made of wire 
 netting, like our mosquito netting. To each side of the 
 chair is attached a long pole, and when the passenger gets 
 in and the box is shut up, coolies lift the ends of the poles 
 and deposit them on their shoulders and walk ofif with 
 them. I haven't tried a chair ride yet. I understand 
 that I'll have a whole stomachful of it when I go north, 
 so I'm going to wait till I have to. It surely doesn't look 
 comfortable. 
 
 The other means of getting around is by wheelbarrow. 
 Now don't laugh, for wheelbarrow locomotion is very 
 popular here. The barrow has a wheel much bigger than 
 the wheelbarrows we sec at home. It is set in the middle
 
 44 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 of the carrier, instead of at one end. Each barrow is 
 built to hold four passengers, and you sit on either side of 
 the wheel while the coolie pushes you along. As there is 
 only one wheel to a barrow it's hard luck for the coolie 
 when he has to wheel a one-sided load. If he has two 
 passengers, one on a side, he has it easier, for one balances 
 the other, and all that he has to do is to push. You 
 can't walk half a block without seeing three or four of 
 these contrivances. Here in Shanghai they are used 
 almost exclusively by the Chinese, but in other ports 
 where there are no 'rickshas and sedan chairs are few, 
 everybody uses them, they say. I sincerely trust that I 
 don't strike any of the places, for I can't imagine a more 
 uncomfortable-looking vehicle of transportation. Along- 
 side of them the sedan chair is not in it. 
 
 But let me see : I left you in the silk store, didn't I ? 
 Well, I'm not expert enough in the subject of silk to tell 
 you much more about what I saw than I have already 
 done. I didn't buy any, but I certain sure am going to 
 buy a lot before I come home, and if I don't have all my 
 relations clothed in silk before I get through with it, it 
 will be because they won't wear the stuff. 
 
 Sunday afternoon I took a ride out to a place called the 
 Bubbling Well, because there is a spring there that bub- 
 bles up and goes back again, and then I learned the reason 
 why the allied forces did not catch the Emperor and 
 Empress Dowager and all the Princes when they got 
 to Peking. That information I cabled to The Sun, and 
 you of course have seen it. 
 
 The Astor House, Shanghai, 
 
 September ii, 1900. 
 Still at Shanghai and likely to stay here until Sunday, 
 for there is no boat going north so far as I can find out, 
 and walking is bad. I'm having plenty to do, never- 
 theless, getting in full touch with the situation and learn- 
 ing these dem Chinese names, both of towns and of men. 
 There's Ching and Chang and Chung and Li and Lo and 
 Lung and Foo Chow and Go Chow and Ku Chow and A 
 Chow, and so on, an assortment that is guaranteed to 
 discourage a Job, and to drive any mortal less favored.
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 45 
 
 witH patience than that patriarch into doldrums too awful 
 to describe. But I'm getting on, thank you, and if I 
 don't chew up and spit out the whole English language 
 in chunks by the time I get back, to say nothing of ap- 
 pearing in a pea-green jacket and wide pantalets, it won't 
 be for want of education of the Chinese order. I had a 
 little spare time yesterday, and I put it in with a visit to 
 the place called here the Mixed Courts. 
 
 I have already told you about the various foreign con- 
 cessions that make up the city of Shanghai. Well, these 
 places are governed by a Council and are policed by 
 natives and by Sikhs. The Sikhs are from India. They 
 are usually tremendously tall, black as coal, and be- 
 whiskered. They wear a headgear that is folded in a 
 manner that cannot fail to excite admiration no less than 
 wonder. They give you the impression that they have 
 taken their turkey-red tablecloths, made a double 
 wrap with them around their heads, and then twisted in 
 the loose ends. However, I did not start in to tell you 
 about the police system of Shanghai, but about the Mixed 
 Courts. Well, to return to the subject matter of this 
 essay, all the prisoners arrested by the Municipal Police 
 in the American and English Concessions are taken to the 
 Mixed Courts to be tried, that is, all the native prisoners. 
 The court is presided over by a Chinese Judge, and either 
 an Englishman or an American acts with him. They try 
 the prisoners in the morning and punish them in the after- 
 noon. The punishment is inflicted with a bamboo. They 
 get so many blows from the bamboo on their bare skins. 
 Usually the greatest number inflicted is i,ooo, and they 
 run all the way down to twenty-five. When the criminal 
 is very bad, and has been around robbing people and 
 assaulting them, he is very likely to get his thousand blows 
 and then to be taken out and put in a cage with his neck 
 through a round hole in the top. He is then stood out 
 near the gates of the city for all the people to see. He 
 gets neither food nor drink. The bottom of the cage is 
 full of stones, and he stands on these. Each day a stone 
 is taken away, and each day he hangs more by the neck 
 until finally he strangles to death. That's pretty horrible, 
 isn't it? But it may be necessary with people of the
 
 46 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 character of these. Whenever an uprising is threatened 
 two or three men are treated in this fashion, and that ends 
 the uprising, P. D. Q. 
 
 There were no very bad men to be dealt with Tuesday, 
 and the worst one got only 400 blows. The officers of the 
 court were the Judge, who wore a hat shaped like a cone, 
 with red tassels flowing down the side, and beside him a 
 man who held his pipe for him, and every moment or 
 two reached over the stem and stuck it in the Judge's 
 mouth ; on the other side was another man who 
 held a teapot ready. Every time the Judge wanted a 
 drink he poured a cup of tea for him. In front of the 
 bench and on the other side were rows of officials. Those 
 nearest the Judge were dressed in light pajamas and had 
 cone hats. The ones farthest away were dressed in blue 
 pajamas and wore caps exactly like the pictured dunce- 
 cap, with a rooster feather coming out of the top. They 
 were the runners for the court. Outside the courtroom 
 itself, and directly in front of the door, stood the execu- 
 tioners, with their bamboos. They were dressed in white 
 from head to foot and had straw hats built cone-shaped 
 to a peak at the top. Their weapons were rods of bam- 
 boo, about three feet long, an inch and a half wide, and an 
 eighth of an inch thick. The courtyard of the place ex- 
 tended out to the open street, and on either side, in heavy 
 barred cages, were the prisoners. 
 
 When the court was ready for business the name of a 
 prisoner was called and he came running in. He dropped 
 on his knees before the Judge and kowtowed, that is, 
 bumped his head on the floor two or three times. Then 
 the Judge talked at him and he tried to talk at the Judge. 
 This lasted something like fifty seconds, when one of the 
 court officers nearest grabbed the unfortunate's pigtail, 
 pulled him up, twisted him around, and dragged him out 
 to where the executioner was standing. On his way the 
 unfortunate was loosening his trousers, and they fell just 
 as he reached a spot in front of the door where there was 
 a little mat, and where the executioners were. Down he 
 went on his face on the mat. One man with a duncecap 
 and rooster feather sat on his head and shoulders, and 
 another of the same kind sat on his feet. An executioner
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 47 
 
 dropped on one knee. His bamboo had been dipped in 
 alum to make it stick and sting, and he started in welting 
 the prisoner just about as fast as he could count. 
 
 This prisoner was to get 400 blows. The executioner 
 gave him one hundred and then another executioner took 
 the rod and told off another hundred. Then the first 
 tackled it again, and laid on a third hundred, when the 
 second man took hold and completed the job. The 
 moment the first blow was struck the victim began yelling, 
 and he never let up until the job was done. When his 
 yells became too bad the man sitting on his head grabbed 
 his queue and twisted it around and into his mouth to gag 
 him. After the beating the victim was pulled up by his 
 queue and yanked back again before the Judge, where he 
 kowtowed some more and promised to be good. 
 Then he was yanked off, still by the hair handle, to 
 serve a term in jail. I really never realized what a valu- 
 able adjunct a queue was until I saw it used to handle 
 men. 
 
 Fifteen or twenty prisoners were spanked. None of 
 them got so many blows as the first, however. Then 
 came along two women. The same process was 
 gone through with before the Judge. They were accused 
 of abducting a girl 14 years old. One of them was 
 sentenced to a bambooing and the other to a mouth- 
 slapping. The latter is considered the worst and most 
 degrading punishment that can be inflicted. The woman 
 who was bambooed was seized by both arms, a man on 
 each side of her, and the arms were drawn tight across 
 her breast. That made her dress fit her tight in the back, 
 and the bamboo was laid on across the shoulders good 
 and hard while she screamed. Then the woman who was 
 to have her mouth slapped was hauled out. She was 
 seized in the same way. The executioner picked up a 
 piece of sole-leather and begun first on one side. He 
 slapped her mouth one hundred times. The leather was 
 cut the shape of the sole of a slipper and was about the 
 same size. The second executioner took the weapon 
 when the first had finished and he slapped the other side 
 of her mouth one hundred times. When they were 
 through the woman's face looked like the map of Ireland.
 
 48 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 She kept up a continual screaming while the affair was 
 going on, and from her general manner I'm satisfied she 
 will not abduct any more Chinese girls, for a while, at 
 least. 
 
 Oh, before I close this letter I want to tell you about 
 some of the missionaries I have seen. They have been 
 here so long that they braid their hair into pigtails, shav- 
 ing the rest of the head like the Chinese, and they wear 
 Chinese clothes. Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems to me 
 that this is just a bit too far to go to save the heathen. 
 
 Well, I'll close the record of another day, and as the 
 poet says, 
 
 " My pen is poor. 
 My ink is pale, 
 My love for you 
 Will never fail." 
 
 The Astor House, Shanghai, 
 
 Thursday, September 13, 1900. 
 
 I had hoped to be away from Shanghai before to-day 
 and on my way northward toward Peking, but steamers 
 are very irregular, and I shall have to wait my chance. 
 Li Hung Chang starts north in the morning in a steamer 
 of the China Merchant Transportation Company, and I 
 thought it possible that I might get away with him, but 
 he has more than 300 persons in his suite, including some 
 150 servants, and they will crowd the steamer. He won't 
 get up, however, much before I do. 
 
 D. and I went out to the Nang Yang College to-day, 
 to have tiffin with Mr. F. I was astounded at the fine 
 buildings they have here. The college is a Chinese insti- 
 tution, supported by the Government, but the President is 
 an American, as I think I have told you. I met his 
 wife, who had been out here with him for thirteen 
 years. She assured me that she liked China, and that 
 she had been here so long that now when she visits the 
 United States she is always glad to start back. Did you 
 ever hear of such contrariness? I inclose you a picture 
 of the college and another of F.'s home. 
 
 Incidentally I can give you some idea of the cost of 
 houses here. F.'s mansion cost 6,000 taels, or about 
 $4,000 gold, and I use the word " mansion " advisedly.
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 49 
 
 The college buildings, which cost not more than $75,000 
 gold, could not be built in the United States for less than 
 $500,000. 
 
 After we left the college we drove ofif to the walled 
 city of Shanghai, that is, the native city. It was through 
 a country nearly as full of burying-grounds as was Naga- 
 saki, about which I have told you, only here the graves are 
 not in burying-grounds, but in open fields. When a 
 Chinaman dies his body is placed in a thick wooden casket 
 and put out in the field to await the auspicious time. 
 That time is told by some of the Voodoo-men who infest 
 China and are believed in by the Chinese. They read 
 the heavens and the stars, and they watch until they catch 
 the particular star that the dead man was born under, 
 right over the box. It may be weeks or months, or a 
 year or more, but the coffin stays where it was put until 
 the auspicious time arrives, and then the Voodoo-man 
 lets the relatives know. They go out, and, instead of 
 digging a hole and putting the coffin in it, they heap the 
 earth up on the coffin and make a mound. Then they 
 bring along a trunk made of paper and full of paper 
 clothes that the dead man is supposed to wear in heaven, 
 and a whole bunch of paper money with which he can 
 pay his way in the Celestial City. The money is made 
 in the shape of boats, so that it will float, and the outside 
 is covered with silver paper. Besides the money and 
 clothes packages of food are brought for the dead man, 
 and everything is put on the grave and burned. After that 
 the sorrowing relatives are satisfied that all has been done 
 that can be done, and they go about their business. 
 
 We went into the native city of Shanghai by the West 
 Gate, and we walked through to the East Gate. You 
 must know that these are real gates, not joke gates. 
 They are closed every night at 9 o'clock, and if anybody 
 gets shut out he has to stay out. The wall around the 
 city is a hundred or more years old, and is more than 
 twenty feet high. The gates are made of heavy wood. 
 They are iron-bound, and are about as formidable as 
 gates could well be. 
 
 The walk through the native city was curious indeed. 
 The streets were so narrow that, if you stood in the
 
 50 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 middle and stretched out your hands, you could touch 
 the buildings on either side. They were lined with small 
 shops from end to end — shops where everything under 
 the sun was sold. In some of the shops manufacturing 
 was going on. I saw men and girls making silk and 
 other things. We visited the Yamen in the city. That 
 is the official residence of the highest official, whoever he 
 may be, and we had tea there. 
 
 When F. had finished his business, sedan-chairs 
 were called and we all went out of the city in style in 
 these chairs, carried on the shoulders of coolies. The 
 ride was not an uncomfortable one, either, I can tell you. 
 It was like gliding through the air. There were no 
 rough stones to shake you up. When I got out I said 
 to the other fellows that there was only one thing more 
 needed to make me a thorough Chinaman, and that was a 
 ride in a wheelbarrow. I suppose that I shall get that 
 before long. 
 
 I asked about the narrowness of the streets in the 
 native city, and they told me that as there was no wagon 
 traffic the streets were wide enough for all purposes to 
 which they were put, and, by having them narrow and 
 almost covered as they were, the summer sun was shut 
 out and the city w^as cooler. You see, these people don't 
 know anything at all about the value of sunlight and 
 air. 
 
 Back at F.'s office I got a little box of tea which 
 D. has kindly agreed to take home to you. Don't 
 be afraid of it. It is not like the tea that you buy at 
 Wohltman's. It is worth almost its weight in gold, some- 
 thing like $i6 a pound. It is the next best tea that is 
 grown, and only the wealthiest people drink it here. 
 None of it ever gets away from China. It only requires 
 a few sprigs of it to make a fine cup of tea. It is not 
 like the teaspoonful to a cup stuff. JMake some tea for 
 yourself and think of me. 
 
 Shanghai, Friday, September 14, 1900. 
 Still in Shanghai, but expecting to be away any day 
 now, Peking-ward. I have a ticket for a steamer, the 
 Woo Sling, which is supposed to leave at 6 o'clock in the
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 51 
 
 morning, but a typhoon is raging outside the river, and 
 ships never venture out of the harbor until those things 
 are over. They are hke the West Indian hurricanes. 
 
 I've had another busy day of it. As the mission north 
 is not a war correspondent's job, but rather a society 
 function, I found that it was necessary to procure a 
 dress-suit, so this morning I went out and was measured 
 for one and for a Tuxedo coat. It will take eight days 
 to have these made and the tailors will ship them north 
 after me. After that I purchased a lot of things that I 
 found I would need, and then I got me back to the hotel 
 and started in to write letters. I wrote to H. R. Cham- 
 berlin in London, to Mr. Lord and to Mr. Ward, 
 and to Mother and Father and G. Wasn't that pretty 
 good for one batch? You see, I hadn't written to a soul 
 since I boarded the steamer in San Francisco except to 
 you. 
 
 It is night now, and I am writing in my room in the 
 Astor House. The wind is whistling outside like a good 
 fellow. I can't help wishing you were here with me 
 and that we could have just one good talk together; and 
 I want to see the babies, too, bless them all. Of course 
 the two girls and W. are going to school every day. 
 I wonder if W. is remembering what his papa told 
 him before he came away, and is getting dressed first 
 every morning without any growling and grumbling, 
 and I wonder if C. is teasing his mamma as he used 
 to do, or if he is the good little boy that he promised to 
 be. Of course the young ladies are models, and are 
 helping their mother. Since the fighting is all over 
 here you haven't the remotest cause to worry about me. 
 I'm safe and snug as a bug in a rug. All I want is my 
 family. 
 
 The Astor House, Shanghai, eighth moon, twenty- 
 second day, 26th year, H. I. M. Kuang 
 Hsu, Son of Heaven, Bedfellow of the Moon, 
 Room-mate of the Stars — the same being, in plain 
 English, Saturday, September 15, 1900. 
 
 I'm top side now, as they say out here, being upstairs 
 in my room. A China boy has just this moment knocked
 
 62 ORDEREDTOCHINA 
 
 on the door and announced, " One piece man, office side, 
 want see Kam-pin-ling. Can have ? " To which I repHed, 
 " Can get one piece man top side ? " and he retorted, " Can 
 get." Even now I reaHze that he " have got," for I hear 
 the stranger's footsteps in the hall. 
 
 One hour later, on the twenty-second day of the eighth 
 moon. 
 
 It was F., about whom I have written you. He 
 came to tell me that his Imperial Majesty, the Son of 
 Heaven, etc., had issued an edict commanding the ex- 
 termination of all the Boxers in China, which, I may re- 
 mark, is important if true, although just at present it 
 must be admitted the Son of Heaven is, to use an 
 Americanism, slightly on the hog. F., though, is 
 all right, and is keeping me posted on the Chinese end 
 of about everything that is going on. His untimely 
 arrival to-day, however, has made me miss the mail, and 
 this letter will be the first of the bunch that you get on the 
 next steamer, instead of the last of the bunch that went 
 by to-day's steamer, as I intended it should be. 
 
 I think I told you in my letter yesterday that I ex- 
 pected to sail this morning for Tien Tsin and Peking, 
 This letter is evidence that I did not. I was to have 
 gone on the Woo Sung, and she started at 6 o'clock, but 
 the typhoon is still raging outside and she will anchor 
 at the mouth of the river. She will stay there, proba- 
 bly, two or three days, and rather than experience that 
 wait, living on Chinese chow, I let her go and will stay 
 here until the typoon is over, going north when I can 
 catch a steamer. There is a decent hotel here, at least, 
 and I don't believe in hunting any more hardship than 
 necessary. D. is going home on the American Maru, 
 which is supposed to sail at noon, and he is out 
 hunting her now. I don't believe she will go, on account 
 of the weather. It is simply beastly. The rain is com- 
 ing down in torrents and the wind is blowing a gale. 
 
 All the reports I have heard from the north, so far, are 
 that things are quieting down there wonderfully, and 
 that everything is shaping itself for a quick peace nego- 
 tiation. I sincerely trust that the thing will be done 
 quickly, for the sooner it is over, of course, the sooner I
 
 ORDERED TO CHIN A 53 
 
 will be homeward bound. All the news from Peking, 
 however, is still seven days old. It takes seven days for 
 stuff to come here on account of the rush of Government 
 business on the telegraph line, which, by the way, is 
 another reason why I am not so anxious to hurry north. 
 With seven days' delay on everything, I can temporarily 
 be of more use here. 
 
 D. has just come in with the news that the American 
 Mam won't sail until Sunday, so I may get this letter off 
 on her yet, and I'll hustle it through. As I'm tied up 
 in the hotel here, there is not much to say except that 
 I'm well and happy, save for loneliness. I don't wish 
 you any hard luck, but I can't help wishing you were 
 here with me. However, there is mighty little use wish- 
 ing for the impossible, and I'll just content myself with 
 saying that the longer I'm away the more I miss you. 
 There, isn't that well said? Good-bye, until to-morrow. 
 
 The Astor House, Shanghai, Twenty-third day, 
 eighth moon, 26th year H. I. M. Kuang Hsu, 
 Sunday, September 16, 1900. 
 
 This Chinese calendar is great, isn't it? All it is neces- 
 sary to do is to keep track of the moon. Every time you 
 get a new moon you start fresh. The lucky day of the 
 year is the twenty-first day of the eighth moon, according 
 to Chinese superstition. That's the day Li Hung Chang 
 started from here to go north on his peace mission. He 
 started in the face of a typhoon, and I wondered at the 
 time why he did it. The reason is that it was his lucky 
 day, and he wouldn't have missed it for anything. 
 
 It is still raining and the weather is as beastly as it 
 can be. A steamer got in from England this morning, 
 and the hotel, which has been gradually emptying since 
 I came, has filled up again to the overflow point. D. 
 got away this afternoon. I'efore he left he said that one 
 of the first things he would do when he reached the 
 States was to call on you and tell you how comfortably he 
 left me. I hope he brings you round a nice roll of silk. 
 
 I had a long talk this morning with John Goodnow, 
 the American Consul here, who appears to be a pretty 
 clever sort of a citizen. The English hate him because
 
 64 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 he is an American and always sticks up for the Americans 
 here ; also, because he has been the most successful of all 
 the Consuls during the trouble. The English are cads, 
 chiefly, and they can't stand seeing the men, particularly 
 the officials, of any other country successful. They 
 think that they themselves are about all there is of the 
 civilized world and they want everybody else to think so, 
 and are unhappy if they can't have it so. 
 
 I am making a few very good acquaintances. I have 
 already told you of some of them. Another is J. F. 
 B., the correspondent of The Herald and of Har- 
 per's Weekly. He was here during all the row and 
 marched with the troops to Tien Tsin and Peking. He 
 is going to Japan from here. He has been away from 
 home five years, and of course is very anxious to get 
 back, but he can't go until all the trouble is settled. He 
 will probably go back to Peking from Japan. 
 
 By the way, I have a piece of loot. It is a dragon tile 
 from the pottery inside the wall of the Forbidden City. 
 It is a nice piece of work, with a first-rate dragon on it. 
 D. had three pieces and he gave me this one. 
 Mounted, it will look quite fine. I am still undecided 
 when I shall start north, and I don't know yet when a 
 boat is going. You see, since the disturbance the boats 
 are not running regularly. They will get back into shape 
 quickly, though, I think. 
 
 The Astor House, Shanghai, Twenty-fourth day, 
 
 eighth moon, 26th year, H. I. M. Kuang Hsu, 
 
 being Monday, the seventeenth day of September, 
 
 1900. 
 
 The typhoon is still typhooning and it is a nasty rainy 
 
 blustering day — one of those days that make you 
 
 down in the mouth and low-spirited. It's been raining 
 
 cats and dogs so badly that no one has ventured out of 
 
 the house except when there was business that simply 
 
 had to be attended to. 
 
 The monotony was relieved this morning by an East 
 Indian palm-reader and fortune-teller. There was noth- 
 ing else to do, and a lot of us had our fortunes told. 
 He looked over my palms and pointed out the life line.
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 55 
 
 the fortune line, and the line of the heart. He said I was 
 booked for long life, with no sickness to speak of. Then 
 he studied over the fortune line a while and assured me 
 that I had had a great deal of money, all of which I had 
 earned myself. He said that I would never have any 
 money left to me, and that what I had already was not 
 a marker to what I was going to have. He said it was 
 coming in 1901 and 1902. I would engage in business 
 in those years, he declared, that would bring me plenty 
 of money. Next he declared that I had many friends 
 who were good friends, but that I would never benefit 
 from their friendship ; it would all be the other way — 
 they would benefit from me. Modesty forbids my re- 
 peating what he said about the size of my heart and my 
 generosity. He told me next that I was going to start 
 home very soon. I assured him with an absolutely 
 straight face that I was going to stay here three or four 
 years, but it didn't shake him ; he held up both hands and 
 declared that I would be home before this year had 
 passed. He said that I was going to get a letter that 
 would start me. He was equally positive about that 
 money in 1901 and 1902, so I guess we are on Easy 
 Street — hey, sweetheart? Of course, this was all very 
 foolish, but it helped while away the time, and anything 
 that does that at this distance from home is worth the 
 money. I paid him one Mexican dollar, which is worth 
 50 cents of our money. Well, that was the happening of 
 the day ; nothing else has turned up worth writing about. 
 This afternoon I went to a jewelry store here and 
 looked at a lot of Chinese silverware. The Chinese are 
 very clever in their silver work. I saw a lot of things 
 that made my mouth water. The trinkets were not of 
 any particular use, but were exquisitely worked. Among 
 them were individual salt and pepper boxes that I re- 
 solved to possess myself of before I return home. I'll 
 bid you good-night. God bless all of you. 
 
 The Astor House, SHANnnAi, eighth moon, twenty- 
 fifth day, 26th year of H. I. M. Kuang Hsu, being 
 Tuesday, September 18, 1900. 
 
 The typhoon has gone, the sun is shining, and life is
 
 56 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 once more worth living, even taking into account tHe 
 lonesomeness of things. I had a long jinrikisha ride 
 this morning, over in the French Settlement, looking for 
 a ship that would take me to Peking. I didn't find one, 
 but I did see more missionaries than you could shake a 
 stick at. 
 
 As nearly as I can learn, the missionary doesn't have a 
 very hard time out here except in times like this. Now 
 and then one of them is killed, but it is not often, and in 
 proportion to the number of them here the record is 
 not large. They are not prohibited from having fam- 
 ilies. In fact, they are rather encouraged in that prac- 
 tice. For every child they have, they get $ioo a year 
 extra salary. This is to provide for the maintenance of 
 the child and its education. Ten children bring in an in- 
 come of $i,ooo a year extra, and there are many mission- 
 aries' families that have that many children. 
 
 The missionaries who dress as I have told you are sent 
 out here by the China Inland Missionary Society of Eng- 
 land. They are religious missionaries, purely, and for 
 that reason the Chinese hate them. Our own mission- 
 aries, as a rule, stand better with the Chinese for the 
 reason that they run more to education and medical work. 
 Practically all of the hospital and the educational work 
 in China is in the hands of the American missionaries, 
 and it is work that helps the Chinese, and improves their 
 condition and their morals. The Chinese realize that, 
 and they like the American missionaries, not because 
 they are Americans, but because of the work they are 
 doing. The Americans have had many evidences of this 
 liking, they tell me. Several times, when there have been 
 native uprisings, the Chinese officials have sent for the 
 Americans and have told them that trouble was coming, 
 and that it would be advisable for them to go away for a 
 few days.
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 67 
 
 (This letter is addressed to another member of the family. It is in- 
 serted in full, although a part of it repeats somewhat a previous letter.) 
 
 The Astor House, Shanghai, eighth moon, twenty- 
 eighth day, 26th year of H. I. M. Kuang Hsu, 
 Brother of the Moon, Son of Heaven, and Room- 
 mate of the Stars, the same in plain EngHsh being 
 Friday, September 21, a. d. 1900. 
 
 With this Chinese calendar opening, my dear sister, 
 I will proceed to call down on your head the blessing of 
 the various Josses (I guess that is the plural of Joss), 
 and will endeavor to enlighten you on the subject of 
 missionaries in the Celestial Kingdom, known to the 
 world as China. I have no doubt you will be interested, 
 and, having slept next door to a missionary for fully two 
 weeks, I feel myself competent to tackle the subject. 
 Shanghai is the present abiding place of a large bunch of 
 them, and I have studied them, outwardly, with more or 
 less care. 
 
 You see, when the trouble in the north became really 
 serious, the various Consuls representing countries that 
 have missionaries out here sent word to all of them to 
 come into the seaport towns, where they could be properly 
 protected, and the missionaries needed no second invita- 
 tion. That explains the presence of so large a number 
 in Shanghai now. I probably would not have noticed 
 them particularly had it not been for the fact that this 
 missionary who lives next door to me in the hotel is 
 married, and Mrs. Missionary suffers from a sour 
 stomach and a sore throat. She also has a voice that is 
 a fairly good imitation of a buzz saw — you know, one 
 of those voices that impress you with the idea that it 
 hurts to use them. Pray don't think I am joking about 
 this, for I'm really serious. I know you'd never suspect 
 me of paying any particular attention to missionaries, 
 and hence I will go into a rather extended explanation 
 of how I came to do it. 
 
 Mrs. Missionary has a habit of waking up at 12 mid- 
 night, 2 a. m., 3.29 A. M., and 5.41 a. m., to assure Mr. 
 Missionary that her stomach is sour, and that her throat 
 is sore, and she evidently is convinced that Mr. Mission- 
 ary, knowing the reasons for these misfortunes, is con-
 
 58 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 cealing them from her. Judging entirely from the re- 
 plies that Mr. Missionary gives, his stomach is quite as 
 sour as hers. I report here, verbatim, the conversation 
 that first attracted my attention to this most interesting 
 subject of missionaries. It occurred Saturday night, 
 that being the 15th night of the eighth moon of the 26th 
 year of the reign of the Son of Heaven, Brother of the 
 Moon, etc., and let me assure you it has occurred nightly 
 since at the hours that I have mentioned. 
 
 Mrs. Missionary — " John ! John ! wake up, dear. I 
 don't know what's the matter with me. John (this bit- 
 ten off very sharply), John, I say! " (pause). 
 
 Mr. Missionary's voice — " Whaz 'e matter? Whaz 'e 
 matter? Go sleep! " 
 
 Mrs. Missionary' s — " Oh, John, how can you ! John, 
 dear, my stomach's so sour ! J-o-h-n ! " 
 
 Mr. Missionary's voice — " Go sleep, I say (silence a 
 moment). Stop it! Stop it, I say. Stop hitting me!" 
 
 Mrs. Missionary's bu:;a sazv — " Then wake up, you 
 mean thing. I tell you my stomach's sour and my throat 
 is sore. Wake up ! " 
 
 Mr. Missionary's voice — " Au-right, go sleep. Stop ! 
 stop ! Lemme be ! " 
 
 Mrs. Missionary's voice — " Please, John, wake up. 
 My stomach's so sour. It must have been that ice cream 
 I had for dinner. Maybe it was the sausage I had for 
 breakfast. John, John! which was it, dear?" 
 
 Mr. Missionary's voice — *' Go sleep, go sleep. Ouch ! 
 Stop ! S-t-o-p ! " 
 
 Mrs. Missionary's voice — " Wake up, then. Dear me ! 
 I never saw such a man ! You don't care whether I'm 
 sick or not (sniffle). You don't! You don't!" 
 (snuffle). 
 
 Mr. Missionary's voice — " Why, what's the matter, 
 dear ? What is it ? why — why — " 
 
 Mrs. Missionary's voice, (interrupting) — " You don't 
 care a snap, you — you — you — (sniffle) — you're just as 
 mean as you can be, you — you — " 
 
 Mr. Missionary's voice — " Oh, forgive me, dear. I 
 was asleep. What is it? Go to sleep, now, that's a 
 good girl. Good-night."
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 59 
 
 Mrs. Missionary's voice — " John, John, I tell you I'm 
 sick. My stom-acKs sour — my throat's sore ! " 
 
 Mr. Missionary's voice — "Oh, g'wan t'sleep, I say! 
 You're enough to try the patience of Job ! Go to sleep." 
 
 Mrs. Missionary's voice — " I won't." 
 
 Then silence. I leave it to you, now, if this, happen- 
 ing as it did four times nightly from the 15th day of the 
 eighth moon of the 26th year of the reign of H. I. M. 
 Kuang Hsu, Son of Heaven, Brother of the Moon, etc., 
 up to and including the night of the 27th day of the 
 eighth moon of the reign of H. I. M. Kuang Hsu, Son 
 of Heaven, Brother of the Moon, etc., would not have 
 directed your attention toward the missionaries. When 
 I first heard this conversation in the wee sma' hours 
 that in this part of the world are ordinarily dis- 
 turbed only by the bats and the mosquitoes, I paid 
 no attention to it. When, an hour later, I heard it again, 
 I joined with the missionary in a wish that she'd go to 
 sleep. When, an hour or so later, I heard it yet again, 
 I said to myself that I was rather glad than not that her 
 stomach was sour, and, in fact, I hoped it would get 
 sourer. When, an hour or so still later, I again heard 
 it, my interest was aroused and I determined when day- 
 light came to find out what manner of person it was that 
 suffered so terribly. It was upon inquiry that I learned 
 that he was a missionary, and that she, being his wife, 
 was presumably a missionary also. Then it was that I 
 began to look into the missionary question, and, having 
 explained the why, I will go ahead. 
 
 I find that most of the missionaries out here are a 
 pretty fair sort of people. As a rule they are not highly 
 educated. I am speaking now of the English ones. 
 They are, many of them, rather narrow-minded, and just 
 now they are searching after blood rather than after 
 souls. I have talked with a number of them and they 
 all insist that the only thing to do in China is to cut off 
 the head of every mother's son of a Chinaman who had 
 anything to do, directly, with the Boxer movement, or 
 who sympathized with it. Indeed, they are much more 
 emphatic in their demands for blood than was Emperor 
 William a month ago. This spirit is perhaps excusable,
 
 60 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 when the troubles they have had are considered, together 
 with the fact that they are eager to go back into the in- 
 terior again and want terror to be struck into the hearts 
 of the Chinese. Nevertheless, it sounds a little strange 
 to hear a disciple of the Messenger of Peace calling for 
 blood so loudly that everybody hears him or her. 
 
 Nearly all of the English missionaries seem to be 
 heartily hated by the natives. They come chiefly from the 
 China Inland Mission of London. They ape the Qiinese. 
 The men wear their hair in braids, just like the natives, 
 the fore part of the head being shaved in native style, 
 and they wear Chinese clothes. The women dress like 
 natives, too. At the first sight of these things one is 
 tempted to resent them. But I believe there is a good 
 excuse for it. In the first place, they go off into the in- 
 terior, where it is impossible to get white men's clothes. 
 Chinese clothing can, of course, be purchased anywhere. 
 Then, again, they say that they do not attract the atten- 
 tion they would if they were dressed like white men, and 
 so there is not so much danger of their being attacked. 
 
 These missionaries do nothing but preach religion, and 
 they take up the cause of their converts, that is, the tem- 
 poral cause. Right there is where a great deal of the 
 trouble comes in. It often happens that a Chinaman in- 
 volved in a lawsuit joins the church, whereupon, if he 
 is beaten in the lawsuit, he is beaten because he is a 
 Christian, and the missionaries take the matter up and 
 force their Consul to act, and perhaps the Chinese judg- 
 ment is reversed, and — there you are ! The Christian 
 Chinaman is not a Christian, of course; he joined the 
 church just to get the aid of the English Government in 
 getting the best of his heathen neighbors. You can see 
 what would be the outcome of many such cases, and 
 there have been many such. 
 
 But I want to say again that these are the English 
 missionaries. Our own missionaries have been wiser, 
 and with them it is very different. The Chinese like our 
 missionaries, as a rule. The reason is this : most of our 
 missionaries in China are medical missionaries or educa- 
 tional missionaries. They have established hospitals and 
 schools. They hunt out the sick and give them medical
 
 ORDERED TO CHIN A 61 
 
 attendance. They relieve suffering where they find it. 
 Practically all the hospital work in China, I am told, is 
 in the hands of American missionaries, and the same is 
 true of the educational work. The Chinese realize that 
 both these branches of work are for their good and they 
 like it. While the religious end is not slighted by these 
 missionaries of ours, it is not forced on the Chinese. 
 The best evidence that the Americans are liked, not be- 
 cause they are Americans, you understand, but because 
 of their work, is that on several occasions when upris- 
 ings have taken place, the officials have gone to the 
 Americans in advance, and have told them they had bet- 
 ter go away for a few days. Another thing, to avoid the 
 bad feeling that comes from lawsuits, the Americans in- 
 sist that a Chinaman, before he joins a church, shall 
 settle all his lawsuits. So our Consuls don't get mixed 
 up in the troubles that the other Consuls figure in. 
 
 The tendency among the foreign population other than 
 missionary, as it is at home, is to say that the mission- 
 aries are to blame for the trouble out here. It occurs 
 to me that, while there may be a great deal in that, there 
 is still another reason for which Western civilization is 
 to blame, and that is the introduction of modern im- 
 provements, such as railroads, for instance. In China, 
 for ages everything that has been done has been done 
 by hand. Let us take transportation for an example. 
 Every pound of freight that was carried had to be car- 
 ried by hand or by boat. The coolies who did this work 
 inherited the business from their fathers. Every pas- 
 senger carried overland was carried in a chair on the 
 backs of coolies, and the chair-carriers inherited the busi- 
 ness from their fathers. Now along comes a railroad, 
 and in a moment all these coolies find their occupation 
 gone. Goods are carried by carloads over long stretches 
 of country at speed that is to the Chinese coolies incred- 
 ible. Trains carry hundreds of passengers at a time. 
 The railroads are introduced by foreigners, and perhaps 
 operated by foreigners. The coolies look upon them as 
 institutions of the foreign devil who have come to de- 
 prive them of the means of livelihood inherited from 
 their fathers. It is worth noting that the very first
 
 62 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 property destroyed in the north during this present 
 Boxer uprising was the railroad. 
 
 Now, as it is in transportation, so is it in all other work 
 where modern ideas and modern methods have been in- 
 troduced. Every labor-saving machine means so much 
 less labor, and the Chinese coolie is not sufficiently ad- 
 vanced intellectually to appreciate the advantage that 
 comes to the whole people by these new ideas and new 
 methods. All he sees is his means of liveUhood disap- 
 pearing through some contrivance of the foreign devil. 
 Perhaps this thing has had as much to do with the 
 trouble as our friends the missionaries. If it has, think 
 of what is still before us, as machinery and modern 
 methods are forced on the Chinese, for, as a whole, the 
 Chinese are still doing things as their forefathers did, 
 and modern methods have only the smallest foothold. 
 
 There, I suppose, you will think, after reading this 
 long, and, perhaps, in spots, ribald screed, that I have be- 
 come a ready letter-writer. I simply had something on 
 my mind that I wanted to unload, and you are the un- 
 fortunate victim. 
 
 I expect to go north in a day or two, and I have no 
 idea how long I shall stay. I am as well as I ever was 
 in my life, and except for the loss of sleep — the direct re- 
 sult, I assure you, of the sourness of Mrs. Missionary's 
 stomach — I am all right. I trust everybody is well and 
 happy at home, though I haven't heard. 
 
 The Astor House, Shanghai, Eighth moon, twenty- 
 sixth day, 26tli year, H. I. M. Kuang Hsu, being 
 Wednesday, September 19, in the year of our Lord, 
 1900. 
 The 26th day of the eighth moon in China is a good 
 deal like all the other days, lonesome, and with not 
 enough good hard labor to keep one from thinking of his 
 loneliness. I spent a large part of to-day trying to find 
 a steamer that would take me to Taku and Peking, and 
 without success. Fll have to start in fresh again to- 
 morrow, and I certainly hope Ell have better luck, for 
 after a time Shanghai begins to pall on one, and he 
 pines for scenes new. Em pining.
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 63 
 
 After I finished my search to-day I went to see the 
 American Consul, and this afternoon, after the Consulate 
 had closed, I went out driving with him to the Bubbling 
 iWell. We ran across a camp of German soldiers on the 
 way, and stopped long enough to see them drill. It was 
 a great sight. They moved about with the precision of 
 machinery. It was just like one man moving, though 
 there were 400 of them. They made a fine show for the 
 Chinese that watched them. 
 
 At the end of the drive we went into a little road- 
 house kept by a Frenchman and his wife, and there we 
 had some bread and butter and pot-cheese. What do 
 you think of that? Real American pot-cheese, made in 
 China by a dairymaid. It was pretty fine, too, after we 
 had worked it up with more milk, and with butter and 
 salt, as I have seen you do it at home. 
 
 To-night, sitting out on the porch of the hotel, an Eng- 
 lishman plumped himself down beside me and began to 
 sing his own praises. That's a little habit the Englishmen 
 have. This man was a Hebrew, and he came from South 
 Africa, where he had been for two years, taking pictures 
 of the war and of other things for a cinemetograph com- 
 pany. He said he had come out here to take more pic- 
 tures, which reminds me that in this heathen country the 
 best weapon a man can carry is a camera. It beats pistols 
 and knives and guns. Point a camera at a Chinaman of 
 the lower class and he will fall on his knees and kowtow 
 until you think he will surely bump his brains out — if he 
 has any of that article. They believe, the people who 
 know them tell me, that the camera takes away their spirit 
 and hoodoos them forever. They have to go to Joss and 
 invoke aid of him and of all the other gods, to get the 
 spirit back again ; and it's no sure thing then. So, if you 
 just shake a camera at a Chinaman he'll run. I haven't 
 a camera, but I guess if there's any more trouble in sights 
 I'll have to lay in a stock. 
 
 The Astor House, Shanghai, eighth moon, twenty- 
 seventh day, 26th year H. I. M. Kuang Hsu, being 
 Thursday, September 20, 1900. 
 
 I'm getting to be an old resident of this town of
 
 64 ORDEREDTOCHINA 
 
 Shanghai, much against my will. I haven't been able yet 
 to catch a boat that will taJ-ce me to the frozen North. 
 The agents of the various lines keep telling me that there 
 will be a boat to-morrow. It's always " mafiana " here, 
 just as it is in Cuba and Porto Rico. It's a slow part of 
 the world, I can tell you. If people did things in the 
 States the way they do them here, they would simply 
 never get anything done. To-morrow seems to be good 
 enough for anybody, and, as you know, to-morrow is the 
 day that never comes ; it is always to-morrow. I am 
 making the best of my time here, however. What little 
 news there is to send I am sending, and the rest of 
 the time I am keeping my eyes and ears open and 
 learning. 
 
 I took a walk this afternoon along the river front and 
 watched the houseboat-men. You know, the houseboats 
 form one of the features of Chinese life. They are actu- 
 ally floating homes, and whole families live in them, to 
 say nothing of boarders. Babies are born in them and 
 grow up to be old men and women, scarcely ever, it might 
 be said, touching their feet to the ground. Their whole 
 lives are spent on the boats. On these boats the women 
 are the bosses. It's a peculiarity of Chinese women. If 
 they escape the vicissitudes of childhood — that is, mur- 
 der — and grow up, then they are the business end of the 
 whole shooting-match. In early life they are lucky if they 
 escape at all. A girl baby is looked upon as a misfortune, 
 and it is all right to dispose of her in whatever way may 
 be convenient. 
 
 Out riding in a 'riksha the other day with F., we 
 passed a stone pillar. It was hollow. It was a baby 
 well. In the old days, if a girl baby was not wanted, she 
 would be taken to this well and dropped down there to 
 die. Of course this practice is not carried on now in the 
 neighborhood of the sea-coast, where the Chinese are 
 slightly civilized, but in the interior there are still such 
 places in use. 
 
 ' While girl babies are hated and despised, boy babies are 
 looked upon as great blessings, and nothing in the world 
 is too good for them. The distinction is a queer one, 
 when you consider the fact that in after life, as I said be-
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 65 
 
 fore, the woman is the most important, and I don't know 
 how to account for the change. 
 
 These houseboats I started to tell you about move 
 around from place to place. It's cheap, you see. They 
 don't have to pay any rent. The boats vary in size from 
 twenty to fifty feet in length, and about two-thirds of their 
 length is covered over. They are fitted with cook-stoves 
 and all that, and apparently the Chinese get along and live 
 happily in them. 
 
 To go back to the Chinese women again : I have not 
 seen half as many cripple-footed women as I expected to 
 see, but I've seen a great many. Their feet are not as 
 large as my hand, and appear to be just about the shape 
 of a clenched fist — no foot shape about them at all. 
 Usually the women with such feet wear sky-blue slippers, 
 and they ride. It is painful to see them walk, really it 
 is. They hobble along as if every step was torture, 
 though I don't suppose it hurts them at all, for they are 
 used to it. I can't help thinking, when I look at these 
 poor creatures, what a fine thing it is to be an American 
 woman. 
 
 The Astor House, Shanghai, eighth, moon, twenty- 
 eighth day, 26th year H. I. M. Kuang Hsu, being 
 Friday, September 21. 
 
 This is mail day, and I've only time to write you a very 
 short letter, if I want to get it off on this steamer, the 
 Peking, the one I came over on. She's been to Hong 
 Kong, and now she's on her homeward trip again. I 
 won't feel so badly about this being a short letter, because 
 I know there are six long ones that will reach you at the 
 same time. What do you think of me as a letter-writer, 
 anyway? You didn't think when I went away that I 
 was going to keep my promise to write every day, did 
 you ? Well, I don't blame you a bit, for usually I haven't 
 kept promises of that kind. This time, however, I firmly 
 resolved to keep it, and I'm kind of proud of myself — are 
 not you, now, honest Injun? I don't know whether what 
 I have been writing has interested you or not, but 
 anyway my intentions have been good. 
 
 I'd just like to drop in on you now suddenly and see
 
 66 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 what you are doing. Let me see. It's 4 o'cloclc in tHe 
 afternoon here, so it must be 3 o'clock in the morning in 
 Brooklyn. I guess I would find you sound asleep, sur- 
 rounded by the babies. But there isn't much chance of 
 my dropping in suddenly, for a few days at least, so I'll 
 give up the thought of it. 
 
 General von Waldersee, the Dutchman who is going to 
 command things in the North, is expected here at 5 
 o'clock, and the town is turned upside down to greet him. 
 You see, he is the biggest man in the German army, and 
 everybody is anxious to see what kind of a looking man 
 he is. I think I'll go and take a look at him myself. I 
 suppose I'll see more or less of him in the North, and 
 there's nothing like getting acquainted early in the game. 
 
 I had a piece of luck to-day. I ran across a fellow 
 from the North who had a load of loot from Peking with 
 him. He showed a lot of it to me, and afterward he in- 
 sisted that I and the man who was with me should have 
 some of his silk made into pajamas. A tailor was called 
 in, and we were all measured and are to have two suits 
 each of silk pajamas. It is the finest kind of silk, too. 
 Maybe I won't be swell when I get them ! The man also 
 gave me a little jade ornament that he said he got in the 
 Emperor's palace at Peking. Jade, you know, is very 
 valuable out here. Why, I don't know, for it is not very 
 pretty stuff. It is a nice little souvenir of Peking, never- 
 theless. 
 
 I'll bid you good-bye again for a day. Be good and 
 you'll be happy. That sounds natural, doesn't it? Don't 
 pine for me. I'm well and hearty, and in no danger, and 
 all that troubles me is the want of a sight of my own dear 
 wife and the babies. God bless you all. 
 
 The Astor House, Shanghai, eighth moon, twenty- 
 ninth day, 26th year, H. I. M. Kuang Hsu, being 
 Saturday, September 22, in the year of our Lord 
 1900. 
 The Peking got away yesterday all right, with my 
 batch of letters, seven in all, to you, and this will be the 
 first of the bunch to reach you by the next mail. They 
 ought to get there about four days after the others, for.
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 67 
 
 while they won't leave until a week later, they go in a 
 faster steamer. 
 
 1 told you in Friday's letter that I thought I would join 
 the crowd and go and see Count von Waldersee. That's 
 what I did, and it was a pretty good show, too. There 
 were a thousand troops drawn up to meet him, headed by 
 the Sikhs, who are British Indian soldiers. Most of them 
 are splendid specimens of manhood, physically. I think I 
 have already told you that a large part of the police force 
 of Shanghai is made up of these men. 
 
 This, by the way, recalls a funny thing. The rules 
 governing the 'ricksha men here are very stringent, and 
 the Sikh policemen enforce them strictly. When a 'rick- 
 sha man violates a rule the big policemen go for him hke 
 mad with clubs. But they don't beat the 'ricksha man, 
 they beat the 'ricksha. I asked why, to-day, and the reply 
 was, " A Chinaman doesn't care how much he is beaten, 
 but if his 'ricksha is injured, it costs money for re- 
 pairs." He'd be glad enough to take the beating in 
 the place of the 'ricksha, if the police would only give it to 
 him. This is an illustration of the Chinaman's cupidity 
 in money matters, and of his indifference to physical suf- 
 fering, either for himself or anybody else. 
 
 But to get back to the arrival of the Count. The boat 
 he came from Germany on drew so much water that she 
 could not come up the river. So he was transferred at 
 Woo Sung to a small boat and brought up on that. Be- 
 sides the troops that were assembled to welcome him 
 formally, I think practicallv all of the foreign population 
 were out to see him. All told, there must have been 
 10,000 people, including Chinamen, along the water- 
 front. When his boat approached the band started up 
 various national airs, the crowd yelled, and there was a 
 great time generally. He was put in a carriage and taken 
 away to the German Consulate, preceded by a hundred 
 mounted Sikhs and followed by the other soldiers. 
 There he made a little sjjeech in German to the troops. 
 Of course they did not understand a word of it. 
 
 The Count isn't a bad-looking fellow, but he wears 
 more gold lace than a Japanese quarantine official. Gold 
 lace is so common out here that I should think real big
 
 68 ORDEREDTOCHINA 
 
 men would taboo it. Of course the Count was accom- 
 panied by his staff, each member of which had a separate 
 and distinct load of gold lace, and, in addition to that, a 
 string of medals a foot long which he wore across his 
 bosom. Each member of the staff was accompanied by 
 a valet, who vied with the master in the yellowness of 
 his decorations. This bunch all came to the Astor House, 
 and from that on until to-night, when they left, there was 
 nothing but Dutch heard about the hotel. 
 
 The most interesting occurrence of to-day, and I guess 
 the most interesting incident of the Count's visit, was 
 the official call made on him by the Chinese Tao-tai. This 
 individual is the boss Chinaman of the city. In the 
 pigeon English in vogue here, he is " No. i Chinaman." 
 His job is about the same as the mayor's in New York. 
 I had never seen a No. i Chinaman mal^e an official visit 
 before, and it was a show. I was sitting on the hotel porch 
 about lo o'clock, when I heard a tremendous commotion 
 up the street, and I ran down to see what was up. 
 Along came a most motley procession. First, there was 
 a young Chinaman, swinging a big lavender-colored flag, 
 covered with Chinese letters. He wore a lavender suit. 
 Then came four fellows in blue, with Chinese characters 
 plastered on their backs and each carrying a big red board 
 covered with Chinese characters in gold. These boards, 
 I learned, contained the various titles of the distinguished 
 officials who followed. Next came two fellows in red 
 who carried immense gongs of brass suspended from 
 their shoulders by bamboo poles. They beat these gongs 
 and made a most unearthly din. Behind them came two 
 men dressed exactly like circus clowns, in red, with 
 clown's hats and chicken feathers sticking from the top. 
 These men kept up a yelling that was more unearthly 
 even than the noise of the gongs. The gong-bearers, I 
 learned, were warning the common people to get out of 
 the way of the great man who was coming. The clowns 
 were delivering the message vocally, and were official 
 criers. 
 
 Next in line came about forty men in red-lined blue 
 coats, with white circles covered with red characters on 
 their backs, and wearing trousers that were once white,
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 69 
 
 and circular hats that went to a peak, out of which 
 sprouted red tassels. These were the retainers, the per- 
 sonal body-guard, of the Tao-tai. Next came a tall fel- 
 low in red and white, who carried a parasol of turkey red, 
 with white muslin fringe. The handle of the parasol was 
 twenty feet long. This man yelled, too. After him 
 came two fellows in red clothes and peaked hats, carrying 
 great axes. They were the Tao-tai's executioners, and 
 were supposed to cut down any common mortal who ap- 
 proached or got in the way. They don't actually do this 
 here, but in the interior of China they always do it. After 
 them came a most gorgeous sedan-chair, covered with 
 royal blue silk and carried by four bearers in beautiful 
 attire, and in this chair was his job-lots, the Tao-tai, who, 
 let me interject, by the way, has just been " promoted " 
 to the office of Provincial Judge of the adjoining prov- 
 ince, where the Boxers are thick, and where he will cer- 
 tainly be beheaded as soon as he arrives. This is a small 
 matter in China, however, and we'll go back to the pro- 
 cession. Following the Tao-tai's chair came a white horse 
 with a red saddle, on which was mounted a man in white 
 and wearing a white, cone-shaped hat with a red tassel. 
 Then came another chair which was not so gorgeous as 
 the Tao-tai's. The man on the white horse was the Tao- 
 tai's personal servant, and the man in the second chair was 
 his interpreter. This made up the procession, and I can 
 tell you it was as fine and as funny a show as one would 
 want to see. 
 
 Arriving at the Consulate, which is across the way 
 from the hotel, the procession stopped, and the Tao-tai 
 went in to see the General, while the army of retainers 
 squatted around on the ground. While the Tao-tai was 
 inside, my friend of the cinemetograph company, men- 
 tioned in another letter, who carries a case marked " J. 
 B., War Correspondent," approached this army 
 with a snap-shot camera. First the Chinese seemed 
 amused. When he had half crossed the street the Chinese 
 began covering their faces with their hands and hats. As 
 he got a little closer they were filled with terror and began 
 to kowtow to him, and when he ventured a foot or two 
 nearer it was too much — they leaped up and fled. You
 
 70 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 see, they couldn't stand the camera. They would not re- 
 turn to their places until the camera man had gone away. 
 The whole business was as heathenish as anything I have 
 ever seen, and it was intensely funny. 
 
 Let me give you a specimen of an Englishman's con- 
 ceit. Our troops were marching by the hotel this morn- 
 ing, and I was at the window watching them, when an 
 Englishman came up. He looked on a while, and, turn- 
 ing, said, " I soy, old chap, I'm blawsted sorry th' folks 
 at 'ome thought best to soind our troops 'ere. Th' bloody 
 beggars of foreigners, don't cha know, will coipy all our 
 organoyzation." He had taken me for an Englishman, 
 don't cha know, and I couldn't help exclaiming, " Oh, 
 hell ! " much to his shock, I think, for he went away 
 P. D. Q. 
 
 That's the story of the day, and I'll say farewell for 
 twenty-four hours more. I only wish you could have 
 been here to see the fun. 
 
 The Astor House, Shanghai, eighth moon, thirtieth 
 day, 26th year, H. I. M. Kuang Hsu, being Sun- 
 day, September 23, in the year of our Lord 1900. 
 
 This pigeon English we learn to talk out here is about 
 the funniest thing that ever happened. I've told you 
 some things about it in previous letters, but that was 
 before I began to pick up a great deal of it myself. I've 
 a stack now, and I can get along finely. For in- 
 stance, I just had to scold the China boy who acts as 
 chambermaid about the way he folded those new silk 
 pajamas I told you about. I just said to him, as savagely 
 as I could, " What fashion make-e do so fashion ? Not 
 ought make-e do so fashion. No can do right ! Mas- 
 kee ! " Which, being interpreted, means, " What did 
 you do it that way for? You should not have done it. 
 You don't do things right. Never mind ! Get out ! " 
 The Chinese understand this sort of talk, but if you 
 talk plain English to them, no matter how slowly, they 
 won't understand a word you say. 
 
 In a book-store this morning I picked up a copy of 
 " Excelsior " written in pigeon English, and it's funny 
 enough to copy and send to you. You remember " Excel-
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 71 
 
 sior," of course — " The shades of night were falling 
 fast, As through an Alpine village passed," etc. Now, 
 to get the full enjoyment of this you want to take a copy 
 of " Excelsior " (we have it around the house, some- 
 where) and read the two together. Here's the pigeon:* 
 
 That nightey-time begin chop chop 
 One young man walkee, no can stop, 
 Maskee snow, maskee ice, 
 He cally flag with chop so nice, 
 Top side galow ! 
 
 He muchee solly — one piecee eye, 
 Look — see sharp — so — all same my 
 He talkey largey — talkee stlong. 
 Too muchee curio — all same gong, 
 Top-side galow. 
 
 Inside house he can see light. 
 An evly loom got fire all light, 
 He lookee pleanty ice more high, 
 Insidee month he pleanty cly. 
 Top-side galow. 
 
 Ole man talkee " no can walk, 
 By'mby Iain come — velly dark, 
 Hab got water, velly wide," 
 Maskee, my must go top-side. 
 Top-side galow! 
 
 " Man — man " one girley talkee he, 
 "What for you go top-side look-see?" 
 And one time more he plenty cly. 
 But allo-time walkee pleanty high, 
 Top-side galow. 
 
 Take care that spoilum tlee young man. 
 Take care that ice. He want man-man. 
 That coolie chin-chin he " Good night," 
 He talkee " my can go all light," 
 Top-side galow." 
 
 Joss-pidgin man he soon begin. 
 Morning time, that Joss chin-chin. 
 He no man see him plenty fear; 
 Cos some man talkee he can hear. 
 Top-side galow. 
 
 • Written in pencil and somewhat indistinctly.
 
 n ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 That young man die, one large dog see. 
 Too muchee bobbley findee he, 
 He hand blong colo — all same ice, 
 Hab get he flag with chop so nice; 
 Top-side galow! 
 
 A/ora/. 
 
 You too muchee laugh, what for sing, 
 I tink so you no savey t'hat ting, 
 Supposey you no belong clever inside. 
 More better you go walk top-side. 
 Top-side galow! 
 
 How is that for " Excelsior? " Well, it's a good speci- 
 men of pigeon English. In the language out here 
 " pigeon " means " business," " chop " means " device," 
 " trade-mark," or anything like that. ** Chop chop " 
 means " quick." If you want a thing done quickly you 
 say " Can do chop chop? " " Joss pigeon man " means 
 " clergyman." " Coolie " is workman. " Chin chin " is 
 talk. It's really a language all by itself and it is easy to 
 pick up and funny to listen to. 
 
 There is another thing of interest about the language 
 question — that is to get along here at all you have to 
 know English. The French, Germans, Russians, and all 
 the rest have to learn some English to do business with 
 the Chinese. There is no such thing as pigeon Russian, 
 or pigeon French, or pigeon German. 
 
 Well, this is Sunday and Shanghai still holds 
 me. I guess it will continue to hold me until 
 Tuesday morning. The China Navigation Company 
 steamer Tung Chow is advertised to sail for Taku on that 
 date, and if she sails I am going on her. Taku is the 
 port where the ships stop. It is thirteen miles from 
 Tien Tsin, and that is eighty miles from Peking. They 
 are both nearer New York than Shanghai, but not so 
 convenient to get to. 
 
 I am anxious to get to Tien Tsin, for I left directions 
 at the Chartered Bank of India. Australia, and China 
 to forward my mail to their branch at Tien Tsin, 
 and I expect to get my letters there. I had a letter to- 
 day from G. She wrote it August 8, and sent it 
 to the steamship at San Francisco. It missed there and
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 73 
 
 went flying around, finally catching me here. The mail 
 service, I can tell you, is not all that it is cracked up to 
 be. I hope you are getting your letters all right. The 
 numbers I put on them don't always jibe, for I forget from 
 day to day, but I'm trying to keep them as nearly straight 
 as I can. 
 
 I'll say good-bye again for another day. I am going 
 now to the office of the Sin Wan Pao to see if I can catch 
 up a cable dispatch for to-day. I have been sending one 
 about every day, and of course you have seen them and 
 know that I'm all right. 
 
 The Astor House, Shanghai, Monday, September 
 24th, being the eighth moon (intercalary), first 
 day, 26th year, H. I. M. Kuang Hsu, 
 
 A number of boats came in yesterday from Tien Tsin 
 and Peking, and I have had a fairly good time to-day, 
 looking at loot from the Imperial City. Everybody who 
 comes from there brings a box of stolen goods. Of 
 course they don't say they stole the stuff, but that they 
 bought it from the people who did steal it. You will no- 
 tice the distinction. Perhaps you won't see the differ- 
 ence. 
 
 It certainly was great picking-up there for anybody 
 who had the nerve to steal. You see, everything was 
 stolen. Houses were burned, banks were robbed. The 
 Imperial Treasury was looted of something like 60,000 
 tons of silver. Nothing was protected and every man 
 helped himself. The stuff I looked at to-day was in the 
 shape of costly furs, like sable, ermine, and silver fox, and 
 silks and jade. I saw some silk from the imperial loom. 
 Talk about stuff that would stand alone ! This would 
 stand anywhere it was put. It was the finest silk I ever 
 laid my eyes upon. A silk man who looked at it offered 
 $250 a yard for it, cash. He didn't get it because the 
 man who had it said he intended giving it to his wife. I 
 suppose I saw $15,000 worth of stuff in the possession of 
 just two men who invited me to look at their trunks. I 
 got a jade ornament from one of them and a silk gauze 
 robe from the other. Of course I'll bring the things 
 home with me when I come.
 
 74 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 I have not learned yet whether my steamer leaves in the 
 morning or not. She probably won't because she is ad- 
 vertised to do so, and nobody here would think of break- 
 ing a record by doing anything when they said they 
 would. I lunched to-day with the Deputy United 
 States Consul, Mr. Authur White, and with a Mr. 
 D., the leading American merchant of Shanghai. 
 They have bachelor quarters. They are both of them 
 very good fellows, and have been out here a number of 
 years. White used to be in Canton, where I am going 
 before I get back. That's the biggest city in China, and 
 of course I must see it. It is up the river from Hong 
 Kong, which is a British city. 
 
 The news from the North is getting good again. I 
 sent a cable last night that Li Hung Chang sent to Sheng, 
 here, from Tien Tsin. He had begun the work of ex-| 
 terminating the Boxers and had had a thousand of them 
 killed in one town. That's the sort of thing that will] 
 bring peace, though it sounds very warlike. Get the 
 heathen fighting among themselves, once, and there's an 
 end of them. Things seem now to be getting into the 
 shape that will make a settlement of the trouble easy, and 
 " chop chop," too. Well, I must find whether my boat 
 goes in the morning. If it does, I will drop you a line 
 before it leaves. 
 
 Shanghai, eighth moon, second day (intercalary), 
 26th year, H. I. M. Kuang Hsu, being Tuesday, 
 September 25, 1900. 
 
 My boat goes Peking-way after all, and now I have 
 to hustle. I've hardly more than time to say good- 
 bye to you. I expect to be in Port Arthur, 
 Korea, on Thursday ; Chee Foo, Friday ; Tien Tsin, 
 Saturday; and Peking by the middle of the week. 
 This is probably the last letter you will have from me for 
 two weeks and perhaps longer, for it is going Vancouver- 
 way, which is a week or so shorter than the route I came, 
 and my letters from to-day, of course, won't be posted 
 until I get North. Then, to catch the mail for the States, 
 I suppose they will have to come back here. So if it 
 takes a week to get there it will take a week coming back,
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 75 
 
 all told, two weeks. See? Of course I'll continue to 
 write daily. 
 
 Pardon the haste of the note, but I must be off. 
 
 On Board the Tung Chow, 
 Wednesday, September 26, 1900. 
 
 After all the rush and all the hurry we did not get 
 away yesterday. The Chinese merchants are a peculiar 
 people, in that when they have goods to ship they abso- 
 lutely refuse to send them to the ship until the last 
 moment. That generally delays the departure. It is 
 what happened with us. The cargo did not come until the 
 last minute, and there we were — stuck. We are off now 
 and making our way slowly down the Woo Sung River 
 toward the Yellow Sea, past the men-of-war of every 
 nation and past the thousand and one Chinese junks that 
 are to be seen on every river in this part of the world. 
 The day is a fine one, and the Captain, who is an English- 
 man, promises to land us at Port Arthur, our first stop, 
 in two days and a half. You never can tell, though, what 
 Yellow Sea weather is going to be, and it may start in 
 badly at any time. 
 
 The Tung Chozv is a small boat. She carries about 
 thirty passengers, and most of them are refugees from 
 Tien Tsin, who left there either before or after the bom- 
 bardment. There are three Sisters of Mercy who are 
 going north to become nurses. They are French Cath- 
 olics. Then there are two married women whose hus- 
 bands sent them away when the fighting began around 
 Tien Tsin, and who, now that it is over, are going back. 
 They each have children with them. Then there is 
 another lady, a sister of one of the married women, who 
 also fled from Tien Tsin. Among the men passengers there 
 are three civil engineers who took part in the defense of 
 the town, a few merchants from London, and a lot of 
 Russians and Italians who were also in the town and took 
 part in the fighting. They are telling some great stories 
 about the happenings there, and I guess they really must 
 have had a very hard time. They killed thousands of the 
 Chinese. 
 
 Well, so much for the passengers and so much for the
 
 76 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 Tung Chozi\ Now as for myself. I'm O. K. of course, 
 suffering- only from the usual complaint, a longing for 
 a sight of you and of the little ones and the old folks. 
 
 S. S. Tung Chow, Yellow Sea, 
 
 Thursday, September 2y, 1900. 
 
 If my recollection is good I told you in my letter yester- 
 day that you could never tell about the Yellow Sea, and 
 that it was liable to kick up tantrums at any time. Well, 
 I guess I must have been a mind-reader. Starting at 
 midnight, last night, and counting to the present writing, 
 getting worse all the time, she has been doing nothing 
 but kick up tamtrums, and the old Tung Chow has been 
 doing nothing but stand first on one end and then on the 
 other. Of the thirty passengers, that man B., the 
 cinemetograph man I told you about in some of my 
 Shanghai letters, and myself were the only ones who 
 showed up at the table to-day. Even the Captain was 
 seasick, and he admitted it. The Tung Chow hasn't a 
 heavy load, so she is bobbing about on the waves a great 
 deal like a cork. Every now and then a wave comes 
 smashing over the bow with noise enough to make you 
 think the whole ship is going to pieces, and then the 
 water runs down the deck, a foot or so deep, while from 
 every cabin come the whoops and moans of the seasick, 
 and the expression, now and then, by someone, of the 
 strong desire to quit this mundane sphere, that you re- 
 member Henry Ward Beecher once acknowledged. 
 
 Besides the tough man B. from England, and 
 myself, the only persons who are not sick are the chil- 
 dren. I just heard one of the little girls say to a married 
 woman, her aunt, " Auntie, have you give up your sick? 
 Mamma has give up her sick, and she feels better now." 
 And Auntie replied, " Yes, darling, Auntie has given up 
 her sick, but she is going to give up some more." Judg- 
 ing from the sounds that immediately ensued, she did, 
 too, with a vengeance. 
 
 I have been spending most of the day upon the upper 
 deck, where the waves don't come, but the spray does, and 
 I've been watching things from there. I have enjoyed it, if 
 nobody else has, thanks to the solidity of my stomach.
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 77 
 
 The sea has been so heavy that the Tung Chozv has made 
 practically no headway, and, a day out of port, we are 
 already a day late. I certainly hope it clears up to- 
 morrow. While I don't mind the sea, I do mind the 
 delay. 
 
 Saturday, September 29, 
 On Board Tung Chow. 
 
 My prognostication of yesterday was correct. It is 
 II o'clock in the morning-, now, and we are in sight of 
 Port Arthur. We shall probably be inside the light in a 
 couple of hours, and on shore in a couple more. The sea 
 is smooth as glass, and all the people who were so sick, 
 Thursday and yesterday, that they had determined to 
 die, are alive and kicking and eating the ship out of 
 house and home this morning. It's funny, isn't it, how 
 foolish people are when they get sick at the stomach ? 
 We had full tables, this morning, and everybody was as 
 hungry as a bear. 
 
 I hope we don't have any trouble here getting lighters, 
 so that we can unload quickly and start off without delay 
 for the gate of the Chinese heaven. I discovered to-day 
 that besides the thirty Europeans and Americans, we 
 have on board something like fifty first cabin Chinese 
 passengers. On these ships running on the China coast 
 they have two first classes, one European and one 
 Chinese. The price in the European cabin is 40 taels. 
 A tael is about $1.33, Mexican. The price in the 
 Chinese first class is only 10 taels. They travel about 
 as well as we do, and they do it for about one-fourth as 
 much. It is no wonder that they can carry on business 
 cheaper than we can. 
 
 Sunday, September 17, in Port Arthur, sixth day, 
 eighth moon (intercalary), 26th year, H. I. M. 
 Kuang Hsu, in Shanghai. In other words, Sun- 
 day, September 30, 1900, in Brooklyn, N. Y, 
 If these calendars keep on changing out here I shall 
 surely get mixed. When I got ashore this morning I 
 found that the Russians had a calendar of their own, and 
 it's thirteen days behind ours. Wouldn't it jar you? I 
 made a note of the day quick, so I shouldn't make any
 
 78 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 mistake and miss the steamer. She was billed to sail at 
 II o'clock in the morning. It was about 6 o'clock when 
 I went ashore with a number of the other passengers. 
 
 There is not much to tell you about in Port Arthur. 
 As I said in my letter yesterday, it is in the hands of the 
 Russians. That fact was responsible for an incident. 
 The Russians have erected tremendous fortifications here. 
 They don't seem to want any more communication with 
 the outside world than is absolutely necessary, and for 
 that reason no ship can enter the harbor without first 
 asking permission. When we arrived off the harbor we 
 anchored and waited. A quarantine officer came aboard 
 and examined us, and we sent by him our request to go 
 into port. Then we waited at least three hours, after 
 which a very drunken old man who said he was the pilot 
 came out and he told us it was all right and to go ahead in. 
 So we up anchor and started. Well, we went just about 
 a hundred yards when there was great commotion up on 
 a hill where there is a battery of big guns, and in about 
 two minutes a set of flag signals was run up, saying, 
 " Stop where you are." That was a pretty mess ! We 
 signaled with flags to know what the trouble was, and 
 up went their signals again, " Stop where you are." So 
 we had to anchor and we waited another two or three 
 hours before, finally. His Imperial Majesty the Czar 
 made up his mind that he'd let us in. Then he put up the 
 signals, " You may enter the port." Of course we up 
 anchor again and trotted in. But it was nearly 6 o'clock 
 and was getting dark, so it was too late for any of us to 
 go ashore, and we had to wait until this morning. 
 
 This morning I tramped all over the place. There is 
 practically nothing to tell you about it that would interest 
 you. The Russians own everything. The harbor is full 
 of warships and the place is full of soldiers who are 
 bound for China, though Russia says she is going to 
 withdraw her troops from there. We were all on board 
 the Tung Chozv again at ii o'clock and away we sailed 
 for Taku and Tien Tsin, where I'll mail this letter. To 
 convince you that I'm not deceiving you about the situa- 
 tion here I send you by this mail a Port Arthur paper. I 
 fenow you will enjoy reading it. I can't give you any
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 79 
 
 instructions as to how to begin, but from the appearance 
 of it I think it will be necessary to stand on your head to 
 do it. 
 
 Taku, Monday, October i, seventh day, eighth moon 
 (intercalary), H. I. M. Kuang Hsu. 
 
 Thank goodness, I'm rid of that Russian calendar, 
 anyway, and I've only the Chinese and the American 
 to look after now. I have at least reached the Gate of 
 Heaven, and if it don't look like the gate of the other 
 place I'll eat my hat, dust-covered and dirty as it is. The 
 Tung Chow had a fine trip across the Gulf of Pechili and 
 we came in sight of the warships off Taku at 4 o'clock 
 this morning. I tell you it was a great sight. There 
 were American and English and Japanese and French 
 and German and Russian and Austrian and Italian war- 
 ships, and I don't know what else, and besides the war- 
 ships there were twenty-five or thirty transports that had 
 brought soldiers or supplies over here. All told, there 
 must have been more than 150 ships anchored outside the 
 Taku bar. Every nationality that is a nationality 
 was represented. Our chief ship was the old Brooklyn, 
 which was Rear-Admiral Schley's flagship off Santiago. 
 Taku being under the rule of the Joint Powers, it was 
 necessary for us to report ourselves to the boss boat of 
 the fleet, which this morning happened to be a Britisher, 
 and ask permission to enter the harbor. They were not 
 like the Russians at Port Arthur, and we got the per- 
 mission quickly. 
 
 There was only nine feet of water on the bar, and we 
 were drawing ten, but the pilot said the mud was soft and 
 we could dig our way through and up to Tong Kue, the 
 place where the railroad to Tien Tsin, the Gate of 
 Heaven, ends. It was a mighty stiff dig, too, and two 
 or three times we thought we would be stuck, along with 
 three or four other boats that had tried and couldn't and 
 were fast on the bar, but we made it all right. We went 
 ashore in Sampans and made for the railroad station. 
 This was about 10 o'clock and the first train to the Gate 
 of Heaven did not leave until 12, The Russians have 
 entire charge of the railroad and the railroad property.
 
 80 ORDEREDTOCHINA 
 
 Chinese coolies were thicker than flies, and about as 
 troublesome, and half a dozen times while we were wait- 
 ing the Russians had to unbuckle their belts and use them 
 as whips to beat the coolies away. They licked them 
 good and hard, but somehow the heathen didn't seem to 
 mind it. They'd run when the Russians got after them, 
 but when the chase was over and the Russians had 
 buckled up again they would be back as big as life. 
 They didn't seem particularly to resent the beating, 
 either. 
 
 You know that I like fast railroad trains. Well, 
 you will realize how much I enjoyed the trip to 
 Tien Tsin when I tell you that the distance from Tong 
 Kue is twenty-eight miles, and it took three hours to 
 travel it. And I can say right here that I don't believe 
 I ever realized what real war was until this journey was 
 started. If ever a country was devastated this country, 
 at least this part of this country, has been. Our soldiers 
 started in to punish the Chinese, and if destruction of 
 property is a punishment to them the soldiers certainly 
 did their business well. We passed village after village 
 in that twenty-eight miles, where all that was left were 
 rows of mud walls that had once helped to make homes. 
 The roofs were gone and the interiors were burned. 
 The walls were standing because they would not burn. 
 That's all. There wasn't a living soul left in any of the 
 villages where thousands had lived. The fields had been 
 swept like the villages. Everything was burned brown 
 and dry. 
 
 The only things that relieved the monotony were the 
 grave mounds that dotted the face of the flat and barren 
 country. I have already told you how the Chinese bury 
 their dead. These mounds, of course, were old. Some 
 of them, perhaps, were more than a century old. The 
 thousands of Chinese who were killed by the allied forces 
 in the march to Tien Tsin and Pekin found no graves. 
 Their bodies were thrown into the river which lines the 
 road, and there were so many of them that they filled it 
 from bank to bank and it was hard for steamboats to get 
 along. This is not an exaggeration, but a very solemn 
 fact.
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 81 
 
 The train got up to Tien Tsin about 3 o'clock and 
 then all of us (I mean my fellow-passengers on the Tung 
 Chow and myself) had the greatest fight you ever saw to 
 get possession of our baggage. I was a little better off 
 than the rest because at Tong Kue I had given a cigar to 
 a Russian brakenian of the train, and when he saw that I 
 was having trouble he jumped in to help. There were 
 not enough coolies to do the work on the baggage and I 
 was so modest that I got left. This Russian grabbed 
 two coolies who had been hired by somebody else. They 
 yelled bloody murder, but he took them by the pigtails 
 and dashed them around until they found my bag- 
 gage and got it out for me. Then he wouldn't let me 
 pay them. They piled all my stuff upon a wheel- 
 barrow and away we trundled to the hotel — another 
 Astor House, by the way. 
 
 The road to the hotel is through the French and British 
 settlements, and I gained some idea of how hot the bom- 
 bardment was here when the trouble was on. Some of 
 the houses were almost demolished, and there was not one 
 that did not have a few holes in it. This was all the work 
 of the Chinese. They bombarded Tien Tsin twenty-eight 
 days before our troops came and relieved the place. It 
 was a mighty interesting walk to the hotel. The streets 
 were full of soldiers of all nationalities. You see, it is a 
 regular military camp now. Well, to cut a long story 
 short, I found when I got to the hotel that the whole 
 house had been rented by the Germans and there was no 
 room, so all this afternoon was taken up with hunting 
 a place to sleep. I found one to-night in the British 
 Consulate. I have a room for one night only on the 
 second floor. There is not a speck of furniture in it, but 
 I have my army cot and I'll be as snug as a bug in a rug. 
 So endeth the story of the day. Incidentally I might say 
 that the door of the room I am in has twenty-two bullet 
 holes in it, so this was probably a pretty hot place during 
 the row. 
 
 Tien Tsin, Tuesday, October 2, eighth moon (inter- 
 calary), H. I. M. Kuang Hsu. 
 This was my day for a genuine treat. I went to the
 
 82 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 Chartered Bank, first thing this morning, and there I 
 found all the letters you had written since I left home 
 that had had a chance to get here, and I found a fine 
 letter from H., too. Bless her heart! I have already 
 told you why I hadn't received any letters before, but 
 I'll repeat it here. You see I was traveling west all the 
 time and they were traveling after me. They couldn't 
 possibly catch up with me. They lost time at Yokohama, 
 for they were addressed there, and they had to wait there 
 until the next mail. Then I had left word there to have 
 them forwarded to Tien Tsin, not thinking for a moment 
 that I would stay at Shanghai the length of time that I 
 did, so there you are. I can tell you they were twice 
 welcome when I did get them. I expect another batch 
 to-morrow, when another mail will probably get in. 
 
 Well, there isn't much to tell you to-day, except that I 
 sat around the hotel that the Germans have hired, a good 
 part of the day and read over your letters and enjoyed 
 the envy of a lot of fellows who were not as lucky as I 
 was, and who did not have any letters. The part of the 
 time that I was not doing that I set about making ar- 
 rangements to go on to Peking, and then I went around 
 and saw Mr, Ragsdale, the American Consul, and to- 
 night I am stopping at his house. He has invited me to 
 stay here as long as I am in Tien Tsin, and I guess I'll 
 accept the invitation. It's a little out of the way, but it 
 is comfortable. To-morrow I am going over to the 
 native city, which I understand is a spectacle after the 
 siege. I'll write you about it after the visit. 
 
 Tien TsiN", Wednesday, October 3, eighth day, eighth 
 moon (intercalary), 26th year, H. I. M. Kuang 
 Hsu. 
 
 I have just come back from my trip to the native city of 
 Tien Tsin, and the sight that I saw there was 
 simply beyond description. In my letter Monday I told 
 you something of the destruction that was wrought by 
 the allied forces in the villages on the march from Taku 
 to this place. Well, what happened in those villages 
 happened here, but the sight here is much more impres- 
 sive because Tien Tsin was a big city. More than a
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 83 
 
 million people lived here. The city covered a great 
 extent of territory. It was as big, I should say, as old 
 New York, and it was smashed to smithereens. For 
 every dollar of damage done to the European and Ameri- 
 can property in the foreign quarter of Tien Tsin, there 
 must certainly have been a thousand dollars damage done 
 in the native city. The city is walled, and all that is left 
 standing of it is the wall, and even that is smashed to bits 
 in places. At the time of the destruction all of the Chinese 
 who could escape did so. Those who couldn't were killed, 
 and their bodies were thrown into the sluggish river that 
 flows through the place. Since the destruction the Chi- 
 nese who ran away have come back, and they are at work 
 now, trying to rebuild what was destroyed. They have 
 several years of work before them. 
 
 There were four of us in the party that visited the city. 
 The place, of course, is policed by soldiers of the various 
 nations, and is perfectly safe. We went in at a gate which 
 was in charge of the Japs, and we rode in our 'rickshas 
 through the streets, the houses on each side of which 
 had been burned. The streets were literally thronged 
 with people. The great majority were Chinese, but every 
 nation under the sun was represented. Here and there 
 we would meet a Chinese sawmill — that is, two men 
 with a buzz-saw, cutting up logs for building purposes. 
 From behind the shattered walls that were left standing 
 we could see miserable Chinese women and naked children, 
 peering at us and yelling and screaming. Here and there 
 a stove had been put up, and cooking was going 
 on inside, while in front of these places would be huge 
 tubs of fried grasshoppers and cockroaches, which are 
 both esteemed great delicacies by the Chinese. 
 
 In about the center of the city we ran across a place 
 that we dubbed the Thieves' Exchange. Thousands of 
 Chinese there had little 'Stands piled high with silks and 
 furs and jade, which they offered for sale. Their stuff 
 was all stolen by them ir the looting of the city. It was 
 part of the loot. You know that when the soldiers got 
 in here they looted the whole place and took every- 
 thing of value in sight or reach. Well, I find that they 
 had only the leavings. The Chinese had looted on their
 
 84 ORDEREDTOCHINA 
 
 own hook before the allies entered the city, and now the 
 stuff they stole from each other is being sold by them. 
 The buyers are mostly foreigners, of course. 
 
 The trip through the city would have been more inter- 
 esting had it not been for the frightful odors that filled 
 the air. The place smelled to heaven, like all Chinese 
 cities, and I was glad enough to get out of it, I can tell 
 you. I'm going back again, however, to-morrow, to 
 watch the administration of justice for a day, and then 
 write a piece about it. I guess that completes the day. 
 
 Tien Tsin, Thursday, October 5, being the eighth 
 moon (intercalary), twelfth day, 26th year, H. I, 
 M. Kuang Hsu. 
 
 This letter to-day is going to be a very short one, for 
 I am tired out. That is one reason. Another is that I 
 have written to Father and Mother, and I have said to them 
 about all there is to say. That's another reason. The 
 third is that I have just finished a story of two or three 
 columns for The Sun, and I'm tired of writing. Now, 
 isn't that a sufficiency of excuses ? You can get the day's 
 happenings either from Father and Mother's letter, or, 
 if you would prefer it in detail, then you can read it in The 
 Sim, about the Sunday after you receive this letter, I 
 think. All that I've got to say now is that I am 
 thinking of you and the babies almost constantly, 
 and wishing that I could get back and be with you for a 
 while. 
 
 Tien Tsin, Friday, October 6, 1900. In other words, 
 thirteenth day, eighth moon, 26th year, H. I. M. 
 Kuang Hsu, the same being the Son of Heaven, 
 etc. 
 I don't know whether or not you want to know any 
 more about Tien Tsin than I have already written. I can 
 tell you I wish I knew a little less. I think of all the bad 
 places in the world this is about the worst, and they call 
 it the Gate of Heaven, too. To begin with, it is the dirti- 
 est place that I have ever seen, and that is saying a good 
 deal. The roads are all of dirt, and the constant traffic 
 over them raises a cloud of dirt and dust that almost
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 85 
 
 chokes one to death. A half-hour in the street and you 
 blow a peck of dirt from your nostrils, and you cough up 
 a bushel, besides. Every little gust of wind raises a 
 blinding cloud that shuts out everything that is as much 
 as a hundred yards away. The people go around chok- 
 ing and coughing and spitting in a manner that makes 
 you think the town is a town of consumptives. Yet they 
 say the place is healthy. Maybe it is, but I don't see how 
 it can be. It is a fact, nevertheless, that in the week I 
 have been here I have enjoyed perfect health. By the 
 way, that is all I have enjoyed. The food is abominable. 
 I think I told you that I have been sleeping at the Ameri- 
 can Consulate. Well, I have been eating at the Astor 
 House, and that is a heap sight worse. I wouldn't mind 
 it so much if it was cheap, but it is about the most ex- 
 pensive place I have ever been in. For breakfast — it is 
 the same every morning — two fried eggs and a piece of 
 bacon as thick as a piece of paper, the whole fried in 
 grease, and one cup of coffee — price, $i. For tiffin and 
 for dinner, the bill of fare is just about the same, but the 
 price is $2 each. This will probably convince you that 
 I am not staying here because I want to. 
 
 I have been busy practically all my time, and that 
 has been a great help to me. I have been going to bed 
 early, too, and getting up early in the morning. I have 
 bought some little trinkets for you and the kids, but there 
 is no way to send them home on account of the customs, 
 and I have packed them away in my baggage for my 
 home-coming. This much information will whet all your 
 appetites, so I won't tell you anything more about them 
 at present, and will let all of you begin a guessing contest. 
 The one who guesses nearest will get an extra present. 
 Don't put in all your time guessing, but the plan may help 
 to while away some weary evenings and at the same 
 time may induce you to think occasionally of the poor 
 old man off here among the heathen Chinee. 
 
 There isn't anything in particular to tell you about 
 to-day, and an old rule among Sun men is never 
 to write anything unless you have something to write 
 about. I'm afraid I haven't been following it lately, as 
 far as your letters are concerned, but be patient, be pa-
 
 86 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 tient. Keep on reading what I send you, and out of the 
 lot you may occasionally glean a gem of thought. 
 
 Tien Tsin, Saturday, October 7th, in the year of our 
 Lord 1900, and of Kuang Hsu, the heathen Chi- 
 nee, the 26th, being the eighth moon (intercalary) 
 of that year and the fourteenth day of the afore- 
 said moon. 
 I understand that the next mail to the United States 
 will leave here Monday, going direct to Nagasaki, so 
 probably you will get this batch of letters a little quicker 
 than I expected. The United States has established a 
 military postoffice here, and I am going to patronize it 
 because the mail is put in a bag there and it is never 
 opened until it reaches San Francisco. There is, there- 
 fore, no monkeying with the letters. Monkeying with 
 letters is an old Chinese trick, and if any of the letters I 
 have written you have gone astray the Chinese are prob- 
 ably responsible. I hope, however, that none of them has 
 gone astray, and that you have received them all, not' be- 
 cause any of them are particularly interesting, but be- 
 cause I want you to knovv' that I can keep a promise when 
 I make it — savey? 
 
 I have been monkeying around most of the day to-day 
 with the Quartermaster's department, trying to arrange 
 for a passage up the Pao River to Peking. I think I 
 have it fixed, and that I will get away to-morrow or Mon- 
 day at the latest. It is an eight-day trip. You see, they 
 don't have steamboats in this country, and if they did 
 they wouldn't be of much use because the river is so shal- 
 low. The boats are pulled up the river by the coolies. 
 They hitch a rope to the top of the mast, and then six of 
 them get hold of it and walk along the shore, dragging 
 the boat after them. They make about two miles an 
 hour when they are not tired, and about half a mile 
 an hour when they are. You can imagine what a tedious 
 trip it must be. It is one of those things, though, that 
 have to be done, so the quicker it is over the quicker it will 
 be done. 
 
 Li Hung Chang started up the river two days ago with 
 his servants. There were twenty-six boatloads of them
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 87 
 
 all told, and they were all pulled by coolies, as I have de- 
 scribed. Once he gets there the chance of a reasonably, 
 quick peace is assured, for, as I cabled the other day, Tuan 
 and the other Boxers in the Chinese royal family have 
 been disciplined, and in all probability their heads will be 
 cut off at the proper time. By the way, I suppose that D. 
 has called on you. I hope he didn't forget to bring along 
 that roll of silk, and I hope also that it is a pretty pattern. 
 I don't know but that I may be able to gather up some 
 silk myself when I'm in Peking, and if I can I certainly 
 shall. If I don't, why I'm going to bring home a lot 
 anyway. 
 
 My think tank is running dry, so I guess I'll stop. 
 
 Tien Tsin, Monday, October 8, 1900, fifteenth day, 
 eighth moon (intercalary), 26th year, Kuang 
 Hsu. 
 
 Still Tien Tsin. When I wrote you last night I had not 
 the remotest idea that I would be here at the house of the 
 United States Consul to-night, but, as I have learned to 
 my sorrow, there is nothing certain in this heathen land — 
 not even death and taxes. It rained to-day, and a pecu- 
 liarity of the Chinaman is that he won't work when it 
 rains. The result is that the Quartermaster could not 
 load the boats, on one of which I was to sail Peking-ward, 
 and so I am held up another day. I am promised now a 
 trip up to-morrow sure, however, for if a boat does not 
 start then there will be a wagon train going. A wagon 
 train means about twenty wagons, each drawn by four 
 mules, and it will take four and a half days to make the 
 trip. They can only average about twenty miles a day 
 over the Chinese roads. It would be a good deal faster to 
 walk, but not so safe, and, anyway, I haven't any way to 
 get my baggage up, so that I have to go on a transport of 
 some kind. 
 
 Nothing at all has transpired to-day that could in any 
 way interest you, because nothing has transpired to in- 
 terest me, and I know that if I am not interested you can- 
 not be — in afifairs Chinese, at all events. Now, if I take 
 the wagon train to-morrow I shall have to stop writing 
 letters to you until we get up to Peking, for there will
 
 88 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 be no place at all to write. It will be ride all clay in a 
 jolting wagon, and camp all night, so it is possible that 
 this will be my last letter for some days. When I get up 
 there I will tell you the story of the whole trip in one 
 letter. 
 
 PEKING, Saturday, October 13, 1900, this being, in 
 Chinese, the twentieth day of the eighth moon of 
 the 28th year of His Imperial Majesty Kuang Hsu, 
 Son of Heaven, etc. 
 
 PEKING at last ! My wagon train poked in here about 
 three hours ago, and I have been hustling ever since for 
 some place to lay my weary head. Luckily for me, I got 
 thoroughly well acquainted with Major Ives, coming 
 across the country, and now he has come to my rescue 
 and I am being cared for, temporarily, at least. 
 
 Let me give you a bit of advice right here. If you are 
 going anywhere at any time, and you have a chance to 
 go on a government wagon train, don't go; walk. Now, 
 that is no reflection at all on the wagon train or any of 
 its component parts, nor is it to say that I haven't had a 
 bully good time, for I have; but you just take my advice 
 and walk. I think you would have a better time. 
 
 In my last letter to you, written, if my recollection 
 serves me, on Monday (by the way, I forgot to mail it, 
 and you will get it along with this one), I promised to 
 tell you of this trip to Peking in detail, and while I'm in 
 another man's quarters, writing at another man's table, 
 and sitting in another man's chair, which he may come 
 in and claim at any time, I will proceed to fulfill my 
 promise to the best of my ability and to the best of my 
 recollection. As a preface, and to make up for any short- 
 coming, I may say that it seems to me to be about four 
 years and a half since I started from the Gate of Heaven 
 to reach here, and I've been coming all the time. 
 
 Well, to proceed. I was snapped up by General Hum- 
 phrey about noon on Thursday. General Humphrey is the 
 Chief Quartermaster, and as such has charge of the 
 transportation. "Well, Sport," said he, "that wagon 
 train is loading now, and if you get around in about fif- 
 teen minutes you can start for Peking." To put it mildly,
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 89 
 
 that made me hump. Fifteen minutes, a mile from the 
 place where my baggage was, and some of it still un- 
 packed ! I jumped into a 'ricksha and beat the China- 
 man all the way to the house, yelling " chop, chop " at 
 him as we went, just to get some life into his weary bones. 
 He made that mile quicker than he ever made a mile before 
 in his life, and I jumped out and tumbled my stuff into 
 my trunk and bags, any old way (it took me less than a 
 minute by the clock), and got coolies to carry it down- 
 stairs and load it in the 'ricksha. Then it was a dash 
 back to Humphrey's. Then, sad to relate, it was a wait 
 of three hours for that blessed old wagon train. 
 
 Well, I put in the time going out and buying some 
 grub, and then in getting acquainted with my companions 
 for the trip. There was our old friend B., about 
 whom I have told you — you remember, the cinemetograph 
 man. He had permission to go. Then there was a captain 
 in the English army, who was already weeping tears of 
 anguish because he was afraid he would reach Peking 
 too late to go on an expedition to Pao Ting, where he 
 could engage in that occupation of looting which is the 
 stronghold of the English army. Then there was a mis- 
 sionary who wanted to get back to Peking and join his 
 flock of heathen. We all got fairly well acquainted in 
 that wait of three hours, and I might have been happy 
 had it not been for the fact that about every seven min- 
 utes I would think of something that I had forgotten 
 and that I dared not go back to get, for the train would 
 be here " any minute." 
 
 Finally it did come — twenty wagons in a row, all 
 loaded to the tops, and all covered over with canvas. You 
 have heard of prairie schooners. Well, that is what these 
 were. Four mules to a wagon, pulling, and one mule on 
 the seat, driving. The whole shooting-match lined up 
 in front of the Quartermaster's office, and then it was 
 discovered that the Wagonmastcr, that is, the boss of the 
 train, was boiling drunk and he couldn't go. There was 
 another wait of half an hour until a substitute who was 
 sober could be found, and who, mounted on a trusty mule, 
 gave the word to go. Each of the guests whom I have 
 mentioned were assigned to wagons, the last four in the
 
 90 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 procession. I had the first of the four, and cHmbed up on 
 the seat beside the driver, who turned out to be an old 
 Sixth Calvary man, with a supreme disgust for mule- 
 drivers generally, and this particular bunch of mule- 
 drivers in particular. However, of him later. 
 
 The long whips cracked like pistol shots, and we were 
 off on the first of Uncle Sam's mule trains to travel 
 through China without an escort. We had no guard of 
 any kind, and only ten or a dozen rifles in the lot, though 
 all of us had pistols. The train, as it stood with its load, 
 was worth in the neighborhood of $200,000, so you see 
 the whole thing was more or less interesting, not to say 
 exciting. Our road lay through the ruined city of Tien 
 Tsin, and away we went in that direction. It was curious 
 to watch the wondering faces of the Chinese as we drove 
 along. A Chinese horse is about as big as a Shetland 
 pony. A Chinese mule isn't any bigger than a couple of- 
 medium-sized St. Bernard dogs, and a Chinese cart rs 
 just big enough to hold one man. Here was a train of 
 huge wagons, each big enough to make half a dozen; 
 Chinese carts, drawn by four mules, each as big as three 
 ordinary Chinese mules, or two ordinary Chinese ponies. 
 As we rode along, the Chinamen pouring out from the 
 doorways of the ruined houses would hold up one finger 
 and say, with voices full of admiration, " Number one, 
 number one ! " at the same time pointing at the mules. 
 They meant that they were the best mules and the best 
 wagons they had ever seen. I noticed that they would 
 always dodge when they saw a wagon with a gun on it, 
 which was a good sign that they had not lost the whole- 
 some regard for firearms that had been instilled in them 
 by the visit of the allied forces to their town. 
 
 Once out of the city of Tien Tsin we struck a broad 
 plain. The country was perfectly flat, like our prairies 
 in the West, but unlike them in that it was not rolling. 
 It was flat like a billiard table, and there was not a hum- 
 mock in sight anywhere. We had been going not more 
 than half an hour when I noticed some of the most pecu- 
 liar clouds I ever saw. They were a long distance off, 
 and they looked speckled, and, strangely enough, they 
 seemed to circle around, although they always moved
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 91 
 
 forward in one direction. The sun was setting and the 
 sky was a brilliant red that set off these supposed clouds 
 in most striking- manner. The direction that they were 
 moving was toward us, and the specks got larger every 
 minute, but it was fully fifteen minutes before we dis- 
 covered that they were not clouds at all, but were wild 
 ducks. There seemed to be millions of them, mil- 
 lions upon millions, as they came circling around and 
 around, but always moving on. I have seen many flocks 
 of birds in my life, but never had I seen any to compare 
 with these. It was just dusk, and in the gathering dark- 
 ness they again seemed to be clouds. The flock took 
 peculiar formations. They looked like clouds that were 
 torn by the wind. Do you see what I mean? There 
 would be a few hundred birds in the lead, then a few 
 thousand forming the body of the cloud, and then they 
 would taper off to a few stragglers, and the whole mass 
 would circle and change formation until it seemed certain 
 that there was a gale above and it was whipping the 
 black clouds about at will. 
 
 But here, I guess you have had enough of that, and I 
 will proceed to our first stopping place, which was Piet 
 Sang. That is a town about ten miles out of Tien Tsin, 
 and is on the bank of the Peiho River. The river is 
 crossed there on a pontoon bridge. That is, a bridge 
 made entirely of boats floating in the water. It is only 
 wide enough for one wagon to cross, and that only with 
 the most careful driving and with plenty of light to see. 
 There was an English camp on one side of the river, and 
 a Japanese camp on the other. When we hauled up, our 
 friend the English Captain went to the English officer 
 in command, who was a young Lieutenant from India, 
 and made himself known. The Lieutenant was all right, 
 and he insisted that B. and myself should come up 
 and have something to eat with him — a welcome invita- 
 tion, I assure you, for we had had nothing since breakfast, 
 and it was well on toward 9 o'clock. Then the Eng- 
 lishman went further. After filling us up with eggs and 
 bacon, and canned peaches, and coffee, he insisted that 
 B. and myself should bring our cots up to his tent 
 and sleep there. That was a heap better than sleeping
 
 92 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 out of doors, and we accepted the invitation. So passed 
 the first night without event. 
 
 The orders were, to get away at 4 o'clock in the 
 morning, and at half-past three we were up. The team- 
 sters were cooking a breakfast of bacon and hard tack 
 when we got back to our wagons, and my driver hunted 
 me up with a sandwich of hard tack and bacon, and in- 
 sisted on my taking it, and a cup of coffee, too. " I'm 
 going to look after you," he said, " and ye gotter eat." 
 I wanted to divide with B., but the ex-cavalryman 
 wouldn't hear of it. " Not on your life," he said, " let 
 the man as is driving him look after him. You stick to 
 me, and you'll get fodder to burn, and if it ain't good 
 enough for you, I'll have the cook cook up some of that 
 grub you brought along with you. That's too good for 
 us fellows. Bacon and beans is our rations, but the cook 
 can cook it, and if he can't I can. You ain't a going to 
 suffer none." 
 
 Well, with this spirit hovering around, you can 
 imagine that I was more than satisfied. At 4 
 o'clock we started to pull out. I use the word " started " 
 advisedly, for it was after 8 o'clock before we got away 
 from that bridge. My driver, after he had filled me up 
 with hard tack and bacon, went to take a look at the 
 bridge, and when he came back he said, " Say, pard, 
 don't you think it 'ud be a good scheme to take a walk for 
 a ways to digest that there sandwich? I'll pick ye up 
 t'other side of the bridge. Walkin' always helps digest 
 bacon, 'n half the drivers in this 'ere train don't know 
 no more 'bout drivin' mules than nothin'. They're car- 
 penters, that's what they are. It 'ud serve 'em right if 
 they did get drowned, half of 'em, leastwise. I wouldn't 
 want nothin' to happen to ye, 'n, as I was sayin', pard, 
 walkin' does help digest bacon." 
 
 I didn't just catch what he was drivin' at until I took 
 his advice and walked across that bridge. It was the 
 flimsiest and narrowest bridge I think I ever went across, 
 and when I got over I stood and watched for the pro- 
 cession to move. My driver tackled it first. He un- 
 hitched his leading mules and tied them behind the 
 wagon, and then he cracked his whip and yelled, " Gee
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 93 
 
 up, there, Dynamite!" (Dynamite, I had learned, was 
 the name of the off hind mule, because he was noted 
 as a mule that would kick the daylights out of anything 
 that came his way.) That journey across was thrilling. 
 The boats that formed the bridge bobbed up and down 
 as the heavy mules stepped, and the still heavier wagons 
 were pulled from one to the other. The mules were 
 nervous and frightened, and it was a feat of driving to 
 get them across. The old Sixth Cavalryman was equal 
 to the task, and he wound up on the other side, put on his 
 brakes, and jumped off his wagon. " Now you'll see 
 the fun when them skinners try it," he said ; and we did. 
 The second man reached the middle of the bridge, when 
 suddenly his mules got the best of him, and one of them 
 tumbled off into the river. That started the fun. The 
 Japs ran out to the rescue, and the other teamsters all 
 rushed on. And there was as much excitement as you 
 could get at a circus. To make a long story short (see 
 further details in The Sun) that mule was fished out and 
 the wagon was pulled across by hand. Two wagons fol- 
 lowing also tumbled off and had to be unloaded before 
 they could be got back. The driver of one was thrown 
 into the river and nearly drowned, and one other mule fell 
 into the river, and another fell into one of the boats which 
 formed the bridge. All were rescued, and we proceeded 
 on our journey with the sun well up in the sky. 
 
 We reached Yangts-sune (?) that afternoon, tired out 
 and jolted almost to pieces. Then I went to an American 
 camp and introduced myself to Colonel Wint, who 
 commanded the place. He is a fine man. He took B. 
 and myself in and insisted on our eating with him, and 
 then he had a tent set aside for us and instructed the 
 sentry what time we were to be called in the morning. 
 Four-thirty was the hour. We sat with the Colonel and 
 he told stories all the evening. The sentry evidently mis- 
 took his order. For he called us at 3.30 instead of 4.30, 
 and we went out to find our teamsters hustling for wood 
 to build a fire to cook their breakfast. Wood was scarce, 
 and the only thing they could do was to dig up a Chinese 
 grave and take the coffin. That wasn't as bad as it 
 gounds, for the grave was so old that the Chinaman whQ
 
 94 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 occupied it had no further use for the coffin, and besides, 
 dogs had partly dug it out already. Well, our coffee was 
 made over the burning coffin, our bacon was fried over 
 the same, and away we went for another day. 
 
 Our next stop was to have been Hoshc-wao, but we 
 missed it entirely, and when dusk overtook us, we were 
 some distance from Matto, which was to have been our 
 fourth stop. We got off the road somehow. We were 
 four miles from Matto, and to try to reach there was 
 hopeless. You see, at each one of these places I have 
 mentioned there was a garrison of soldiers, and the trip 
 had been timed so that we would reach a garrison every 
 night. That made an armed guard unnecessary. Having 
 missed our camp and being unable to reach the next, we 
 were without a guard. To make matters worse, we had 
 heard during the day that there had been a fight at a town 
 three miles from Matto, and that the place was full of 
 Boxers, and here we were at that very town. 
 
 The fact was that there weren't any Boxers anywhere 
 around. The Chinamen were scared out of their wits, 
 and there was no more danger of hostilities than there is 
 in Brooklyn on Adelphi street. We are not dealing now 
 with the facts, however, but with what our scared team- 
 sters thought were the facts. We had with us for guide a 
 pie-faced Dutchman who wore buckskin pants. The Wa- 
 gonmaster said he knew something about camping, and he 
 wanted a place that could be guarded, so he pitched camp 
 in a triangle formed by three roads and surrounded on all 
 sides by cornfields ! All an attacking party had to do was 
 to surround us in the cornfields and shoot. But, as I have 
 already explained, there wasn't any more danger of that. 
 The moment that we started our camp some half a dozen 
 teamsters disappeared. Half an hour passed, when we 
 heard a heap of shooting up in the town. It was followed 
 by a few minutes of silence, and then our guide with the 
 buckskin pants came down the street as if he had been 
 shot out of a cannon, roaring at the top of his lungs for 
 " Ammunition, ammunition ! " He grabbed up two car- 
 tridge belts and was away as fast as his buckskin-covered 
 legs could carry him, while we waited almost breath- 
 lessly for what was to follow. It came in perhaps ten
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 95 
 
 minutes. It was a procession headed by the tuckskin 
 pants that enclosed the legs of a man whose face spoke 
 volumes of triumph. Behind the buckskin pants came the 
 missing teamsters, and after them came trailing a Krupp 
 cannon with the breech-block gone. Such a procession 
 I guess China never before saw, and the captors of the 
 cannon crowded about the camp-fire that was now blazing 
 and told their story. They had gone up to the town and 
 had noticed that the people acted in most mysterious 
 fashion, rushing into their houses and closing and lock- 
 ing the doors. At last they had come upon a group of 
 ten men who were immediately identified by him of the 
 buckskin pants as Boxers, and they had opened fire on 
 them quick. The ten escaped, and the whole town had ap- 
 parently become deserted. To their excited imagination 
 one thing was now certain, the Boxers were holding a 
 council of war behind closed doors and were preparing for 
 a night attack. The brave teamsters had seized the only 
 gun they could find and had captured it. 
 
 As I said before, there were no Boxers around, and 
 the people of the town, scared out of their wits by the 
 sound of guns, were probably all of thein hiding under 
 their beds. But it was dark, and the corn looked iDooger- 
 ish enough, and the story went. The only thing to be 
 done was to put out pickets and prepare to defend that 
 $200,000 train to the last ditch. He of the fur pants was 
 appointed sergeant of the guard, and everybody agreed to 
 take his turn except your humble servant. I was sleepy 
 and hadn't any time to waste on the nonsense. I told 
 them that if they ran short of guards in the early morning 
 I would take a hand, but I wanted to sleep until i or 2 
 o'clock anyway. I spread out my cot under a tree by the 
 roadside and went to sleep. 
 
 Oh, I forgot to say that before I turned in there was 
 considerable alarm over the mysterious disappearance of 
 our missionary. He had not been seen since the shooting, 
 and it was rumored that the Boxers had him and were 
 boiling him for supper. A relief party went out, but he 
 was nowhere to be found and we mourned his loss. That 
 was all there was to do. Well, I slept through till 3 
 o'clock, when I was awakened by a mule that was eating
 
 96 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 up my blankets. Just as I woke I heard a whistle, 
 " Whee-wha-whee-wha," then silence. Again " Whee- 
 wha-whee-wha," and then a voice, unmistakably that of 
 my driver. It said, " Come out here, you damned old 
 fool. What's the matter ? You scared ? " He of the 
 fur pants was in the middle of the road, and was whis- 
 tling to the driver who was on guard up the road. He of 
 the fur pants was scared and didn't care to go and relieve 
 the sentry. It was bright moonlight, almost as 
 light as in the early evening. I recovered my blanket 
 from the mule and dropped off to sleep again. 
 
 When I woke up the camp-fire was bright and the 
 bacon was sizzling. Of the story of that night I know no 
 more. We reached Tung Chow the next day, and camped 
 there under guard that night, and this morning we came 
 on to Peking. Of what I have seen here I will tell you in 
 future letters, and will close this altogether too long, and 
 I fear uninteresting, epistle with the usual assurance that 
 you have as always all my love. 
 
 Peking, Sunday, October 14, 1900, being the 21st day 
 of the eighth month (intercalary) of the 26th year 
 of the reign of H. I. M. Kuang Hsu. 
 
 If you will permit me now to continue my discourse of 
 yesterday I will try to be brief and not weary you with a 
 lot of detail. As you know, it was yesterday that I 
 reached Peking, shortly after noon. " Me friend " B. 
 thought he would like to get a picture of the wagon 
 train to show, and when we stopped, just before entering 
 the city, he got off and fixed up his machine. Then he 
 said " Hi soy, Chamberlaine, would you moind holding 
 this 'ere box on your lap on your wagon ? " I looked at 
 the box. It said " J. B., Bioscope Company War 
 Correspondent." There was nothing for me to do under 
 the circumstances but to invite him to Hades, which I 
 did. He got his picture all right without the ass, and we 
 entered Peking. We went direct to the American camp, 
 which is in the Temple of Agriculture, the temple being 
 a great walled enclosure covering many acres and full of 
 buildings and gods and such like. 
 
 Oh, by the way, while I think of it. I forgot to tell
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 97 
 
 you about our missionfary. When I left him in yester- 
 day's letter he was missing and we mourned his loss. Well, 
 just as we were starting in the morning he turned up. He 
 had slept in a temple full of busted gods, just a stone's 
 throw from the camp. He told us that there was one place 
 into which a Chinaman would not go, and that was a tem- 
 ple, so he went there for safety. There had been forty 
 gods in the temple, but somebody had come along with a 
 brick and smashed their heads and pulled them off their 
 seats and smashed them on the floor. The missionary had 
 slept among them, and if the Boxers had come he probably 
 would have been taken for a busted god, too. 
 
 But to get back to Peking. It was a sight. Everything 
 was smashed up and burned and destroyed, the same as 
 in Tien Tsin — the same as every town from Tien Tsin 
 to Peking. It was all a picture of ruin. Where to stay 
 was a question. B. seemed to think it was a part 
 of my business to find a place for him, but I quickly dis- 
 abused his mind of that idea and went hustling for my- 
 self. As I told you in yesterday's letter. Major Ives took 
 me in, and I'm with him yet, though I expect to be better 
 fixed in a day or two. I saw General Wilson to-day, and he 
 invited me to come into his mess, that is, join his ofificial 
 family, and he said he would find a room in one of the 
 buildings in the temple for me, so I guess that fixes me 
 all right. I have not had a chance to go around yet, and 
 so I don't know just what the situation is. I'll find out 
 to-morrow and will try to let you know more about it. 
 
 Peking, Monday, October 15, 1900. This being the 
 twentieth day of the eighth moon (intercalary) of 
 the 26th year of the reign of H. I. M. Kuang Hsu. 
 
 I am not fixed yet except in the matter of eating. I 
 have struck the best mess in Peking, that which is 
 presided over by General Wilson, of whom you have heard 
 me speak. General Wilson lives on the fat of the land, if 
 there is any fat about, and I am eating with him at a cost 
 of $1.50 a day, which is not half bad. He is hustling for 
 a room for me and I shall probably have one to-morrow 
 in his compound, and then I'll be fixed and have a place 
 to write, which is at present the most important con-
 
 98 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 sideration, for as it is I am scarcely able to do any work 
 for The Sun at all except the short cables that I am send- 
 ing every day or so. 
 
 Yesterday afternoon I took dinner at the Rev. A.'s 
 house. The Rev. A. is a missionary, and he appears 
 to be a very good sort of a fellow, but I cannot for the 
 life of me approve of his methods. I think I shall have 
 to write a story about him and some of the other mis- 
 sionaries. You see, when the soldiers came to Peking and 
 these missionaries were safe, some of them began at once 
 to clamor for damages that they said they had sustained. 
 The first thing they did was to get for living places the 
 palaces of the rich Chinese Princes, and when they had 
 them they started in clearing them out. They took 
 everything of value and sold it for a song. Then they 
 let their native Christians go out hunting and stealing 
 more loot, and they sold that. They said it was no sin 
 and they eased their consciences by saying that they had 
 the right to reimburse themselves for the losses that they 
 had sustained. It was just as if a man had stolen some- 
 thing from me, and, to get square, I went and stole some- 
 thing from him. In other words, two wrongs make a 
 right. That may be all right, but I don't think so. At 
 A.'s home, which was the palace of Prince Pei, a 
 Manchu, before the trouble, I met a lot more missionaries. 
 
 Peking, Tuesday, October i6, being the twenty-third 
 day of the eighth moon (intercalary) of the 26th 
 year of H. I. M. Kuang Hsu. 
 
 I have a living place at last and am as comfortably 
 fixed as a man could expect to be in a beleagured town 
 such as this is. One of General Wilson's staff went away 
 to-day and I moved into his room, which is one of those 
 in a building facing General Wilson's house. I put up my 
 cot there to-day, moved my stuff over, and now I have 
 not only a place to lay my head, but also a place where I 
 can do some work. General Wilson has been as nice as a 
 man could be. He has put himself out in a dozen ways 
 to make sure that I should be comfortable, and I am. 
 That is to say, I am as comfortable as a man can be away 
 from home and family. I have been so busy that I
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 99 
 
 haven't been able to make acquaintances and get in close 
 touch with the situation yet, so I am still unable to tell 
 you what the prospects are for an early return. I'll get 
 about that shortly; meantime, possess your soul in 
 patience, as I am possessing mine. 
 
 The air of this town fairly reeks with loot. Loot is 
 the word most often heard. From all I can gather 
 everybody stole everything that was in sight, when the 
 troops came here. It made no difference who the man 
 was — he was robbed if he was Chinese. He might have 
 devoted weeks and months to the service of the Chris- 
 tians. It was a crime for him to be Chinese, and he was 
 despoiled of any property he might be possessed of. 
 There is Christianity, setting an example for the heathens, 
 or shall we say that Christianity is off its base and is fol- 
 lowing the example set by heathens? I guess it doesn't 
 matter much which way we put it — it amounts to the 
 same thing. 
 
 In the game of loot the British seem to take the cake, 
 and the biscuit too. They don't deny that they have 
 stolen, and one of the sights of the town is an auction 
 they hold any afternoon, where some of the products of 
 their stealing are sold to the highest bidders. The 
 auction is held in the British Legation. It is open to any- 
 one, and crowds go daily. Great crowds are getting 
 stuck, too, for higher prices are being obtained for things 
 than the same things could be purchased for in peace 
 times. The British have a great stock of loot which they 
 expect to sell and the profit of it will be divided among 
 the officers. You see, they consider the thing legitimate ! 
 I would write a piece about that, too, but I am afraid 
 that somebody else has already covered the story fully. 
 
 Peking, Wednesday, October 17, 1900, eighth moon, 
 
 (intercalary), twentv-fourth day, 26th year, Kuang 
 
 Hsu. 
 
 Once more I take my pen in hand — only it happens to 
 
 be a pencil — and I take my manila pad and sit me down 
 
 to tell my mentor of the doings of a day. I can tell you, 
 
 now, they have been mighty slim — nothing at all worth 
 
 talking about. I've been trying to get under the skin of
 
 100 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 our amiable American Minister, Mr. Conger. He 
 doesn't seem to soften up a bit and I have to make him 
 do it if I want to get in on the peace negotiations. I 
 took my credentials to him to-day and told him frankly 
 that I wanted his confidence. We had a long talk and I 
 think I'll get him all right, but it is a work of time. But 
 of course this doesn't interest you, so I won't say anything 
 more about it. 
 
 After I had seen Conger, I made a trip out to the 
 Summer Palace, which is the show-place of China. The 
 Summer Palace is where the Emperor and the Dowager 
 go to spend the Summer ordinarily. They didn't do it 
 this year, of course. They had business elsewhere, 
 when the guns began to boom. Without any question 
 the Summer Palace is a beautiful place. It is a high 
 garden, with buildings here and there — some of them 
 temples and some of them dwellings — and, all about, 
 the grounds overgrown with flowers. There is a big 
 lake, and at one end of it a huge marble boat that was 
 built many years ago, for what purpose the mind of man 
 cannot conceive, for it certainly was a useless outlay of 
 a great deal of money. The grounds of the Summer 
 Palace include a high hill, and on top of this hill are two 
 temples with hideous Chinese gods, which are wor- 
 shiped by the heathen here. There were tables in front 
 of the gods and these were loaded down with cakes and 
 fancy things, so the gods might not go hungry. The 
 Chinamen were astounded at the daring of the foreigners 
 who went into the temples and felt of the big brass things 
 and speculated on their antiquity and on what use they 
 might be. The Summer Palace has been thoroughly 
 looted and there wasn't a thing there in the shape of a 
 souvenir to take away. When the soldiers first got there 
 it was full of the richest porcelains and jade and things 
 of that sort. Every bit of it was gone. There were 
 beautiful bronzes, too. Down near the gate there was a 
 British post and a big building. A lot of the stolen stuflf 
 was in that building, in charge of the soldiers, who said 
 it was all to be returned, but that is all in my eye. The 
 British never return anything that they get their hands 
 on. They will wait now until they get a favorable
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA lOl 
 
 chance to get the stuff away, then away it will go and 
 will never be seen in Peking again. 
 
 Peking, Thursday, October i8, 1900. Eighth moon 
 (intercalary), 26th year, Kuang Hsu, now under 
 a cloud. 
 
 Lest you should have some doubts about the state of 
 my health I enclose herewith a photograph. You might 
 call it Beauty and the Beast. Of course there is a story 
 connected with it. Count von Waldersee, the Gennan 
 Commander-in-chief, arrived here to-day and there was 
 a big procession in his honor. All the armies were out 
 and all the Generals greeted him. The streets were lined 
 with soldiers in fancy uniform. The byways were lined 
 with correspondents armed with cameras. The Count 
 is going to live in the palace of the Dowager Empress, 
 and the line of march to that palace led through the gate- 
 ways of the Tartar City and the Imperial City, and 
 almost to the gate of the Forbidden City. Just outside 
 the gate of the Forbidden City are two marble beasts. 
 You can judge of the size of them from the picture. 
 They are supposed to be heavenly dogs, and when the 
 evil spirits come to vex the Emperor and the Dowager 
 they are supposed to be frightened by the dogs, or, if 
 th£y are not, the dogs descend from their pedestals and 
 eat them up. That's what the Chinese think, anyway. 
 
 Well, after the procession had gone by, J., one 
 of the correspondents, discovered that he had one film 
 he had not used, and M., E. and myself proposed that he 
 take our pictures. We climbed up on the dog, while a lot 
 of superstitious Chinamen gaped at us in awe at our 
 daring. I'm on the left. E. is in the middle and J. is 
 sitting on the pedestal. We got a Signal Corps man to 
 push the button. Now, look upon it, and see for yourself 
 my state of health. Do you want anything better than 
 that? Possibly you won't recognize the hat or the leg- 
 gings, for I don't wear them in civilized countries. The 
 hat is an army campaign hat and the leggings are army 
 leggings. One has to wear them here. 
 
 After the show was over I went up to the house of the 
 missionary, A., to lunch. E. and J. are living with him.
 
 102 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 Before I had finished I had bought a job lot of China 
 gods from A. for $5, Mexican. They are of brass and 
 will make good mantel ornaments. They will also make 
 good things to give away to our friends as souvenirs of 
 China. They are so cheap I think I'll invest in some 
 more. I also arranged to get a couple of Chinese gowns 
 of silk, which I think maybe you will like. Maybe I'll 
 send them home, and maybe I'll bring them when I come, 
 whenever that will be. 
 
 Peking, Friday, October 19, Kuang Hsu, 26th year, 
 eighth month (intercalary), 26th day. 
 
 " The winds do blow and we shall have snow, and 
 what will poor Robin do then, poor thing?" The fact 
 is that we have snow. This is the first of the season 
 and Peking looks as wintry as Jersey City used to in the 
 blizzard days. I went to bed last night, and it was as 
 nice a night as you would want to see. It was even a 
 little warmer than it had been. Well, I woke up about 
 3 or 4 o'clock and everything was rattling and the wind 
 was coming into every crack of the branch of the Temple 
 of Agriculture that I occupied. Cold ? Gee whiz ! I 
 had two blankets over me, and I shivered. I didn't lose 
 any time getting another one, I can tell you. 
 
 I laid in bed until seven, and then got up to find it snow- 
 ing and blowing like merry Hades. It was anything but 
 cheerful. But there was work to do and I had to get 
 out and stir around. After I had eaten breakfast I wrote 
 a cable on the situation for The Sun, and then I started 
 uptown to the cable office with the wind blowing a gale 
 and a combined dust and snow storm that was awful to 
 relate. It was a mile-and-a-half walk and it seemed to me 
 to be twenty miles before I got there. That wasn't the 
 worst of it. The telegraph line was down and the whole 
 wire was useless. No message could be sent. Maybe 
 I was not angry ! I wished heartily that I was back in the 
 United States. That isn't an unusual wish these days, 
 I can assure you, but I don't think that I have ever 
 wished it harder than to-day. There wasn't anything 
 to do but to go back to the Temple of Agriculture, and I 
 did that with as good grace as I could. Then, I went to
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 103 
 
 see General Chaffee and he helped me out a bit by giving 
 me permission to send my telegram to the cable office at 
 Taku over the military line. That was a very decent 
 thing of him, and he has done it to nobody else that I have 
 heard. General Wilson, whom I have known a long time, 
 fixed that for me. You see, I am among friends out 
 here, and good friends, too. I saw Mr. Conger this 
 afternoon and had a talk with him, but it wasn't a very 
 satisfactory one. He doesn't seem to know anything, 
 or, if he does, he doesn't seem to want to tell it. I think 
 I'll have to get after him with a sharp stick. 
 
 Peking, Saturday, October 20, 1900. The same being 
 the twenty-ninth day of the eighth moon (inter- 
 calary), and the 26th year of Kuang Hsu the Son 
 of Heaven, now under a cloud. 
 I have been through the Forbidden City, I have sat 
 upon every throne that the Emperor possesses and every 
 throne ever occupied by the Dowager. I have seated 
 myself and lain down upon the bed of the Emperor, and 
 in fact I've had a regular picnic with things royal. As 
 you of course know, the Forbidden City has been care- 
 fully guarded by the allies since they came here, and 
 nobody has been admitted into the place except with 
 passes issued by the Generals, and then only in parties 
 accompanied by an armed guard. I heard yesterday 
 that Bishop M. of the M. E. Church had obtained 
 permission to go through the city with a party, and so I 
 got up early and rode to the gate and waited their com- 
 ing. Then I attached myself to the party and went in 
 without anybody saying me nay. 
 
 Well, there is not much to tell about it. It is the 
 greatest disappointment, I think, that I have ever ex- 
 perienced. The place is about a mile square and is filled 
 with houses and with eunuchs. The houses are, most 
 of them, temples, and are called Halls of Harmony. 
 There is a throne in every hall, and the Bishop and I sat 
 on every throne. The first sight of the city makes you 
 think of the whole Chinese Empire. It is a picture of 
 degeneracy. Everything in it is running to seed or de- 
 caying, just like the Chinese Empire. The first Hall of
 
 104 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 Harmony we went in was carpeted with American rugs 
 and was full of pigeons and bats, and they had dirtied 
 the place all up — even the throne itself. It was a vile- 
 smelling and filthy place. The second hall was a little 
 better, but it was used as a roosting-place by the birds, 
 too. After these halls were passed things looked a little 
 better, because they were cleaner, but they were not so 
 much better. 
 
 In one house was the Emperor's living apartment. It 
 was a beautiful place, furnished in blue. The whole 
 room was carved black wood, and the Emperor's bed was 
 built into the room. It was draped in blue. There was 
 a great table in the room and that was absolutely filled 
 with clocks of all kinds. It was a sight that you might 
 expect to see in a clock-store — nothing more. The Em- 
 peror was a crank in clocks. They were everywhere in 
 profusion in the city. You couldn't turn in any direction 
 without running into a clock, and more often you ran into 
 a bunch of a dozen or more. What there is about the 
 clocks to attract him I don't know. Some of the clocks 
 were magnificent, jeweled affairs. Others were plain, 
 common, ordinary clocks. There were clocks of wood, 
 of brass, of gold, of silver, of porcelain — of any old thing. 
 They had all stopped, by the way. None of them have 
 been running, the eunuchs said, since the royal family 
 ran away to escape the troops. 
 
 The apartments of the Dowager Empress were dec- 
 orated as highly, if not more so, and by clocks, too. 
 There were beautiful pieces of wood-carving every- 
 where, and much jade that was priceless, but on the 
 whole, as I said before, the city was a rank failure as a 
 spectacular show. The eunuchs followed us every- 
 where, and at almost every turn they handed cups of tea 
 to us and invited us to drink. We did for a while, until 
 it got tiresome. I won't burden you with any further 
 description here, for I'll write a story for The Sun about 
 the Bishop's visit, and you can read the details there. 
 Coming out of the place I picked up some bullets and 
 some broken pieces of shell which I shall keep as sou- 
 venirs. 
 
 You might suppose that a trip through the Forbidden
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 105 
 
 City would be as much sight-seeing as a man would care 
 to do in a day's time, but when I got to the Legation I 
 found the Minister and a party starting on a trip to the 
 Bell Temple, and he invited me to join them ; so I did. The 
 Bell Temple is a Buddhist temple, outside the city walls, 
 and, like all such places, it is full of brass gods. The 
 particular attraction there is a huge bell. It is the big- 
 gest bell I ever saw. The Chinese believe that when the 
 bell is struck it is a notice to all the gods to wake up and 
 hear their prayers. Two of us picked up a log of wood 
 and woke up the gods for fair. The bell stands two or 
 three feet high, and though it is hung to swing back and 
 forth it is so heavy that it took all of my strength just 
 to move it. We were accompanied through the temple 
 by a Buddhist priest. In ordinary times, if we had hit 
 the bell we would have been fired out on our heads. But 
 in these days the Chinese are not firing anybody any- 
 where. 
 
 On the way back to the city we stopped at the Yellow 
 Temple, where we saw the worst cases of vandalism that 
 I have seen yet. The Yellow Temple is a Buddhist 
 temple, too, and the chief attraction is a high marble 
 monument, carved from top to bottom. The carving is 
 a history of the life of Buddha from his birth to his death. 
 You understand, the scenes of his life are cut in the 
 marble. Some vandals had taken hammers and knocked 
 off fifty or sixty of the faces, ruining the whole thing. 
 It was useless destruction, and I couldn't but let my 
 temper get up over it. 
 
 Peking, Sunday, October 21, twenty-eighth day, eighth 
 moon (intercalary), 26th year, Kuang Hsu. 
 
 This has been a great day for the troops. The Four- 
 teenth Infantry started away for Manila, where they are 
 going to do some more fighting, and everybody went out 
 to see them off and to wish them God-speed. I mounted 
 my white nag at nine in the morning and started off with 
 General Chaffee and General Wilson and their staffs to 
 take part in the show, the Generals of course inviting me. 
 The Ninth Infantry, the Third Artillery, and the Sixth 
 Cavalry, who are all doomed to spend the Winter in
 
 106 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 Peking, formed the escort for the Fourteenth, who were 
 as enthusiastic as young kittens at the prospect of going. 
 
 The Generals headed the procession, and away we 
 marched down the street leading to the Forbidden City, 
 to Legation Street, where all the Legations are. We 
 marched up Legation Street. A big crowd was gathered 
 in front of the American Legation compound. All the 
 ladies of the various Legations were gathered there to see 
 the boys off and to wish them good luck. The band 
 whooped things up and there was a great time right at 
 hand. We picked up the American Minister there and 
 boosted him up on one of General Wilson's horses, and 
 were away again for the ceremony, which was to take 
 place two miles outside of the city. We had not gone far 
 when two members of Count von Waldersee's staff 
 joined us. The Count had sent them along to represent 
 him in the farewell. We marched on up Legation Street 
 to the Hattaman, — I guess that spelling is a little off; 
 anyway, it is a gate of the Tartar city, — and we went out 
 that and along the southern wall of the city to the south- 
 east gate, and then on out into the country. 
 
 Two miles out we halted. The Generals and their 
 staffs and your humble servant drew up on one side of 
 the road, and the cavalry drew up on the other. The 
 artillery drew up behind the Generals and then the Four- 
 teenth marched along, right-about-faced, and halted. 
 Then the big guns began booming out a national salute 
 of twenty-one guns. After that was over General Chaffee 
 called up Colonel Daggett and made a little speech to him, 
 in the course of which he thanked the Fourteenth for the 
 splendid work they had done and wished them good luck 
 in the future. Colonel Daggett made a little speech in re- 
 ply, thanking the General for the turn-out, and then the 
 band struck up " The Star-Spangled Banner." Instantly 
 every head was uncovered and we all stood bared until 
 the hymn was finished. Colonel Daggett then called for 
 three cheers for General Chaffee. They were given. 
 Then three more for General Wilson, and they were 
 whooped out. Then three for Minister Conger, " whom 
 we came to save." Then three for the battery, and then 
 three for the cavalry. Everybody shook hands with
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 107 
 
 everybody else and bade each other good-bye. They were 
 all men, but I can tell you there were some tears in the 
 crowd as the band struck up a lively march and the old 
 Fourteenth swung around and started off on the eighty- 
 mile march to Taku, where they are to get a transport. It 
 was a mighty inspiring sight. They were going to war ; 
 undoubtedly some of them were making their last march 
 in life ; but they went at it with a vim and a spirit that 
 could not but make you feel proud of being an American. 
 
 After the show I went to the palace of Prince Pei, 
 where I had beans and brown bread with the family of 
 the Rev. A., the man who sold me the gods. 
 
 This was the day's record. 
 
 Peking, October 22, being the twenty-ninth day of the 
 eighth moon, 26th year, Kuang Hsu. 
 
 Here it is, almost the first of November, and these 
 blooming Peace Commissioners haven't met ! The 
 trouble is that the French Minister has typhoid fever 
 and the German Minister is not here yet. All the re- 
 ports that I get indicate that it won't be half as difficult 
 a matter to settle the trouble as it looked to be at first, and, 
 once they get together, I look for a good quick wind-up. 
 It seems to me now that the scene of operation may be 
 transferred to Europe, in which case I suppose I will be 
 able to accompany the crowd. Once I get started from 
 here that will be coming home, whether it is by way of 
 Europe or not. 
 
 I started out on my pony at 9 o'clock this morning with 
 General Wilson, who is a splendid fellow, and rode up 
 to the American Legation, where I saw Mr. Conger, the 
 Minister, and had a talk with him. There was nothing 
 new. Then I went over to the British Legation. I have 
 already told you something about the way the British sold 
 their loot at auction. I found that the auctions had 
 ceased, but that they were still selling at private sale. 
 Well, I wish I had the pen power to describe to you the 
 condition of things and the motley crowd of Indian 
 soldiers I saw there. Everything in the building was in 
 the most awful confusion. There were tons and tons of 
 stuff, and it had all been pawed over and pawed over to
 
 108 ORDEREDTOCHINA 
 
 get the good pieces out. The floor was strewed witK 
 silks and furs, and you walked around knee-deep in the 
 stuff. There was mighty little choice stuff left, and all I 
 could find that attracted me was a short coat and a long 
 coat. I bought the short coat for 50 cents because there 
 was some very handsome gold embroidery on it. I 
 bought the long one for a dollar because it was typically 
 Chinese, and the word " happiness " was embroidered 
 all over it. I think I'll buy another one of them to- 
 morrow and send it to you for G. It is pure Chinese and 
 ought to interest her, though I can't for the life of me see 
 to what use it can be put. I rode back to the Temple of 
 Agriculture in time for lunch and here I am. I have just 
 finished that and am writing my daily letter. 
 
 Peking, October 24, ninth moon, second day, 26th year 
 of the reign of H. I. M. Kuang Hsu. 
 
 Another moon has passed and Peking still holds me 
 tight in her grip. The mail went away yesterday with 
 the last batch of letters that I wrote you and now I am 
 anxiously waiting its return, hoping to get a fresh batch 
 up from Tien Tsin from you. I may be disappointed, 
 but I'm getting used to disappointments. I'm dog-gone 
 disappointed that I haven't been able to start home 
 before this, but the fates seem to be against me on that 
 proposition. 
 
 I made another trip to the Hateman to-day, — up in the 
 Japanese quarter, where, as I have told you, the street is 
 full of the peddlers of loot, — and I possessed myself of a 
 few things that I think maybe you and the rest of the 
 folks will like to look at, at least. I won't tell you what 
 they are until I send them to you, which will I think be 
 in about a week. In order to get them into the United 
 States safely I am going to send them direct to Washing- 
 ton in the Government dispatch-bag, with the request that 
 they be forwarded to you from there, C. O. D. The 
 express charges should not be more than 50 cents, though 
 they might be $1.00. At all events, I don't think you will 
 lose anything if you pay the dollar charges. I don't 
 know exactly when the next dispatch-bag goes, so I can't 
 tell you when to expect them. I don't know what's
 
 ORDEREDTO CHINA 109 
 
 going on in New York and I haven't heard a word from 
 the office since I left, except in the shape of orders, so I 
 guess they are all happy and satisfied, even if I am not. 
 
 I went to see Minister Conger again to-day, and had 
 quite a long talk with him about the situation, after which 
 I wrote and sent a cable that may or may not have gotten 
 away. I don't know. That is one of the pleasing 
 characteristics of the cable business here; you can never 
 tell what happens to your stuff after you once file it with 
 the office. 
 
 I met the Minister's family to-day. He has a wife 
 and daughter. They seem to be very nice people and 
 they invited me to come out and see them whenever 
 possible. Of course I won't go. They have official en- 
 tertaining enough to keep them busy without my 
 bothering them. Besides that, I haven't time. While 
 there appears to be mighty little to do in Peking, it cer- 
 tainly does take a heap sight of time to do it, and I find 
 it hard even to get time enough to myself to write 
 you the daily letters. One trouble besides the want of 
 time is the miserable writing accommodations I have to 
 put up with. There is absolutely no place in Peking 
 where there is room, and where at the same time there is 
 a chance to say your soul is your own in private. How- 
 ever, I guess you have something better to do than to 
 listen to complaints, and as I'm grumpy enough with 
 them, I'll close this letter. 
 
 Peking, Thursday, October 25, being the third day 
 of the ninth moon and the 26th year of the reign 
 of H. I. M. Kuang Hsu, the Son of Heaven. 
 I have joined, or rather founded, an organization to 
 be known as the Up-Against-It Society. I have invited 
 His Imperial Majesty Kuang Hsu to be the Chief Grand 
 Muckamuck, for he certainly seems to be up against it as 
 hard as anybody in these parts, and Her Royal Majesty 
 the Empress Dowager will be elected Chief Ornery Mem- 
 ber. I think she could hold that job with a degree of 
 success that could not be surpassed anywhere in the 
 world. The members of this organization will be chiefly 
 the newspaper correspondents who have been horn-
 
 110 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 swoggled and cheated and swindled since the first of this 
 cruel war. Life is too short to detail the experiences 
 this band has undergone. Suffice it to say that not one 
 •who has been in the battle has escaped without many 
 scars. It was but natural that your humble servant 
 should get his turn, too, and he has had it. He was ex- 
 pecting it, but the shock nevertheless was one sufficient 
 almost to upset his nervous system. The tale is a short 
 one and I will tell it. 
 
 When I arrived here on the 13th or the 14th — I don't 
 remember now which — I immediately filed a cable to the 
 office, telling them that I was here and giving them what 
 little news I was able to gather. The Government has a 
 telegraph line here, which, on occasion, is open to cor- 
 respondents to the extent of sixty-word messages. I 
 boiled my information down to sixty words and fired 
 it along over the government telegraph to Tien Tsin, that 
 being as far as the Government will carry it. Before 
 leaving Tien Tsin I had arranged with Mr. E., of the 
 American Trading Company, to forward any telegrams 
 I might send. That was beautiful — couldn't be improved 
 upon. The next day I sent another the same way, and 
 the next another, and so on, in the innocence of my heart, 
 day by day firing off all the good news I could get, and 
 one day even going to the trouble of getting the special 
 permission of General Chaffee to file 321 words all at 
 once. Beautiful, wasn't it? Yes, just beautiful. 
 
 Well, to-night, when I went to the telegraph office 
 with my modest little sixty-word cable and handed it in 
 at the window, the arch-demon there said to me blandly : 
 
 " Ah, by the way, those messages you have been send- 
 ing are still lying in the office at Tien Tsin. Nobody 
 calls for them and they are there yet." 
 
 Now, you know I'm a good deal of a philosopher in a 
 small way. I guess it was that fact that saved me. I am 
 certain that, had there not been a strain of philosophy in 
 me I would have jumped through the hole in the wall and 
 choked that demon to death on the spot. As it was, I 
 said, with that " camness " that Josiah Allen's wife de- 
 lights to talk about, " Well." Just that and nothing 
 more. " Well/' I said
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 111 
 
 " Yes," said the demon without even so much as crack- 
 ing a smile, " you see, nobody called for them and they 
 are there yet." 
 
 " Oh," I said, gathering myself together in bits. " Oh, 
 he didn't call, hey? Well, he must be a blundering 
 fellow and of course you couldn't notify me of that fact. 
 How many are there ? " 
 
 " Oh," he said cheerfully, " they are all there. We 
 haven't lost any of them." 
 
 Beautiful, wasn't it? I could have choked him to 
 death and shouted with joy. Yes, I could have com- 
 mitted any of the uncivilized acts that the civilized 
 soldiers have been committing out here — could have done 
 it with a clear conscience and still chortled happily, but 
 of course I wouldn't give the blithering idiot a chance 
 to see that I felt in any way put out and let him have the 
 laugh on me. 
 
 Of course he didn't have the sense to understand just 
 how serious the matter was. The cables represented 
 considerably more than $i,ooo, to say nothing of my 
 own reputation. Here I had been away from Tien Tsin 
 since October 8, and the office hadn't heard a word of me 
 or from me. Well, I gritted my teeth and grinned a 
 sickly sort of grin, and told him to please have the three 
 last messages I had sent forwarded across the street from 
 the Tien Tsin Government Office to the cable office. 
 Then I went out and kicked myself around the Temple 
 of Agriculture half a dozen times, meantime calling on 
 all the brass gods in the place to inflict the proper 
 measure of punishment on the encumbered earth. Oh, it 
 was beautiful ! Then I went off and organized the Up- 
 Against-It Society. Don't you think it was justifiable? 
 Well, I do. I have told the story to General Chaffee, and 
 he will have an investigation made. That's all it will 
 amount to. 
 
 Meantime, what the office thinks is a mystery to me. 
 But as I haven't heard from them they probably think 
 that there hasn't been any news and that that man Cham- 
 berlin in China is a great man to save money by not 
 cabling when things are dull. I hope so, at any rate. I 
 have written Mr. Lord and told him about it — at least, I
 
 112 ORDEREDTOCHINA 
 
 shall write him when I get through cussing and advising 
 with the brass gods that abound here about the proper 
 amount of vengeance that should be meted out. The 
 least the telegraph people could have done for me would 
 have been to notify me when my first message was unde- 
 livered, rather than wait ten or fifteen days and then tell 
 me that I was lost to the world. However, as I said 
 before, there is just a grain of philosophy in my make-up 
 and I take it as one of the fortunes of war. It is no 
 worse than, nor half as bad as, the mishaps that have be- 
 fallen some of my unfortunate fellow writers. You will 
 pardon me for not writing about anything else to-day, 
 but this subject seems somehow to be uppermost in my 
 mind. There are volumes that I wish to say on it, but I 
 guess that I have gone as far as advisable. 
 
 Peking^ Friday, October 26, 1900, being the fourth 
 day of the ninth moon, of the 26th year of the 
 reign of H. I. M. Kuang Hsu. 
 
 The Up-Against-Its are getting along famously. I 
 got another smash right between the eyes to-night and 
 I'm cheerful as a billy-goat with a stomachful of green 
 apples. When I left the cable office last night, after the 
 news that I told you yesterday, I thanked my lucky stars 
 that it was no worse and said to myself, " Well, at last 
 the office knows that I am here, at all events." Now, 
 you would think that was justified, wouldn't you, in view 
 of the fact that I had $300 on deposit with the cable 
 people in Tien Tsin to prepay any messages I might send 
 as far as Taku, where they would be sent by the regular 
 cable company, collect to New York. But there's many 
 a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip. I guess you've heard 
 that, haven't you? When I went to the telegraph office 
 to-night the demon said : 
 
 " Oh, by the way, the telegraph people wouldn't accept 
 those messages last night, because they were not written 
 on the blanks of the company. I tell you we're damn 
 mad about it, after our taking the trouble to take the 
 messages there." 
 
 I said, " I'm glad you're damn mad about it, but I 
 don't see just why you're mad. I'm not."
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 113 
 
 " Well," he said, " it don't matter much to you, but 
 after we went clear across to their offices with the mes- 
 sages we're damn mad that they didn't take them." 
 
 I told him it certainly was a shame that they should 
 have been put to so much trouble, and then I remarked 
 that the most discriminating man I had met in Peking 
 was the man who had assigned him (the demon) to 
 quarters, and I left him to chew over that. 
 
 I don't know whether he has figured it out yet. He 
 said " Yes, sir," when I made the remark. You see, the 
 Emperor had one temple in the Temple of Agriculture 
 grounds that was devoted to the blessing of manure. He 
 would come once a year to that temple and put a heap of 
 manure on the altar and get the brass god to bless it. 
 Well, the demon lives in that temple. 
 
 The whole experience of the cables reminds one of 
 another incident. It happened in Cuba during the 
 Spanish war. The old Kanapaha hustled into Port 
 Antonio one day with the exclusive story of a fight. She 
 was away ahead of everybody and I went ashore elated 
 with the success that was about to be achieved. The 
 message was already written and I hurried to the 
 telegraph office as fast as my legs could carry me to get 
 the message ofif for New York. The telegraph office 
 was in charge of two young women. They took the 
 message, and, together, began counting the words in it, 
 I fuming and sweating and urging them to hurry. I 
 tried to induce them to start the message and count the 
 words afterward. I hustled to the door every minute or 
 so to see if anything was to be seen of my rivals. Then 
 I hustled back and pleaded with the girls to hurry. 
 They counted once, then twice, then three times. Then 
 they argued on the number of words and said, " $ioo, 
 please," or some amount like that. I forked out. They 
 said they'd send the message. I gazed anxiously out to 
 sea when I left the office, and as no rival boat was in 
 sight I sighed contentedly, with a sense of duty well per- 
 formed. Then I went leisurely about the work of get- 
 ting my ship coaled and myself back to work. 
 
 In the course of time I went aboard and we got back' 
 to the scene of action at Santiago. In a few days we
 
 114 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 went back to Port Antonio. Again I went to the office 
 of the telegraph company. There were the sweet young 
 things. One of them recognized me. She came to the 
 window. 
 
 " Aren't you Mr. Chamberlin? " she asked. 
 
 I confessed that I was. 
 
 " I'm so glad you came in," she said. " You filed a 
 message the other day for The New York Sun, didn't 
 you?"_ 
 
 Again I confessed. 
 
 " Well, do you know," she said, " we miscounted the 
 words and we were one short. Dreadfully stupid of us, 
 wasn't it? You owe us for one more word." 
 
 " Oh, that's all right," I said, and threw down a shilling 
 to pay, and started out. 
 
 " I'm so glad you came in," she twittered as I walked 
 away. " Now we can send the message." 
 
 Well, that's the story. I wasn't so philosophic then as 
 I am now, and I think I took it more to heart. I fear 
 that the opinion I expressed then sadly shocked the maiden 
 sensibilities of those young women. At all events, 
 always after that time there was an oppressive lack of 
 cordiality when I called at that cable office. Now, here it 
 is different unless the demon has thought out my opinion 
 of him. 
 
 To cut this letter short, I have succeeded to-night, 
 with the aid of Major-General Adna R. Chaffee, Briga- 
 dier-General James M. Wilson, United States Minister 
 Conger, and a crowd of supernumeraries, in getting 
 through my first message from Peking to The Sun. 
 Probably you have read it, so nothing further need be 
 said. I trust you will agred with me that the Up- 
 Against-It Club is an organization fully justified by the 
 circumstances, and, with Kuang Hsu as Grand Mogul 
 and the Empress Dowager as Chief Ornery Member, and 
 with your humble servant and his fellows as star kickers, 
 there opens before it a career the equal of that of the 
 Fifty Million Club. My mind is still somewhat wrought 
 up by these events, and you will again pardon me for 
 burdening you with a matter which can at best be of only 
 incidental interest to you.
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 115 
 
 Peking, Saturday, Octobter 27, 1900, being the fifth 
 day of the ninth moon of the 26th year of the 
 reign of H. I. M. Kuang Hsu, Chief Mogul of the 
 Society of Up-Against-Its. 
 
 I have gotten over my grumpiness and am in consid- 
 erably better humor, for I have learned positively that the 
 cable I sent last night got through, at least to Shanghai, 
 and if it got there there is no reason why it should not 
 have gone farther, so I assume — true, not without some 
 misgivings — that it has reached New York. Of course, 
 misgivings, under the circumstances, are forgiveable. 
 They say good comes out of everything, and I don't know 
 but that good has come out of the incidents that led to 
 the forming of the Up-Against-It Society. 
 
 You see, they had a limit of sixty words on the gov- 
 ernment line, beyond which no correspondent could go. 
 Now, sixty words, when it costs $1.52 a word to send, 
 may sound like a good deal, but it is mighty little, after 
 all. It is all right for the relation of the bare facts of a 
 news incident. When it comes to discussing the points 
 of a question, it is just nothing at all. Now, having been 
 so badly treated by the government telegraph, I had the 
 right to some compensation, so I wrote a long dispatch, 
 that is, 400 or 500 words, and took it to General Chaffee 
 and asked him to order it sent. He marked it O. K. and 
 fired it off, and he told me, in addition, that at any time 
 when I had a dispatch that was over the limit he would be 
 glad to do the same, provided there were not too many of 
 them. So you see that in the future I have practically 
 carte blanche, a thing that would not have happened under 
 any other circumstances than those narrated in the two let- 
 ters I have written you in the last two days, giving you the 
 facts that led to the organization of the Up-Against-It 
 Society. 
 
 There is not much to tell you, beyond this. I wonder 
 a great deal how you and the babies and all are getting 
 on, and whether you think as much about the absent Lad 
 as he thinks about home. I wonder, also, about Father 
 and Mother, and how they are getting on. I haven't 
 written them as often as I have wanted to, but circum- 
 stances have been such that it has been simply impossible
 
 116 ORDEREDTOCHINA 
 
 for me to find the time to write more than the daily letter 
 I have written you. As you may well imagine, while it 
 has been a great pleasure to write you, it has often been a 
 tax, too, for time out here in this place of distances is 
 almost as valuable as money. When you know the con- 
 ditions of camp life you will better understand. 
 
 Night work is practically out of the question. There is 
 no such thing here as gas or electric light, and there are 
 not even lamps. Everything is candle-light after the sun 
 goes down. When the Commissary runs short of candles, 
 as he has done on several occasions, there is not even that, 
 and work of any kind is out of the question. It isn't like 
 a modern town. When we get short of things we can't 
 run down to the store and buy them. There are no stores 
 to buy things in — that is, things that Europeans require. 
 We just have to do without. For instance, I am running 
 short of lead pencils, and I have had to send to Shanghai, 
 800 miles down the coast, to get a fresh supply. That is 
 just a sample of the difficulties that are daily incidents of 
 life with an army. So, if you notice any shortcomings in 
 my letters, please charge them up to inability rather than 
 to a fault of the heart. 
 
 Sunday, October, 28, 1900, in Peking, China, on 
 the sixth day of the ninth moon, of the 26th year 
 of the reign of Kuang Hsu. 
 
 This is Sunday, but, as I think I have told you before, 
 there isn't any difference between Sunday and any other 
 dry in China. People go about their work, or rather 
 about their loafing, the same as on any other day. While 
 we Christians pretend to keep the day, and do abstain, 
 ourselves, more or less from work, we see that the China- 
 men in our employ don't lose a trick and go on with their 
 work for us just the same as usual. The more I see of 
 Christianity in practice in a heathen country, the more 
 convinced I become that there is a heap of hypocrisy 
 in this world of ours and in this Christian civilization. 
 What with missionaries running around selling things 
 that they know are stolen, calling for blood to avenge 
 blood, and in all ways demanding an eye for an eye and 
 a tooth for a tooth wherever it is possible for them to do
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 117 
 
 it, it seems to me that so-called Christianity, or Chris- 
 tianity as it is practiced in a heathen country, is made to 
 cover a multitude of sins. 
 
 I don't want to criticise unjustly, but it certainly seems 
 to me that there is a heap more of the " do others, or they 
 will do you," than there is of the " do unto others as you 
 would have them do unto you," and, in addition to that, 
 there is care taken to see that you do it first, too. I sup- 
 pose it is the way of the world, though, and it is not the 
 business of a heathen like myself to complain, so we will 
 drop the subject, temporarily at least. 
 
 I sent off another cable to-day, which, if it got through, 
 you no doubt read. Now, having spoken my little piece 
 for the day, I will say good-bye again, 
 
 Peking, Monday, October 29, 1900, being the seventh 
 day of the ninth moon of the 26th year of the reign 
 of H. I. M. Kuang Hsu, the Grand Mogul of the 
 Society of the Up-Against-Its, and Adopted 
 Son of the Dowager Empress, Chief Ornery 
 Member. 
 Here's the start of a fresh week, with, unfortunately, 
 very little progress made in the negotiations to restore 
 peace to this benighted Chinaland. The ways of diplo- 
 macy are slow, and I suppose we must not get out of pa- 
 tience with them. There was a meeting of the Ministers 
 yesterday, and after it was over I had a talk with one or 
 two of them. The product of that talk was in the meagre 
 cable that I sent last night. Of course there was a great 
 deal in addition to what I sent that it would not be proper 
 to print at this time, but it would be all old news before it 
 could reach you by letter, and, there, I won't take up my 
 own time writing it now or your time reading it. 
 
 I rode through the Hateman again, this afternoon, and 
 picked up a few more bargains, which I may or may not 
 be able to send home. I don't know yet. If I can't send 
 them I will bring them, so it is all the same. The stuff 
 that is for sale is, of course, all stolen stuff, but that can't 
 be helped. The original owners never can get it back, and 
 the title to it of a purchaser, under the law here, is per- 
 fectly clear. Everybody is in the business of buying and
 
 118 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 selling. It is the custom. Take what you can get as 
 cheap as you can get it, and ask no questions. 
 
 One of the extremely interesting things about Peking 
 at the present time is the way the various nations operate 
 the sections of the city. You know, when they came here 
 the city was divided up into districts, and each nation took 
 a district to run. The American officers sent out word to 
 the Chinese that they must return to their homes and 
 stores and resume their business. They guaranteed them 
 protection from robbery and the maintenance of order. 
 The result is that the American district is overcrowded 
 with people. Business is going on just as it was before 
 the invasion. The people seem to be happy and con- 
 tented. The only thing that is distinctly different from 
 the old regime is the cleanliness of the place. The Ameri- 
 cans are making the people keep things clean, a thing 
 unheard of before anywhere in China. The result of this 
 will be that if an epidemic comes this winter, it seems 
 likely it will do its work in the other districts and ours will 
 be exempt. 
 
 The Japanese section of the city is the same as ours, 
 overcrowded with people. The Japs followed our ex- 
 ample, and they protect the Chinese and prevent their 
 being looted and robbed. But there is this important dif- 
 ference. Their district is indescribably dirty. They have 
 done nothing to compel the Chinese to come out of their 
 filth. 
 
 Next to our own district, the best, in point of cleanli- 
 ness, is the English district, but still in that it does not 
 compare with ours. There are not nearly so many people 
 in the English district as we have. The reason is that 
 the Sikh soldiers, who are the only English soldiers here, 
 are great thieves, and, in spite of their officers they will 
 rob the Chinamen whenever they get the chance. 
 
 Last of all comes the German district. It is deserted. 
 If ever there was gathered anywhere on earth a band of 
 pirates it is in the German army. The German district of 
 Peking is practically deserted. The reason is that the 
 German soldiers, with or without the knowledge of their 
 officers, steal everything they can lay their hands on that 
 can be carried off. For instance, after their visit the other
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 119 
 
 day to the Forbidden City, as a guard to Count von Wal- 
 dersee, an American officer, of General Wilson's staff, 
 went through to see what had been taken. He had 
 made other trips through the city and knew what should 
 be there. He reported that there was nothing left 
 that could be carried off. The moment a Chinaman tries 
 to open his shop in the German section of the city, the 
 German soldier comes around and steals his stock. It's 
 a great game, I tell you. They have no shame about it at 
 all. How history will record the matter, and how the 
 civilized world will view it when the facts become known, 
 remains to be seen. 
 
 Peking, Tuesday, October 30, 1900, the same being, in 
 Chinese, the ninth moon, 26th year, H. I. M. 
 Kuang Hsu. 
 
 To-morrow is the day when we are all going to be mas- 
 sacred. 
 
 Now, don't get excited about it, for most of the brass 
 gods in this kingdom have been torn down from their 
 altars and they are not working, so I guess there is a 
 chance that it won't come off. At least, I am not going to 
 lose any sleep over it, and I merely tell you about it as one 
 of the incidents of life in China. 
 
 The ninth day of the ninth moon is set apart here for 
 the fete of Kwan Ti, the God of War, and of Tung, a 
 Ruler in Hades. Now, from the start of the trouble 
 here this day has been the day fixed for the final mas- 
 sacre, or the driving out, of all the foreigners, or foreign 
 devils, as they are called, and the ignorant people think 
 that really to-morrow the God of War will descend on the 
 foreign armies and annihilate them. Unfortunately for 
 them, perhaps, the boss brass god representing Kwan Ti 
 has been captured by the Americans and is now securely 
 packed and boxed and on its way to the Cullom Memorial 
 Hall at West Point, where he will be an exhibit in the ages 
 to follow. So I guess it's safe to say that he won't be 
 doing business here. 
 
 The only people who are worrying about the hob- 
 goblin stories are the missionaries, and when you laugh 
 at them about their fears they say, in a superior sort of
 
 120 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 way, " Oh, well, you don't know. You are a newcomer 
 here. You don't understand what devils these Chinese 
 are." Of course there is no answer to that argument, for 
 they certainly have lived in the country a long time, and 
 you haven't, but it's dollars to doughnuts that not one 
 fool Chinaman will raise his hand. If there is anything 
 like an outbreak there will surely follow a massacre that 
 will make anything in history pale. At the first sign of 
 trouble a guard will be put at every gate to prevent any- 
 one from leaving, and then the killing will begin, and it 
 will not end until every last Chinaman is dead. There 
 won't be any fooling about it. The whole thing, however, 
 is ridiculous, and to-morrow when I write you again I 
 shall be at a loss to find something to tell you, as usual. 
 
 Wednesday, October 31, 1900, Peking, ninth day, 
 ninth moon, 26th year Kuang Hsu. H. I. M. 
 
 Well, it's come and gone — at least it will be gone in a 
 little while. I mean this horrible (?) day, when we were 
 all to be killed ofif. As I predicted in my letter yesterday, 
 I don't know just what there is to write you about that 
 will interest you. It has been just like every other day, 
 with not a peep from a heathen to break the monotony. 
 The boxed-up God of War was surely off duty. I don't 
 talk enough Chinese to be able to tell you what excuse the 
 natives give for his non-appearance, but, anyway, they 
 must realize that he's a pretty bum sort of a god, and 
 maybe in the future they won't put so much faith in him 
 as they have in the past. Let us hope so, anyway. 
 
 I have spent a large part of the day joshing the mis- 
 sionaries and having fun generally with the people who 
 were scared. It was great sport to confess to them that 
 I am " a newcomer " — sort of an " I told you so " game, 
 but I think it was excusable, don't you? There was 
 another meeting of the Ministers to-day, but they did not 
 accomplish much, because they find it slow work to cable 
 to their governments and get replies. For that reason 
 they decided to let a little longer time elapse between 
 meetings, and they won't meet again until next Monday. 
 In the meantime it's a case of wait with patience. Gen- 
 eral Wilson is expecting orders every day to go away, and
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 121 
 
 when he goes I suppose that I'll have to hustle and find a 
 new place to live. I don't know yet what I'll do, but I 
 guess I will get along all right. I've any number of 
 friends among the officers, and will want for nothing, I 
 think. However, to paraphrase an old saying, a little 
 hardship now and then is relished by the best of men. I'm 
 not going to anticipate trouble. It doesn't pay, as I've told 
 you a hundred times. As they say out here, take what 
 comes and thank the Lord you are alive. 
 
 Well, good-bye for another day. My candle is burning 
 low. It's the last one I've got. The Commissary is out 
 of candles, and the Lord knows when I'll get another. If 
 I don't have one to-morrow I'll miss your letter for a day, 
 for it is simply impossible for me to find time in the day- 
 light to write. 
 
 Saturday^ Peking, November 2, being the eleventh 
 day of the ninth moon, 26th year H. I. M. Kuang 
 Hsu. 
 
 This will be a hasty letter, and I guess you will get it 
 alone, before the seven or eight others I have written since 
 I sent off my last batch — of eleven, I think, and, by the 
 way, like a dunderhead, I forgot to put in that picture 
 that I told you all about. I have it here before me 
 now, and I'll keep it here so that it will surely get into 
 this letter. It is not a very good picture, as you will see, 
 but I think that a careful perusal of the features will re- 
 lieve any doubts that you may have of the state of health 
 of your most humble and adoring servant. 
 
 But to get down to the facts about this letter case. I 
 have been mailing letters daily in the post-office, and they 
 won't leave in time to catch the steamer that this one will 
 go on. The wherefore is that General Wilson and his 
 aids start at 5 o'clock in the morning to return to the 
 United States. They will be mounted on fast horses and 
 will make the trip to Tien Tsin in two and a half days, and 
 there will get a steamer that is waiting to take them 
 straight across to Nagasaki, Japan, where they will make 
 a close connection with a steamer for the States. That 
 beats the mail all hollow, and this letter will be entrusted 
 to their tender care, so, when you get one letter alone, if
 
 122 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 this should catch the steamer that I expect it will, please 
 don't be disappointed ; rather be thankful for mercies re- 
 ceived — hey, sweetheart. And now I'm barred from writ- 
 ing you a long letter, for to find enough to write a long 
 letter about I'd have to go over the same ground that I've 
 been traveling, and when you got the other letters they'd 
 be stale. So, confining myself strictly to the day's news, I 
 can say about four hours ago I filed a 500-word cable to 
 TJic Smi, which will cost them $887. 
 
 There is still mighty little to tell you about their get- 
 ting through those villainous negotiations, but I think it 
 very certain that just as soon as the Ministers of the 
 allied forces finish up their work of coming together — 
 about the time you receive this letter, probably — they 
 will meet Li Hung Chang and Prince Ching, and then it 
 will take a mighty little time indeed to wind the whole 
 business up and restore peace to China and to the rest of 
 the world. 
 
 General Wilson's going away, unhappily, leaves me 
 homeless. You know I have been living with him and his 
 aides, and we have gotten along splendidly together. I 
 don't like changing about, and, least of all, leaving my 
 happy home, but these things do happen, and I'll have to 
 hunt a new roost in this desolate wilderness of Peking. 
 Luckily, General Chafifee, who is in command here, is a 
 fine fellow, and this afternoon he told me that when Gen- 
 eral Wilson left I must come and be taken care of by him. 
 That's what I will do, but just what kind of quarters I 
 shall get is, of course, at present impossible to say. Any- 
 way, it is in the compound, surrounded by the troops, so 
 don't for an instant think that I shall not be perfectly 
 safe. 
 
 Of course, you haven't had cold weather yet. I just 
 want to say that if the ice trust were over here it would 
 be out of a job. Cold? Gee whiz! it would freeze a 
 monkey wrench. 
 
 General Wilson, I want to say, has been as good a friend 
 to me as I ever had. He has simply taken hold and treated 
 me royally, and it is his influence, more than anything 
 else, that has given me the open sesame to about every- 
 thing in Peking, and that has assured me of a place to
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 123 
 
 stay after he has gone. For he went to General Chaffee, 
 I know, and told the General what he wanted done, and 
 you can imagine how grateful I feel toward him. 
 
 We expect a mail in to-morrow, and I certainly hope 
 that I shall get a batch of letters straight from home. 
 
 Now, I will devote about two minutes to telling you 
 about myself, if you would like to hear it. I think I 
 weigh a little more than I did when I started from 
 home. I am eating three meals a day, which is one more 
 than I ate at home. I haven't an ache or a pain about me. 
 I haven't had as much as a headache, and, cold as it has 
 been here, I have not had a cold in the head yet, and I've 
 no cough at all. I am suffering severely from uncut 
 hair, and if I don't find a barber pretty soon I'll be a good 
 imitation of the Hon. Buffalo Bill. It's pretty nearly long 
 enough to curl now. About another inch, and I'll be fully 
 equipped for a career on the stage, at least. I am out of 
 doors most of the time, and I haven't worn an overcoat 
 yet. I go around in a sweater. That is the reason, prob- 
 ably, that I haven't had any colds. I am collecting lots of 
 material for stories, but I have not written many because 
 I have not had a place to write at night, and because I 
 have had so much to do, trotting around for facts for 
 cables. As soon as I get settled I shall set apart three 
 hours a day at least for writing, and shall hustle up a lot 
 of stuff that I have been accumulating. Then, as soon 
 as this blooming Peace Commission winds up, I shall be 
 ready to be off, which, let us hope, at least, will be soon. 
 
 Peking, November 4, 1900, being the thirteenth day 
 of the ninth moon, H. I. M. Kuang Hsu. 
 
 This has turned out another star day. I had two letters 
 from home and have been trotting around on air all the 
 afternoon, the envy of everybody who didn't get any, and 
 that included about every American in Peking. We have 
 all been looking forward for a week, now, for the arrival 
 of twenty-three bags of mail which, it was telegraphed 
 from Tien Tsin, were started on the road here eight days 
 ago. It was reported last night that they would surely 
 get here to-day, and when the wagon train from Tung 
 Chow got in this morning, and the drivers said they didn't
 
 124 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 bring the mail, there was a howl that could be heard half 
 way over the province of Pechili. An hour after this 
 some couriers arrived with two sacks of mail and a small 
 sack for the Legation. There were just two letters in 
 that Legation sack, and they were both for me. They 
 had been chasing me up from Yokohama to Shanghai, 
 then to Tien Tsin, and finally to Peking, where they 
 caught me. I can tell you they were welcome, if 
 they were a little old. The last one was dated Sep- 
 tember 17. 
 
 Well, your letters were not the only good news of the 
 day, and the rest came at the Legation, too. After I had 
 finished the letters, I went in to see the Minister, and, 
 after a half-hour's talk with him, he gave me to under- 
 stand that he and the other Ministers had agreed on a lot 
 of general propositions they had expected to disagree 
 upon, and that there was a chance of their meeting Li 
 Hung Chang and Prince Ching within a week. This 
 means that it won't be a long while before the actual ne- 
 gotiations begin, and I think China is in such a dilapidated 
 state that she will give in, so the prospects for " Home, 
 Sweet Home " are a heap better than they were. I gal- 
 loped my horse home with a light heart, I can tell you, and 
 I hustled off a cable. 
 
 All the Americans here seem to be more interested in 
 the result of the elections in the United States Tuesday 
 than they are in the future of China, and Fm a very 
 popular person about the camp, because I have tele- 
 graphed Mr. Lord and asked him to cable me the results 
 for the benefit of the crowd. I hope the cable company 
 will hustle the message through for me, for everybody 
 is anxious as can be about the election, and if it gets here 
 quickly it will do me a lot of good in the way of making 
 me even more solid in this business, you know. I have 
 most of the crowd trained now, but there are some who 
 waver a bit. They have been used to dealing with news- 
 paper hacks, and they don't understand what it is to give 
 their confidence to a man. I don't care a great deal now, 
 for I have lines out in other directions, and can do with- 
 out any one man, no matter how big he is. Well, it's 
 bedtime, and I'll crawl under my silk-covered down com-
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 125 
 
 forter that cost me $5, Mex., and pull it up tight, and sleep 
 the sleep of contentment. 
 
 (This letter is addressed to another member of the family.) 
 
 Peking, China, Sunday, November 4, 1900, or, as the 
 Chinese say, thirteenth day, ninth moon, 26th year, 
 H. I. M. Kuang Hsu. 
 
 It's been so long since I wrote you that I've for- 
 gotten the date, but I remember the subject. It was a 
 ribald dissertation on the missionaries. The fact that I 
 haven't written you since then is not because I haven't 
 wanted to, but because I haven't had the time and I've 
 lacked the place to write. I'm not much better off now 
 than I have been in the past. I am writing by the light 
 of a single candle in one of the temples in the garden of 
 the Temple of Agriculture and a brass god is looking 
 down at me — whether approvingly or disapprovingly I 
 can't say. He is my room mate. In all the days before 
 the allies brought death and destruction to China, Kuang 
 Hsu used to come here once a year and crawl on his 
 stomach before his brass godlets and pray for corn or 
 oats or potatoes. I don't know exactly which vegetable 
 this god was a sponsor for. Maybe he was the boss of 
 the sheep or the goats, and not of the vegetables. At any 
 rate he is out of a job, now, and from appearances he 
 will continue to be for some time to come. I haven't any 
 use for him, anyway, and he isn't a troublesome room 
 mate. 
 
 I suppose the folks have kept you informed of my 
 whereabouts. I left Shanghai September 28, and went 
 to Port Arthur. From there I crossed to Taku, thence 
 I went by rail to Tien Tsin, where I stayed a while, and 
 then I came up to Peking on an American wagon train. 
 I got here about the 14th and I have been here ever since, 
 in fine health and spirits, only homesick as anybody must 
 be who is cast into a desolate and dirty place like Peking. 
 For all that, I have had a great deal better luck than 
 most of the correspondents, and have succeeded in living 
 in comparative comfort with the brass god. 
 
 I haven't changed my mind a bit about the missionaries.
 
 126 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 Indeed I am more set in my opinion of them than I was 
 when I wrote you. Their conduct here has been Httle 
 short of disgraceful. As you know, of course, by the 
 papers, everybody went loot-mad at Tien Tsin and here, 
 and the missionaries were as bad, if not worse than, any- 
 body else. Here is a sample of what they did. Take 
 the case of one missionary. As soon as the allies arrived 
 he boldly took possession of the house of one of the 
 Princes who was wealthy and who had fled with the 
 Court. Then he sent out and got some moneyed men and 
 showed them the store of treasure he had and boldly 
 asked for bids. He sold everything in the home except 
 what he needed for his own use. His alleged excuse for 
 doing it was that " his people " had been robbed and he 
 had the right to compensate himself for their losses. In 
 other words, two wrongs make a right. If a man steals 
 from you, you steal from him. 
 
 This case is not an isolated one. These men knew 
 where the rich men lived in Peking, and the moment it 
 was safe to do it they descended on their homes and took 
 possession, protecting themselves by sticking up a flag of 
 whatever nationality they happened to belong to. A 
 case even worse than the one cited is that of a 
 missionary who found six soldiers digging for loot that 
 they learned had been buried. They were Americans, 
 and, under the orders of our Government, our men could 
 take nothing. The fact that these men were disobeying 
 orders gave the missionary an advantage, and he 
 frightened them away by telling them he would report 
 them to their officers. They left. Half an hour or so 
 afterwards they got back their courage and started back 
 to the place. They got there just in time to find the 
 missionary driving off with the treasure. He had com- 
 mandeered coolies and put them to work digging up the 
 stuff, silks and silver. 
 
 You will understand the richness of the hauls some of 
 the missionaries have made when you know the Chinese 
 custom, which is to keep all their wealth in their houses. 
 The average rich Chinaman has his money invested in fine 
 silks, furs, and silver " shoes," and he stores it away 
 where he lives. None of these things is eas^ to carr)^
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 127 
 
 wHen one is in a hurry, and the wealthy Princes who 
 followed the Court on its expulsion left their all behind 
 for the missionaries to get. Neither Russians or Sikhs or 
 French have been worse looters than some so-called Chris- 
 tian missionaries, and the worst of it is that these so-called 
 Christians have no shame about it. They admit that it 
 is all true. I suppose all these things will straighten 
 themselves out in the Day of Reckoning, when the sheep 
 are separated from the goats, and if some of these fellows 
 don't get in the goat heap I'll miss my guess. You will 
 understand, of course, that this is not a sweeping condem- 
 nation of all missionaries. There are sheep as well as 
 goats. 
 
 But to drop the missionaries and return to China. 
 Practically all I have seen of it is a picture of destruction 
 that it would take a volume to describe. The line of 
 march of the allies was a trail of fire and murder. Up 
 to the very gates of Peking nothing was left standing 
 that would burn, and nothing was left living that was 
 caught sight of. If the Chinese are a cruel people they 
 will probably be more cruel in the future, for they have 
 the example of civilized nations to follow. Those of our 
 people who have denounced the heathen as inhuman had 
 better keep silent hereafter. If there is anything more 
 inhuman than driving a bayonet through a helpless babe 
 and dangling it in the air in the mother's eyes I don't 
 know it. It is little wonder that at Tung Chow and 
 even here in Peking the wells were found full of dead 
 women who had jumped into them and drowned them- 
 selves in terror of the fate that would meet them if they 
 remained alive. I don't suppose the story of the horror 
 of that march will ever be more than generalized in print. 
 I should like to write it, but I was not there, and it is only 
 at first hand that one can get the facts for such a story. 
 Think of jabbing a bayonet in a human being just to see 
 him jump, and of shooting at a poor fleeing devil just 
 to see if you can hit him on the run ! 
 
 These are pictures of the French, the Russian, and in 
 some cases of the English. Thank Heaven, the skirts 
 of the Americans are clear on that score. I haven't 
 heard pf a case of an American who killed unless it was
 
 128 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 necessary, and there is one case of an American wEo shot 
 dead two EngHsh soldiers who were in the act of mal- 
 treating an aged man. They were justified by their 
 superior for it, too. When it comes to steahng we 
 haven't so much to brag about, but we certainly didn't 
 carry things with the high hand the others did, and 
 when our men were caught doing it they were punished. 
 The English made looting a business. They did it 
 systematically. They sent their Sikh soldiers out to a 
 district with orders to bring in all that they could find 
 of value, and then they put the stuff up at auction and 
 sold it to the highest bidder, just as if they had come by it 
 honestly. The proceeds were divided among the officers 
 of the army. Our officers did not loot. Our men who 
 were caught at it were punished. I know of two who 
 were tried by court-martial. One was sentenced to ten 
 years' imprisonment at hard labor, and the other to five 
 years, and they are serving their sentences. 
 
 While we have been able to control our own men we 
 haven't been able to prevent looting of property under 
 their care entirely. For instance the Forbidden City, 
 which had been half under our care and half under the care 
 of the Japanese, has been effectively looted. Everything 
 has been carried away except things too heavy or things 
 that were nailed down, and this in spite of the fact that no 
 person has visited the city without first giving his pledge 
 not to touch anything in it. When the Court fled it left 
 behind practically all its servants in the Forbidden City 
 and they are there still. When I visited the place 
 with Bishop M. they met us at every corner and offered 
 tea. We had about finished the tour, gone into all 
 the temples, joshed the war gods, banged the bells 
 that in ordinary times are struck only to wake up the 
 gods to get them to listen to royal prayers, and done 
 other things that must have shocked the Chinese when 
 the Bishop suddenly became conscience-stricken. " I tell 
 you, Chamberlin," he said, " I feel ashamed of my- 
 self for having asked for special permission to go 
 through this city. It seems a sacrilege to me." I 
 couldn't very well help smiling, he was so in earnest 
 about it
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 129 
 
 While our conduct since our arrival in the city is bit- 
 terly condemned by the missionaries and the citizens of 
 other nationalities, I think as Americans we should all 
 feel very proud, and we may with justice boast that our 
 civilization is of a better order than that of any other 
 nation. We are condemned by the missionaries and the 
 citizens because we have been lenient. They say, 
 " Chaffee is chicken-hearted. Why don't he kill a lot of 
 these devils and teach them a lesson?" They demand 
 blood, always blood, and they point us to Germany as an 
 example of what should be done ! 
 
 The Germans did not get here until the worst of the 
 fighting was over, and they have been trying to make up 
 for loss of time since. Scarcely a day passes but three or 
 four Chinamen are shot in their district, and sometimes 
 the number reaches fourteen or fifteen. An English 
 officer who is attached to the staff of Count Von Wal- 
 dersee said to me yesterday, " Why, it's so bad around 
 these headquarters that I don't dare stick my head out of 
 the window after dark for fear of being shot." They are 
 shooting all the time. 
 
 Put to get back to our own conduct of affairs. Our 
 poHcy has been from the start to keep the peace, to clean 
 up, to encourage industry, and to give the unfortunates 
 an opportunity to get together enough to keep them from 
 starving to death this Winter. The first thing we did 
 was to issue an order commanding the storekeepers to 
 open their stores. If they didn't do it, the order said, 
 the soldiers would. Business must be resumed. Pro- 
 tection was guaranteed. The Chinese opened up 
 promptly. The news spread that it was safe to live in 
 the American district. The Chinese who had escaped 
 killing came back in droves and the district became over- 
 crowded. It it jammed full of people to-day. Though 
 naturally filthy, they are forced to be clean. They sweep 
 the streets. Their houses are inspected and they must 
 keep them clean, too. They have had to dig sinks and do 
 everything else that the laws of sanitation demand. 
 They are pleasant and respectful, and an American is as 
 safe in that district as he is at home. It is tiresome walk- 
 ing through the streets because every man, woman, and
 
 130 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 child salutes you, and politeness demands that you re- 
 turn the salute. 
 
 The contrast in the German District is striking. There 
 the streets are deserted. The stores are all closed. Now 
 and then you see a Chinaman skulking around, afraid to 
 say his soul is his own. If a shopkeeper opens his shop, 
 the German soldiers rob him. If he shows himself on 
 the street, he is commandeered and forced to do coolie 
 work, and, likely as not, if he protests he is shot and the 
 official report is that he was a Boxer. 
 
 The English district is better than the German, but 
 away behind our own. The only district that compares 
 with ours is that of the Japs. Like ours it is over- 
 crowded, but unlike ours it reeks with filth. The Japs 
 have done nothing at all toward keeping it clean or rather 
 getting it clean. 
 
 This letter is getting long, and I fear tiresome, and, 
 besides that, my candle is sputtering its last sputs, so I'll 
 cut it short. 
 
 Peking, Monday, November 5, being the i8th day, 
 ninth moon, 26th year, Kuang Hsu, H. I. M. 
 
 Not much to write about to-day, except that it was 
 cold and windy and dusty and disagreeable. Nobody 
 who has not been in Peking on a dusty day can realize 
 what a dusty day means. The dust is so thick that you 
 can't see many feet in front of your face, and it is chok- 
 ing. It gets so bad that, in order to breathe in comfort, 
 you have to tie your handkerchief across your mouth and 
 nose, so that you can sift the air and not have it fly into 
 your lungs and get caked there. The wind that came 
 with this dust was cold as Greenland's icy mountains, 
 and it cut right through to the bone. It was so bad that 
 I stayed in the house all the morning, and you know it 
 must have been pretty bad to induce me to do that. It 
 improved a little in the afternoon, and I put on my heavy 
 sweater, saddled my horse, and started off for the Lega- 
 tion, which is a mile and a half from my quarters. 
 
 It was a ride straight against the wind, and I guess 
 the horse didn't like it any better than I did. At least.
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 131 
 
 he danced jigs all over creation all the way there. In 
 spite of the weather the Ministers held their meeting 
 and they came to an agreement on one point — that was, 
 to stand together in the demand for the punishment of 
 the murderers of Baron von Kettler, the German Minis- 
 ter, who was killed early in the trouble. That wasn't 
 much, but it's a mighty good sign when they can suc- 
 ceed in agreeing on anything, and it is very likely that 
 what I told you yesterday will come out true. Another 
 week may see the first meeting with the Chinese Com- 
 missioners, and when they begin to meet with them, that 
 is the beginning of the end. 
 
 I wanted to send a cable to-night about the meeting of 
 the Ministers, but when I went to the telegraph office I 
 found the wire was down between Tong Ku and Taku, 
 and that settled the matter for the day. I will try to 
 get one off in the morning. I imagine it doesn't make a 
 great deal of difference in New York just at present. 
 The election is so close at hand that nobody will miss a 
 cable from China. It is still cold and windy and un- 
 comfortable to-night, and I'm going to go to bed to get 
 warm. Fires are one of the luxuries out here, you know, 
 that cannot be indulged in all the time. This is one of 
 the nights when we are shy of wood and hence fireless. 
 I'll warm up over the candle before I go to bed. 
 
 Peking, Tuesday, November 6, 1900, being the fif- 
 teenth day of the ninth moon, 26th year, H. I. M. 
 Kuang Hsu. 
 
 This is supposed to be a great fete-day in China, the 
 fete of Chu Hi, the most eminent of the later Chinese 
 philosophers, whose commentaries on the Chinese classics 
 have formed for centuries the recognized standard of 
 excellency. At least, that's what a Chinaman told me, 
 and I kept a sharp look-out all day for the fetes, but the 
 only ones I saw were spelled with two " e's " in the 
 middle and they went in pairs and were worn by all the 
 Chinamen in Peking. Those twenty-three bags of mail 
 I told you about three or four days ago got in to-day and 
 there was the finest sort of a cussing-match. It turned
 
 132 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 out not to be letter mail at all, but only papers, and those 
 all of one kind — The Chicago Record, which sends papers 
 out by the bagful. 
 
 We had a little excitement this morning in the shape of 
 a report that the Empress Dowager had died, but we 
 could not confirm the news, and when I went to see old 
 Li Hung Chang he said that he had not heard of it. As 
 he is in daily communication with the Emperor, I guess 
 the story could not be true. I don't mind saying that to 
 die would be the most popular thing the Empress could 
 do, even if she is the Chief Ornery Member of the Up- 
 Against-Its. I expect that dying will be a very popular 
 pastime among the Chinese of noble birth in a little while. 
 The Ministers insist that thirteen of the royalty shall 
 shuffle off this mortal coil because they had a hand in the 
 Boxer outrages. You know they have a habit here, 
 when they want a man to get out of the way and they 
 prefer not to cut off his head, of saying to him, " Here's 
 the bottle of chloride of gold," and he takes the contents 
 and drops. Then the Court issues a long decree, extol- 
 ling the virtues of the deceased and saying how sorry they 
 are that he has gone. 
 
 On the way to Singan-fu, where the Emperor and the 
 Empress are now, one of the young nobles was left 
 behind. The other day he showed up at Singan-fu. 
 "What," said the Dowager, "are you alive yet?" 
 There wasn't anything for him to do but to reach for the 
 chloride of gold bottle and go out and die. That's what 
 he did. You see, suicide is not considered a disgrace- 
 ful death among the heathen, and they really don't 
 mind it. 
 
 However, to take tip a more cheerful subject, every- 
 thing is promising for an early settlement of the row, 
 I think. Russia is acting badly, but I guess she will be 
 brought around all right. I hope so, anyway, and as 
 soon as she is, the Ministers will be ready to get up and 
 present their note to China, telling the Chinese what they 
 must do. I sent off a cable to-night, but I suppose it 
 will get scant courtesy in the office, for it will reach there 
 at the busiest hour of election night, in all probability, 
 and I imagine nobody will be thinking of anything but
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 133 
 
 the getting in of the returns. I hope McKinley Bill will 
 be elected, and I don't believe there is any doubt about it, 
 but a lot of people here are scared. 
 
 Hug and kiss the babies for me and tell them how 
 much I want this trouble to be over so that I can get back 
 and see you all. 
 
 Peking, Wednesday, November 7, 1900, being the 
 sixteenth day of the ninth moon of the 26th year 
 of the reign of H. I. M. Kuang Hsu. 
 
 Another day without much to say. It is Election Day 
 in New York and in the rest of the United States, and the 
 Americans here are almost as much excited as if they 
 were at home with their coats off, taking part in a red- 
 hot election themselves. They are all deeply interested, 
 for it means a great deal to them. Strange as it may 
 seem, a lot of them have some doubt of the outcome. 
 They have a regular Bryan fever. I have done my best 
 to convince them that Bryan hasn't as much show of 
 being elected as I have, but it is a mighty hard work. 
 They are an unbelieving crowd. Even Minister Conger 
 is a little doubtful. I told him to-day that he ought to be 
 ashamed of himself, but he still said that he had seen 
 " certain-sure things " go wrong before. There was no 
 question about it, he was in more or less of a panic. 
 Well, wait until morning. By that time I will have a 
 dispatch from Mr. Lord, I think, telling me how things 
 have gone, and then I'll go around with a chip on my 
 shoulder, saying " I told you so." I hope the cable com- 
 pany is good to me and lets the message come through, 
 but you can't always sometimes tell. I expect to be a 
 very popular man in the morning for a little while, at 
 least. I think I'll hire a hall and charge an admission 
 fee. 
 
 Home life here, I am sorry to say, is somewhat upset 
 now. Reeves and myself have got two real Chinamen, 
 one a cook and the other a boy, to keep the rooms clean 
 and wait on the table. Neither of them can talk English. 
 The boy's name is Wo. I haven't been able yet to make 
 out the cook's name. If ever there was a pair of worth- 
 less devils on earth these are the ones. However, they
 
 134 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 are the best we have been able to pick up so far, and w* 
 shall have to get along with them as best we can until 
 we can better ourselves. You see, off here in China 
 the servant-girl question is quite as bothersome as it is at 
 home, only here there are no servant girls at all. They 
 are all serving men. Chinese women are scarce articles. 
 I told you in other letters what was done to keep down the 
 breed. It was pretty successful in doing it, I think. 
 You see thousands of Chinamen on the street, but it's 
 only now and then that you see a Chinese woman. I 
 don't believe I've seen more than twenty or thirty, all 
 told, since I came to Peking. They are here, but they 
 keep in hiding, for fear of the soldiers, I guess. 
 
 We are going to have a flag-raising at the Temple of 
 Agriculture to-morrow. General Chaffee has had a big 
 flagstaff put up, and at noon, when the battery guns shoot 
 to tell the time of day, Old Glory is to be run up, and the 
 Ninth Regiment band is to play " The Star-Spangled 
 Banner," while all the troops that are here are to salute. 
 It will be quite a function. The Minister and his family 
 and all the folks at the Legation have been invited to 
 see it, and then to take tiffin. Mess facilities are short 
 and R. and I, I suppose, you will have to entertain some 
 of them at our little mess. We shall lay ourselves out on 
 the food proposition and try to beat the General. I 
 think we can do it. 
 
 Peking, Thursday, November 8, 1900. Being the 
 seventeenth day of the ninth moon of the 26th 
 year of the reign of H. I. M. Kuang Hsu. 
 
 " I told you so." I got Mr. Lord's message this morn- 
 ing, telling me that McKinley had been re-elected Presi- 
 dent, and my friend Ben Odell, Governor of New York, 
 by an overwhelming majority, and that Congress was 
 Republican. It was glorious news from every stand- 
 point, and my message was the only one that got 
 through from New York. I received as many congratu- 
 lations as if I had been running for office myself and had 
 been elected. I sent the message to General Chaffee with 
 my compliments, and then to Minister Conger. It was 
 posted in the Legation and in Headquarters. I tele-
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 135 
 
 graphed the news to Tien Tsin, where it was posted as a 
 Sun bulletin. It was a fine ad. for The Sun, and it made 
 me very solid with a lot of people that I wanted to be 
 solid with. This afternoon I got a note from Mr. Con- 
 ger, inviting me to dine with the IMinister and his family 
 to-morrow evening. Of course I'll accept, not because I 
 want a dinner, but because I want to catch the Minister 
 on the social side for business purposes. 
 
 We had our flag-raising to-day, and it was a big 
 sTiccess. Coming, as it did, on the news of the re-elec- 
 tion of McKinley, it was something of a celebration of 
 that event, and there was quite an enthusiastic time. We 
 had a party of seven or eight at lunch with us, and I 
 think we gave them a better feed than those got who went 
 to the General's headquarters. I sent no cable yesterday 
 and none to-day because there was little news to send, 
 and, besides that, I knew that the election would so 
 crowd things that there would be no room in the papers 
 for news from China, unless it was of the Ai, first-class 
 order, and there was none of that to be had. 
 
 Peking, Friday night, November 9, being the 
 eighteenth day of the ninth moon, 26th year of the 
 reign of H. I. M. Kuang Hsu. 
 
 I have just returned from the dinner given at Mr. 
 Conger's home and it is nearly midnight, so I have time 
 for only a few lines before I go to bed, but as you will get 
 this letter along with a lot of others and as the others no 
 doubt will bore you, I know that you will be rather glad 
 than sorry that I haven't time to write a longer letter. 
 The dinner was a more formal afifair than I had expected 
 to attend. It was rather in honor of Mr. W. W. Rock- 
 hill, who came out here just about the same time I did. 
 At that time, you will remember, it was believed that 
 Minister Conger had been killed. Mr. Rockhill brought 
 with him credentials as IMinister, to be used if it should 
 turn out that the Boxers had annihilated the Minister. 
 Fortunately, the Ministers were safe, and Mr. Rockhill 
 was out of a job, but he was retained by the Government 
 because of his wide knowledge of Chinese affairs, and 
 he has been at work in the South for some time. He got
 
 136 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 up here yesterday in the wagon that took General Wilson 
 to Tien Tsin. 
 
 At the dinner to-night there were General Chaffee, 
 Major Byron, Colonel Coolidge, Captain Dodd, Lieu- 
 tenant Connell, besides Mr. and Mrs. Rockhill, his Secre- 
 tary, Smith, who was the Consul at Canton, Mr. and Mrs. 
 Conger and Miss Conger and Mr. Conger's niece, a Miss 
 Pierce, who was with them during all the siege. Mr. 
 Cheshire, the official Chinese Secretary of the Legation, 
 was also one of the guests. The dinner itself wasn't any- 
 thing extra, but the evening was passed very pleasantly, 
 and I got together a lot of information about China and 
 Chinese affairs that will be of very great use, so that my 
 object in attending the dinner was attained. Mrs. Conger 
 I found to be a fine old lady, one of the motherly sort, who 
 takes an interest in everything and everybody. She told 
 me that I must make just as much use of her home as it 
 would be convenient for me to do, so I guess I got along 
 very well, thank you. 
 
 The Ministers had another meeting to-day and I 
 learned that they had really completed their demands 
 and a committee had been appointed to draw them up. 
 They will now be telegraphed to the Governments, and 
 if approved quickly, there is no reason why the meeting 
 with the Chinese Commissioners should not take place in 
 a very short time. 
 
 Peking, China, November lo and ii, being the 
 nineteenth and the twentieth day of the ninth moon 
 of the 26th year of the reign of Kuang Hsu, H. 
 I. M. 
 Yesterday, Saturday, was the day I had set apart to 
 send to you and our little ones a Christmas greeting and 
 a fervent wish that the year to come might be the hap- 
 piest year of your lives. It was more than a month 
 before Christmas, but there was no hope of my getting 
 away in time to be with you all on that occasion, and as 
 the mails are so uncertain I thought that to reach you in 
 time to have it a real Christmas greeting I would have to 
 send early. But as you know, man proposes and God dis- 
 poses, and while I had proposed that Saturday, Novem-
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 137 
 
 ber 10, should be the day, it evidently was not intended 
 that it should be. Friday night, as I was coming home 
 from the Minister's house, the first gust of a wind-storm 
 came up. The wind blew furiously after I got to my 
 room, and all day yesterday it increased in volume. It 
 was a wintry blast that sent the shivers up and down 
 one's spine and made you sorry you were alive. My 
 house is, or was, a sort of a summer palace, and you can 
 see daylight through it whichever way you look. Cold? 
 Gee whiz ! Water in the tea-kettle on the stove would 
 freeze. I started once or twice to send those Christmas 
 greetings, once with a huge army-blanket wrapped 
 around me, but my hands were so cold I couldn't hold the 
 pencil and I had to give it up and go to bed to keep 
 warm. 
 
 The wind lasted all day and all last night, but it died 
 away this morning, and now it is quiet — a nice, clear 
 crisp cold that braces one up and makes him feel like 
 living again. So it is an ideal morning for Christmas 
 greetings, and I send them with all my love and all my 
 heart. May your Christmas be merry and your New 
 Year be happy. Don't let my absence detract one 
 jot from your happiness. Remember that I am with 
 you all in spirit, if not in person, and on Christmas Day 
 at noon I shall drink a bumper to your health and happi- 
 ness, and to the health and happiness of the old folks 
 and of G. and of the little ones. May God be with 
 you all and make you happy. There, I can't wish you 
 any better than that, can I ? and if I should be dull and 
 blue, off here away from you, I shall be happy in know- 
 ing that all of you are happy. 
 
 I have sent you two packages, and I have one or 
 two more to send, but I fear they won't reach you 
 in time for Christmas. You see it is difficult to send 
 things from out here because of the customs duty in the 
 States. Things are held up by the customs officers until 
 they get time to assess duties, and that may be two or 
 three months. Then, again, this place is not a good one 
 to find Christmas presents in. When people are hunting 
 food there is little time to think of Christmas. In the 
 two packages I have sent there are some gowns and some
 
 138 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 embroidery. I don't suppose they are appropriate for 
 Christmas gifts, but they are the best the old man could 
 do, so take it with the Christmas spirit. Send Mother a 
 piece. I think there is enough in one piece for a dress, 
 for " Miss Chamberlin," the pride of her dad's heart 
 and in another piece for her sister, who is no less the 
 pride of her dad's heart because of her two years' jun- 
 iority. Or perhaps one piece will make a waist for each 
 of them. I don't know about those things. Divide 
 them up so that each will have a gift from Pop. There 
 is also a little enameled paper cutter for you to dispose of. 
 As I am short of gifts for males, I think that Father 
 might like that. It is not much, but it is a remembrance 
 and it comes from the palace of Prince Li in Peking. 
 
 For G. I have a bronze bell that came from the 
 Bell Temple, here, and is admired by all the bronze 
 cranks who have seen it. The chief attraction of the 
 Bell Temple is a mammoth bell, and when the priests 
 come to worship the great god Buddha they strike this 
 bell hard. That wakes up the spirits and they listen to 
 the prayers. Besides the big bell, which is I think twenty 
 feet high, there are numerous other bells in the temple, 
 and this bell I shall send in the next dispatch bag is one 
 of them. I can't tell what particular spirit or class of 
 spirits it was supposed to wake up, but if she takes it to 
 Chicago and hangs it up in her house I hope it will never 
 wake up any but good spirits and that it will always 
 wake them in time for dinner. The bronze experts say 
 that the bell was made in the time of the Chien Lung 
 reign. He was Emperor of China from 1736 to 1796, 
 so the bell is certainly more than 100 years old. For 
 C. I have a piece of bronze, an incense burner. It is 
 from the Lama Temple, where the 70-foot high wooden 
 god Buddha has been sitting for centuries. The mark 
 on it says it was made during the Da Wing dynasty, 
 during the reign of Hsuan-teh ; that was from 1426 to 
 1436, so the piece is nearly 500 years old. 
 
 As I said before, this is no place to do Christmas shop- 
 ping, so nobody need expect appropriate gifts, and when 
 it comes to men folks I am clean stumped. I've got a 
 Chinese silver ring which I will send home in the next
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 139 
 
 batch for your father. It is not valuable, but it comes 
 from Peking. I have also a piece of bronze for my 
 father and a couple of pieces for you, but I may not send 
 them right away, because I can't work the dispatch bag 
 too often, and you have my remembrance in the em- 
 broideries. The dispatch bag is sent by the Minister to 
 Washington and is unopened by customs ofificials. Then 
 the packages are shipped on by the State department 
 by express. You see it is a matter of favor entirely. 
 And now we come to the young masters, Master W. and 
 Master C. If it has been hard to find appropriate things 
 for men, it is still harder to find anything at all for such 
 young men as they are, but their pop has found a piece of 
 fur for each, out of which their mother shall have made 
 for each of them a pair of fur gloves or mitts, or maybe 
 the lining for a coat. Tell them for papa that out here 
 in China there is no Santa Claus. Santa Claus comes 
 only where there is Christianity, and there is none of that 
 here, so the little people of their age have no Santa Claus, 
 no Christmas, and get no presents, and papa, being away 
 off here, couldn't find Santa Claus and so couldn't tell 
 him what to give them. But he has sent a message 
 across the ocean to Santa Claus's house to tell him not to 
 forget them, and 1 believe that with mamma to manage 
 things he won't forget. 
 
 Again and again a merry Christmas and a happy New 
 Year to you all. God bless you and keep you. 
 
 Peking, Monday, November 12, being the twenty- 
 first day, ninth moon, 26th year, H. I. M. Kuang 
 Hsu. 
 
 I was made happy again to-day by the receipt of three 
 letters from you. They were just what I needed to 
 warm me up this blithering weather. The cold keeps 
 up here like a good fellow. There have been three or 
 four days of freezing, now, without any let up, and I 
 rather look for a change for the better pretty soon. I 
 think by reading over the letters once or twice I'll be 
 able to keep warm. Anyway, I'll be a heap sight warmer 
 than I have been during the cold snap. 
 
 Those blooming Ministers met again to-day and " re-
 
 140 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 ported progress." I had hoped that they would finish up 
 their work and be able to send their note to Li Hung 
 Chang and Prince Ching and so bring about the begin- 
 ning of the end, but they didn't. Mr. Conger told me, 
 however, that they had practically completed the pre- 
 amble of their demand, and that means a good deal. 
 They have another meeting in the morning, which is 
 another good sign. When they get to holding daily 
 meetings it shows that they are very near an agreement 
 on everything. I learned to-day, too, that a good deal 
 of pressure was being brought to bear on them by their 
 home business men, who want a chance to resume their 
 business in China. Of course, since the trouble every- 
 thing in China in the way of business has gone com- 
 pletely to pot, and the business world is losing profits and 
 getting tired of waiting. I am with them, I can tell you, 
 body and soul, and they can't get through with it any 
 too quickly for me. 
 
 There isn't much to tell you outside of this to-day. I 
 hope that you got the bundles in time for Christmas, and 
 that the embroidery pleased you. It was the best I could 
 do in the Christmas line out here. You see there are not 
 any shops like Abraham & Strauss and Loeser's and the 
 others. The tallest building in Peking, outside the 
 Legations, is one story high, and not all of the Lega- 
 tions have two stories. Most of the native buildings are 
 the size of a good-sized American chicken-coop, and they 
 are fitted up in about the same order of palatial grandeur. 
 The people eat and sleep in them as well as keep store, 
 so you can imagine what a fine thing it is to go shopping. 
 The best places to buy are on the streets, as I have already 
 told you. 
 
 You tell that young man, W., Jr., that if I hear any 
 more about his not going to school I will send one of 
 the Mahatmas from the Desert of Gobi, to Brooklyn to 
 look after him. The Desert of Gobi isn't very far from 
 Peking and these Mahatmas are wonderful creatures. 
 They can travel from China to Brooklyn in one night. 
 H you don't believe it, you ask some of the Theosophists 
 in the States about it. Well, they just look out for little 
 boys who don't go to school, like the goblins that carried
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 141 
 
 off Jimmy in " Little Orphant Annie." I don't know 
 but what goblins and Mahatmas are just the same thing. 
 Anyway, I am quite sure they belong to the same family, 
 and their headquarters are away out in the Desert of 
 Gobi. They don't think anything of sneaking off little 
 boys who don't go to school. I don't know what they 
 do with the boys when they get them out to the Desert of 
 Gobi, but it is certainly something awful, so he had better 
 look out. It won't ever do for him to tease his mamma 
 while his papa is away and is so handy to the Mahatmas 
 and the Goblins and the Desert of Gobi. 
 
 Peking, November 13, 1900, being the twenty-second 
 day of the ninth moon of the 26th year of the 
 reign of Kuang Hsu. 
 
 Here is another day when I haven't much to say. 
 Maybe it is because I have been writing all the evening 
 and the candles are burning low and I am tired. But I 
 will give you the record of the day at any rate, though 
 even that, I fear, has so much of sameness about it that 
 it ceases to be interesting to you. I went to the Min- 
 ister's in the morning. I do that every day. After he 
 got back from the meeting I had a talk with him and he 
 had mighty little to tell that was interesting. But when 
 I came back to lunch I sat down and wrote a cable out of 
 it. I went uptown again in the afternoon, this time in 
 a 'ricksha, and on the way I spotted two pieces of fine old 
 bronze. They were incense-burners and they looked so 
 pretty that I bought them. They'll make fine mantel 
 decorations. That is about the end of the day. When 
 I came back home I started in writing and I've been at it 
 ever since, with a rest for dinner only. 
 
 There are big doings here in the camp to-night. Up 
 to this time our soldiers have had a great deal of liberty, 
 and naturally they have abused it. As a result there are 
 more than a hundred men in the hospital. That is alto- 
 gether out of proportion to the total number of soldiers 
 we have here, and General Chaffee made up his mind to 
 cut off the liberty. To-day he issued orders that no man 
 should leave the camp after 6 o'clock and at that hour 
 he put a chain guard around the wall of the Temple of
 
 142 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 Agriculture, with orders to let nobody pass. Then he 
 ordered that at 8 o'clock, lo o'clock, and midnight the 
 roll should be called to make sure that every man was 
 present and none had gone out. When the soldiers 
 heard of it they were mad, and they evidently made up 
 their minds to get square, for all the evening they have 
 been singing songs and yelling and cutting up. I am 
 waiting with considerable interest to see what General 
 Chaffee will do about it in the morning. If he is the man 
 I take him to be he is at present lying awake in bed con- 
 cocting some plan to make them sorry, and I think he'll 
 have it hatched out before morning. I'll tell you what 
 happens to-morrow. 
 
 Peking, Wednesday, November 14, 1900. Being the 
 twenty-third day of the ninth moon of the 26th 
 year of the reign of Kuang Hsu, H. I. M. 
 
 This has been another one of those days that I have 
 told you about, when the wind blows pretty nearly forty 
 miles an hour and the dust is thicker than molasses in the 
 the Winter-time. Our house here has been a few de- 
 grees colder than a barn, and about the only warm spot 
 was in bed, but of course I could not stay there. I had 
 to be up and about. Say what you please about the 
 weather, however, it is good and healthy. The climate is 
 dry. I haven't had as much as a cold since I came here, 
 nor have I worn an overcoat yet. That's pretty good, 
 isn't it? 
 
 I put in practically all of to-day writing Sunday stuflf 
 for The Sun and I finished one story that I guess will take 
 at least a page. It is made up almost wholly of the edicts 
 that were issued just before and just after the Dowager 
 Empress' coup d'etat. If you don't know just what 
 that was, you will remember having heard about it while 
 I was away in Cuba in 1898. You know she bounced 
 the Emperor and took the throne herself. She meant to 
 kill him, but she did not have the nerve to do that. The 
 reason for it all was that the Emperor had made up his 
 mind that China had to reform, if she wanted to avoid 
 being grabbed up by the great powers of the world, and 
 so he started out on a wild reform rampage. He was
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 143 
 
 going to change everything, and, by an instantaneous 
 introduction of Western ways, bring his Empire up to a 
 standard with the great powers. His ideas were good, 
 but he was a Httle precipitate about putting them in opera- 
 tion, and that got the hide-bound old idiots who don't do 
 much else but worship their ancestors and job their fel- 
 low men all down on him. If he had had a little more 
 time he would have been all right, but he didn't have it, 
 and when he came to lock horns with the Dowager she 
 was too much for him and beat him out. Then she set to 
 work to undo all that he had done, and so thorough was 
 she in that job that the story of it, taken from the edicts 
 themselves, struck me as a mighty good thing, so I got 
 it up. I've a lot more stuff to get up to-morrow and the 
 mail leaves to-morrow night, so I guess I'll have my 
 hands full. 
 
 This writing is horrible to-night, isn't it? I've writ- 
 ten so much to-day that my fingers are tired and cramped, 
 and I can't make it any plainer. It occurs to me, how- 
 ever, that I haven't been telling you anything at all lately 
 about the people I'm amongst. I don't mean the soldiers, 
 but the Chinese, and I guess I'll have to start in again if 
 you are interested in them, as I am coming to be. 
 
 I noticed to-day that, inside of every gate I passed, out 
 on the grounds of the Temple of Agriculture, there is a 
 big masonry screen. This screen is a wall higher than 
 the gate itself and is built just inside and about two feet 
 away. To get inside a gate you have to turn an acute 
 angle, either to the right or left. Of course I had seen 
 this a great many times, but I had not noticed it partic- 
 ularly before. When I did notice it, I recalled that the 
 entrances to all Chinese yards were built in the same way, 
 and I stopped a Chinaman who could talk a little English, 
 near one of the gates, and said, " What's that thing for? " 
 
 He looked at me in surprise and said, " Why, that's to 
 keep the evil spirits out." 
 
 I looked at him and said, " What a fool idea. How 
 will that keep them out ? Can't they get in there ? " and 
 then I pointed at the openings on each side. 
 
 " No can go," said he. " Bad spirits always travel 
 in a straight line. They try come in they bump wall."
 
 144 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 I said to him, " That's idiotic. How do you know that 
 bad spirits can travel only in a straight line ? " 
 
 " Don't they travel in a straight line? " he asked inno- 
 cently. " How you know they don't ? " 
 
 Needless to say, that ended the argument with me. 
 Maybe they do travel in a straight line. But I could tell 
 him one thing. Even if they do, they have many crooked 
 ways. The Chinaman is very funny with his good spirit and 
 his bad spirit. You know, when one of them gets sick 
 and sends for a native doctor, the doctor, nine times out 
 of ten, decides that the man is afflicted with an evil spirit, 
 so the thing to do is to cut a hole in the man to let the 
 evil spirit out. H the patient has a stomach ache, the 
 doctor cuts a little hole in his stomach. If he has a 
 headache, the doctor will apply hot mustard plasters to 
 the feet to draw the spirit down and then will cut a few 
 holes on the way to let the spirit out as he travels feet- 
 ward. I tell you they are great people — the doctors, I 
 mean. If the victim gets well, then the spirit got out of 
 one of the holes. If he doesn't get well, then the hole 
 was cut in the wrong place, or else it wasn't big enough 
 for the spirit to get out. Whichever it may be, of course, 
 doesn't make any particular difference to the victim. He 
 is in a box, awaiting the auspicious time I told you about 
 in one of my letters from Shanghai. 
 
 I haven't sent off any cable to-day, and I don't think I 
 shall to-morrow. Nothing is happening worth cabling, 
 and nothing can happen until the Ministers meet again 
 Monday, so I guess the cables never will be missed. 
 
 Tell that young man W. that I had a talk about 
 him with the Mahatmas from the Desert of Gobi, but I'm 
 not going to send any of them on until I get further let- 
 ters, telling me they are needed. The Mahatmas told me 
 that when they got boys of his size out there in the 
 Desert of Gobi they set them to work shoveling sand into 
 wind-storms. They have to shovel three days at a time 
 without resting, day or night, for even a moment, or for 
 a drink of water. If they stop shoveling, the sand just 
 bums them up. Well, give him a hug and a kiss for me, 
 and tell him how much I should hate to have to send the 
 Mahatmas after him,
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 146 
 
 Peking, Thursday, November 15, 26th year, H. I. M. 
 Kuang Hsu, ninth month, twenty-fourth day. 
 
 I have finished up that batch of mail stuff I told you 
 about in my letter yesterday. I have it posted and there 
 is a load off my mind. You can imagine how much 
 there was of it when I tell you that the package I sent to 
 New York cost $1.48 postage and the one I sent to Lon- 
 don cost $1.35. I send a duplicate of most of my stuff to 
 the Laffan Bureau in London, which sends it out to London 
 papers, but whether they use it or not I do not know. 
 They probably don't, for the reason that it gets there 
 too late, some days after it is printed in The Sun, I tjiink. 
 But H. R. told me to send it, so I let it go anyway. 
 
 I did not get to the Legation at all, to-day, and I wasn't 
 there yesterday. I couldn't finish up the mail stuff in 
 time and do anything else, so I just took chances on the 
 news. I don't believe there was anything worth while, 
 anyway. The weather is a little better to-day than it was 
 yesterday. I guess the Mahatmas out in Gobi ran short 
 of small boys to shovel dust into the wind, so there wasn't 
 anywhere near as much dust in the air as there has been. 
 But it was snappy cold. 
 
 I did hear one piece of good news to-day. It was from 
 the camp of Count von Waldersee. He said that the 
 railroad would be completed and open to the public by 
 December 15. I haven't the remotest idea whether he 
 tells the truth or not, and I don't think he has himself. 
 But it is good news if it is true. The railroad goes from 
 here to Tien Tsin, and once it is in operation it will be 
 possible to get out of this blooming country without 
 taking seven or eight days to do it. The train used to 
 make the run from here to Tien Tsin in four hours, and 
 there is no reason why they should not do it again. I am 
 a little skeptical, however, about anything that the Ger- 
 mans have anything to do with. A more worthless lot of 
 creatures I don't think I ever came across, and they have 
 been talking about having the railroad completed every 
 week for Heaven only knows how long. This news to- 
 day, however, comes from the No. i man, as we say here 
 in China, and it may be more better, (another Chinese 
 expression) .
 
 146 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 One of the stories I wrote and sent off to-day was a 
 directory of the missionaries. You will notice, when you 
 read it, that they all live in palaces, and in this connec- 
 tion it may interest you to know that the only member of 
 the Royal Family now in Peking, Prince Su, is living in 
 one room, with a table and two chairs to keep him com- 
 pany and mighty little to put on the table. Further, he 
 had a palace before the trouble here, and at just the right 
 moment he gave it up to the native Christians and they 
 occupied it and fortified it and then their lives were saved. 
 But, being a Chinaman, he could not, of course, go out 
 and grab a palace to replace the one he had lost, so he is 
 having a tough time of it. 
 
 I sent my horse down to-day to be shod and the black- 
 smiths were Chinamen. Of course they had to shoe him 
 Chinese style and the man who took him described it to 
 me. In the first place, the horse objected to being shod, 
 and the first Chinaman who came within reach got 
 both his hind heels in the pit of his stomach — I mean 
 the horse's heels and the Chinaman's stomach, of course 
 — and he went flying out in the street — the Chinaman, 
 not t|ie horse. In front of the blacksmith shops here 
 there are regular frameworks. The horse was led to this 
 frame and a big board was placed under his belly. Then 
 ropes were drawn around his feet and each was strapped 
 to the frame. Tlien a lot of Chinese got hold of a rope 
 and the pony was drawn up in the air. All his legs 
 being tied, he couldn't kick, and his head being tied, he 
 couldn't bite. While he was held up that way the shoes 
 were put on him. Then he was let down and was as 
 docile as a kitten, but he kept watch out of one corner of 
 his eye to catch somebody in reach of the business end 
 of his heels again. Fortunately he didn't get anotjier. 
 He nearly killed the first one. 
 
 Peking, Friday, November i6, being the twenty-fifth 
 
 day of the ninth moon of the 26th year of the 
 
 reign of H. I. M. Kuang Hsu, Son of a Gun, etc. 
 
 Here is another week almost gone, and it is hard_ to 
 
 realize even that it has commenced. I tell you time flies, 
 
 out here in .China, the same as everywhere else. I re-
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 147 
 
 sumed my hunt for news to-day and spent a large part of 
 the day up at the Legation, but the picking was mighty 
 small and when I looked over the batch I made up my 
 mind that it was not worth sending at the high cable 
 rates charged, so I let it all go, and I guess I won't send 
 any cable now until Sunday. I have hopes that by that 
 time something will turn up that will be worth while. 
 
 While I was at the Legation this afternoon Li Hung 
 Chang called. He came in a green sedan chair with a 
 white topknot on it to indicate that he was a No. i top- 
 side Chinaman. Of course he was not accompanied by 
 an army or anything like that. Chinese soldiers are not 
 allowed in Peking. He was carried into the yard, and 
 then he got out of the chair and went into Mr. Conger's 
 office. After that he went over to the Minister's house 
 to see the ladies. He is a very old man, now, and he has 
 to have a man on each side of him when he walks. 
 
 I couldn't but laugh at a story Mr. Conger told me 
 about Li some time ago. There had been a very dry 
 season in China, and it happened that there was a very 
 dry season in America at the same time. Li was calling 
 on Mr. Conger, and they got to talking about the weather. 
 Mr. Conger said, " Yes, it's very dry now in my country. 
 Only the other day I was reading in one of our home 
 papers that the people were praying for rain." 
 
 " Do your people pray to Heaven for rain, too? " asked 
 Li, evidently surprised. 
 
 " Ah yes," said Mr. Conger, " they pray for rain very 
 often." 
 
 " And does it come when they pray for it ? " 
 
 " Yes, sometimes it comes, but sometimes the prayer 
 is not answered," said Mr. Conger. 
 
 "All the same as Chinese Joss, hey?" said Li with a 
 chuckle, and that floored the Minister. 
 
 Li Hung Chang's sense of humor is immense, but very 
 often he oversteps the bounds. To-day he joshed the 
 Congers about the siege, and asked Mrs. Conger if she 
 had recovered from the effects of it yet. Then in that 
 joy that damphoolishness is the father of, he wanted to 
 know how they liked horseflesh, anyway. That, I think' 
 you will admit, was rubbing it in a bit. You know that
 
 148 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 durinj^: the siege the folks were all reduced to horse-meat 
 and the Congers had to kill and eat all their ponies. It 
 isn't a very pleasant thing to recall, particularly when the 
 ponies were pets, as those that were eaten were. 
 
 By the way, I haven't moved yet, and I don't know now 
 whether I will have to do so or not. General Chaffee 
 has moved over to the compound in the Temple of Agri- 
 culture, and now he is my next door neighbor. I have 
 an idea that he will let Reeves and me stay where we are. 
 If he does, we shall be more comfortable than we 
 would anywhere else about here, so I certainly hope 
 he does. 
 
 Well, I'll say good-night again. My letters have been 
 a little shorter, lately, than they were a while ago. That 
 is because I have been doing so much other work that 
 my fingers get tired and I don't feel like writing long 
 lettters. Then, again, Peking is a pretty dead place, 
 and it is so far off that all the news I can send is very 
 old and stale before it reaches you. 
 
 Peking, Ninth moon, twenty-sixth day, 26th year, 
 H. I. M. Kuang Hsu, the same being Saturday, 
 November 17, 1900. 
 Not much news to-day. I have been hustling all day 
 to get good matter for a cable to-morrow. That will be 
 in Monday's papers. I've quite a good deal, but it isn't 
 in the way of news. It's mostly "think stuff." It's 
 a fine thing to be able to think thoughts and make the 
 other fellow pay a dollar or two a word to get them to 
 him, isn't it? That's the case here, all the same. I met 
 my rival to-day, and he was 'way down in the mouth — the 
 Associated Press man, I mean. He had a telegram from 
 his office saying, " You are being beaten every day on 
 good news." He didn't sav anything about The Sun, but, 
 as The Sun is the only rival that he has. I guess I must be 
 the one who is beating him. Of course I don't get the 
 papers out here, and I don't know what we are printing 
 or what the opposition is printing, and, with the exception 
 of two telegrams, I haven't heard from the office about 
 things. I hope I'm scoring a hit now and then, any- 
 way.
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 149 
 
 I told you yesterday about Li Hung Chang's visit 
 to the Legation, I heard too that it was something of a 
 pumping excursion. The Dowager and the Emperor 
 had gotten out another edict, punishing the officials who 
 were responsible for the Boxer troubles, and Li wanted to 
 know if it wasn't a good thing and a step in the right di- 
 rection. The demand that the Ministers are going to make 
 is that all these officials must be beheaded. Mr. Conger 
 told Li that banishment, such as the edict provided for, 
 was totally inadequate. Li wanted to know, then, if Mr. 
 Conger would not use his influence with the other Minis- 
 ters to have them let up a little on the officials, and Mr. 
 Conger replied that it would be necessary, first, to have 
 somebody use his influence to have him — Mr. Conger — 
 let up. So the old fellow did not get much satis- 
 faction. 
 
 By the way, I heard a good story to-day on Miss 
 Conger that ought to interest you. She was a chronic 
 nervous woman. She couldn't walk, and she couldn't do 
 anything. She had nervous spells and all that, and last 
 Winter, her father told me, she was in such poor 
 health that he sent her to California, almost despairing 
 of ever seeing her again. She got no better in Cali- 
 fornia, and returned to Peking on a bed, as she had gone. 
 Her doctor's final instructions were to be extremely care- 
 ful of her diet, and to be sure to avoid excitement. Well, 
 about a month after she got back she was besieged, along 
 with the other people in the Legation. She was reduced 
 to a diet of horse meat and other indigestible food, and as 
 for excitement, maybe you think it wasn't exciting to have 
 rifle bullets whistling about you every minute, and occa- 
 sionally a shell exploding in the house you were in ! They 
 tell me here that she was one of the nerviest people in the 
 whole siege. She spent l>er time going about nursing the 
 sick and wounded, or cutting up curtains and carpets and 
 extra clothing to make sand-bags to strengthen the forti- 
 fications. She hasn't been sick a day since the siege, and 
 her father says she never was in better health 
 in her life than she has been since then. She isn't nervous 
 any more and goes about with the liveliest. Now, what 
 do you think of that ?
 
 160 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 Peking^ Sunday, November i8, 1900, or the twenty- 
 seventh day of the ninth month of the 26th year 
 of the reign of H. I. M. Kuang Hsu. 
 
 I gathered up energy and facts enough to-day to send 
 to The Sun that long cable which you read " From a Staff 
 Correspondent " about a month ago. (It will be about a 
 month ago when you get this.) This certainly has been a 
 beautiful day in Peking. The sun came out warm and fine 
 in the morning, and it was beautiful and clear again. For 
 four or five hours nobody would ever have thought that 
 Peking was cold, desolate, and cheerless. It was the sort 
 of weather that makes you feel young again — so fine, in 
 fact, that I have walked the two miles from the Temple 
 of Agriculture to the American Legation, and the two 
 miles back again, rather than saddle up the horse and 
 ride. As I have told you before, Sunday is just like 
 every other day in China, and to-day the streets were 
 packed with Chinamen, most of them good-natured fel- 
 lows who, when I passed, would stand at attention and 
 salute. 
 
 While I was at the Legation I dropped in to see Sir 
 Robert Hart, the head of the Imperial Customs service — 
 " the I. C." they call him here. We got to talking about 
 the possibility of a dividing up of China by the powers 
 of the world. I asked him what he thought about the 
 possibilities of such an outcome of the present trouble. He 
 said : " My son, I have been in China forty-seven years, 
 and there has not been a year since I came here that they 
 haven't talked about partitioning the country. Now the 
 religion of the Chinaman is the worship of his ancestors. 
 No matter what his ideas may be on other religious topics, 
 he worships his ancestors. If I remember my Bible right, 
 it says, ' Honor thy father and thy mother, that thy days 
 may be long in the land which the Lord thy God giveth 
 thee,' and if I read my history right, it says that China 
 has existed longer than any other empire on the face of the 
 globe. It does look as if that Bible promise were being 
 fulfilled for the heathen, doesn't it? The Chinamen are 
 still worshiping their ancestors, and I guess maybe we 
 had better not put any too much stock in this talk of 
 partitioning China." And I guess maybe he is right.
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 161 
 
 There is a new influence at work on the Ministers to 
 induce them to hurry up the negotiations, and I certainly 
 hope it will be effective, and let me get out of here before 
 the winter really sets in and the river freezes up. The 
 merchants all over the world who are interested in the 
 trade of China are complaining bitterly because their trade 
 has gone all to pieces. They haven't been able to sell any- 
 thing and the result is that some of them are on the verge 
 of bankruptcy. While the ministers have been spending 
 practically all their time talking about their own safety 
 and their own future, and the future treatment of the 
 missionaries, business has all been going to pot, and things 
 are in just about as bad a condition as they well can be. 
 Of course the merchants are complaining to their govern- 
 ments, and the governments are urging the Ministers to 
 hurry and wind up things. I am in hopes that this will 
 be more effective than even missionary appeals. 
 
 Things in the camp are all wrought up, now, and every- 
 body is looking at everybody else with blood in his eye. 
 It is all over a question of quarters. I told you a few days 
 ago that I expected to have to move. Well, it hasn't come 
 to that yet. The General told the officers to choose their 
 quarters according to rank. Then, as the choice didn't 
 suit him, he ordered some changes, and the whole thing 
 went topsy-turvy. Everybody wants the same room as 
 everybody else. About a dozen want the room I am in 
 and another dozen want the room that Reeves, my side 
 partner, is in. We are just standing here, and won't 
 move until some fellow comes along with an order telling 
 us to get out, and if I'm not very much mistaken. Gen- 
 eral Chaffee will tell the fellow with that order that he 
 has another guess coming. At all events, I am not 
 bothering my head about it, and I don't intend to, 
 either. 
 
 Peking, Monday, November 19, 1900, being the 
 twenty-eighth day of the ninth moon of the 26th 
 year of the reign of H. I. M. Kuang Hsu. 
 The ninth moon on the Chinese calendar certainly ap- 
 pears to be waning without any progress in the negotia- 
 tions for peace in the Celestial Empire, or any progress
 
 152 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 homeward by your humble servant. The hitch now is be- 
 tween the Russians on the one side and the English and 
 the Germans on the other. The English and the Germans 
 want to get into the preliminary demand a proposal, made 
 by the Italians, that when the matter of settling the in- 
 demnities for the damages done to foreign property comes 
 up, the Chinese shall agree to settle and to give guaran- 
 tees of payment on a basis to be proposed at that time 
 by the allied powers. The Russians won't agree to this, 
 and the English and German Ministers have been in- 
 structed to refuse to sign the note unless this provision is 
 in. And there they are — deadlocked, and waiting until 
 they get further orders from Europe. I don't think you 
 can do anything about it, for, by the time that you get this 
 letter, of course, the question will be settled, one way or 
 the other, but if a letter would reach you in a day or two 
 instead of a month, I should ask you to use your influence 
 with His Nibs the Czar, or their Imperial Highnesses, 
 Queen Vic and the Kaiser. But, as I said, it will be too 
 late, so I guess you need not bother about it. 
 
 I am fixed up here in a heap more comfortable fashion 
 now than I was a day or so ago. Reeves and I have suc- 
 ceeded in capturing a fair-sized stove and have put it in 
 the middle room of our three-roomed summer-house in 
 the Temple of Agriculture. We can heat the house fairly 
 well during the days that are not windy. On the windy 
 days the cold and the dust sweep through a thousand crev- 
 ices, and it is still a good deal of a barn. We have 
 a Chinaman at work now, pasting strips of paper over the 
 holes he can find, and very likely that will help some. As 
 usual, " Hope so, anyway." 
 
 I wrote you in my Christmas letter that I had a piece of 
 fur for the youngsters, which I thought you could have 
 made into the lining of overcoats or gloves for them. One 
 has to wait his opportunity to send things from here, you 
 know, and the opportunity has not come yet, but I hear 
 that there is a dispatch-bag leaving here in about four 
 days, and I am going to try to get it, or them, in that. 
 There are two pieces, both in the shape of garments, of 
 course. Everything like that here is in the shape of gar- 
 ments. One is of squirrel and the other is a white fur —
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 153 
 
 I don't know what it is oalled. To use as linings for coats 
 or gloves, of course, tli^ will have to be taken from the 
 garments. That isn't much of a job. The garments 
 themselves, as they are, are more or less swell, as I think 
 you will admit when you see them. 
 
 Where they came from I don't know, and I haven't 
 asked any questions. I came by them legitimately, by 
 right of purchase, and that is sufficient in this city of 
 Peking. One of them (the squirrel) is a mandarin coat. 
 That is shown by the centre-pieces, front and back. They 
 are signs of rank, and are worn only by officials entitled to 
 wear them. I'll do the best I can to get them in the next 
 dispatch bag, and I think I'll succeed ; but if I don't I'll 
 simply have to wait. If they get in that bag they should 
 reach Brooklyn about January 15. That's a pretty late 
 Christmas, but it is the best that can be done, and I hope 
 you will be able to make the little fellows understand. I 
 will send in the same package two or three cloisenais (I 
 guess that's a pretty poor stab at spelling, but it is the 
 best I can do, and you know what I mean, anyway) belt 
 buckles, that you may present to the young ladies of the 
 family or keep for yourself, as you choose. Properly 
 cleaned up I think they will look very nice. 
 
 Peking, Tuesday, November 20, 1900, being the 
 twenty-ninth day of the ninth month of the 26th 
 year of H. I. M. Kuang Hsu. 
 
 I have been trying to keep the numbers on the outside 
 of my letters straight, but I fear that now and then they 
 get sadly mixed. I remember that I numbered yester- 
 day's letter 90, but I think the number was wrong. It 
 may be a duplicate number, or it may be a jump of one or 
 two. If it is a jump, do not think that you have lost any 
 of the letters, for the fault is probably mine. The date on 
 the inside will tell you if any are missing, for I write 
 every day. If I miss a day, as I have several times, then 
 I'll tell you in the next letter that I did not write the day 
 before. 
 
 This has been another of the days when very little has 
 happened that will interest you. Of course I was at the 
 Legation a part of the day. I thought I would give my
 
 164 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 pony a rest, so I started to walk up there, but it was so 
 dusty that before I had gone halfway I changed my mind 
 and climbed into a 'ricksha pulled by a lank Chinaman 
 who went ofif at top speed when I told him " chop chop." 
 He almost dumped me out every time I came to a corner, 
 so that really I did not have a very satisfactory ride. But 
 I got there just the same. Think what a spill I would 
 have made if I had been dumped ! I walked back, and on 
 the way I caught sight of two more pieces of bronze that 
 were pretty. I dickered with the Chinaman who had them 
 and got them for almost nothing. They are very old 
 pieces, and, polished up and put on our mantel, they will 
 make the mantels of some of our neighbors look like 30 
 cents. Unfortunately both of them are too heavy to send 
 in the mails, and I shall have to store them away in my 
 loot-chest and bring them with me when I come. 
 
 I ran across another funny Chinese custom to-day. I 
 passed on the way to the Legation a most vividly deco- 
 rated sedan chair, carried by four men. It was all draped 
 with red and covered with red paper flowers. It was tight 
 shut, so I could not see what sort of a person was in it. 
 The whole affair was most gorgeous, and when I got to the 
 Legation I asked the Chinese Secretary for an explana- 
 tion. He told me that the chair was undoubtedly a bridal 
 chair, and contained a bride on the way to her future home. 
 She had never seen her husband, nor had he seen her. The 
 custom here is for the parents to pick out a wife for their 
 son, and then make all the arrangements. When they are 
 completed they tell him that he is to be married, and 
 whom he is to marry. He says " all right," and waits at 
 home while they go out and complete the arrangements. 
 The bride's parents send and get a chair and tell their 
 daughter she is to marry so-and-so. She says " all 
 right," climbs into the chair, and is lugged off with joy- 
 ous spirit and delivered to her husband. 
 
 That is all the ceremony there is. Once she starts on 
 her journey she puts her own family behind her forever. 
 She is never a member of it again. She becomes a mem- 
 ber of her husband's parents' family, and, being the newest 
 member, is the drudge of the household and spends all her 
 days trying to make the (his) old folks happy. She never
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 155 
 
 thinks again of her own mother and father if she is a duti- 
 ful wife. She continues to be nobody and a drudge un- 
 til she is a mother herself, and then she is honored and 
 looked up to as a woman should be, particularly if the 
 child is a son. She ceases then to be a drudge, but she 
 doesn't cease to devote the most of her time to looking 
 after the comfort of her father-in-law and mother-in-law. 
 This is very unlike our country, is it not ? It is the cus- 
 tom, though, and as such is honored and considered to be 
 the best in the world. Our ideas are looked on by the 
 Chinese as heathenish and utterly without excuse, just 
 about as we look at theirs. 
 
 Peking, Wednesday, November 21, 1900, or the thir- 
 tieth day, ninth moon, 26th year of the reign of 
 Kuang Hsu, H. I. M. 
 
 Our friends the Ministers are still at odds with each 
 other over the question of how the finances of China shall 
 be run. They are rather standing off and making faces 
 at each other. However, I have strong hopes that within 
 a few days they will realize that this is not what they are 
 hired for, and then I guess they will settle down and settle 
 up, as it were. In the meantime, patience is a virtue, and 
 we shall have to acquire a quantity of it to run us through 
 the spell that is on. 
 
 I made a trip up the Hateman street this morning. 
 There is where I got the embroideries I sent you. It 
 was a sight to behold, I can tell you. The place was 
 crowded from building to building with Chinese, and 
 everybody had something to sell. Here and there was a 
 European in the act of buying, but they were rare enough, 
 and the Chinamen were preying on each other. It is a 
 funny thing to watch them bargain. The article in ques- 
 tion may be worth only 5 cash or half a cent, but they will 
 go at each other hammer and tongs. They call each other 
 names, intimate that their parents were of low descent, 
 grab each other by the shoulders, and pull and haul about 
 until you would be certain they were really fighting. 
 Finally, after ten or fifteen minutes of this sort of thing, 
 they will come to an agreement. If the article sold was 
 first priced at 5 cash, maybe the purchaser will get it for 4
 
 156 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 cash, thus saving one-tenth of a cent, and he will go away 
 so happy that he can hardly talk, while the dealer who 
 did the selling and knew that the article was worth only 3 
 cash, will be just as happy because he succeeded in selling 
 it for 4 cash. They act as if their lives depended upon it. 
 
 Embroideries such as I sent you are pretty well out of 
 the market now, but there is a great deal of other pretty 
 stuff. The Chinamen, however, have stiffened up on their 
 prices, and there are not a great many bargains to be 
 picked up — that is, not nearly so many as there were. A 
 little later on they will come out again, I think, and if I 
 am still here I shall pick up some more. When things 
 can be bought practically for nothing it is a good time to 
 buy, even if you don't need what you get just at the mo- 
 ment — don't you think so? 
 
 I met Mrs. Conger upon the street. She was buying a 
 lot of stuff for curtains and portieres. During the siege 
 all the Legation furnishings of that character had to be 
 used for the purpose of making sand-bags to build fortifi- 
 cations with. In those days nothing was too good to cut 
 up to make into sand-bags. They were absolutely neces- 
 sary to keep off the rain of bullets that the heathen poured 
 into the Legation compounds. Of course, now the Chinese 
 will have to pay for it all, and it will be a pretty bill, too. 
 I don't know how much it will be, but you can bet 
 your bottom dollar nobody who lost anything will put in a 
 claim for a cent less than it is worth. 
 
 A sample of what will be done is shown by our friends 
 the missionaries. They have been putting in their claims 
 for damages for a week or so now, and Squiers, the First 
 Secretary of the Legation, told me to-day that already 
 the claims foot up to in the neighborhood of $300,000, 
 Pretty good, isn't it, for the meek and humble mission- 
 aries, who, we have been taught, are suffering privations 
 out here in China, all for the cause? There are about 
 thirty of them who have put in claims so far. They have 
 lost their all, but they are living in palaces now. I sup- 
 pose it is all right, though. I am living in a temple my- 
 self, and the man who lives in a stone house shouldn't 
 throw glass balls, hey ?
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 157 
 
 Peking^ Thursday, November 22, 1900, first day, tenth 
 moon, 26th year, H. I. M. Kuang Hsu. 
 
 Another moon has gone, and to-day, in this land of 
 the heathen Chinee, we entered upon the tenth moon. I 
 saw the new moon to-night, but it wasn't over my left 
 shoulder, and I don't know whether it is good or bad luck, 
 or what kind of luck it is. I guess it isn't any luck at all ; 
 that's what I guess. It is just a week from Thanks- 
 giving day, too. I was reminded of that fact by Min- 
 ister Conger when I called upon him this morning. He 
 said that it had been the custom at the Legation for a 
 good many years to have a Thanksgiving dinner, and to 
 invite to it all the Americans who were in Peking, but last 
 year there were seventy-two Americans in the place. That 
 was more than could be accommodated at the Legation 
 table, so a dinner was impossible, and it had been changed 
 to an afternoon luncheon. This year, he said, the situa- 
 tion was the same, and instead of a dinner he proposed 
 having a luncheon. He had asked General Chaffee to in- 
 vite all the military officers to come, and he asked me to 
 invite all the American newspaper correspondents. In 
 view of the fact that I couldn't possibly get home to my 
 own home and help you all eat your turkey I consented. 
 
 This won't be a Thanksgiving turkey day with us out 
 here, by the way. The turkey is a rare bird in China, and 
 Reeves and I haven't been able to find any at all, so on 
 Thanksgiving Day we shall have to content ourselves with 
 the knowledge that the folks at home are probably eating 
 enough more than their share to make up what we lack 
 in the heathen land. Of course. Thanksgiving is not cele- 
 brated out here in Peking at all. The custom never was 
 introduced, and then, when you look back on the past 
 few months and forward to the next few, the Chinaman 
 has mighty little to be thankful for. He has his life 
 merely because he had good, stout legs to help him in get-> 
 ting out of the way of the guns and the bayonets of the 
 Christian soldiers when they came, and that's about the' 
 sum total of his reason for thankfulness. The Legation 
 people who went through the siege have a heap to 
 be thankful for, though, and they surely have good rea- 
 son for celebrating the day. I think I myself would have
 
 158 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 a little more reason for celebrating the day if the Min- 
 isters would only come to some understanding among 
 themselves about what they intend to do. Maybe they 
 will between now and then — who knows? 
 
 I ran across another funny Chinese custom to-day, just 
 as I did the other day when I saw the marriage procession. 
 I think I told you about that. On the way to the Le- 
 gation I passed a Chinese band and a procession headed by 
 a fine coffin. The band was playing lively airs, and every- 
 body looked happy. I thought at the time that it was a 
 mighty happy funeral party, but when I came to inquire 
 I learned that it was not a funeral party at all, but a coffin 
 presentation party. The young people of a family were 
 making a present of a coffin to the old folks. It's quite a 
 fad, I learn, among these folks. About the highest class 
 present you can give to your mother and father is a coffin. 
 It is the highest mark of filial affection, and the old folks 
 who get a coffin are proud as peacocks and forever bless 
 the children who gave it to them. In our country we 
 might think that such a present was a hint that it was 
 about time to use the gift, but it is different here. So is 
 everything else different. When I learned the appropri- 
 ateness of a coffin as a present, I learned also that it is a 
 habit out here to buy a coffin early in life and stow it away 
 for a rainy day. When a person has money to spare he 
 is just as likely as not to put it in a coffin so that he may 
 be sure to have this wooden overcoat if anything should 
 happen to him. 
 
 But, to get off this more or less gruesome subject, it 
 was a fine day in Peking to-day. Just crisply cold enough 
 to be able to enjoy one's self. And with this bit of infor- 
 mation about the weather, I'll close another chapter in 
 this series of windy letters that are going to you daily. 
 
 Peking, Friday, November 23, 1900, the same being 
 
 the second day of the fifth moon of the 26th year of 
 
 the reign of H. I. M. Kuang Hsu. 
 
 Another mean day. Here in Peking we don't seem to 
 
 get more than one good day at a time at this season of the 
 
 year, and the next day is a mean one. Yesterday was 
 
 fine, and to-day it is windy and dusty and unpleasant. I
 
 ORDEREDTOCHINA 169 
 
 have made pretty g-ood use of the day, nevertheless. I 
 got hold of some silk that will make as fine portieres as 
 you ever saw. It seems that the British found the Im- 
 perial Silk Storehouse and it had something like 17,000 
 rolls of silk in it. Of course they took it, and now they 
 are selling it. It is practically all tapestry silk for use in 
 house furnishing, and it is worth in the market from 40 to 
 60 taels a bolt. That is almost $70 Mex. The British 
 are selling it at $6 Mex, a bolt, with from 14 to 20 yards 
 in a bolt. It is stuff that ordinarily can't be purchased at 
 all. 
 
 Over here a great deal of the tax is paid to the govern- 
 ment in the shape of products. The silk manufacturers, 
 for instance, instead of paying a tax in money, make so 
 much silk and send it to the royal family. This silk is 
 absolutely the finest that can be made. Of course the 
 merchant would not dare send anything but the very best 
 to the Emperor. This silk is " kumm," or tribute silk. 
 Much more of it is sent to the court than can possibly be 
 used, and so it is stored in the Imperial Storehouse. Then, 
 when the Emperor wants to make a present, he may give 
 so many bolts of this silk. Very often the present is 
 made to somebody who has no use for the silk, and then 
 that somebody goes outside the Forbidden City at once and 
 sells it. That is the only way the tribute or Imperial silk 
 ever gets on the market, and is the reason, I suppose, why 
 it is so very high-priced. Well, I bought three rolls of this 
 stuff to-day at the British sale. It took a long time to tell 
 you that, didn't it ? But I wanted to give you some idea 
 of the way the royal family in China gets its silk, and 
 that's the story. 
 
 There is nothing here to report yet about the Minis- 
 ters and peace. They have not agreed on the financial 
 plank in their demands yet, and neither side shows any 
 sign of giving in. One or the other will have to come 
 down, certain sure, and that very soon, and when one 
 does I do not see why there should be any very great 
 delay in settling with the Chinese. I had another long 
 talk with Mr. Conger to-day, and he said that he was 
 ready, just as soon as the others were. 
 
 There was a bully illustration to-day of the foolishness
 
 160 ORDEREDTOCHINA 
 
 of the Chinese people — I mean of the throne. The Em- 
 peror or the Empress Dowager has issued an edict, in 
 effect that since for a number of years all the arsenals in 
 China had been kept busy manufacturing so-called mod- 
 ern arms, so much time had been devoted to this, the edict 
 said, that there had been none left to make the jingals and 
 two-man guns and bows and arrows that were the 
 weapons of their ancestors, and with which China had 
 won all of her victories. The edict went on to say that 
 this had been a woeful mistake on the part of China, and 
 that somebody should be punished for it. What good 
 were these new weapons? the edict demanded. Were 
 they not in the hands of the Chinese during the siege, 
 and what did they accomplish? Nothing at all. The 
 Emperor and Empress were driven out of the capital and 
 the whole Empire had been upset. It was all the fault of 
 the modern weapons. Then the edict ordered that the 
 arsenals should cease making the new guns and should re- 
 sume the manufacture of the weapons of their ancestors, 
 in order that the Empire might win more victories. 
 What do you think of that for damphoolishness? Well, 
 there is this satisfaction, anyway : If the order is fol- 
 lowed out, China won't be as dangerous another time as 
 she was the last. 
 
 Peking, Saturday, November 24, 1900, moon 10, day 3, 
 year 26 of the reign of H. I. M. Kuang Hsu. 
 
 Good news at last ! The Ministers have agreed ! Of 
 course you knew this a month ago, but, then, you must not 
 be too critical. Now, if the Governments will only ap- 
 prove what the Ministers have done, and do it quickly, 
 the Ministers will sign the note and will send it to the 
 Chinese Peace Commissioners, and they will present it 
 to the throne, and then the negotiations for peace will 
 actually have been begun. Once that happens, I don't 
 think it will take a very long time to carry them through 
 to the end, for the Chinese are in no position to resist any 
 demand that may be made, no matter how great it is. The 
 powers, knowing this, will, I think, take advantage of it, 
 and will demand more than they are entitled to, and in 
 that event affairs will be longer drawn out than they
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 161 
 
 should be, but not much longer. In fact, everything looks 
 now on the high road to a quick settlement, and it can't 
 be too quick for me, I can tell you. 
 
 Going up town this afternoon to get this news I stum- 
 bled over a drunken soldier in a 'ricksha. Just before I 
 came to him he gravely descended, and putting a rope 
 around the neck of the Chinaman who was drawing the 
 'ricksha, he tied him to a hitching-post just as if he were 
 a horse. Then the soldier went into a nearby canteen. 
 The Chinaman submitted to it all, and didn't even try to 
 take the rope off. It struck my funny bone, and I haven't 
 gotten over laughing at the show yet. 
 
 General Chaffee's new headquarters here in Peking are 
 getting pretty well settled down, now, and things are be- 
 coming more comfortable than they have been. To-night 
 the General is giving a dinner to a lot of French and Ger- 
 man officers. I was invited, but I begged off on the plea 
 that I had a lot of work to do, and I am glad I did, for, 
 from the noise that is coming from the banquet hall, they 
 are having a hilarious time, and that's the sort of a time I 
 want to keep out of when I am as far away from home as 
 I am here. I really did have a lot of work to do, but I am 
 not doing it. I can't do satisfactory work by candle-light, 
 and that is still the only light it is possible to get here at 
 night. My eyes ache if I try to work much by it, and 
 about all that I care to test them on is in writing the daily 
 letter home. I am going to bite this letter short off to- 
 night. It has good news enough in it to make up for 
 its shortness, and I'm tired. 
 
 Peking, November 25, 1900, the same being Sunday, 
 and, in Chinese, the fourth day of the tenth month 
 of the 26th year of the reign of Kuang Hsu, 
 H. I. M. 
 They say the better the day the better the deed, and, to- 
 day being Sunday, Reeves and I put it in fixing up our 
 rooms so they would be more presentable and more com- 
 fortable. The floors of this three-room, two-by-four man- 
 sion we occupy are of stone, and you can imagine just how 
 cold it has been in this winter weather. We captured two 
 pieces of felt that just fit the floors. It is about half an
 
 162 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 inch thick. I say it just fits the rooms. You couldn't 
 guess why. Well, the reason is that in China all rooms 
 are built exactly the same size, all rugs are built exactly 
 the same size, and all pieces of felt that are intended to 
 cover the floor are built exactly the same size. You see, 
 t^e rugs are built to fit the rooms, or the rooms are built 
 to fit the rugs, whichever you call it. 
 
 This is another peculiarity of the Chinese that they carry 
 to an extreme. Here all chairs are built exactly alike; 
 that is, the parts fit into each other so that the leg of one 
 chair will fit any other chair, and the arm of any chair will 
 fit on any other chair. Tables are built in three sizes ; the 
 legs are all the same. If the leg of a table breaks, all you 
 have to do is to buy a new leg and put it on. If the top 
 breaks you can buy a new top, or you can build an entirely 
 new table or an entirely new chair from the pieces of old 
 ones, for every piece fits every other piece. The trunks 
 are built of the same kind of wood and all of the same 
 size, and, if the top of your trunk is smashed, you can 
 buy a new top. The same with the wardrobes, the beds, 
 the desks, the washstands — everything is alike. It is all 
 very convenient, you see, and it is economical as can be, 
 though the sameness does become somewhat wearing on a 
 person after he stays here a while. 
 
 This sameness goes even further. The clothing of a 
 Chinaman is all built on the same pattern. There is no 
 variation at all. The coat that is built for the father will 
 fit the son, even down to the eighth generation, so that 
 everything is sure to be worn until it is actually worn out. 
 When the well-to-do man gets through with his clothing 
 he sells it to his servant. When his servant wears it un- 
 til he is ashamed of it he sells it to the coolies, and the 
 coolie will wear it until it falls off him in pieces. You 
 see, the arrangement is a very economical one, indeed. 
 There is no question about the fit, for the clothes are all 
 alike, and the rich man's clothing fits just as well as, or 
 doesn't fit any better than, that of the poorest man. 
 
 However, this is digressing. I started to tell you that 
 Reeves and I fixed up our rooms. After we got our felt 
 down we rustled a couple of bolts of red silk, and of this 
 we made curtains. Then, another point, it is no trouble to
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 163 
 
 make curtains here, for the reason that all the windows 
 are of the same size and exactly alike, so that when a 
 house is torn down the windows are not destroyed, but 
 are put in a new house. In building- curtains, all you have 
 to do is to make the first one right and the others just 
 like it. They will fit any window. The front of our house 
 is made up of windows. We have six. And so we built 
 six curtains and hung them. We had an American flag 
 and we draped that on one side of our sitting room. We 
 had six Chinese swords and we crossed them and hung 
 them on the other side. We made a lounge out of two 
 trunks and covered it with the remnants of the curtain 
 silk, and maybe you think we didn't feel proud ! With a 
 little more furniture we shall have quite a place, I can tell 
 you. 
 
 Everybody is waiting now to see what the Govern- 
 ments will do about the preliminary note that the Minis- 
 ters have prepared to present to the Chinese. I don't see 
 myself why there should be any question about it, or why 
 it should have to be sent home for approval, for during 
 the meeting-s every Minister has discussed every point 
 with his home Government, and he has not agreed to a 
 single thing without a direct authorization from home. 
 So, for that matter, every Government has already agreed 
 to the note in detail. The ways of diplomacy, though, 
 are past finding out, and they are certainly slower than 
 molasses in the Winter time. All we can do here now is to 
 wait, and to hope that they will quickly approve and let the 
 negotiations go ahead. 
 
 Peking, November 26, 1900, or Monday, the fifth day 
 of the tenth moon of the 26th year of t,he reign of 
 Kuang Hsu. 
 
 I sent off a long cable to-day, expressing a few succinct 
 opinions concerning the Germans. They are still shooting 
 around here, just as if a war were going on. They 
 don't think anything at all of a Chinaman's life, and on the 
 least excuse they shoot them down like so many dogs. 
 As you have probably noticed in my dispatches I have 
 NOT much use for the German soldiers anyhow. They 
 are a big lot of swine, if human beings ever are swine.
 
 164 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 Beginning to-day I will be without a helper up here in 
 Peking. When D. went away fr'om the city he left 
 a youngster from Denver, Colo., to look out for things, 
 and I have been keeping him to run around and do er- 
 rands, but I am so well acquainted with Peking now that 
 I don't need him and he is a useless expense, so I have let 
 him go. He is going home via Europe and will have a 
 fine jamboree, getting to New York about March or April. 
 You see, he is going to stop everywhere en route. His 
 going will make my work a little harder, which will be a 
 good thing for me. As what-you-may-call-him says, " a 
 reasonable amount of fleas is a good thing for a dog; it 
 keeps him from brooding on being a dog." More work 
 will keep me from brooding, and it will also enable me to 
 work off some of the superfluous fat I have been tak- 
 ing on. 
 
 I have been getting so fat that Pm almost ashamed, 
 now, to be seen on the street on anything but a big horse. 
 I am afraid of being arrested for cruelty to animals if I 
 ride a Chinese pony. I have three horses. They are all 
 Chinese, and I count them among my misfortunes instead 
 of my fortunes. Two of them are white and one is black. 
 They all kick out the side of the barn about once a week, 
 and the only way they can be saddled is to lasso them and 
 tie them up, while the only way they can be shod is to lasso 
 them and knock them down. I haven't been kicked myself, 
 but the orderly who cares for them has had the liver 
 kicked out of him once or twice and is going around now 
 with his arm in a sling. He was taking the pony I ride 
 to water. The little runt shied and threw him. He stuck 
 out his hand to catch himself and fell and split the flesh 
 at the thumb. Instead of taking care of the wound, as I 
 told him to, he got dirt in it, and now he is suffering from 
 blood-poisoning, and if he doesn't look out he may lose 
 his arm. I can tell you Chinese ponies are fine things to 
 let alone, and I shall get rid of my three just as soon as I 
 can get along without them. Of course, you understand, 
 I don't ride all three at once, but I have so much riding 
 to do that it requires three horses to do it. Horses and 
 'rickshas are the only means of getting around out here, 
 and of the two I prefer horses. 'Rickshas can travel
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 165 
 
 only on the hard roads. If a road is deep and dusty, 
 as most Peking roads are, the men can't pull them 
 at all. 
 
 Well, I am getting to the end of my paper, and I'll 
 cut off. 
 
 Peking, Tuesday, the sixth day of the tenth moon of 
 the 26th year of the reign of Kuang Hsu, the same 
 being November 27, 1900. 
 
 I have been out on a turkey-hunting expedition and 
 have gone bust. That is, I didn't get the turkey and our 
 happy home here is going to get along this evening. 
 Thanksgiving Day, without either turkey or cranberry 
 sauce. I think I told you in a letter some days ago that 
 turkeys are not a common product in China. Well, this 
 morning Reeves and I heard that there were some to be 
 had two miles south of here and we started out on our 
 horses after them. We searched all that part of China 
 south of the Emperor's hunting park, but got not a 
 feather and came back mightily disappointed. I don't 
 believe there's a turkey in this part of China, though I 
 hear that there are some in Tien Tsin. That is ninety 
 miles away, however, and there's no railroad running yet, 
 so they will have to stay there, as far as I'm concerned, 
 at least, and we'll eat goose on the turkey day. 
 
 There is still nothing to report in the work of the 
 Ministers. They are all waiting to see what their home 
 Governments have to say about their propositions. If 
 they agree, then the Ministers will go ahead and sign the 
 demands and forward them to the Chinese. I have had 
 several long talks with Li Hung Chang's Secretary, 
 and he assures me that the Dowager is getting scared 
 at last and that she is now willing to cut off a few heads 
 of Princes and the like, as will be demanded by the Min- 
 isters. One head to a Prince, of course I mean. One 
 head is all a Prince has, even in China, this land of 
 strange things and strange people. If these reports are 
 true then it is not going to take a long while to settle up 
 matters after the demands are made. But I can tell you, 
 sweetheart, I am getting tired of talking about the 
 plagued old thing and I guess the people are getting
 
 166 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 tired of reading about it, too. It's wearisome work all 
 round. 
 
 I went up to the British loot sale again to-day, but I 
 did not buy anything. Some fellow from Shanghai, a 
 Chinese silk merchant, came in and purchased 20,000 
 taels' worth of the silk. I think I have already told you 
 about the silk. A tael is a Chinese standard of value, 
 though there is no such coin. It is worth about $1.47 
 silver, or 74 cents gold, so you see the Chinaman's pur- 
 chase was a big one. He got the choicest of the lot. The 
 sale is going to close in a few days. I don't think that 
 I will get any more of the stuff, though it is going at 
 ridiculous figures. The hardest thing to get in these 
 diggings is money. I went to the bank the other day 
 to draw $500 gold and all that they would give me was 
 $870 silver. That was $130 for the privilege of getting 
 435 faO^cl dollars. It was a little more than I could stand 
 and I didn't get it. I'll wait until I find somebody who 
 wants to send money to the States and then I'll do the 
 bank by trading the draft on New York for the cash 
 here. 
 
 Peking, Wednesday, November 28 ; 26th year, H. I. M. 
 Kuang Hsu, tenth month, seventh day. 
 
 I did not succeed in getting the two packages contain- 
 ing the fur in the dispatch-bag because it was full, but I 
 did get them away in the mail to-day. The Government 
 permits soldiers to send gifts to their friends in the States 
 if the packages are plainly marked " gifts," and so I got 
 my two packages endorsed as " soldier's gifts," and I sent 
 them through by registered post. I hope they reached 
 you all right. They ought to get to you before this 
 letter, but the mails are so irregular that you can never 
 tell when things get away, and it may be that the two 
 packages will not get away until the same ship that takes 
 this letter comes along. Besides the two furs there are 
 five cloisonne belt buckles and two handkerchiefs such as 
 the Chinese women carry, and a mantel lambrequin. 
 These latter articles are sent to you with the compliments 
 of Reeves. The belt buckles you may keep or distribute 
 among the folks as Peking souvenirs, or do any old thing
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 167 
 
 With them you want to do. I intended to put in the ring 
 for your father, but of course I forgot it. I will send it 
 along in another package that I will make up, and in that 
 package I will try and send along the bell for G., the 
 bronze for C, and the other bronze for father. 
 
 There hasn't been much going on to-day, although I 
 have hustled around all day. I had hard scratching to 
 get enough for a short cable. It is just as well that there 
 wasn't anything, for when I went to the cable office I 
 found that there was trouble and they couldn't get the 
 station at Taku, so it was impossible to get a cable off in 
 decent shape, anyway. The cable is still one of my chief 
 troubles. It breaks down about every two days and then 
 everything goes wrong and things are topsy-turvy. But 
 as you know, I am something of a philosopher, and get 
 along with it as best I can. As long as the office doesn't 
 kick I am satisfied. 
 
 You have of course read in my dispatches about 'the 
 asphyxiation of General Count von Torek, the German 
 second in command here. He is only one of many vic- 
 tims of an invention of Satan — the Chinese stove. A 
 Chinese stove is made of brick clay. It is about two feet 
 high and a foot across, with a hole in the top and a draft 
 in the side near the bottom. The Chinese burn coal-balls 
 in it. These coal-balls are made of coal and clay. They 
 take the coal in big hunks and pound it into a fine dust. 
 Then they put in about as much dirt as there is coal-dust 
 and mix the two together with water. They roll the 
 mixture up into little balls and let them dry, and there is 
 your coal. They put the balls in the fire. The coal part 
 of them burns and the clay becomes ashes. The Chinese 
 say they have to do this because the coal is so hard that it 
 won't burn unless it is broken up first. 
 
 These Chinese stoves have no pipes at all, and all the 
 gas in the coal just goes off into the room. They are 
 supposed to be left outside the house until the gas is 
 burned out of the coal, but people who don't know any- 
 thing about them don't do that, and the result is that they 
 " wake up in the morning dead," as Pat would say. 
 Torek's death will be a warning, no doubt, and there will 
 be fewer chances taken with the stoves in future. The
 
 168 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 American camp has already tabooed them, anB won't have 
 one near. That's where they are wise. 
 
 Well, to-morrow is Thanksgiving Day. I hope you 
 will have a fine day and a big turkey, and that each of you 
 eats an extra portion for me. I suppose you will be at 
 home with Mother and Father. I hope so, anyway. 
 
 Peking, Thursday, November 29, Thanksgiving Day 
 at home — here, the eighth day of the seventh moon 
 of the 26th year of the reign of Kuang Hsu, 
 H. I. M. 
 
 Thanksgiving Day has come and gone, and while I 
 didn't feed on turkey I had a pretty fair day of it all 
 around. As I told you some time ago, all the Americans 
 were invited to see Angus Hume in the afternoon. I went 
 up there about 3 o'clock and found some forty or fifty 
 of us there. The Rev. Dr. W. was on hand, with a ser- 
 mon a mile long, and he got it off in spite of everything. 
 He was impressed with the fact that this was the last 
 Thanksgiving Day of the century and so he took occasion 
 to review everything that had happened during the last 
 hundred years and give thanks for it. He devoted about 
 four minutes to giving thanks for the deliverance of the 
 people in the siege, and over an hour to thanks for the 
 telephone, the telegraph, the steam engine, the latest 
 corn cure, Fellows' Hypophosphates, Pears' soap, crino- 
 line, and a few other things. I could not help noticing 
 the fact that in the middle of his sermon the hymn book 
 on my lap opened at hymn No. 10 and the first line read — 
 *' Through the weary wastes we wander." I think it 
 was the first chance the Rev. Doctor had had at a white 
 audience for some time and he made the best use of his 
 opportunity and occupied their time as long as possible. 
 After he had finished, a seven-year-old son of the Rev. 
 Dr. T. recited "A Turkey's Soliloquv," and_ a lot, 
 of hymns were sung and then a lot of patriotic airs. 
 After that there was a little lunch. I did not stay to the 
 lunch because it was getting late and I had an invitation 
 to attend a dinner at General Chaffee's in the evening. 
 
 The dinner went off in pretty good shape. There were 
 twenty-seven, all told, at the table. They were all
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 169 
 
 ^American officers, and we had a pretty jolly time. We 
 drank toasts to the absent wives and daughters, and the 
 best girls, and told stories and smoked after we had 
 finished the dinner, which was a good one. It is pretty 
 near midnight, now, and I have just come from there, 
 and am writing this letter before I go to bed. 
 
 Peking, Friday, November 30, being the ninth day of 
 the tenth moon of the 26th year of the reign of 
 H. I. M. Kuang Hsu. 
 
 There is a mighty little to write about again, and I 
 guess I'll have to fall back on my old friends, the Chinese, 
 for the subject of this letter. I have heard two pretty 
 fair Chinese superstitions that may interest you. 
 
 The Chinese mothers believe that the greatest blessing 
 they can ever enjoy is a son. They believe that the gods 
 love the little boys, and that they love them so much that 
 occasionally they come down and grab them and take 
 them off to the spirit land. One of the commonest sights 
 here is a Chinese boy with big ear-rings, dressed up 
 exactly like a girl. The foolish mother pierces the boy 
 baby's ears and puts in huge ear-rings and dresses him 
 in girl's clothes, so that when the gods come down in 
 search of the boys they won't recognize the sex of the 
 infants and will pass them all by as girls. 
 
 Now for the other story. Peking is the greatest city 
 for crows that I have ever seen. There are millions of 
 them. They are not afraid of human beings, like the 
 crows in America, and they hop around the ground at 
 your feet. The reason for this is that they are regarded 
 as more or less sacred by the people. Strangely enough, 
 every night they go to the Forbidden City. The flight 
 starts in about dusk, and for an hour the very air is black 
 with them, all flying toward the palace of the royal family. 
 The reason for this is not apparent, unless it is that they 
 are not interfered with there. When they are all in, the 
 buildings and grounds of the Forbidden City are literally 
 crowded with them, and they stay there until the next 
 morning. 
 
 No Chinaman except of the official class is permitted 
 even to enter the Forbidden City. The Emperor of China
 
 170 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 is looked upon by the people as the real Son of Heaven, 
 Brother of the Moon, and Roommate of the Stars, sent 
 down here to rule over them. No Chinaman, unless he 
 be of the official class, is ever permitted to look upon his 
 Imperial Majesty, and a sight of him is a sight of heaven 
 itself. As he can't be seen by a Chinaman during life, 
 it is of course natural that there should be a promise held 
 out for a more or less intimate acquaintance with him 
 after death. Many Chinamen believe that when one of 
 them dies his spirit enters the body of a crow if he has 
 been a good Chinaman, and thereafter he flutters around 
 Peking at will, going in and out of the wonderful For- 
 bidden City at pleasure and being permitted nightly to 
 sleep in the same square with the Emperor, and also to 
 feast his eyes upon the august personage of His Majesty, 
 This is one of the greatest rewards for being good. It is 
 not a bad idea, is it ? 
 
 Well, those are the stories. I have nothing to tell 
 you of my own movements to-day, because they 
 have been just the same as they are every otjier day 
 when nothing of particular interest has happened. I 
 am getting mighty hungry for letters from home, and I 
 hear that there is a mail from the States on the way up 
 from Taku now, so I'll possess my soul in patience. 
 
 Saturday, December i, 1900, being the tenth day of 
 the tenth moon of the 26th year of the reign of 
 H. I. M. Kuang Hsu. 
 
 Here is the end of a week and the beginning of a 
 month — the last month of the old century. Little did 
 either of us think, a year ago, that the new century would 
 come in with me in China. I remember very well a year 
 ago, New Year's at midnight, sitting in Perry's with 
 E. R., watching the crowd come in after the trip down 
 to old Trinity to hear the chimes. Then I went home 
 and told you about them. It's the way of the world, 
 though. This year New Year's, unless these blamed 
 Ministers get a move on them pretty quickly, I'll still be 
 in Peking cussin', I suppose, at the eternal slowness of 
 things and — homesick? Great Scott! 
 
 There's this consolation, I'm only one of a great many
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 171 
 
 thousand who won't spend the first day of the New Year 
 with their famihes. There are more than 35,000 of us 
 right here in Peking. I suppose we'll have an awful job 
 celebrating New Year's here, too. Think of it; first 
 comes January i, that's our New Year. Next comes 
 January 13, that's the Russian New Year; and the effect 
 of that will hardly have worn off when February will be 
 here, and about the middle of that month is the Chinese 
 New Year. If that isn't a job in New Year's celebra- 
 tion, I don't know what is. I'm afraid I'll get so mixed 
 up in my calendars that I won't know where I am at 
 before I get through. I guess I'll have to be careful and 
 not take any chances, so that I can keep track of myself. 
 
 Of course, it will be after New Year when you get this 
 letter, so I can't even send you a New Year's card. 
 However, I won't grieve, for if I had thought of it I 
 would not have been able to get any, here, and so couldn't 
 send you one. I said " Happy New Year " to you in one 
 of the letters I wrote early in November, but I guess it 
 won't do any harm to say it over again in this one. That 
 your new year may be the happiest year that you have 
 ever had in all your life, is the sincere wish of the one 
 who loves you best of all. May health, happiness, and 
 ■prosperity be your lot, and the lot of the babies. God 
 bless them ! 
 
 I was up around the various Legations to-day, but 
 mighty little was doing. There really wasn't anything 
 worth cabling, so to-night I am taking a sort of a night 
 off. I've a lot of mail stuff to get ready, though, and 
 I'll go to work on that as soon as I finish this letter. I 
 think I'll have to let to-day's letter go without telling you 
 any more about the Chinese. I'm afraid I've told you so 
 much already that it is becoming a bore to you, but I 
 haven't hedrd any growling about it yet, 
 
 I couldn't resist the temptation, to-day, to buy a couple 
 of Chinese josses that I saw in the street on the way home. 
 They are made of copper and are plated with fired gilt 
 that makes them look exactly like gold. They are just 
 about an inch and a half high and are the cutest little gods 
 that I have seen out here. I bought the pair for $1.00, 
 Mex. — 50 cents of our money — and I have packed them
 
 172 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 away in my trunk, along with other trinkets that I will 
 bring home and that I hope will help to furnish mantels 
 or something else. With my bronzes I am getting quite 
 a collection of things, none of them very valuable, but all 
 of them pretty and all from Peking, and therefore of 
 historical interest. They are all for you, of course, and I 
 think you will like them — most of them, at any rate. 
 
 Well, here's luck to you. Kiss and hug the babies for 
 me. Tell them their pop thinks of them a great deal, 
 and hopes they are doing everything in the world to 
 make their mamma happy. Out here in China that's all 
 the little boys and girls think of doing. They start in 
 when they are wee small things and they keep it up all 
 their lives, just trying to make mother and father happy. 
 
 Peking, Sunday, December 2, being the eleventh day 
 of the seventh moon of the 28th year of the reign 
 of Kuang Hsu, H. I. M. 
 
 Sunday again, but I didn't go to church. Fact is, that 
 I've seen about everything in the way of meeting-houses 
 in China except churches. We have all the fittings here 
 for churches — preachers, missionary exhibits, and even 
 congregations — but the only things in the line of religious 
 meeting-houses I've run across have been those patronized 
 by the Buddhists and the heathen, full of brass, copper, 
 and mud josses, and, if the truth must be known, I 
 haven't any appetite to worship any joss of that character. 
 
 I have told you about most of these places that I have 
 visited, so I won't say anything more about them here. 
 Being Sunday, I gave my horse a rest, to-day, and worked 
 some of the 'ricksha men in his place. 'Ricksha riding 
 in Peking is not what it is cracked up to be, and is no- 
 where near as pleasant as in the other places where I 
 have been. The reason is that Peking pavements are 
 probably as bad as any in the world. Most of them were 
 laid in the neighborhood of 300 years ago, and they haven't 
 been repaired any to speak of since they were laid. The 
 road from my abiding-place in the Temple of Agriculture 
 to Legation Street, which is just inside the wall of the 
 Tartar City and just outside the wall of the Imperial 
 City, was built fully that long ago. It is as full of holes
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 173 
 
 as a nutmeg-grater and a ride over it in a 'ricksha stirs 
 your very liver. It's a bumpity-bump-bump all the way, 
 and when you get to the end of your journey you feel as if 
 you had been in one of those jumpers they use in making 
 milk shakes. Then, when you are riding, there is con- 
 stantly with you, too, a fear that the very next hole you 
 strike will either bounce you out, or be the cause of up- 
 setting you, and you will land on the ground anyway. 
 
 I had an experience of that kind to-day, wherein was 
 shown another trait of the Chinaman — but it was not on 
 the stone pavement that I was dropped. I was going 
 from the Legation to the palace of the Rev. Dr. T., of 
 the American Board of Missions, to get a note that I 
 understood a Chinaman had left there for me. The road 
 to T.'s is an abomination. It is three inches deep 
 in dust and I should not have taken a 'ricksha at all, but 
 I was tired and didn't like walking, so I thought I'd try 
 it. We got along all right for about three blocks, the 
 man pulling away like a good fellow. Then we began 
 to strike hollows and hillocks in the street and about the 
 fourth hollow the old two-wheeler began tipping. It got 
 half over before I realized what was happening. Then I 
 swung myself around as quickly as I could and landed on 
 my feet all right when the fall came. I didn't hurt my- 
 self in the least, but I did tear my glove. 
 
 The moment the 'ricksha went over the coolie began 
 yelling as if he was killed. He dropped flat on the 
 ground and moaned and groaned in a manner simply 
 awful to listen to. I knew he wasn't hurt and I at once 
 jumped to the conclusion that it was some sort of a 
 scheme to extort money from me. I just stood there by 
 the side of the 'ricksha, waiting to see what would 
 happen, and in about a minute I caught the coolie looking 
 at me out of the corner of his eyes. It was such a 
 comical sight, taken in connection with his groaning and 
 his apparent attempt to show that he was seriously in- 
 jured, that I just roared with laughter, whereat he 
 jumped up, lifted the overturned 'ricksha and motioned 
 me to get in. But I had had enough and determined to 
 walk the rest of the way. For a minute or two I couldn't 
 make out the fellow's conduct at all, and then it struck
 
 174 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 me. He knew he deserved punishment for upsetting me 
 and he was afraid I was going to beat him as he deserved, 
 so he yelled as if he had been killed to save himself the 
 beating. I tell you the Chinamen are a very cute lot of 
 people and what they don't think of, when an emergency 
 arises, is not worth thinking. I walked to T.'s and 
 walked back, and nearly choked with the dust; but even 
 that was better than being tumbled, so I put up with it, 
 but I did wish that I had not been so compassionate on 
 the horse. So endeth the lesson of the day. 
 
 A mail goes off to-morrow, and this letter will 
 probably be the last of this bunch I am sending you. 
 Don't be alarmed if there is some greater irregularity in 
 the receipt of the letters after this, for some little time, 
 because the river is frozen over and the bay is liable to 
 freeze at any time. When that happens it won't be 
 possible for the steamships to come up to take the mail. 
 Arrangements have been made to send it out overland by 
 way of Shanghai, and also to the north by the way of 
 Shanhaikwan, which is the end of the Great Wall. The 
 railroad is not running there, yet, and there are likely to 
 be all sorts of delays until it, gets started. You will sec 
 that I am all right by the telegrams " from our own cor- 
 respondent " that will appear in The Sun every day or so, 
 at least. 
 
 Peking, Monday, December 3, 1900, or the Twelfth 
 day of the Tenth Moon of the 26th year of the 
 reign of H. I. M. Kuang Hsu. 
 
 The mail went off this morning and with it, if my 
 reckoning is correct, eight letters to you. As I said in 
 my last letter in that bunch, it is a question whether the 
 next batch, of which this is the first, will reach you with- 
 out considerable delay. We are pretty well frozen up 
 here now. The thermometer monkeys around zero a 
 good deal of the time, and we have occasional flurries of 
 snow. The first good snow-storm was this morning, 
 when we got about two inches. The compensating 
 feature of it is that it will probably lay the dust, though 
 it is flakey, and, with the wind blowing as it is, the snow 
 is more likely to mix up with the dust and so fill the air
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 175 
 
 full of mud instead of either dust or snow. Oh, I tell 
 you this is a fine country to live in — nit ! 
 
 There was to have been a meeting of the Ministers to- 
 day. Mr. Conger, our Minister, sent out the call for it 
 yesterday. All the Ministers were ready except the 
 Frenchman, who sent a plaintive appeal to be let off. 
 He said he had a most important engagement and that 
 it was impossible for him to break it ; that it would be a 
 very great favor if the meeting were postponed until to- 
 morrow. Of course the other Ministers agreed to oblige 
 him. To-day I learn that his *' most important engage- 
 ment " is to take four friends out to the Summer Palace 
 of the Dowager and feed them a luncheon. 
 
 As they say in New York, wouldn't that jar you? 
 Wouldn't it make you mad? Here the whole world is 
 waiting for the Ministers to act. China is in a most 
 desperate condition. Business is going completely to pot. 
 Hundreds of thousands of dollars are being lost daily, 
 thousands of soldiers are being kept here, and all that, 
 and this Minister delays things because he wants to en- 
 tertain some of his cronies at a lunch at the Summer 
 Palace ! I don't believe that such a thing was ever 
 heard of before in the world, and it has done more than 
 anything else to disgust me with the whole business. I 
 sent out a dispatch to-night in which I simply stated the 
 facts in a few words, and I certainly hope that our folks 
 will realize what it means and will make a big kick about 
 it. It would not be so bad if the lunch he was giving 
 had been an official affair, arranged for beforehand and 
 hard to get out of, but it is not. The guests are some 
 of his Legation people to whom he can give a lunch any 
 day. From whatever point the matter is looked at it is 
 certainly inexcusable conduct on his part, and he deserves 
 to be exposed and jumped on by his Government and by 
 everybody else. If I knew him well enough I would go 
 and have a row with him myself. As you may well 
 imagine, I am as anxious to get this matter over with 
 and settled up, so I can start for home, as anybody 
 can be. 
 
 I have another rival here now in the person of a Capt. 
 B.^ a new correspondent of the Associated Press,
 
 176 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 I don't remember whether I told you or not, t)ut my 
 rivals haven't been having a very pleasant time from all 
 that I hear. There are two associations fighting The 
 Sim, one is the A. P. and the other the English concern 
 called Reuters'. The last time I saw Reuters's man he 
 showed me a dispatch from his home office, saying: 
 " Your service is rotten ; it is absolutely necessary that 
 you should brace up." Of course, that pleased me 
 immensely, though I didn't tell him so. As for the 
 A. P., when I came here its man was E. of San Fran- 
 cisco. He went home and his place was taken by a 
 young man, who worked here for several weeks and then 
 got a dispatch saying: "You are being beaten daily on 
 good stories." I condoled with him and a day or two 
 later he was ordered home. Now B. has come to 
 take his place. I don't know yet what sort of a citizen he 
 is, but I imagine he must be rather an expensive luxury. 
 He showed me his first dispatch, and it started off — 
 " Colonel Count von Torek Walmerding, who commanded 
 the German column to Kalgan, etc." That is, about 
 twelve words telling who Torek was. My dispatch said : 
 "Torek dead." With cable tolls at $2 or $3 a word, 
 you can see how expensive he is. " Torek dead " told all 
 the news. The cable man in the office of course knew 
 who Torek was and he put that in the dispatch. It wasn't 
 necessary for me to spend $30 or $40 in explanation. 
 Altogether, I guess I haven't anything to fear from our 
 friend B. However, you never can tell. 
 
 I don't believe, though, that you are interested in these 
 things, so I'll cut them short. I have told you about 
 them because there isn't anything else in this land to-day 
 to write about, unless it is how I miss you and I've told 
 you that so many times in the last four months that even 
 that must be a bore to you. 
 
 Peking, Tuesday, December 4, 1900, being the Thir- 
 teenth day of the Tenth moon of the 26th year of 
 the reign of Kuang Hsu, H. I. M. 
 The Ministers' meeting, postponed to enable the French 
 Minister to entertain four friends at luncheon at the 
 Summer Palace, took place to-day, and I am informed
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 177 
 
 that " substantial progress " was made. " Substantial 
 progress " is becoming a good deal of a chestnut to me, 
 but this time I understand that it is really true and that 
 at the end of the meeting the Ministers were a good deal 
 more in accord in their ideas than they had been at any 
 time before. The delay now is due, in large part, to the 
 United States, and I flatter myself that my dispatches 
 may possibly have had some effect. 
 
 You will recall that some time ago, when the punish- 
 ment of the officials who were responsible for the Boxer 
 uprising was about all that was being talked about, I 
 called attention to the fact that the Ministers were de- 
 manding what was impossible when they demanded that 
 the Dowager and the Emperor should cut off the head of 
 Tung Fu Hsien. This was because Tung Fu Hsien is 
 the Generalissimo of the Qiinese army and his troops 
 surround the Dowager, the Emperor, and the Court. 
 The whole business was, and is, absolutely within his 
 power, and if anybody's head is to be cut off, he is the 
 man whom the Dowager must depend upon to do the 
 cutting. To include in the demands a demand for his 
 head is the same as telling the Dowager that she must 
 make Tung Fu Hsien cut off his own head, and while, 
 in China, orders to commit suicide are usually obeyed, 
 they are not when the person invited to do it has the 
 whiphand. 
 
 In my dispatch, you will remember, I did some pretty 
 stiff kicking, though couched in diplomatic terms, and' 
 now our Government has taken exactly the view that I 
 took, and has practically declined to demand the im- 
 possible of China. While it has temporarily delayed mat- 
 ters, it has unquestionably made for the more rapid 
 solution of the difficulty in the end, for the fewer im- 
 possible things that are demanded of China, the quicker 
 she can be made to do the possible ones, and the quicker 
 this whole problem will be solved. That's the way I 
 look at it, and that, it seems now, is the way our Govern- 
 ment looks at it. If my dispatches have in the least 
 helped along a public opinion that has had its influence 
 on the Government, I can tell you I am mighty glad, and 
 feel that a real service has been done. The wisdom of
 
 178 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 the policy and the willingness of the Chinese Government 
 to comply with the demands of the powers, so far as it 
 is possible to do so, are shown in an edict which got here 
 late this afternoon. It announces that Tung Fu Hsien 
 has been stripped of all of his military honors, and has 
 been sent to the Province of Kansu at the head of 5,000 
 troops to suppress an incipient rebellion there among the 
 Mohammedans. The importance of this lies in the fact 
 that if it is carried out and Tung Fu Hsien goes to Kansu, 
 he no longer has the Court in his control, and the 
 Dowager and the Emperor can return to Peking if they 
 want to. At the same time Tung Fu Hsien, who has had 
 an evil influence upon the Court, naturally is permanently 
 removed and can no longer exercise that influence. You 
 see that things are just naturally working themselves 
 out in pretty fair shape, and the situation is clearing up 
 naturally. I certainly hope that it will continue to do 
 so. 
 
 I don't know whether all these things interest you, but 
 they ought to, for the reason that they all have a most 
 important bearing on the time when I shall be able to 
 shake the dust of China from my shoes and start gayly 
 homeward. 
 
 In the mail that went off yesterday I sent off a small 
 batch of short Chinese stories, modeled somewhat after 
 the " Convention Notes " I wrote during National Con- 
 ventions. I have already told most of them to you in 
 letters I have written. My idea is to send off a batch by 
 every mail and I think that when I get back, by a reason- 
 able amount of editing and rewriting, I shall be able to 
 make further use of them. 
 
 Peking, Wednesday, December 5, being the fourteenth 
 
 day of the tenth moon of the 26th year of the 
 
 reign of H. I. M. Kuang Hsu. 
 
 Speaking of cold weather, hey? Well, if you want a 
 
 most superior article in the line of cold weather, just come 
 
 here to Peking. I suppose that by the time you get this 
 
 letter you will have had something in the line of weather 
 
 yourself, but if you have come anywhere near the sample 
 
 that is being put up in Peking, I'm sorry for you. We
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 179 
 
 are literally frozen up, here, and the dust is blowing in 
 clouds sufficient to choke you. Nevertheless we are not 
 uncomfortable, except for the dust. If you could see us 
 you would understand why. For instance, when I go out 
 I wear the blanket-lined canvas overcoat I bought at the 
 Government Stores in San Francisco before I sailed. It 
 comes very nearly down to my heels. I don't remember 
 whether I told you about it or not. It is made of canvas 
 outside, and is lined inside, sleeves and all, with a great 
 army blanket — the heaviest woolen blanket made. It has 
 a collar that reaches to the top of the head, covering the 
 ears, and the face to the eyes. 
 
 Then with this coat I have a fur cap, not very pretty, it 
 is true, but warm as toast. It has flaps that come down 
 over the ears and down the back of the neck, and a visor 
 that comes over the forehead to the eyes, so that abso- 
 lutely all of me that is not covered is the eyes. With the 
 cap and coat I wear a pair of huge muskrat-fur gaunt- 
 lets that are lined with red flannel, and the cuffs come 
 away above the wrists. Then, with a pair of heavy 
 cloth arctics, lined with red flannel, on my feet, I am in 
 condition to stand any sort of weather that the Chinese 
 weather god chooses to send. So rigged out I look as if 
 I weighed something under a ton, and I must confess I 
 feel about the same way, for if there is one merit that the 
 outfit lacks it is lightness. You can't very well expect 
 lightness with the warmth, however, so there is really 
 nothing to complain of. 
 
 The cold, of course, has frozen up everything. I 
 haven't heard yet from down the river, so I do not know 
 how the mail is getting out, but I know that our army is 
 making arrangements to dispatch mails through Shan- 
 haikwan, which, although it is north of here, does not 
 freeze up in the Winter. The process will be a little bit 
 slow, very likely, for the reason that the railroad up there 
 has been destroyed, and there are thirty-eight miles of it, 
 I have to-day heard, that are still unrepaired, so it will be 
 necessary to carry the mail that distance in wagons or on 
 horseback. Any way, however, will suit me, just so I 
 succeed in getting letters out and in receiving them.
 
 180 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 Peking, Thursday, December 6, being the fifteenth 
 day of the tenth moon of the 26th year of the reign 
 of H. I. M. Kuang Hsu. 
 
 This is the anniversary of the death of Confucius, the 
 patron saint of China, the man who founded the national 
 reHgion of China. He died 490 years before Christ was 
 born, and his reUgion is that much older than ours. In 
 China to-day it is also the day of the Fetes of Ha Tuen, 
 the God of Water; of the God of Smallpox, and of the 
 God and Goddess of the Bedstead. Usually these are 
 great celebration days in China, but this year, in the 
 vicinity of Peking, at least, you would never suspect that 
 they were different from any other day. The Chinese 
 are not doing much celebrating of any kind at the present 
 time, and I don't think they are to be blamed for it. It 
 is hard to celebrate when you are in the midst" of desola- 
 tion and human misery, and the Chinese are certainly in 
 the midst of such conditions. They are absolutely sur- 
 rounded by them. 
 
 However, in this busy world there is no time to moral- 
 ize. What is, is, and there is an end to it. It is better 
 to hope for the future than it is to grieve for the past, 
 and in that, I think, lies the secret of human happiness, 
 I'm hoping for the future. I hope you are too. The 
 more I see of the world and of the misery, the misfortune, 
 and the consequent vmhappiness of the greater number of 
 the people in it, the more I feel thankful that your lot 
 and my lot and the lot of our relations and friends have 
 hcon cast in such pleasant places. To fully appreciate 
 America one must see China. To fully appreciate the 
 beauties and the blessings of our home life, one must see 
 the best that exists elsewhere, and compare them, and the 
 worst that exists elsewhere, and compare them. I can 
 tell you that the comparison makes one love his own 
 home and his own country more. 
 
 Shanghai is spoken of as The City of the East. There 
 I saw the best. In Peking I have seen the worst ; or, if 
 not the worst, what at least is so far worse than anything 
 that exists in America that all comparison ceases. It is 
 impossible to compare them. I said that moralizing
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 181 
 
 didn't pay, and I have gone on and moralized to the 
 extent of a page and more. 
 
 Our spell of weather is continuing here. It was zero 
 this morning, and the north wind was blowing in a 
 fashion that cut clear through all the meat and clear into 
 the bone, but it was a dry cold and not nearly so bad as 
 it is in New York when the weather gets down to zero. 
 If it were not for the dust that flies continually, one would 
 not mind it very much, for, dressing warmly as we do, 
 it is an easy matter to keep the cold out. I count among 
 my treasures here the two sweaters I purchased the day 
 that you and I went in from Plainfield to outfit me for this 
 trip. I am only sorry I did not buy half a dozen of them 
 instead of two. They fit closely everywhere and they 
 keep the heat of the body in and the cold out as no over- 
 coat can possibly do. I wear one all the time, now, 
 except at dinner, and I'd wear them there, only everybody 
 else puts on a white shirt and one has to be in the swim, 
 you know. 
 
 Another mail is expected up here Saturday night, and 
 I'm looking for another batch of letters from you. The 
 last mail disappointed me. I suppose the letters were 
 addressed to Shanghai and they are traveling around 
 looking for me. I have written to the Qiartered Bank, 
 down there, to tell them to forward anything that may 
 be there for me. I told them that before I left, but I 
 think they must have forgotten, so that a little jogging 
 of their memory won't do any harm anyway. Until the 
 last mail, yours were the only letters I had received from 
 New York. 
 
 Peking, China, Friday, December 7, 1900, being the 
 sixteenth day of the tenth moon of the 26th year 
 of the Reign of H. I. M. Kuang Hsu. 
 
 This has certainly been a field-day for me. I got three 
 letters from you and one from G. The letter's were 
 dated October 7, 14, and 20. They had been delayed 
 in reaching me because of the stop in Yokohama, where 
 they had to wait for another steamer, and at this 
 season of the year steamers from Japan are not very 
 frequent. You can well imagine how welcome these let-
 
 182 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 ters were, for I had not heard from you for nearly a 
 month and I was homesick for letters. 
 
 In your letter of the 19th you show a commendable 
 philosophy. I surely would have been in Galveston, 
 had I been in the United States, and I surely would 
 have been out in the coal-mining region during the 
 coal strikes, and in such work there is little for me beyond 
 the money that comes in anyway, while the trip here, as 
 Mr. L. told you, is probably the greatest investment I 
 have ever made. My life work is in my profession. In 
 that profession the great asset is experience and knowl- 
 edge, and these two things I am getting and storing 
 away for your future benefit and that of the babies, as 
 well as my own. 
 
 You speak of my not saying anything about receiving 
 letters from you. You forget, sweetheart, that I hadn't 
 stopped anywhere long enough when you received my 
 last letter before you wrote the one on the 20th to let any 
 of your letters catch me. Let's see — the letters you had 
 received when you wrote October 20th were probably 
 dated along in September, and I had just about got to 
 Shanghai. You see, I was traveling away in the fastest 
 steamer, and your letters were traveling just as fast after 
 me, but there was no hope of their catching me until I 
 stopped long enough for them to catch up. I did not 
 expect to stay in Shanghai more than a day or two, when 
 I was in Yokohama, so I directed the bank there to for- 
 ward my mail to Tien Tsin. That's what they did. I 
 am under the impression that I told you in one of my 
 letters, either at Shanghai or Tien Tsin, to address me 
 in the future care of American Legation, Peking. If I 
 am still here when you get this, do it, but I have strong 
 hopes that I shall be away before that time. The let- 
 ters are coming all right, so don't worry about them. 
 I've learned patience and I can assure you that the 
 letters are just as welcome when they get here. They 
 don't lose anything in the journey. G. told me in 
 her letter that you had sent her my letter, written on the 
 steamer. That relieves my mind. I have been feeling 
 very guilty because I haven't written her oftener and also 
 oftener to mother and father. But if you are letting
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 183 
 
 them read my letters that makes up for it. Tell the little 
 ones that they are not half as anxious to see their papa 
 as he is to see them, bless their hearts. 
 
 And now you must let me off for a day. I want to 
 read all my welcome letters over again. 
 
 Peking, Saturday, December g, 1900, being the seven- 
 teenth day of the tenth moon of the 26th year of 
 the Reign of H. I. M. Kuang Hsu. 
 
 Saturday again, another week gone and still in Peking. 
 The beginning of the negotiations now is waiting on Sir 
 Ernest Satow. Sir Ernest is the British Minister, and 
 he has not yet been instructed by his Government to sign 
 the note that he and the other Ministers prepared. As I 
 have remarked before, the ways of diplomacy are past 
 finding out, albeit I'm keeping pretty well up on them 
 myself at present. But here I am again, telling you news 
 which will surely be a month old before you get it. Surely 
 I must find something more interesting to put in my let- 
 ters, or first thing I know I'll be getting a note from you 
 telling me to stop writing. 
 
 Let me see — you ought to be interested in the servant 
 question. Leastwise, when I left home that was more or 
 less of a burning question, especially at mealtime. What is 
 it that Thirty-seven-varieties-of-Shakespear Heinz says — 
 " 'Tis burned, and so is all the meat, where is the dastard 
 cook and the tomato catsup bottle ? " or words to that 
 effect. Chinese cooks are built on practically those lines. 
 Reeves and I have made several discoveries about the 
 Chinese servant business. Of course we don't claim that 
 they are original discoveries at all, but they were new to 
 us when we found them out. One is that the Chinese 
 servant is a pretty good servant, but the more you have 
 of him the less work is done — not the less work is done 
 by each individual, but the less in the aggregate. For 
 example, one servant will cook, wait on the table, wash 
 dishes, carry water, and keep your room clean. Two 
 servants will cook, wash dishes, wait on the table, and 
 carry water. Three will cook, wash dishes, and wait on 
 table. Four will cook and wash dishes. Five will cook. 
 We haven't tried six yet. I suppose if we do we shall
 
 184 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 have to do our own cooking and wait on the China- 
 men. 
 
 Then, there is another peculiarity : The one servant 
 who does it all will constantly complain that the work is 
 too heavy and he has to have a helper'. When you 
 get the helper the complaints are just doubled, and so on 
 up to the five. The work done is only one-fifth of the 
 work done originally by one, but the complaints are five- 
 fold. 
 
 Then another thing: Once you begin to accumulate 
 servants you acquire an appetite for peanuts that is sim- 
 ply marvelous. You don't realize that, and you probably 
 don't know that you eat them, but, if the cook's testi- 
 mony is correct, you certainly do eat them. The cook 
 does the marketing, and each night he reports the expen- 
 ditures of the day. Every night for a week we have 
 noticed — peanuts, $i. On investigating the peanut ques- 
 tion, we found that peanuts were sold at the rate of 
 twelve for a cash, which is one-tenth of a cent. That 
 would be I20 for a cent, 1200 for a dime, 12,000 for a 
 dollar, and in seven days we had consumed 84,000 pea- 
 nuts ! Now, don't laugh at that. It is a solemn and 
 serious fact. We doubted it. We called the cook in. 
 
 " Cooker," we demanded, " how many peanuts have 
 you got in stock ? " 
 
 " No have got," said Cooker. " Master eat all." 
 
 " What ? " we demanded in a breath, " have we eaten 
 $7 worth of peanuts in a week ? " 
 
 " Master have eat," said Cooker. 
 
 " Cooker," said I, " you're a liar." 
 
 "Master have eat," said Cooker, and he trotted out 
 and brought in his four assistants, who each said " Master 
 have eat." 
 
 Of course there was no going back on that testimony. 
 Consciously, we had not eaten a peanut, so I say that 
 Chinese servants develop unconscious habits in their em- 
 ployers. 
 
 The day after this episode Cooker informed us that his 
 grandmother was sick, and he must go to her. That was 
 the last of Cooker. He hasn't been seen or heard of since. 
 The No. I boy informed us that " Cooker no have got
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 185 
 
 face. He no come back." It appears that the announce- 
 ment that he was a liar damaged his face. Now, in the 
 States, it is usually the fellow who makes such an an- 
 nouncement that gets the damaged face. Here in China, 
 though, as you must know by this time, everything is 
 topsy-turvy. I think I have told you that " face " in 
 China is the most important of all things. There is no 
 single word in the English language that expresses it. 
 Accuse a man of lying, and if he does not resent it ac- 
 cording to certain prescribed methods, he has " lost face." 
 Take him to task for any misconduct, and he has " lost 
 face." If he permits any sort of an indignity, whether de- 
 served or not, he has " lost face," and a Chinaman without 
 " face " is looked down upon by everybody. In the case 
 of servants who need chastisement, you can see, it is a 
 serious matter. 
 
 I guess, though, I've rambled on sufficiently for one 
 day, so good-bye. I'll see you again to-morrow. 
 
 Peking, China, December 9, 1900, being the eight- 
 eenth day of the tenth moon of the 26th year of 
 the reign of H. I. M. Kuang Hsu. 
 
 The first train got in from Tien Tsin to-day, and 
 Peking is once more in rail connection with the outside 
 world. It is true that Tien Tsin is not very far out in 
 the outside world, but it's a heap sight farther than 
 nowhere, and up to to-day there was no outside connec- 
 tion with anywhere except by army transport wagon. 
 The railroad has not begun to run regularly yet, and it 
 probably won't for some days, but the fact that they have 
 succeeded in restoring it so that they could get one train 
 over it shows that the time is very short now when it will 
 be running as it used to. China railroads, you know, never 
 were what the railroads in the United States are. Tien 
 Tsin is only ninety miles from Peking, but the trip is a 
 nine-hour trip by rail. New York is the same distance 
 from Philadelphia that Peking is from Tien Tsin, and 
 our trains make it in two hours. A good deal of differ- 
 ence, isn't there? While Peking is nine hours' distance 
 from Tien Tsin, the railroad revolutionizes China. You 
 can imagine what China must have been before there was
 
 186 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 any railroad. We who are here, of course, have realized 
 it, for we have had no railroad. 
 
 It may interest you to know how this letter and all the 
 other letters that I shall write you this Winter, until this 
 miserable business is over at least, will get to you. The 
 new rail route is just being fixed up. Of course we have 
 a post-office here in the Temple of Agriculture. We have 
 a post-master and clerks, just like a regular post-office in 
 the United States. The head clerk is a youngster from 
 the New York post-office who was transferred here espe- 
 cially for the work. Our letters are mailed here, and 
 every fifth day they are loaded on a wagon and start out at 
 5 o'clock in the morning. The wagon is surrounded by 
 a guard of cavalrymen, who never leave it. Besides the 
 mail, the wagon carries food for the men and forage for 
 the horses. The outfit makes Ho-si-wu by night. There 
 is a guard of cavalrymen there, and a stop is made for 
 the night. The cavalrymen who have guarded the mail so 
 far turn in and sleep, and the Ho-si-wu men stand guard 
 all night. At 5 o'clock in the morning a fresh start is 
 made, and the wagon with the guard reaches Yangtsun 
 about 2 o'clock. The railroad has been running from 
 Yangtsun for a long while. There the bags are loaded 
 on a train which is waiting, and a part of the guard climbs 
 on with them, and the train runs on to Tien Tsin. 
 
 While Tien Tsin was an open port the mail was taken 
 directly aboard ship, but the place is frozen up like 
 Peking, now, and the new route is away to the north. 
 The bags are taken to another post-office which we have at 
 Tien Tsin, and there they are opened and each piece of 
 mail is counted to see that none has been lost. The next 
 morning at daybreak another wagon comes, and another 
 guard of cavalry, and the trip north is begun. It is sixty 
 miles to Than-ge-han, the nearest point on the Russian 
 railroad, and it is across the bleakest, coldest country you 
 can imagine. This journey requires two days, thirty 
 miles being a day's work for the four-mule team and the 
 cavalry horses. The mail gets to Than-ge-han at dark on 
 the second day, and there is a train on the Russian rail- 
 road waiting for it. From this place to Chang-men-soo is 
 about sixty miles, and the Russian railroad uses up
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 187 
 
 five hours in the trip. At Chang-men- soo there is a dock 
 and a guard of cavalrymen. The mail bags are sealed 
 and turned over to the soldiers, and are kept there until 
 the arrival of the steamer. 
 
 The United States has chartered a special steamer to 
 carry the mail from Chang-men-soo, which is the nearest 
 open port tO' Shanhaikwan, the end of the great wall of 
 China, to Nagasaki in Japan. The mail is put aboard this 
 steamer when she arrives, and makes a five-day trip down 
 the Gulf of Pechili to Japan. From Japan there are the 
 regular lines of steamers, and the mail goes to Honolulu 
 and thence to San Francisco, and across the United States 
 to Brooklyn. You see it is a pretty big job to get mail 
 from the Temple of Agriculture in Peking to you in 
 Brooklyn, but Uncle Sam is doing it in fine shape, and all 
 for five cents a letter. I wouldn't want his job. 
 
 There isn't anything in the way of news that I can tell 
 you to-day, except that Li Hung Chang sent word 
 this morning to General Chafifee to know if it would 
 be convenient for him to call to-morrow. Of course it will 
 be, and I expect to see him down here in the afternoon. 
 Some people say that General Chaffee has been making 
 some bad breaks lately, in the diplomatic way, but I 
 haven't said anything about them in my dispatches. He 
 doesn't pretend to be a diplomat, but he is a fighter. He 
 takes off his hat to no man, and his heart is in the right 
 place, 
 
 Peking, Monday, December lo, being the nineteenth 
 day of the tenth moon of the 26th year of the 
 reign of H. I. M. Kuang Hsu. 
 
 It was a gala-day in camp to-day. His Excellency Li 
 Hung Chang called on General Chaffee with a retinue of 
 servants. Li came in a sedan chair. It was the first 
 time in his life that he had ever visited the Temple of 
 Agriculture. You see, the Temple of Agriculture, where 
 we are living, and the Temple of Heaven, where the 
 British are living, are the two most sacred spots in the 
 whole Chinese Empire. Nobody' has a right to go in- 
 side of them except the personal attendants of the Emperor 
 himself, when he once a year visits them to ask the
 
 188 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 blessings of Heaven and Earth on his empire, and al- 
 though Li Hung Chang is an Earl of the first rank, and 
 is and has been the highest official in China, next to the 
 Emperor himself, so sacred were these places that he, 
 until to-day, had never seen the inside of them. 
 
 As I have told you before, Li is old and rather feeble 
 now, and everywhere he goes he has to be assisted. To- 
 day his servants helped him out of his chair and into 
 General Chaffee's sitting room, where were gathered the 
 General and all his staff. Cigars were passed around, 
 but he did not take any. He took a cigarette, instead, 
 and one of his servants put it in a long holder. He 
 smoked half of it, and then the servant took it away from 
 him and began filling a little Chinese pipe. From then on 
 it was a sight. The big buck Chinaman handled the 
 pipe. He held it poised in front of Li and every time 
 he had a chance he made a jab at the old man's mouth. 
 Sometimes he hit the hole and sometimes he didn't. 
 Mostly he didn't. Li went right on talking as though 
 nothing was happening. When the pipe man did hit the 
 hole Li would go puff, puff, puff, three times, and the 
 man would take the pipe away from him and would clean 
 and refill it. 
 
 One of the first questions Li asked was how old the 
 General was. This is Chinese politeness. General Chaffee 
 said he was fifty-eight and Li complimented him on his 
 spryness. Then he took up each article in the room and 
 wanted to know what it cost — more Chinese politeness. 
 He complimented the American soldiers and wanted to 
 know what they cost. When General Chaffee told him it 
 cost about $1000 a year to keep an American soldier, I 
 thought the old man would fall out of his chair. He was 
 astonished beyond measure. 
 
 After his visit in the General's room Li went over to the 
 platform where the Emperor annually prostrates himself 
 before High Heaven and watched a dress parade of the 
 Ninth Infantry. Then he examined a gun such as the 
 soldiers carried. Finally he went over to the cavalry 
 camp, where supper was already cooked, and he stuck both 
 his nose and his fingers in every dish and marveled aloud 
 at the idea of giving such good food to common soldiers.
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 189 
 
 Captain Hutchinson and one or two of the officers walked 
 out to the gate with the chair. The interpreter went 
 with them and also the big Chinaman who carried huge 
 fur coats to keep Li warm. Getting back far enough to 
 be out of hearing, one of them asked in Chinese if he 
 couldn't join the army. He said that he was ready to 
 join on the spot if they would take him, and that all the 
 other servants would do the same. 
 
 " Right now ? " demanded Captain Hutchinson. 
 
 " Yes, now," said the volunteer. 
 
 " But what would you do with His Excellency ? " asked 
 the Captain. 
 
 The Chinaman made a motion that indicated that he 
 would drop him on the ground and said, " Leave him." 
 
 " Here ? " demanded the Captain. " How could he 
 get home ? " 
 
 The Chinaman shrugged his shoulders, as much as to 
 say it did not matter to him. 
 
 The Captain of course told the fellow that he was 
 sorry, but it was impossible to take a Chinaman in the 
 American army, and the rascal seemed to be very much 
 disappointed. After this I heard that none of Li's ser- 
 vants get a cent of pay. All they get is their food, and the 
 honor of working for him makes up the rest. I also heard 
 that while Li is a rich man, he is absolutely strapped, 
 here, and hasn't money enough to pay his expenses. 
 With the country disturbed as it is, there is no money 
 coming in and he has no income. He cannot get money 
 from the South and if he does not succeed in borrowing 
 some soon he won't have enough to eat. He will probably 
 get some from the banks, because they are permanent in- 
 stitutions, and when the trouble is all over he can make 
 them pony up in great shape, so they will be very likely 
 to buy his favor now. 
 
 Peking, China, Tuesday, December ii, 1900, being 
 the twentieth day of the tenth moon of the 26th 
 year of the reign of H. L M. Kuang Hsu. 
 I got another letter from home, to-day, that was a wel- 
 come messenger. It was dated October 26 and I felt 
 when I got it that I was very rapidly catching up with
 
 190 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 the times. Of course, I would have had it much sooner, 
 but, Uke the others, it took a few days off in Japan. I 
 certainly was under the impression that in one of those 
 Shanghai letters I wrote I told you to address me either 
 at Tien Tsin or Peking, but I guess I must be mis- 
 taken. 
 
 It's the old story to-day, again, of no news. At 
 least, there is nothing that will be news by the time 
 you get this letter, though I expect that before that time 
 I shall have been roundly damned by a big proportion of 
 at least one class of the people in the United States. That 
 is the class that support the missionaries, some of whom 
 out here have disgraced the Church and Christianity. 
 Considering all that has happened I think that I have kept 
 my hands off these people pretty well. I have pro- 
 tected them certainly more than they deserved, and it 
 had been my intention to write nothing at all about 
 them unless I was ordered to do so. But events shaped 
 themselves so that it was necessary for me to send to 
 The Sun a few bald facts which, if they were printed, 
 have probably stirred up a muss. It is possible that 
 The Sun thought it best not to print them, but it was my 
 business to send them just the same. 
 
 I think I have told you something about the offenses 
 these men have committed. I will not go into further 
 detail. It is sufficient to say that their conduct to-day 
 is not improved in the least. They are still living in 
 stolen houses and paying their expenses from the pro- 
 ceeds of the sale of their thefts. Some of them are still 
 selling stuff that they individually stole or that was 
 stolen by their so-called Christians under their personal 
 direction. 
 
 Well, at the meeting of the ministers, to-day. Sir 
 Ernest Satow, the British Minister, made a remark that 
 is responsible for a row, if there has been a row. Pichon, 
 the French Minister, brought up the question of in- 
 demnity for native Christians. The native Christians, 
 of course, are Chinese citizens, and China has the legal 
 right, if she has not the moral right, to do what she 
 pleases with them. So long as we recognize her as a 
 nation we have no more right to come to China and tell
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 191 
 
 Her what she may do, or what she may not do, with her 
 own citizens than she has to come to America and tell us 
 what we may, or what we may not, do with our own 
 citizens. The situation is perhaps a little different in 
 China, because China has made treaties with various 
 Christian countries in which she agrees that converts to 
 the Christian religion shall not be oppressed. That is 
 not the language, but it is the meaning. Of course, the 
 countries might say, " You have violated your treaties 
 with us," and exact a punishment for the violation, but 
 that is certainly as far as they could go. 
 
 Now, France poses before the world as the protector of 
 missionaries. Her own missionaries are all Catholics 
 and they have for years enjoyed rights in China that no 
 other missionaries have enjoyed. But that is not the 
 point. Since the raising of the siege in Peking the 
 Catholic Cathedral here has at times been turned into 
 a salesroom for stolen property. I talked to-day with a 
 man who had himself purchased more than 7,000 taels, 
 worth of stolen property from this man. The word 
 " stolen " is, of course, pretty harsh. The army softens 
 it into loot, and the missionaries speak of it as " reim- 
 bursement." What it really is is taking property be- 
 longing to another against the wishes of the owner and 
 converting it into money and using that money for pur- 
 poses not sanctioned by the owner, and if the dictionary 
 does not define that as stealing then there must be some- 
 thing wrong with the dictionary. 
 
 But to get down to the story. At this Ministers' meet- 
 ing, the French Minister said that his Government wished 
 him to impress upon his colleagues the justice of a demand 
 on China that she should pay to the native Christians 
 sums suflficient to cover all their losses during the recent 
 disturbances. To this Sir Ernest Satow retorted, in 
 effect, that while that might be a very desirable thing 
 elsewhere, so far as Peking and the country adjacent was 
 concerned he thought all his colleagues would agree with 
 him in saying that the native Christians had indemnified 
 themselves. That was a bald statement — an unfortunate 
 fact that could not be disputed, and that was not disputed, 
 by any of his colleagues. Even Pichon did not deny it,
 
 192 orderedtochina: 
 
 and did not attempt to make any reply to it. When tha? 
 fact came to be put in the cable it had to be explained, 
 because the people in England and the United States do 
 not understand the situation in China as we do who are 
 right here. I put the explanation as mildly as the facts 
 would warrant. If The Sun printed it you no doubt 
 have already read it. If it did not, here is the gist of the 
 explanation : 
 
 " The remark of Sir Ernest Satow was due to the un- 
 bridled thieving of the native Christians. They have 
 stolen everything they could lay their hands on. They 
 have been encouraged in it by the carnival of loot that dis- 
 graced Peking. The missionaries excused themselves and 
 their Christians by saying that they had the right to re- 
 imburse themselves for their losses. Some of the mis- 
 sionaries are still selling the products of their stealing, but 
 most of them have sold out. To these people nothing 
 was sacred. They stole and sold even the little brass gods 
 that the Chinese worshiped." 
 
 Now I suppose you will accuse me of writing you a 
 lot of stuff that cannot possibly interest you. Patience is 
 a virtue, and I wanted you to know the facts if anything 
 has been said of a disagreeable character. That is my 
 excuse for writing this letter, and now good-night. I 
 will try not to burden my letters to-morrow with such 
 stuff. 
 
 Peking, Wednesday, December 12, being the twenty- 
 first day of the tenth moon of the 26th year of the 
 reign of H. I. M. Kuang Hsu. 
 
 I suppose I was foolish yesterday to write you that 
 long letter about the missionaries, because very likely 
 The Sun did not print the dispatch and nothing has been 
 said about it. But if it was printed, and brought out 
 some mean rejoinders, I wanted you to know the reason 
 for the assault. I did not want you to think it was a 
 gratuitous blow at the Christians, given without a proper 
 excuse. Now we will let the matter drop. 
 
 This has been a mighty dull sort of a day, with scarcely 
 anything to break the monotony. The weather was so 
 fine that I gave my pony a rest and walked the four miles
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 193 
 
 to the Legation and back. To-night I sent off a dis- 
 patch, attempting to show the necessity for hurrying 
 along the peace negotiations. A Chinaman who is in my 
 employ told me of a conversation that Li Hung Chang 
 had, in which Li made some statements about China's 
 willingness to make proper amends. There wasn't any- 
 thing particular in the talk except that it showed that 
 China is in the right mood to accept the terms the powers 
 will present to her, and for that reason every day's delay 
 by the powers in making their demands is dangerous. 
 The way of the heathen is peculiar, and there is no 
 telling when she will change her mind. While her 
 power to resist any demand that may be made is prac- 
 tically nil, she can hold off and dally and cause a heap of 
 trouble if she makes up her mind to do so. England is 
 delaying the whole negotiations and my dispatch was 
 aimed at her. The London Times man also sent off a 
 dispatch, the tenor of which was the same, and I guess 
 that is the story of the day. 
 
 This letter is short, but yesterday's was long, so the 
 two will even matters up and I'll say good-night again. 
 
 Peking, Thursday, December 12, 1900, being the 
 twenty-second day of the tenth month of the 26th 
 year of the reign of H. L M. Kuang Hsu. 
 
 I wonder if these weeks slip by as quickly with you as 
 they do with me. Truly, I hardly realize that they have 
 begun when I find that they are gone. I am always a 
 day or two behind in my dates, and always have to look 
 at a calendar to make sure, either when I write a letter or 
 a telegram. Here is Thursday, and half an hour ago, 
 before I had looked the matter up, I think I would have 
 sworn that it was Tuesday. As I have heard you re- 
 mark once or twice, tempus is certainly fugitin' in great 
 shape. 
 
 I got the unpleasant news to-day that the cable between 
 Hong Kong and Shanghai had broken down again, and 
 that all the cables sent off the past week or two had been 
 going via Vladivostock, which means, I suppose, that the 
 newspaper matter filed is still lying in the cable office at 
 Shanghai and will stay there until the cables are mended.
 
 194 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 So, very likely, the office thinks I have gone off on a 
 vacation again. 
 
 Generally speaking, there is the greatest misconception 
 among people, and particularly cable people, as to the 
 value of a newspaper dispatch. They lose sight entirely 
 of the fact that every dispatch of a few hundred words 
 represents an investment of at least $i,ooo,and perhaps of 
 several thousand dollars ; that it is what might be termed 
 perishable goods, and that every hour's delay makes it so 
 much less valuable, while if the delay is a day or two it 
 loses its value entirely and represents so much money 
 thrown away. That is the fact, nevertheless. In spite 
 of the fact that the newspapers are the best customers a 
 cable company has in times like these, and that the income 
 from them is regular, the newspaper matter filed with a 
 cable company is always the last to be sent away. The 
 result, of course, is that thousands of dollars are lost by 
 the papers. 
 
 There are two new institutions starting up in Peking. 
 Both are clubs. One is the American Officers' Club, 
 which is being started in the Temple of Agriculture. All 
 of the officers of the army stationed here are members. I 
 am not eligible for full membership, but have been 
 elected an honorary member, which gives me the privilege 
 of the club. The other is the International Club, which is 
 made up of the officers of all the armies, the members of 
 the Diplomatic Corps, and such civilians as care to join 
 who are acceptable. I have not joined this yet, but I 
 shall do so, because it will be a gathering place for all 
 nationalities and a center for news. Therefore it will 
 be necessary for me to be a member, though I care noth- 
 ing at all about the club. 
 
 I got hold of a couple of little curios to-day in the shape 
 of a mandarin seal and a miniature bronze incense burner. 
 The seal is like a nest of boxes. It is of brass and there 
 are four pieces to it, each piece having a different seal 
 on every side. All told there are sixteen seals. It is 
 quite a curiosity. The man who had it (a Chinaman) 
 wanted $io for it. I offered him $i and he took it. 
 The other little curio is a fancy bronze piece that will be 
 very pretty, I think, when it is polished. It is on a little
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 195 
 
 wooden stand, which is in itself an indication that it is a 
 good piece, for the reason that the Chinese never build 
 a hardwood stand to hold a piece of any sort unless the 
 piece itself is a good one. I am going to cash them both 
 away in my trunk. 
 
 Peking, China, Friday, December 14th, 1900, being 
 the twenty-third day of the tenth moon of the 
 26th year of the reign of H. I. M. Kuang Hsu, 
 
 I guess I shall again be compelled to fall back on 
 Chinese characteristics to make letters sufficiently inter- 
 esting to save you from being absolutely bored to death. 
 In Peking, as everywhere else, there is a sameness about 
 the daily routine that becomes exceedingly wearisome. 
 You think I see new faces and new things every day, 
 and that hence life is one continual round of things to 
 write about. But that's a mistake, for new things become 
 old quickly, once you see them, and things in Peking are 
 getting very old indeed. Curiosity has been satisfied, 
 and it's very hard indeed to keep up the interest. How- 
 ever, I'll travel along. 
 
 This morning I was going through the Imperial City 
 when I saw a Chinaman dressed in a garment that looked 
 like a tiger-skin, and thereby hangs a tale — a tail, by the 
 way, hung from the garment. The fellow was suffi- 
 ciently interesting for me to inquire about, and I found he 
 was one of the Imperial army. He belonged to the 
 Tiger Brigade. Now don't laugh and I'll tell you 
 about it. 
 
 It seems that the Chinese have an idea that noise is a 
 frightful thing. You really wouldn't think that this was 
 true if you were in Peking a moment and listened to the 
 din, or spent a minute or two watching the progress of a 
 conversation between two Chinamen, or, particularly, two 
 Chinese women. But it is the fact. And if noise can be 
 associated with an object of which the ordinary man is 
 afraid, so much the better. The ordinary man, of course, 
 is afraid of a tiger, so what could be better than a brigade 
 of tigers to strike terror to the hearts of your enemies. 
 Now tigers are plentiful in this benighted country, but 
 they are not easily caught nor are they easily trained, so
 
 196 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 handling as many as a thousand of them would be exceed- 
 ingly interesting, if not dangerous. Real tigers are really 
 not necessary. If you can make your enemy believe you 
 have a thousand trained tigers coming to devour him, 
 that is just as good as if you had the tigers, and that is 
 the secret of the Tiger Brigade. 
 
 The Chinese have not a thousand, but several thousand, 
 of these tiger soldiers. They make uniforms for them of 
 bright yellow cloth and on this they paint the black stripes 
 in imitation of the tiger's skin. They sew on a striped 
 tail and the tiger soldier is ready to go forth to battle. In 
 war times the brigade is put right to the front of the 
 army. When the army gets near the enemy — near 
 enough to be seen plainly — the tiger soldiers drop on their 
 hands and knees and begin to roar as loudly as their lungs 
 will let them. If the imagination of the enemy is good 
 and strong, like that of a Journal reporter, he immediately 
 sees several thousand ferocious tigers advancing upon 
 him to devour him and he runs as if Old Nick himself 
 were after him. Now what do you think of that for an 
 idea in the year of our Lord 1900? It is not much 
 wonder, is it, that anybody who wants to can step in and 
 whip China, or that she is almost powerless to resist any 
 attack that can be made on her. Yet there are people 
 living who talk about " the yellow peril " and the invasion 
 and over-running of Europe by it — the peril being the 
 Chinese who use tiger brigades ! The longer we live the 
 more we learn. 
 
 Peking, Saturday, December 15, 1900, being the 
 twenty-fourth day of the tenth moon of the 26th 
 year of the reign of Kuang Hsu, H. I. M. 
 
 Sir Ernest Satow, the British Minister, has at last 
 heard from his Government about the preliminary de- 
 mands that are to be made on the Chinese, and, of course, 
 he has got to have a change made in the note ! How 
 long this thing is going to keep up Heaven only knows. 
 It may be that the other fellows will agree to the new 
 propositions and it may be that they won't. The danger 
 is that if England gets this change that she wants, one 
 of the others will want a change, and so the matter will
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 197 
 
 go off again for weeks. I certainly hope it won't, but 
 there is no telling what will happen. They seem all to 
 agree, one day, as to what they want, and the next day 
 they agree to disagree, and so it goes. 
 
 This leads me to remark that ninety days ago China 
 said to the powers : " I have been wrong ; I have com- 
 mitted offenses against you. I acknowledge, now, that I 
 was wrong, and I am willing to do anything in my power 
 to repair the damage. I will pay you whatever in- 
 demnity you demand. I will punish my officials who 
 have been responsible for this trouble. I want peace. 
 Tell me what you want me to do, and, if it is in my 
 power, I will do it. I appoint Li Hung Chang and 
 Prince Ching, my two most eminent and respected sub- 
 jects, to treat with you. Tell them what you want and I 
 will do it." 
 
 That's one side. For a month before China said this, 
 and every day since then, the whole world has shouted at 
 her, " Peace ! Peace ! Peace ! " Now let us see what the 
 representatives of the whole world have done. Have 
 they let her have peace? Not by a jugful. They have 
 sent out expeditions to kill her citizens and loot her vil- 
 lages. They have driven her army over the border of at 
 least one province, and have left the people of that prov- 
 ince — those whom they have not killed — the prey of 
 bands of robbers and outlaws. They have violated every 
 law of civilized warfare. The Geneva Convention formu- 
 lated the rules of civilized warfare and not one article of 
 that convention has been respected — not one. Ninety 
 days have passed and military expeditions are still going 
 on. Chinamen are being killed. Villages are being 
 robbed and destroyed. Bands of Christians — Christians, 
 mind you — are levying blackmail with more expertness 
 than Tammany Hall herself ever displayed. For ninety 
 days China has held up her hands, whipped. She has 
 declared, " Pve had enough," and murder and robbery 
 have been the answer of civilized nations. What would 
 you think of a dozen powerful men who jumped on an 
 imbecile and beat and kicked him as he lay helpless, plead- 
 ing for mercy? I know what I would think and I must 
 say that the expression of my thoughts is unfit for.
 
 198 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 publication. A more disgraceful spectacle surely never 
 was seen in this world's history. 
 
 Having relieved my mind, I will now change the 
 subject. I don't know what has happened to Pek- 
 ing weather, but for a week now it has simply been 
 delightful. There has been no wind to speak of, and 
 little dust, and the crisp cold has been fine. Here Christ- 
 mas is coming on and I don't know what in the world I 
 am going to do without you all, but it's got to be done. I 
 thought a month ago, when I wrote you Christmas letters, 
 that I would dismiss the subject, but I guess I won't 
 be able to do it. I certainly hope that you have received 
 my Christmas packages. There wasn't much, and I 
 have not yet succeeded in getting ofif the one for G. and 
 C, but Peking is not the ideal place to get Christmas 
 gifts, as I told you at the time. 
 
 Well, Pm going to stop right here and now or Pll be 
 getting blue. 
 
 Peking, Sunday, December i6, 1900. The same being 
 the twenty-fifth day of the tenth moon of the 26th 
 year of the reign of Kuang Hsu, H. I. M. 
 
 A new boarder came to camp to-day. His name is 
 B., and he represents The Herald. His entry was 
 not a particularly happy one, and I have an idea that his 
 stay won't be an altogether happy one, either. He rather 
 started in wrong. At Tien Tsin he sat himself down and 
 wrote a telegram to Mr. Cheshire, the Chinese Secretary 
 of the American Legation, saying, in peremptory fashion, 
 " Engage room for me and send cart to meet me." Now, 
 that's all right perhaps, when you are pretty well ac- 
 quainted, but when you have no more than a bowing 
 acquaintance with a fellow it is a more or less unfortunate 
 way to approach him. Mr. B.'s reception at the Lega- 
 tion will, I think, be about four degrees colder than 
 the weather, which is in the neighborhood of zero. In 
 fact, I think he'll need a fur coat, though I may be mis- 
 taken. However, that's neither here nor there, and I don't 
 suppose it interests you in the least. Pll have to fall back 
 once more on Chinese characteristics to get you in good 
 humor.
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 199 
 
 I've learned that in dealing with the Chinaman you 
 must always remember that he thinks you are a fool and 
 that you must govern yourself accordingly. If you don't 
 you will be cheated, and let me say right here that the 
 Chinaman's judgment of the man he is dealing with is 
 generally correct, particularly if the customer is an 
 American, the Americans being living examples of the 
 saying, " a fool and his money are soon parted." But to 
 get back to the Chinese characteristic. If you want to 
 buy something of a Chinaman and he tells you the price 
 and you say you'll take it at that price, just as like as not, 
 after making the sale, the Celestial will go off and commit 
 suicide, on the ground that he is losing his business judg- 
 ment. He will think how much more he might have 
 charged you and will count the difference as an absolute 
 and inexcusable loss. So, if it ever falls to you to deal 
 with a Chinaman, remember that by refusing to buy at 
 his price you are probably saving his life. With this 
 short lesson in Chinese trading, I'll close for the day. 
 
 Peking, Monday, December 17, 1900. The same being 
 the twenty-sixth day of the tenth moon of the 
 26th year of the reign of H. I. M. Kuang Hsu. 
 
 Chinese mourning for departed relatives is one of the 
 queer things I think I haven't told you a great deal about. 
 If I remember rightly, I told you in a Shanghai letter 
 about the wallers who are employed to illustrate the in- 
 tensity of the grief of the bereaved, so I won't repeat that, 
 but what I want to tell you now was brought to my mind 
 by the sight of one of the most miserable creatures that 
 I have ever laid eyes on. He was dirty beyond descrip- 
 tion, and his hair, instead of being neatly braided, was 
 disheveled. It hung over his eyes. It was a sight to 
 behold. He looked, in fact, as near a wild man as one 
 can imagine. I was riding along at the time with 
 Pethick, the American Secretary of Li Hung Chang. 
 Now, in the American District, the most severe punish- 
 ment ever inflicted on a Chinaman is to cut off his pig- 
 tail. When a man is caught stealing, his pigtail is cut. 
 As I said, this creature's hair was not braided and it 
 Struck me at once that he had been caught stealing and
 
 200 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 that his hair had been cut and had not grown long enough 
 again to braid. I said to Pethick, " There's a miserable- 
 looking old thief." 
 
 Pethick looked at the man a moment and said, " Oh, no, 
 you're wrong. That man is a merchant. I know him 
 well. He is in mourning for his father," 
 
 " What ! " I said. 
 
 " Yes," said Pethick, " his father died about nine 
 months ago. I remember it very well, and that's the boy, 
 mourning." 
 
 The " boy " was fully fifty years old. Then I learned 
 that in some of the writings of Confucius it is said that a 
 parent should be mourned for three years, and that rule 
 is followed by the Chinese. There is a regular official 
 period of mourning, recognized by law, and, in the case 
 of officials of the Government, enforced by law, too. 
 When parents of an official die, the official goes into re- 
 tirement for three years. If he is a valuable official, his 
 sentence may be commuted to two years, two years of 
 good solid mourning being equivalent to three years of 
 the ordinary kind. During this period of mourning the 
 child must indulge in no pleasure or entertainments of 
 any kind. For a large part of the time he wears white 
 clothing, white being the mourning color. It is the 
 custom to let the hair grow and never cut it until the 
 period of mourning is over. It is also the custom to go 
 unwashed. Soap and water and cleanliness are not con- 
 sistent with sorrow. The man we saw, who brought out 
 these facts, was just doing a good job of mourning. 
 
 In connection with all this show of sorrow I must tell 
 you the custom immediately preceding death. When 
 the doctor gives up all hope for the patient, the head of 
 the house sends for the undertaker. He awaits him in 
 the room where the patient is sick and the conservation 
 goes on in a loud voice something like this. 
 
 " What are you charging to-day for coffins ? " 
 
 " One hundred strings of cash." 
 
 "What, lOO strings of cash? Why, that is robbery! 
 I won't pay any such outrageous price. I won't get a 
 
 coffin, you , at any such price. No, I'll bury 
 
 without a coffin."
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 201 
 
 " Well, what do^ you offer ? " 
 
 " Fifty strings." 
 
 " Ridiculous. I'd want that much just for handling the 
 body of such a miserable creature." 
 
 About this time, if the patient has the strength, he or 
 she usually joins in the conversation and abuses the un- 
 dertaker warmly, swearing by all the gods that if he is 
 going to commit a highway robbery of that sort, the 
 dying will be postponed. Not under any circumstances 
 would the patient consent to die when such a price was to 
 be charged for a coffin. The undertaker talks back. He 
 abuses the patient, and probably says he doesn't care a 
 whoop whether he or she dies or not. If the patient 
 wants to be mean about it and not die, just because a 
 reasonable price is to be charged for a coffin, all right ; he 
 don't care, anyway, for a neighbor up the street is going 
 to die in a day or two, and probably he'll be too busy to 
 attend to the funeral. 
 
 Well, this conversation goes on until finally the coffin is 
 purchased for, say, sixty strings of cash, and the other 
 arrangements for the funeral, such as lining the inside 
 of the house with white and getting white stuff for the 
 mourning clothing, are completed. If the patient did 
 have sufficient strength to engage in the bargaining, the 
 engagement probably used it all up and the arrangements 
 are completed none too soon. Queer people the Chinese 
 are, are they not? 
 
 Peking, Tuesday, December i8, being the twenty- 
 seventh day of the tenth, moon of the 26th year of 
 the reign of Kuang Hsu, and by actual count the 
 128th time that I have sat me down to write since 
 I left home. 
 You will notice that I have changed the headline of my 
 letter. It is not a permanent change. It just occurred to 
 me that this was the 128th letter I had written. Heaven 
 knows I wouldn't try to keep a daily record of the num- 
 ber. It is all I can do to keep the two calendars running, 
 let alone additional data. 
 
 I have to relate to-dav a little social disturbance that 
 is ruffling the usually placid waters of Peking society.
 
 202 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 It relates to our German friends, the Hon. Mumm von 
 Schwarzenstein (something of a stumble over, that name, 
 isn't it? and I don't think you can blame me) and his 
 still more Honorable Nibs, the Field Marshal Count von 
 Waldersee. Mumm von Schwarzenstein is quite well 
 known in the United States, both through the wine that 
 he manufactures, i. e., Mumm's extra day (his relatives 
 actually manufacture it, I believe) and the fact that he 
 visited America on two or three occasions. Once he was 
 in Washington as the Secretary of the German Legation, 
 and again he was there to negotiate a special treaty with 
 us. Each time he was noted for the elaborateness of his 
 entertainments. On the other hand, the Field Marshal, 
 Count von Waldersee, is married to an American woman, 
 so you see the controversy between the distinguished pair 
 is necessarily of interest to Americans. 
 
 Mumm von Schwarzenstein is the German Minister to 
 China. He succeeded Baron von Kettler, who also had 
 an American wife, and who was killed early in the trouble 
 in Peking. Now the row is over a question of prece- 
 dence, the vexing subject that is the cause of all diplo- 
 matic rows that occur in these degenerate days. Von 
 Schwarzenstein, as the Minister from Germany, asserts 
 that of necessity he is the ranking man from his country 
 in China. Count von Waldersee, on the contrary, as- 
 serts that as one of the five Field Marshals, as a former 
 Chancellor of the German Empire, as the veteran of many 
 wars, and as the Commander of the Allied Forces, he is 
 the ranking man. Well, this difference of opinion is a 
 most serious affair, for the reason that it is impossible for 
 Germany's two distinguished statesmen to appear in 
 public together. It makes it impossible for the Minister 
 even to invite the Field Marshal to take a diplomatic 
 dinner with him. It makes it impossible for the Field 
 Marshal even to invite von Mumm to have a military 
 dinner with him. It makes it impossible for the Minister 
 of any other country even to invite von Mumm and the 
 Field Marshal to take dinner at their home on the same 
 day, and, up to the present time, it has made it impossible 
 for the other Ministers even to have the Field Marshal 
 present at a dinner when any other Minister is present.
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 203 
 
 Sad, isn't it? No mortal man can tell how many good 
 dinners these statesmen have missed. Dinners are like 
 the wheel and the water, you know — the wheel will never 
 turn again with the water that has passed, and you can 
 bet your bottom dollar that when a dinner in China is 
 missed it is gone for good. They are a scarce article, 
 anyway. 
 
 At the present moment there seems to be a little chance 
 that the controversy may be ended. H. G. S. of 
 the American Legation was the first one to crack the ice. 
 S. is the Secretary of the Legation. Mrs. S. does 
 considerable entertaining and she has been making a 
 great deal of von Waldersee. In order to test things 
 she sent out an invitation to dinner, last week, to a num- 
 ber of diplomats, including the Russian Minister M. de 
 Giers, and the Spanish Minister M. de Cologon and to 
 Field Marshal Count von Waldersee. She put the 
 question plumply to the Ministers as to whether or not a 
 Minister ranked a Field Marshal who commanded the 
 armies of the powers and whether the Field Marshal or 
 the Minister was entitled to the seat of honor at the table. 
 You understand, of course, there wasn't any question 
 about grub or crockery. Mr. S. guaranteed to 
 furnish the same food to the whole crowd and to give 
 them all clean plates and knives and forks and spoons. 
 It was merely the question of seating at the table. The 
 Ministers to whom this question was referred gave diplo- 
 matic answers. They said that of course they would be 
 honored to give to the Field Marshal Count von Wal- 
 dersee the post of honor. He was an old man with white 
 hair and a distinguished record of service for his country. 
 
 That didn't answer the question, exactly, but as the in- 
 vitations were out the Field Marshal would get the 
 best seat, it was all right according to Mrs. S.'s 
 idea. Needless to say, von Mumm was not a guest at 
 the dinner. One dinner having been pulled off success- 
 fully, as they say in the prize ring, it was decided to try 
 another, and the Hon. Ernest Satow, the British Min- 
 ister, decided to try his hand. He has sent out invitations 
 to a number of the Ministers and to Count von Wal- 
 dersee, and he proposes also to give the Count the seat
 
 204 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 of honor. So far as I have heard, the Hon. Mnmm von 
 Schwarzenstein is not included in Satow's Hst, either, and 
 it is quietly whispered that the Field Marshal gets the 
 post of honor on this occasion because he is made a 
 special guest of honor, and not because the Ministers are 
 of lesser rank. However that may be, Mumm von 
 Schwarzenstein is out another dinner and Count von 
 Waldersee is in one, or rather one will be in him. 
 
 I said that there was a prospect of the end of the con- 
 troversy. You see I base that on the fact that apparently 
 the plan is to starve von Mumm into submission. Of 
 course it will be a hard job, because when it gets down to 
 hard tack, Mumm von Schwarzenstein can eat his name, 
 and that, you must admit, will sustain him a long time, and 
 then he may fall back on the champagne his relations 
 make. How long a man can live on champagne I don't 
 know. I heard a rumor to-day that he might adopt 
 retaliatory measures and refuse to send any more wine 
 to the Ministers. He has made a practice of keeping 
 several of them in wine. When this rumor reached the 
 Ministers, of course, there was great excitement and talk 
 of appealing to Count von Waldersee, who is organizing 
 a local government in Peking forcibly to seize all the wine 
 Mumm has, on the ground that it has not paid any in- 
 ternal revenue tax. Whether the Count would take such 
 an extreme measure is a question. From this short sketch 
 you can see how serious this social row is. I'll try and 
 keep you informed on the developments. 
 
 Peking, Wednesday, December 19, being the twenty- 
 eighth day of the tenth moon of the 26th year of 
 the reign of H. I. M. Kuang Hsu. 
 
 There is nothing new to-day in the social disturbance. 
 Sir Ernest Satow's dinner, which was to have been given 
 next Sunday evening, has been postponed until a week 
 from Sunday. The Field Marshal will tighten his belt 
 in the meantime to prevent the pangs of hunger. 
 Whether Mumm von Schwarzenstein has begun to eat 
 his name yet I don't know. 
 
 But, to go back to a Chinese subject for a moment, it 
 may interest you to know that the Government of China
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 205 
 
 Is a paternal government. It's the paternalest govern- 
 ment on the face of the earth. I was looking over some 
 decrees of His Nibs, Kuang Hsu, the other day, and I 
 ran into a lot that went something like this : 
 
 " Wang Wen Shav, the Grand Secretariat, has again 
 applied to us for permission to resign his offices because 
 he is suffering severe bodily affliction and he has boils. 
 He has our sincere and heartfelt sympathy, but we con- 
 sider him too valuable an assistant to us in the manage- 
 ment of our affairs to think of letting him resign. We 
 therefore extend his leave of absence for two months, and 
 we direct our Commissioner of the Royal Household to 
 present to him one box of pills, which we hope will do 
 his stomach good and restore his health, that he may 
 return to our service. We also direct that the Com- 
 missioner give him two ounces of the best ginseng root, 
 that he may be the more speedily restored." 
 
 Now just imagine Secretary Hay, for instance, apply- 
 ing for the privilege of resigning his office as Secretary 
 of State, and the President issuing a special proclamation, 
 informing him that he can't resign, but that the Presi- 
 dent's butler will at once fill him full of pills to make him 
 feel better and then you have the situation. Funny 
 country, isn't it? 
 
 Peking, Thursday, December 20, 1900, Being the 
 twenty-ninth day of the tenth moon of the 26th 
 year of the reign of H. I. M. Kuang Hsu. 
 
 I'm sure I don't know when the blooming thing ever 
 will get over ! It seems to me, one day, that the end is 
 very near and that everybody will come to an agreement 
 quickly, and then, the next day, something happens and 
 everybody is at sixes and sevens. I'm getting mighty 
 tired of it, I can tell you. I am sending off by cable 
 every day as much as I think the thing is worth, but I'm 
 afraid all the time that it is more than the readers of 
 The Sun think it is worth. I don't hear anything from 
 the office, though, and so I guess it is all right. 
 
 I wrote you the other day that after my last batch of 
 letters went off you should not be surprised or worried 
 if for a while they came irregularly. The reason is that
 
 206 ORDERED TQCHINA 
 
 the magnificent mail system I took so much pains to tell 
 you about seems to have gone to pot. However, there 
 isn't any use of my telling you about it now, for long 
 before you get this letter it will have been fixed up again 
 and there won't be anything to complain of. When you 
 get this letter, though, along with a batch of twenty or 
 thirty, it will explain to you the delay and will assure you, 
 along with the twenty or thirty others that will have been 
 written before this and they leave here, that I haven't 
 forgotten you at all, no matter what you may think. 
 Our Government would not charter a boat to carry the 
 mail to Nagasaki because it would cost $i,ooo a day, and 
 we shall be practically without mail except such as is 
 carried by the Chinese Post or by courtesy of the Japa- 
 nese transport system until we unfreeze, which will be 
 along sometime early in the new year. 
 
 For this reason I'm going to cut my letters down short 
 for a while, though I will write every day as usual. I 
 don't want you to get a bunch so big that they will bore 
 you half to death. Now don't say my letters never bore 
 you. Perhaps they wouldn't if they came to you every 
 day, but when they come in batches of forty, more or less, 
 I know they will. About the time that you ought to be 
 getting them and don't I'll cable John Ward the word 
 " well " and he'll write you so that you'll hear from me 
 right up to date anyway. 
 
 Now, good-night. Nothing has happened to-day worth 
 a cent. With all my love for you and for the blessed 
 little ones .... 
 
 Peking, Friday, December 21, being the thirtieth day 
 of the tenth moon of the 26th year of the reign of 
 H. I. M. Kuang Hsu. 
 
 It's been another dull sort of a day, and it's getting on 
 near Christmas, and I'm free to confess that it's getting 
 sort of blue and lonesome. I was thinking, this after- 
 noon, that the packages and the Christmas letter I sent 
 you a month or so ago ought to have reached you by this 
 time and that you probably know I have done the best I 
 could. At least I certainly hope they went through all 
 right.
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 207 
 
 I have been invited, with Lieutenant Reeves, to take 
 dinner Christmas evening at the S.'s and I shall cer- 
 tainly accept the invitation. S., I think I told you, 
 is the First Secretary of the American Legation and he 
 has three children just about the age of ours. Mrs. 
 S. met Reeves and myself at the Legation the other 
 day and told me she was going to have a Christmas 
 tree for the children, so it will be a sort of imitation 
 Christmas for me, anyway, off here in China. The 
 Chinese of course don't have any Christmas, and things 
 will go on about the same here, just as if it were not a 
 holiday. 
 
 This, by the way, is one of the hardest things for me 
 to get used to. I don't mean the failure to celebrate 
 Christmas, but the continuous, never-ending work of 
 these people, day in and day out, and week in and week 
 out. At home I work myself, on Sunday, of course, but 
 most people don't and the day is entirely different. Here 
 it is always the same, never a change from one year's end 
 to another. By the way, I am going to hook on a cable 
 to my dispatch the day before Christmas, telling you all 
 Merry Christmas. That will be news right from the 
 heart, won't it ? But there is no use of telling you about 
 it here, seeing that you will have read it, digested it, and 
 forgotten all about it before you get this letter. 
 
 Peking, Sunday, December 23, being the second day of 
 the eleventh moon of the 26th year of the reign of 
 H. L M. Kuang Hsu. 
 
 This letter will have to answer for yesterday and to- 
 day, too. I was busy all day yesterday and I was tired 
 when it came time for letter writing. I didn't have a 
 thing new to tell you. There was no mail in sight, and 
 so I just went to bed and slept the sleep of the just on 
 the night of the First day of the Eleventh moon, etc. 
 
 The news to-day is very good. Late this afternoon I 
 heard that the note is all ready for delivery to the 
 Chinese, translations all made, and everything ship-shape, 
 and it is to be presented to-morrow. You couldn't ask 
 for better news than that, could you, after three months — 
 those weary months — of waiting? I won't believe it until
 
 208 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 the note is actually presented, but, at the same time, I 
 think that this time it is true. The Chinese have 
 been invited to come around and meet the Ministers. 
 Prince Ching will be there, but old Li Hung Chang is 
 sick in bed, and he won't be able to get about. He eats 
 the most awful mess of Chinese truck you ever heard of, 
 and tops it off with doughnuts fried in grease, and so 
 .full of it that if you squeeze them in your hands it runs 
 out. Then he suffers from indigestion, and he wonders 
 what it was that made him sick ! Imagine a man eighty 
 years old eating such awful truck as that and living. He 
 must have a constitution of iron. 
 
 But to return to the note. I have made a copy of it, 
 and I guess you have it by this time, for it was given out 
 in Washington the day it was signed, and it is my best 
 guess that the terms are so lenient that the Chinese will 
 agree to them in less than two days. Now, just look 
 back in the files of The Sun, when you get this letter, and 
 see if I am not right. I am getting to know something 
 about the Chinese character and the Chinese Govern- 
 ment, and it's my judgment that they are now ready to 
 quit, and have been ready to do so for a long time. They 
 will hold the note just long enough to " save their face," 
 and they will give in. See if the old man's judgment 
 is not correct for once. 
 
 Write me a long letter about the little ones, and 
 tell me how they are getting along. Seems to me 
 that my daughters are old enough to write me, and would 
 do it, even if their papa hasn't got the time to answer their 
 letters. Jog them up a bit on that. Tell W. that Pop 
 thinks a good deal about him, and is mighty glad he 
 didn't have to send that Mahatma from the Desert of 
 Gobi to Brooklyn to catch him for not going to school, 
 and tell C. that Fm afraid if his dad stays away 
 much longer, he will be so big that he won't know him. 
 
 Peking, December 25, 1900, being the fourth day of 
 the eleventh moon of the 26th year of the reign of 
 H. I. M. Kuang Hsu. 
 
 Christmas day, or rather Christmas night, and I've just 
 got back from the dinner I told yon I was going to eat
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 209 
 
 at the S's. I can assure you it wasn't a very 
 bright Christmas day for me, away from you and the 
 little ones, and with a guilty conscience because I had 
 again missed a day in writing. However, this time I had 
 a very good excuse. That plaguey note was presented, 
 and it took us so long to find out all about it, and there 
 was so much other work to do, that I simply didn't have 
 time to write more than a line, and so I didn't write that 
 because I couldn't think of anything satisfactory that 
 would go in a line. But now we are dealing in the events 
 of to-day and not of yesterday, so we'll put it behind. 
 
 I called on General Chaffee this morning, and we smoked 
 a cigar together, and wondered together what our respect- 
 ive families were doing by way of celebrating Christmas. 
 After that I went out on a still hunt for the news, and 
 got a mighty little. Then, when evening came, I dressed 
 up and with Reeves boarded a Peking cart, and started 
 for the S.'s. I've told you about Peking carts, haven't 
 I? They are an invention of Satan, made for the 
 sole purpose, I think, of making men cuss and say things 
 that will consign them to everlasting perdition. Now, of 
 all the carts that I have ever been in, I think this was 
 the joltiest, the jumpingest, and most villainous. The 
 road was like the rocky road to Dublin. It was bumpity- 
 bump, kock, jolt, smash, first on one side and then on the 
 other, and every minute or two we thought we were being 
 driven up through the roof. It was after such a ride as 
 that that the S.'s home was reached ; and maybe there 
 wasn't a fervent " Thank the Lord it's over! " from both 
 of us. A ride in a cart before dinner has this merit : 
 It is hard exercise. It jolts down everything there is in 
 you, and you have an appetite and room on top for food 
 that a week's starvation wouldn't produce. Besides 
 Reeves and myself, there were at the dinner Mr. and 
 Mrs. Conger, Mr. and Mrs. Rockhill, and Mr. Cheshire, 
 the interpreter of the Legation, or Chinese Secretary, I 
 think, is his title. 
 
 There isn't much to tell you about the dinner. It was 
 rather slow. It was just a good family dinner, and that's 
 all that could be said about it. Much to my disappoint- 
 ment there were no children there. We all had a look at
 
 210 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 the Christmas tree, which was handsomely trimmed, and 
 after that, and after dinner was over, S. trotted 
 out a phonograph and it sang songs to us. That was all. 
 We started home about 1 1 o'clock, still in the Peking cart, 
 and here we are the worse for wear, but with no bones 
 broken, for which we are duly thankful. It's long after 
 bedtime. I must say good-night, hoping you all had 
 a merrier Christmas than Dad. 
 
 Peking, Wednesday, December 26, being the fifth 
 day of the eleventh moon of the 26th year of the 
 reign of Kuang Hsu. 
 
 I think I'll move. Now, I don't claim that as an origi- 
 nal expression. It seems to me that I've heard it in the 
 neighborhood of Adelphi Street, sometimes. But it goes 
 here. I have forgotten now whether or not I told you of 
 Reeves' promotion. If I have, repeating it won't hurt. 
 He has been appointed Military Attache of the Ameri- 
 can Legation. Well, with such an appointment, of 
 course, he wants to live up nearer the Legation, and so do 
 I. It would lighten my work a good deal if I could get 
 a place to live up nearer where the news is than the 
 camp. We have hunted around in that direction and 
 have found an old Boxer temple, built something like 250 
 years ago. It is not used and we are going to fit it up and 
 move into it — that is, we are going to move into one 
 building in the temple. A temple, out here, as you 
 have probably gathered from my previous letters, is not 
 like a temple in the United States. There it is one build- 
 ing. Here it is always a big "compound," with a wall 
 around it. Inside the compound, usually, are many 
 buildings, and each building has its Josses and its heathen 
 paraphernalia. The Temple o' Agriculture, for instance^ 
 where our troops are quartered and where I now live, is 
 nearly two miles square. So is the Temple of Heaven, 
 which is across the Chienmaine street from us. The 
 name Temple of Heaven of course gives you the idea of a 
 single great building, but there are no less than twenty 
 buildings in the temple. 
 
 Well, to get back to this Boxer temple that is to be the 
 temporary home of Reeves and myself. It is situated in
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 211 
 
 Legation Street, which, by the way, is known to the 
 Chinese as the Street of the Subject Nations, not far 
 from the American Legation, During the siege it was 
 the chief Boxer headquarters of this part of the city. 
 It was here that the Boxers dragged the people whom 
 they suspected of being Christians and went through 
 their horrible rites, winding up with a so-called trial of 
 the accused. The trial consisted in lighting a fire in 
 a big fire-pot and then tearing up a handful of paper into 
 small bits. When the fire was well started the paper 
 would be put in the flames, and, of course, would go up 
 in smoke. If the smoke went straight up the victim was 
 not guilty, but if it spread out, as it would, of course, 
 when there was the slightest draft, the victim was guilty, 
 and the Boxers fell upon and killed him before you could 
 say Jack Robinson. Several tens of Christians, as the 
 Chinese would say, were killed in this manner by the 
 Boxers in this temple we are going to live in. 
 
 The temple was originally built, I am told, as a memo- 
 rial to the Manchu Prince who was killed in the fighting 
 that took place when the Manchus conquered the Chinese 
 250 or more years ago. For many years it was the cus- 
 tom for the Emperor to appoint certain Princes to visit 
 the temple frequently and to worship the dead Princes. 
 That died out and then the worshiping was all done 
 there by the Buddhist priests. Finally it was given up 
 altogether for fifty years. Until the Boxers took it as a 
 headquarters it was not used at all. On the grounds are 
 the entrances of two tunnels which were dug by the 
 Boxers. One of them runs to the wall of the Tartar 
 City, where the Chinese had a high barricade, from be- 
 hind which they fired into the Legations during the 
 siege. They could reach the wall and the barricade, by 
 means of the tunnel, without exposing themselves to the 
 fire of the people in the Legations. The other tunnel 
 runs almost to the British Legation, and it was un- 
 doubtedly built with the idea of putting a large quantity 
 of explosive in the far cnrl, when that end was under the 
 Legation, where the people were, and blowing them up. 
 The tunnel was not completed when the relief came 
 and the Boxers were put to rout. After the re-
 
 212 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 lief came the place was taken possession of by 
 W. N. P., the Secretary of Li Hung Chang, and C. D. J., 
 the representative of the Peking Syndicate. J. has fixed 
 up one house in it and P. has fixed up one for himself 
 and another for his library. Reeves and I will fix up 
 another. Of course I won't live in it a great while, 
 but Reeves may spend there the entire four years he is 
 to be in Peking. 
 
 Well, good-night again, and good-bye for another 24 
 hours. 
 
 Peking, December, 28, 1900, being the seventh day of 
 the eleventh moon of the 26th year of the reign of 
 H. I. M. Kuang Hsu, 
 
 Missed again, yesterday. I tell you Fm getting care- 
 less, don't you think so ? I was busy all day and tired all 
 night, so I didn't write. These last days of the old year 
 are busy ones for me. I don't remember ever having 
 done so much work and accomplished so little. I had a 
 long talk to-day with the Rev. A. of the American 
 3oard of Missions on missionary looting. He assured 
 me he had done nothing for which he was ashamed, and 
 I told him it was a fine thing to have a clear conscience 
 and to feel that way, but that if I had done what he had 
 done I should feel ashamed of myself, and I let him chew 
 on that a while. He assured me that he liked to meet a 
 man like me, who would speak his mind, and then I 
 offered him a page of The Sun to set forth the missionary 
 side of the looting of Peking. Offered him, mind you ! I 
 think I would give him $500 cash if he would do it. 
 
 Well, he rose to the bait like a trout and swallowed it, 
 hook, line, and sinker. I pinned him down to an absolute 
 promise, and it's just possible that he will keep it. Any- 
 way Fm going to keep after him until I get it out of him 
 if I can. It ought to be a great good story, and it will be 
 quite a feather in my cap if I can get it. He is the boss 
 American missionary out here. He really is a fine man, and 
 during the siege he was one of the bravest. Early in the 
 siege, when the small guard here refused to go to Fung 
 Chu to rescue the Christians there, he went alone and got 
 them. It was a thirty-two mile ride through the most
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 213 
 
 dangerous country there was. It was what happened 
 after the siege was over, when the looting began, that I 
 find fault with. At least, I don't find fault with it, but 
 it seems to me that it needs explanation. That's what I 
 want to get out of him in this story — his explanation. 
 
 Peking, December 28, 1900, being the eighth day of the 
 eleventh moon of the 26th year of the reign of 
 Kuang Hsu. 
 
 The British produced a play to-day in the Temple of 
 Heaven, and I think they have put their foot in it up to 
 the neck. I was over and saw it this afternoon, and it 
 was as full of fun as it could stick, but was the most 
 impolitic thing that could be imagined, and I miss my 
 guess if there isn't a lot of trouble over it. I sent a long 
 dispatch about it this afternoon, purely as a josh. You 
 see, out here in China, the personages of royalty are 
 sacred. The person on the throne is the Chinaman's god. 
 Just imagine a god of any kind doing a song and dance 
 for a houseful of foreign devils, the song being as fol- 
 lows : 
 
 " Now ever since I came to court, which wasn't yesterday, 
 I've done exactly as I chose in every single way. 
 But since these foreign devils showed their noses in the state 
 They've got the impudence to say, I'm not up to date. 
 There were none of your constitutional ways, red-tape and 
 quarter-page-margin ways, 
 When the late lamented Emperor first took me for a wife. 
 Imagine me a-going to school, to learn this country how to 
 rule, 
 Just fancy me on an official stool, at my time of life. 
 
 "They've stopped the good old-fashioned rule by which I used 
 to kill 
 Or mutilate or torture those who dared oppose my will. 
 All prisoners now are tried by a judge and jury tame. 
 But somehow Barrow manages to kill them just the same. 
 There were none of your trial-by-jury ways, your orderly-room 
 court-martial ways. 
 When the late lamented Emperor first took me for a wife. 
 Imagine me forbidden to speak, just fancy me before a beak, 
 Fined forty shillings or so a week, at my time of life. 
 
 " They've introduced in far Cathay a wonderful machine, 
 The foreign devils' bicycle, perhaps you all have seen.
 
 214 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 The Mandarins are scandalized because I've bought a pair, 
 When I go out the boys exclaim, What ho ! She bumps ! 
 
 There's air ! 
 There were none of your bent-back scorching ways, cinder- 
 trail and road-record ways, 
 When the late lamented Emperor first took me for a wife. 
 Just fancy me a-doing a spurt in a stuck-up collar and a fancy 
 shirt ; 
 Imagine me in a rational skirt at my time of life, 
 
 " They'll make me show in public in this Chinese fancy dress, 
 They'll make me pose for artists for the illustrated press. 
 And, oh, I blush to think of it, perhaps these devils rude, 
 Will use me as a model for their studies from the nude. 
 There were none of your photographic ways, your halfpenny- 
 illustrated ways, 
 When, the late lamented Emperor first took me for a wife. 
 Just fancy me this fine weather, posing as Venus among the 
 heather. 
 Imagine me in the altogether, at my time of life." 
 
 Now, in view of the fact that the powers are trying to 
 make peace with the rehct of the late lamented Emperor, 
 it does strike me that is going a few steps too far, and, as 
 I said before, I'll miss my guess if there isn't a row over 
 it. I have made arrangements to get the manuscript of 
 the piece, and I'm going to send it all on. I think the 
 production of this play was the chief event of the day, so 
 I won't bore you farther. 
 
 Peking, December 31, 1900, being the tenth day of the 
 eleventh moon of the 26th year of the reign of 
 Kuang Hsu. 
 I think it is going to be a very wet New Year's day 
 around this camp. General Chaffee has issued an invita- 
 tion to everybody who lives in the camp to visit him at 10 
 o'clock to-night, and to stay until some time the next 
 century, and we are all going to do it. I suppose that if 
 I were in New York now, I would be at this very 
 minute sitting in Perry's with E. R., waiting to hear 
 the bombardment of a new century begin. One year 
 ago to-night I was there with him. We'll have a cele- 
 bration here, no doubt, but it won't be in it with what 
 New York will do. It is pretty near 10 o'clock now, and 
 I want to get this letter finished in time to be on hand 
 when the fun begins.
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 215 
 
 Of course, in China, this is not the new year. It doesn't 
 come here until the first of the first moon, which is about 
 February 20. The Chinese, however, recognize our new 
 year in this : They pay New Year's calls, and all Chinese 
 servants are, on New Year's Day, entitled to a present 
 equal to one-half of a full month'-s wages. No matter if 
 the servant came to work only two or three days before 
 the New Year, it is the custom to pay him half a month's 
 wages extra. Presents of this kind in China are regulated 
 entirely by custom, and when a Chinaman goes to work 
 for you for a certain wage he counts on receiving the 
 regular gratuity just as certainly as he counts on receiv- 
 ing his wages. To fail to follow the custom is unpardon- 
 able. Your servant doesn't for an instant imagine that 
 you are too parsimonious to make the gift, but he lays it 
 to your ignorance of the custom, and here ignorance of 
 custom is absolutely unpardonable. You " lose face " 
 with the servant. He no longer respects you, and in all 
 probability he will refuse to work for you any longer, not 
 because you don't pay him well, but because you are ig- 
 norant and have " lost face." Well, we are not going to 
 " lose face " around this house, and we have the custom- 
 ary presents in bright new dollars to give to the heathen 
 ■when they come in in the morning to pay their respects. 
 
 I said that the Chinese recognized our New Year by 
 making New Year's calls. That is not strictly accurate, 
 for they do not make the calls on New Year's Day. What 
 they do on that day is to send around their cards and 
 tell on what day they will call to pay their respects. I 
 will enclose you a Chinese visiting card in this letter. I 
 got it this afternoon from a Chinaman I have helping 
 me with the Chinese news. He sent word that he would 
 call on Saturday and enclosed his card, which is a regu- 
 lar-sized Chinese visiting card, but is only half as large as 
 the card an official carries. It is something of a curiosity, 
 I think. I hear the band playing, and I guess I had better 
 wind up this letter if I want to be in and see the fun. 
 
 Peking, January i, 1901, being the eleventh day of the 
 
 eleventh moon of the 26th year of Kuang Hsu. 
 January once again. It surely was a blow-out that
 
 216 ORDERED TOCHINA 
 
 General Chaffee gave to welcome the New Year, and it 
 was participated in by every officer in the camp. The 
 party did not break up until 6 o'clock this morning. That 
 was some time in the new century with a vengeance, 
 wasn't it? He had a crowd of Chinese jugglers to start 
 the fun in the early evening, and by the time they had fin- 
 ished their stunts everybody was prepared to entertain 
 himself and everybody else. I fear even that some of 
 them forgot they were in China and not in the United 
 States ; not I, of course ; I have become so good out here 
 that the wings are growing out of my shoulder-blades, 
 and you will hardly know me when I get home. But 
 some of the crowd certainly did let loose and make things 
 hum. 
 
 These jugglers I mentioned were about the cleverest 
 people in that line I have ever seen. I'd like to tell you 
 all about them, but I fear it would not be interesting. 
 Tricks are things that are good to see, but impossible to 
 tell of interestingly. But there was one worth the telling. 
 One of the jugglers was a boy, scarcely fifteen years old. 
 He started in by making mystic passes, and then laid a 
 table-cloth down on the floor, perfectly flat and smooth. 
 He seized the middle of it and lifted it up, and there was 
 a bowl of water under it. Before we had a chance to 
 think where it had come from he produced another just 
 as mysteriously. It was larger than the first and was 
 swimming full. Then he conjured up a third and a 
 fourth, each bigger than the last, and finally he turned a 
 complete handspring and came up smiling with a regular 
 wash-bowl, full of water. The bowl was half as big as 
 he was himself. This was all right in front of our eyes, 
 and not one of us was able to find where the bowls came 
 from, or how the water got in them. I think the young- 
 ster could make his fortune with that trick alone in the 
 United States. 
 
 Well, after the juggler got through, there was a lot of 
 song-singing. At exactly midnight, there came a dead 
 silence for an instant^ and the band struck up " The 
 Star-Spangled Banner." Every man stood up with 
 bowed head and sang. I tell you, I don't believe the old 
 lune ever was better sung or was ever more inspiring.
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 217 
 
 It made tears come to everybody's eyes, and there was 
 that creepy feehng up and down the back that comes 
 when one is all worked up with emotion. Flags were 
 waved and the chorus rang out — " The Star-Spangled 
 Banner, in triumph shall wave. O'er the land of the free 
 and the home of the brave." Over and over again, the 
 song was sung, and everybody felt better and prouder 
 because he was an American. 
 
 This was followed by a bit of sentiment in the shape 
 of " Sweethearts and Wives," and that was sung through 
 three or four times. One of the youngster officers made 
 a bad break about that moment by offering this toast : 
 " Here's to our sweethearts and wives — may they never 
 meet." Well, most of the crowd were married men, and 
 in two shakes of a lamb's tail that youngster was stand- 
 ing on his head in a snowbank outside the door. 
 
 There were dozens of songs and a jolly good time. All 
 day to-day the General has had open house for all Ameri- 
 cans, and the fifty or sixty Americans in Peking have all 
 been to see him. This afternoon I called at the Legation 
 and paid my respects to the Minister and his folks, and 
 to the S.'s and Count von Waldersee. The Field 
 Marshal was at S.'s place, and I had a broken-Eng- 
 lish chat with him. All told, it hasn't been such a blue 
 New Year as you might imagine for one far away from 
 home. 
 
 Peking, January 3, 1901, being the thirteenth day of 
 the eleventh moon of the 26th year of the reign of 
 Kuang Hsu. 
 
 Yesterday was another one of those days when I didn't 
 write. I got the news from Singan Fu, where the 
 Court is, that everything looked favorable for the signing 
 of the treaty, and it kept me busy hustling, so when night 
 came I didn't feel like writing, and, there being no mail, I 
 didn't do it. Then, there was another event that made me 
 feel even better than the news from Singan Fu. That 
 was, I got two letters from " Home, Sweet Home." I 
 read them over two or three times, and maybe I didn't 
 enjoy them. I went around the proudest man in Peking, 
 I can tell you. Oh, by the way, dunderhead that I am,
 
 218 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 I do believe that I forgot to tell you that on the 26th day 
 of December at 2 p. m., I got your cable wishing me a 
 Merry Christmas, That was absolutely the best news 
 I had had since the day I left home. It was news straight 
 from home, and told me that you were all well and that 
 you had a thought of the absent one. I certainly must 
 be going daft not to have told you about it in the letter I 
 wrote you that day, for I was full up to the neck with 
 the subject, not only because of the receipt of the tele- 
 gram, but because of the row I had with the cable com- 
 pany over the cable I sent you. I put your cable on the 
 end of one of my dispatches. It began " Madam." The 
 next day I got a dispatch from the manager of the cable 
 company saying, " Your cable Sun New York Dec. 
 24 words Madam Christmas greeting not intended for 
 publication please explain." In sending press messages, 
 I must tell you, to get the reduced rate nothing must be 
 included in the message except what is intended for 
 publication. Well, I cogitated over this telegram from 
 the cable company a whole day. I was mad clear 
 through. Here I had been, giving them business 
 amounting to maybe a thousand dollars a day for months, 
 and they meant to kick over three words ! Finally I 
 concocted this diplomatic answer : " Words ' Madam 
 Christmas greeting ' in my message to The Sun, Dec. 
 24 were intended for The Sun, and The Sun could print 
 them if they wanted to." Then I chalked down one more 
 against the Cable Company in my book. I'll get square 
 with them some day. I haven't heard a word from them 
 since, and I trust that my explanation was satisfactory. 
 I'm sure I had no objection to The Sun's printing the 
 words if it wanted to. Had you? 
 
 Peking, January 4, 1901, being the fourteenth day of 
 
 the eleventh moon of the 26th year of the reign of 
 
 Kuang Hsu. 
 
 Some days ago I enclosed in a letter a Chinese visiting 
 
 card. Calling on Mr. P. this afternoon he gave me a 
 
 number, which I enclose in this letter. I think they are 
 
 curious enough to please the girls. I want them to save 
 
 and not destroy them, for they are the signatures of
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 219 
 
 some really famous men. First of all, there is the card 
 of Li Hung Chang-, who is by all odds the greatest living 
 Chinaman, and who is known by the world at large better 
 than any other Chinaman ever was. Dr. Martin, the 
 missionary, once wanted a favor, and he called on Li 
 Hung Chang to get it. Li did not favor the proposition 
 at first, and the two got to exchanging compliments as 
 is the Chinese custom. Dr. Martin finally said, " Your 
 Excellency, Europeans know but two Chinese names — 
 one is that of Confucius and the other is Li Hung 
 Chang." Dr. Martin, needless to say, got what he was 
 after. 
 
 Well, the first of this lot of visiting cards is that of Li 
 Hung Chang. The next is that of Prince Su. Prince 
 Su is the Eighth Prince of the Iron Helmet. At the 
 beginning of this present Manchu dynasty there were 
 eight Princes, and it was decreed that the title should 
 descend to the eldest son each time. It is not so with 
 other titles in China. A man may have the highest title 
 in the gift of the Empire. When he dies his son does 
 not inherit that title, but the one next lower, and the son 
 of this son inherits the one next lower, and so on. In a 
 few generations the lowest is reached and then there is no 
 title at all. So it is said with truth that the man who is 
 doing the most menial service for you may be the direct 
 descendant of a family of Kings, and so it goes, except 
 with the descendants of the eight original Princes, or 
 Princes of the Iron Helmet, as they are called. Prince 
 Su, whose card is enclosed, was the most pro-foreign of 
 all the royal Princes during the trouble last Summer. 
 His Fu, which is Chinese for Palace, is directly opposite 
 the British Legation. At a critical moment during the 
 siege he left it and let the native Christians take refuge 
 in it. His kindness was reciprocated by the looting of the 
 place. His silverware was obtained by Sir Claude 
 MacDonald, the British Minister. For a long time after 
 I came to Peking, Prince Su lived in one room. Some 
 time ago, through Dr. Morrison, some of the silverware 
 that was taken was returned to him, and by selling it he 
 has been getting along fairly well. Of course, when 
 things settle down he will get together wealth again.
 
 220 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 The third card is that of Chang Yi Mow. Chang is 
 the Imperial Director of Railways, etc., for the North of 
 China. He lives in Tien Tsin. During the siege he was 
 arrested at the instigation of his business enemies and 
 they tried to have him shot, but his life was saved through 
 the intervention of an American named Hoover. Chang's 
 name is printed on blue paper. The reason for this is 
 that he is in full mourning. His mother died a year ago 
 and since then his cards have been like the one enclosed. 
 When he stops full mourning the blue comes off and 
 yellow is substituted. The next card will show you what 
 it looks like then. The card with yellow is that of 
 Tshing Seng. Who he is I do not know, and I enclose 
 it only to show you what the half-mourning card looks 
 like. 
 
 The next card is that of Wang Ping Sun. He is the 
 grandson of the Cabinet Minister, Wong, and is a rising 
 young Chinaman. The last of the bunch is another 
 official, named Li Ching Mai. He is the head man of one 
 of the big Chinese boards. That's all that I can tell you 
 about him. 
 
 No news to-day, so good-bye for another day. 
 
 January 6, 1901, being the sixteenth day of the 
 eleventh moon of the 26th year of the reign of 
 Kuang Hsu. 
 
 Another miss yesterday, which I am sure you won't 
 mind when you hear the good news of to-day ; of course 
 you have already read it, but that doesn't matter, I'll tell it 
 anyway. The Chinamen have agreed to the terms of the 
 note presented by the powers, and they have directed 
 their two peace commissioners, Li Hung Chang and 
 Prince Ching, to sign the note. This is the beginning of 
 the end, and it's now possible to permit the thought of 
 coming home sometime to enter my head. It hasn't been 
 possible before this. Of course the Chinese would have 
 had to agree to the time that the powers fixed anyway, 
 but it was in their power to delay matters an awful 
 length of time if they wanted to do it. I felt certain that 
 they would not do that, and that they would accept the 
 terms that were presented, within a short time, as I told
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 221 
 
 you in my last letter, the day that the note was presented 
 to them. This " vindicates " my judgment, doesn't it? I 
 think I'll have to go into the prophet business, but I'm 
 afraid there isn't any money in it. 
 
 The fact that the Chinese have agreed, provides an- 
 other source of satisfaction to me too. I got the news 
 first and sent it several hours ahead of anybody else. 
 There'll be more wailing in the camp of the enemy, I'm 
 thinking. They have had two or three pretty hard 
 knocks lately, and I'm fixing to give them some more. 
 They have got my dander up by watching what I do. I 
 never liked to be watched. By " they " I mean the Asso- 
 ciated Press and that crowd. They really spend so much 
 time trying to find out what I'm doing, that they miss most 
 of the good things that come along. 
 
 Well, I must hurry off now ; I have to see some of the 
 Ministers and do some other work, so I'll say good-bye, 
 again. 
 
 Peking, January 7, 1901, being the seventeenth day of 
 the eleventh moon of the 26th year of the reign of 
 Kuang Hsu. 
 
 Let's go back to Chinese characteristics again, just for 
 a day. To tell you the truth, I'm stumped, to-day, for 
 any other subject. At the same time, my smelling organs 
 have been most deeply offended. They are always most 
 deeply offended in this northern city, but I don't think 
 that I ever paid so much attention to the matter as I did 
 to-day, and, strange as it may seem to you, it was not the 
 filth with which the city reeks that was responsible, but 
 the food that was being prepared for Chinese consump- 
 tion along the street. 
 
 At least four out of five Chinese eating-places, so far as 
 Peking is concerned, are in the street. All that is needed 
 to make a first-class Chinese restaurant in this town is a 
 big iron pot with two stones to set it on, a board for a 
 table with two stones to put that on, and three or four 
 diminutive three-legged stools. The stools are not six 
 inches above the ground and how anybody can sit on 
 them without getting a permanent case of cramps I can't 
 for the life of me imagine. Then there must also be half
 
 222 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 a dozen cups or saucers. There are no knives or forks, 
 for every Chinaman who can afford it carries his own 
 chopsticks, and if he can't afford it he eats with his 
 fingers. This rule is invariable. I have already told 
 you what a Chinaman looks like when he is eating, if you 
 remember the letter I wrote you on the ship coming over 
 here, and that is not what offended my smellers to-day — 
 it was the cooking. 
 
 The first requisite of the actual cooking is a bowlful of 
 grease and the next is garlic. As for the rest, the 
 handiest dog or a piece of mule or a cat — any old thing 
 of that sort will do. But whether it is to be boiled or 
 fried the grease must be used and the garlic must be 
 used. After the stuff has been cooking a sufficient 
 length of time the restaurant-keeper is ready to do busi- 
 ness, and the people flock around and squat on these 
 little stools and eat. These improvised restaurants are 
 stretched all along the main streets of the city and they 
 smell to heaven, I assure you. They are worse than the 
 dust of Peking. They are worse than anything any- 
 where. They nauseate you. Even an old Pekingese like 
 myself gets sick at the stomach when he gets a full-sized 
 whiff. 
 
 But meat fried or boiled is not the only thing these 
 restaurants deal in. There are cakes simply wonderful 
 to contemplate. You have heard me speak of the 
 " sinkers " they have at Hitchcock's and Dennett's and 
 Dolan's and other high-toned restaurants in New York. 
 Well, " honest Injun," the worst sinker that was ever 
 produced in any of those places would take wings and 
 fly away if it were put beside one of these leather-like 
 productions of a Peking street restaurant. They look 
 like doormats that one has been wiping his feet on, they 
 feel like the pneumatic tire of a bicycle, and Heaven and 
 the Chinese only know what they taste like. I've no 
 doubt that as doormats in America they would last a life- 
 time. I tMnk they might even be a good substitute for 
 asphalt pavement. I bought a cake one day and took it 
 home with me, not to eat — oh no! — but just to look at. 
 Reeves and I used it to drive nails with after it had dried 
 out. Then we were going to hang it up on the wall as a
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 223 
 
 decoration, but we could get no bit sharp enough to bore 
 through it. Finally we took it out and scaled it away 
 over the roof. It struck on its edge on the other side of 
 the house and stuck up in the ground and there it is yet. 
 You may think this is an exaggeration, but it is not. It's 
 a solemn fact. If you don't believe it you can come out 
 here to the Temple of Agriculture and we will show it to 
 you. If you would like to have a genuine souvenir of 
 China, just let me know and I will bring you one of these 
 cakes. 
 
 There is nothing to tell you about the news of to-day, 
 so I'll let you off now. 
 
 City of Peking, China, January 9, 1901, the same 
 being the nineteenth day of the eleventh month of 
 the 26th year of the reign of Kuang Hsu. 
 
 Bad luck, bad luck, bad luck ! Also good luck. The 
 Dowager Empress has gone back on what she said, and 
 now she doesn't want Li Hung Chang and Prince Ching 
 to sign the peace treaty. That's the bad luck. The good 
 luck is that I got the news first and sent it off, and I 
 don't believe any of my esteemed contemporaries know 
 of it even yet. If you are interested I will tell you. 
 
 It appears that down in Hankow there is a mutton- 
 head of a Viceroy named Chang Chih Tung. He is the 
 great rival of Li Hung Chang, and he saw in these 
 negotiations the chance to give Li a black eye, so, after 
 Li and Ching had advised the Dowager that the only 
 salvation for China was in the acceptance of the terms of 
 the note, and after the Dowager had agreed that that 
 was so and had telegraphed the Commission to go ahead 
 and sign, Chang sets out and memorializes the Dowager 
 to the effect that the terms are too severe and that she 
 shouldn't agree to them at all. Of course she never 
 wanted to agree to them and she only did it because 
 she believed that she had to do it. When she got the 
 tommyrot that Chang Chih Tung sent she said right 
 away, " That's so," and off she telegraphed the two 
 Commissioners not to sign. They found out what 
 Chang Chih Tung had done the moment they got the 
 orders, and they sent back to the Dowager a scorching
 
 224 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 telegram, telling her that Chang Chih Tung was acting 
 like a school-boy in his first new pair of pants, and that 
 she couldn't say one day that she'd accept a thing and the 
 next day take it back. 
 
 Right there the matter rests. The note is not signed, 
 and it won't be for some days. It will be, finally, of 
 course, but the Dowager must be brought to her senses 
 before anything can be done, and nobody knows how 
 long it will take to do that. I hope it's a quick job, I'm 
 sure, but I fear that it will not be, and with this bad news 
 I'll quit you for the day, 
 
 Peking, January lo, 1901, being the twentieth day of 
 the eleventh month of the 26th year of the reign 
 of Kuang Hsu. 
 
 I learned something new to-day on the Chinese eating 
 question and the Chinese servant question. It is that 
 Chinese servants feed themselves. They don't eat 
 European food at all — that is to say, they contract not to 
 eat it, though I guess they do when they get a chance. 
 When you make your bargain with a Chinese servant 
 it is for so much money for his work and he feeds him- 
 self. Usually a part of the bargain is so much rice a 
 month. Our household has been run that way all along, 
 but I didn't know it until to-day. 
 
 We pay our boy so much money every month, and then 
 we give him 100 pounds of rice in addition. He eats 
 rice three times a day. All Chinese do, except those who 
 eat at the street restaurants I told you about the other 
 day, and I don't know but that they do, too. Rice 
 costs about 2 cents a pound, so the boy gets $2 a month 
 in addition to the amount paid to him as wages. Any- 
 thing he has besides his rice he must buy himself. But 
 rice is his staple. He can live on that with nothing else, 
 and so the master gives him that. When the master 
 doesn't give rice he must pay its equivalent in money, 
 and the usual charge is $3 a month, so he saves money 
 by buying the rice. This is the case all over China. 
 It is an interesting state of afiFairs, is it not? It seems to 
 me that the system is better than ours, where the servants 
 eat from the master's table, and very often get better
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 225 
 
 food than the master or mistress, unless a close watch is 
 kept. 
 
 There is nothing new in the edict line to-day. The 
 Dowager is still sticking to her order not to sign the note, 
 and she has not answered the telegram of Li and Ching. 
 Perhaps she hasn't got it yet, for the telegraph service 
 between here and the Court is miserable. Let us hope 
 hard that she will get her senses back quickly. 
 
 Peking, January 12, 1901, being the twenty-second 
 day of the eleventh month of the 26th year of the 
 reign of Kuang Hsu, and the 145th letter I have 
 written you since I left home, according to my 
 account. 
 
 The Dowager is growing testy in her old age. Yester- 
 day she telegraphed to Li Hung Chang and Ching, 
 positively forbidding them to sign the note demanded by 
 the powers. It was just a repetition of what she sent 
 the other day, only it was stronger. The dispatch came 
 pretty late in the afternoon and it kept me hustling so 
 that I didn't write you yesterday afternoon. Put down 
 another black mark, will you? I got two more letters 
 from you to-day, and one from John Ward. I 
 don't know how they got here, for I understand that 
 mail is neither coming nor going, but I found them at 
 the Legation this morning. I didn't ask any questions 
 before I read them, and I was so satisfied and happy after 
 I read them that I didn't think to ask. Needless to talk' 
 about your letters at all. If you only knew what wel- 
 come visitors they are you would write more of 
 them. I always feel better for a whole week after I get 
 one. 
 
 Ward's letter was cheerful. He told me I was doing 
 great work and all that, and I guess he joshed me to the 
 very best of his ability. He also told me that he had 
 written you about the word " well " I had added to one 
 of my telegrams, for your information of course, and 
 that pleased me very much. In your letter you said you 
 had received his letter, so he must have been telling the 
 truth about that. I hope he was about the other. But 
 whether the work is good or bad, it is mighty unsatis-
 
 226 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 factory to the man who is doing it, because he never gets 
 a chance to see what he's doing or to know whether he's 
 doing the other fellow, which is, after all, one of the 
 chief items. 
 
 To-morrow Reeves and I move into the Boxer Temple 
 I told you about the other day, and, as everything will 
 be torn up, I guess you will have to chalk down one more 
 black mark, for I shall not be able to write, so this time 
 I'll say good-bye for forty-eight hours instead of twenty- 
 four, and I hope that by that time the old lady Empress 
 will have sent some good news. 
 
 Peking, January 15, 1901, being the twenty-fifth day 
 of the eleventh moon of the 26th year of the reign 
 of Kuang Hsu. 
 Moving is a heap sight bigger job than I thought it 
 was, and it takes two days instead of one to get things 
 into such condition that it is possible to think, let alone 
 write. We are getting ship-shape now, though, and we 
 shall soon be in fine trim, I think. The new home is a 
 wonder, if you forget what happened in it during the 
 siege, and I guess we can do that. At any rate, I hadn't 
 thought of it until just this minute, when I sat down to 
 write. One of the advantages of the place is a fine 
 Chinese reference library, one of the best in China, I am 
 told. Whenever it is necessary to look up any matter 
 the book to do it is right there at hand. Another ad- 
 vantage is a closer acquaintance with Mr. W. N. P., 
 the Secretary of Li Hung Chang. I am depending 
 largely upon him now for my Chinese news, and, living 
 right in the compound with him, I think that if anything 
 in the line of Chinese news gets away from me it will be 
 my own fault. 
 
 Reeves and I have had the building in which we live 
 divided into four rooms — two bedrooms, an office, and a 
 big dining and sitting room. We have about twice as 
 much room as we had at the camp. In addition to that 
 we have sunlight all day, which of course is a fine thing. 
 All the front of the house is made of glass. The rest of 
 it is of brick. I only wish you could be here to see it. 
 Really, it is not half a bad place, and for Peking it is a
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 227 
 
 palace, almost as fine as any that our friends the mis- 
 sionaries have. 
 
 Well, that good news I told you would come 
 has come again. The Dowager has got back her 
 sense, and has again issued an edict directing the Com- 
 missioners to sign the demands the powers have made. 
 She's a cheerful sort of an idiot, isn't she? Again I got 
 first news of the thing, and I hustled it off ahead of 
 everybody. It was nearly noon, though — that is, mid- 
 night in New York — and I'm afraid it didn't get through 
 in time for the paper. It is one of those things, how- 
 ever, that is just as good the next day, so it is all right 
 anyway. 
 
 The two Chinese commissioners won't lose any time, 
 this time, in getting their names down on the document. 
 They have already started in to sign and then the great 
 Seal of State will have to be put on. Prince Ching went 
 to the Forbidden City this afternoon to get that job done. 
 The Great Seal is one of the things in the Forbidden 
 City that hasn't been looted. It is always kept under 
 lock and key. To get it the Prince had to go to the city 
 and call up the Superintendent of the Imperial House- 
 hold. Then the Superintendent of the Imperial House- 
 hold had to go with him to the head concubine of the late 
 Emperor. She is the custodian of the Key. Together 
 they went to the room where the Great Seal was, and, in 
 the presence of a guard, they opened the room and then 
 the seal box in the room. There was the Great Seal. It 
 had to used right in that room. Under no circumstances 
 could it be taken out, so a copy of the agreement was 
 sealed for each Minister there and one part of the signing 
 was finished. That was as far as they had gone when 
 night came. The job will be finished up to-morrow. 
 
 Peking, January i6, 1901, being the twenty-sixth day 
 
 of the eleventh moon of the 26th year of the reign 
 
 of H. I. M. Kuang Hsu. 
 
 The new house is progressing finely. The only 
 
 trouble with it is that it is too wprm. That, however, can 
 
 hardly be called a fault in Peking in the Winter. The 
 
 one thing that we were afraid of, when we moved in.
 
 228 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 was that it would be too cold, and to have it just the 
 opposite is a pleasure, I can tell you. 
 
 Well, the job of signing the many copies of the note of 
 the powers was finished up to-day, but the note was not 
 presented. The reason was that the Chinese had certain 
 objections that they wanted to make, and they put them 
 in the shape of a memorandum. At least they are put- 
 ting them in the shape of a memorandum, which they are 
 going to present with the signed copies of the note. I 
 have a list of all their objections, but I can't use it until 
 they are ready to go to the Ministers. Then I will get 
 it off quickly. It's a fine thing to get these things ahead 
 of time. Then there is no delay in handling them when 
 the time comes. Further, the enemy, who is lurking 
 around watching you, never learns where you get them, 
 which is another advantage. 
 
 I got another welcome letter to-day. It was from 
 little H., bless her heart. It was a mighty well written 
 and interesting letter, too. Come to think of it, it was 
 only the other day that I complained a bit because the 
 girls hadn't written to me. I have had a letter now from 
 G. and one from H., and I haven't written to either 
 of them directly, but of course they get the benefit 
 of my daily letters to you. I don't suppose that satisfies 
 them, but I'm afraid that for the present it will have to 
 do. One letter a day is about all I can manage. Maybe 
 after a while I shall be able to attend to them. I still 
 think they owe me an occasional letter. There is noth- 
 ing new to tell you, and I haven't noticed anything 
 strange about the Chinese the last few days that would 
 interest you, so I'm at the end of my story again. 
 
 Peking, January i8, 1901, being the twenty-eighth 
 
 day of the eleventh moon of the 26th year of the 
 
 reign of H. I. M. Kuang Hsu. 
 
 You will remember that in a letter I wrote you some 
 
 time ago I told you about a burlesque that the British 
 
 officers gave in the Temple of Heaven, wherein the 
 
 Dowager Empress was impersonated and made to do 
 
 songs and dances. I told you, I think, that it was going 
 
 to raise Cain. Well, it has done so. The paragraph I
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 229 
 
 sent in about it was printed in London as well as New 
 York, and evidently the London papers took it up and 
 began to raise a row. Then the British Foreign Office 
 got stirred up and telegraphed out to know if there was 
 any such play being produced. The British General 
 cabled back that there was, and out came the order on 
 the double quick to suppress it at once. Then the British 
 General tried to get out of the trouble by saying that 
 the play was not produced in the Temple of Heaven, as 
 my dispatch said it was, but that it was given in the Hall 
 of Harmony, which had not been used by the Chinese. 
 That was a fine quibble, indeed. 
 
 I have already explained to you about these temples 
 out here, how they are compounds and not buildings. 
 The General was probably right and the play did take 
 place in the Hall of Harmony, but the Hall was in the 
 Temple of Heaven. I had a dern good notion to go 
 back at him and write another piece, particularly when I 
 got H. R.'s telegram telling me of the denial. Then I 
 thought it would only be getting a lot of officers out 
 here into trouble, and I decided not to do it, so I tel- 
 egraphed H. R. advising him that the whole thing should 
 be chopped unless it was necessary to maintain the point. 
 I haven't heard anything since. 
 
 Well, the note was delivered to-day to all the Min- 
 isters, and I think I scored again on the enemy. I hope 
 so, at any rate. Now that it is sealed, signed, and de- 
 livered, of course there is no possibility of the Chinese 
 going back on it, and there is no reason why the actual 
 peace negotiations should not be begun in a very little 
 while — a matter of a week or ten days at the most, I 
 should think. You see, the Ministers will have to get 
 together again, talk matters over, and decide who will 
 have to be pvmished, and all that. It seems to me that 
 everything except the commercial treaties ought to be 
 finished up before the close of February, and then the 
 troops can go out in March, when the navigation on the 
 Pi Ho River opens again. Everything now looks very 
 satisfactory for an early start for home. However, I 
 don't dare say much about it yet because I want so badly 
 to get there.
 
 230 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 Peking, January 19, 1901, being the twenty-ninth day 
 of the eleventh moon of the 26th year of the reign 
 of H. I. M. Kuang Hsu. 
 
 The Ministers are going to take until Tuesday to think 
 over the memorandum the Chinese presented, and then 
 they are going to have a meeting. Can't tell just vv^hat is 
 going to happen until then, but everything appears to be 
 going along swimmingly. The Chinese are mighty 
 clever. As I said in my dispatch to-day, their memoran- 
 dum is a typical Chinese document. They agree to 
 comply with all that the powers have demanded and they 
 do it unequivocally. Then they proceed to show how 
 unnecessary and how impossible of fulfillment all the 
 demands are, or most of them. Of course, what they 
 say will not have any particular weight with the Min- 
 isters, but it will save the faces of the Chinese Com- 
 misioners, and that is what they are anxious about. If 
 they can do that, I think they will be satisfied. The 
 document will make the missionaries very angry, though, 
 because it says that the trouble was largely due to the 
 bad feeling between the Christians and the un-Christians. 
 While the missionaries know that this statement is 
 largely true, they won't admit it for a minute. 
 
 By the way, I have been sharp after the Rev. A., 
 and I have got him at' work on that statement of the 
 missionary side of the case I told you about. He has 
 written some twenty-eight type-written pages, which will 
 make about a page of The Sun. I haven't seen it yet, 
 but I will probably do so in a few days. Then I am 
 going over it, and if there are any questions that I want 
 answered that he has not thought of I will stick them in 
 and get answers to them. 
 
 Well, that's the day's grist. It's short, but there's 
 nothing else to tell except that I miss you. 
 
 Peking, January 20, 1901, being the thirtieth day of 
 
 the eleventh moon of the 26th year of the reign 
 
 of Kuang Hsu. 
 
 I got a beautiful present, to-day, most unexpectedly. 
 
 It is a red lacquer box. Red lacquer is one of the things 
 
 in which the Chinese excel. It is very beautiful stuff
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 231 
 
 and is very expensive. I have wanted to get a piece of 
 it ever since I came here, but did not feel that I could 
 afiford it, so I curbed my appetite. To-day I called on 
 Mr. P., and he said, " Let me see ; you admire red 
 lacquer, don't you ? " I told him I did, and he passed 
 out this box and said, " Well, take that home with you." 
 You could have knocked me over with a feather. 
 
 It is one of the finest specimens I have seen. The 
 carving is exquisite. I saw something of the same 
 pattern, but not so good, at Mr. S.'s the other day, 
 and he paid 65 taels for it. That is $87, so you see it is 
 a pretty nice present. I have found out since I got it 
 to-day that giving presents like that is one of the tricks 
 of P. He likes to do it. Well, I like to receive 
 them. Of course I'll bring the box home with me when 
 I come, and I can assure you, you will be pleased with 
 it. There is not much else to tell you to-day, and I guess 
 I'd better cut this letter off right here. It will probably 
 be a relief to you to get a letter that is as short as this 
 after the long, crowded ones I usually write. 
 
 Peking, Monday, January 21, being the first day of 
 the twelfth moon of the 26th year of the reign of 
 Kuang Hsu. 
 
 Another moon has gone, and a new moon has come. 
 It's the last moon of the year. I mean the Chinese year. 
 Well, the new house is coming on slowly. Curtains went 
 up to-day and the two old men are gradually getting to 
 feel that they are living civilized. I think after we get 
 all fitted up I'll have to get a camera and have a photo- 
 graph taken of the interior to send to you, unless it 
 happens that I start home before that time, in which case 
 I will bring it along with me. There is one thing cer- 
 tain, we are going to be a mighty sight warmer here than 
 we were down in the camp. 
 
 I was down there this afternoon and had quite a long 
 talk with General Chaffee. I saw a copy of The Sun of 
 December 3rd while I was there, and I've been dancing 
 rag-time, and cursing at the man that wrote out the cable 
 ever since. The tail-end of the cable printed on that 
 day is the most emasculated specimen of cable that mortal
 
 232 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 man ever heard of. I tried to tell a story about how 
 Miss Smith of the London Inland Mission was again 
 helping out the Germans by taking a contract to do their 
 street cleaning for them, and they had the English 
 government helping out the Germans, and the darndest 
 lot of nonsense that was everything but what was in- 
 tended ! I don't think I was ever quite so disgusted in 
 my life. I suppose that the vile cable service was re- 
 sponsible for some of it, and ignorance in the office was 
 responsible for the rest. I am going to get a copy of my 
 original dispatch to-morrow and send it in to the office 
 with the dispatch as it appeared in the paper, just to 
 make them tired. 
 
 Well, the Ministers have a meeting to-morrow, and 
 maybe they will start the machinery in motion that is to 
 bring peace to this land. We are all quite certain that 
 the movement away from here will begin very soon, and 
 that we are all glad it will. You can well imagine that 
 China is all right, but, as the comedian says, little old 
 New York is good enough for me. 
 
 Peking, January 22, 1901, being the second day of the 
 twelfth moon of the 26th year of the reign of 
 Kuang Hsu. 
 
 I had Dr. M. of The London Times to tiffin with 
 me to-day, and was somewhat tickled when he gravely 
 assured me that his own service to The Times was really 
 quite useless, because the service of the Laffan Bureau 
 was always from three to four days ahead of him. He 
 didn't appear to be unhappy over the fact — was 
 rather pleased, in fact, that The Times got its news so 
 quickly ! 
 
 There has been something of a slaughter of some of 
 opponents around here lately. The A. P., Reuters', 
 Chicago Record, and two or three other men started a 
 combination to do me up in a new sense. Of course it 
 would never do for a Sun man to be beaten by such a 
 combination of nondescripts and I started in to hustle 
 just to see what could be done. I have been particularly 
 fortunate and have had the news ahead of the crowd with
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 233 
 
 a regularity that has induced them to send a man around 
 every day or so to pump me. 
 
 The A. P. man got a telegram a couple of days ago, 
 saying, " Your service is constantly one day late." He 
 surprised me somewhat by bringing it around and 
 showing it to me. Of course I sympathized with him 
 and told him I didn't see how it was that as bright a man 
 as he could possibly deserve such a censure. He is dis- 
 gusted now with the whole world, and to-day M. 
 told me that the A. P. man was going home and in- 
 tended to leave the newspaper business for the more 
 congenial pastime of ranching in the West. Just be- 
 tween you and me I think he is better fitted for ranch- 
 ing than he is for newspaper work. But that is neither 
 here nor there. He is the third A. P. man who started in 
 here to fight me, and he is the third one to give up the 
 job. I hope they will let me alone hereafter. If they 
 devoted half as much of their energy to getting news as 
 they do to trying to find out what I am doing, they might 
 do better. I don't suppose that this interests you, but it 
 is mighty interesting to me out here in China, and I 
 couldn't help telling you. 
 
 The Ministers held a meeting to-day, and, so far as I 
 can make out, everything is going along swimmingly and 
 things will be in such shape that my day for shaking 
 China's dust from my feet is not far distant, I hope. 
 The new home is getting fixed up fast and we are trying 
 to look quite swell indeed. 
 
 Peking, January 2^,, 1901, being the third day of the 
 twelfth moon of the 26th year of the reign of 
 H. I. M. Kuang Hsu. 
 
 A dull day again — so dull that I did not even send a 
 cable. There wasn't anything to send. I visited the 
 Legation this morning and again in the afternoon, and 
 this afternoon also I went down to camp and had a talk 
 with General Chafifee. You will remember that I 
 told you some time ago about the arrival of B. in 
 Peking, and predicted from his manner that it would not 
 be long before he got into trouble. Well, it's come. He 
 went around with a chip on his shoulder and he ran
 
 234 ORDERED TO CHIN* A 
 
 against the wrong man in the person of General Chaffee. 
 The result of the encounter is that the General has issued 
 an order forbidding him to use the United States tele- 
 graph line at all and Mr. B. is barred. The story is 
 a long one and I won't burden you with it. It is just 
 another case of the mighty falling and there is an end on 
 it. I suppose B. will try to get square with Chaffee by 
 writing him up, and that's all the good it will do him. 
 
 The Ministers have another meeting to-morrow, and 
 then we hope they will finish up their job and invite the 
 Chinamen to come to see them and talk the matter over. 
 Pekingese weather started in again this afternoon, and 
 the dust is flying so thick that you can't see your hand 
 in front of your face. It is meaner dust now than the 
 ordinary, too, for it has been ground up with the snow 
 and is the dirtiest, wettest dust you could imagine. It 
 becomes mud shortly after it hits you. When I came in 
 this afternoon I looked like a mud man. 
 
 Peking, Wednesday, January 24, 1901, being the 
 fourth day of the twelfth moon of the 26th year 
 of the reign of Kuang Hsu. 
 
 I learned to-day that the cable I sent on early in 
 December, explaining the remark of Sir Ernest Satow 
 in regard to the missionaries and native Christians having 
 reimbursed themselves, raised something of a rumpus 
 and for some days thereafter the papers talked about 
 it — to what extent I haven't any idea, but you will recall 
 that I told you at the time I suspected it might cause 
 trouble, and I explained all the circumstances to you. I 
 have not been called on by a delegation of missionaries 
 yet, with an invitation to eat my words, but I expect to 
 be. In the meantime, I am getting along finely. The 
 Rev. A. called on me yesterday with a copy of his 
 interview defending missionaries, and I am just now 
 going over it and fixing it up to send off. It is sufficient 
 in itself, I think, to back up anything The Sun or your 
 humble servant has said, but if anything further is 
 desired it is obtainable. 
 
 We just heard to-day in Peking of the Queen's death. 
 The cable has been down for two or three days at Foo-
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 235 
 
 Chow, which is between Shanghai and Hong Kong, and 
 that is the reason it took the news so long to reach here. 
 She died day before yesterday. The news came to-day 
 while the Ministers were having a meeting at the 
 British Legation. Of course the meeting adjourned at 
 once, and there won't be another one held until after her 
 funeral. How long that will be I don't know. I sup- 
 pose a week at least. 
 
 The English dispatches to-day announcing what had 
 happened were strange to the citizens of a republic. 
 The first one read: "Her Majesty the Queen died at i 
 o'clock in the afternoon of January 22!' The next one, 
 immediately under it, read : " His Majesty the King is 
 coming from so-and-so by special train to take the oath 
 of succession, etc." It was off with the old and on with 
 the new with a vengeance, wasn't it? 
 
 Captain , of General Chaffee's staff, is here 
 
 to-night. It was from him I learned about the 
 effect of the missionary story. He is going to spend 
 the night with me. Our talk was chiefly about the 
 Legations, just after the siege, and I learned some 
 very interesting things about the jealousies that attended 
 the siege, particularly about our own Legation, though 
 all the other Legations were the same, of course. Every 
 family was pointing its fingers at every other family. 
 Everybody was whispering that everybody else was a 
 coward, and, altogether, things were topsy-turvy and 
 continued so long after the Legations were relieved. 
 The women were the chief talkers, of course, and in one 
 Legation it got so bad, some time after the siege, that the 
 Minister just lined up the whole lot and made a speech 
 to them. He told them that there was important work 
 to be done in Peking and that the men had their hands 
 full, without being constantly worried with the cackling 
 of a lot of jealous women who didn't know what they 
 were talking about. That was straight out from the 
 shoulder, and I think it did the business. He told them 
 that if he heard any more of the talk he would send them 
 all home. 
 
 There's a day's grist of gossip for you, and with it I'll 
 close.
 
 S36 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 Peking, January 25, 1901, being the fifth day of the 
 twelfth moon of the 26th year of the reign^of H. I. 
 M. Kuang Hsu. 
 
 I heard a new one on the Chmese to-day. Li Hung 
 Chang got a memorial from the Dowager out in Singan 
 Fu, giving him bally-hoo for the killing of those officials 
 in Poa-ting Fu. The officials were killed after a trial 
 by a court made up of foreign military officers. They 
 were accused of being responsible for the killing of 
 some of the missionaries out there during the trouble, 
 and were convicted of that offense. They were be- 
 headed by order of the court that convicted them. Of 
 course Li Hung Chang had nothing to do with their con- 
 viction or with their killing, but the Dowager jumped on 
 him for it. I asked a Chinaman how that was, and he 
 said that it happened in the Province of Pechili, of which 
 Li Hung Chang is the Viceroy. But, I said, he had 
 nothing to do with it. The Chinaman replied that Li 
 was the Viceroy and it was Chinese custom to hold the 
 head official of a province responsible for what happened 
 in the province. 
 
 " Why," said he, " if there is a great storm anywhere 
 and the lightning strikes houses, the Emperor issues 
 an edict degrading the head official of the town. If there 
 is a great fire and lots of buildings are burned, the 
 Emperor degrades the local magistrate ; also, if the crops 
 fail and there is a famine, the head of the district is 
 always degraded. Under the Chinese Government the 
 head man is always responsible for such things." 
 
 Now, how would you like to be a head man in China 
 under such circumstances? I am free to confess that I 
 would much rather be a correspondent for The Sun. 
 Anyway, I am not looking for any political honors. 
 
 I have completed the decoration of our temple now, 
 and we are snug as bugs in a rug, considering that we are 
 in Peking. Really, we are better off than you would 
 imagine. We have four rooms — that is, a bedroom for 
 each of us, a big sitting room and dining room, and a 
 smaller office room. We have succeeded in getting hold 
 of lamps and oil, and now we have more or less decent 
 light, night as well as day. This will enable me to do
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 237 
 
 a little more work than I have been doing in the writing 
 line, and I am consequently better satisfied. 
 
 Among our room decorations are a lot of peach and 
 cherry blossoms that in their way are curiosities. The 
 Chinese are very clever in their manipulation of such 
 things. They take the branch of a cherry tree, for 
 instance, and trim the twigs so that they form a Chinese 
 character. They force the buds and then take the 
 branches around to sell. Two days in a warm room 
 will bring out the blossoms, and so we have in two rooms 
 potted cherry trees full of blossoms that form the 
 Chinese character for happiness. The peach trees are 
 also trained to represent a Chinese character, but what 
 that character is I have not let learned. Blossoms at this 
 season of the year, when the snow covers the ground and 
 the wind is whistling, are mighty refreshing to look at, 
 I can tell you. 
 
 There is no further news about the possible quick 
 ending of this aflfair, and I don't see how there can be 
 any until the Queen is buried. I doubt very much if 
 there will even be any meetings of the Ministers until 
 after the funeral, so things will be in statu quo for a week 
 or ten days. I'll say good-night for the 156th time. 
 
 January 26, being the sixth day of the twelfth moon 
 of the 26th year of the reign of H. I. M. Kuang 
 Hsu. 
 I wonder if when I get back to the States, I shall be 
 able to forget the day and the moon and the reigning 
 emperor, when I sit down to write a letter. Recording 
 it now has become a habit with me and I do it me- 
 chanically. It is no trouble at all. I really think I can 
 keep the Chinese calendar in my head better than I can 
 my own. I know that I can do it better than I can the 
 days of the week of our calendar. Here this is Saturday, 
 and I've been going around all day under the impression 
 that it was only Wednesday. I had absolutely lost two 
 days out of the calendar, and for the life of me I can't 
 tell how or what has become of them. I knew that to- 
 day was the sixth day of the twelfth moon and I had to 
 look twice at my Chinese calendar to make myself be-
 
 238 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 lieve it was Saturday, But it surely is, and there is 
 another week out of sight. 
 
 To-day, though, was another one of those particularly 
 happy ones for me. I got another letter from you. It 
 was dated the 6th of December, and had been a long time 
 coming. It got here by the Chinese Imperial post. You 
 are still my star, in the matter of letter-writing. One 
 letter from G. and one from Ward and one from 
 Paddock constitute my all in the letter line outside of the 
 letters I receive from you with more or less regularity, 
 even if the northern port of China is frozen up. I am 
 looking now for a letter from H, R. He cabled me that 
 an important letter had been sent to me from London 
 December 22. It is too soon to get it, but I'm keeping a 
 watch out, nevertheless. 
 
 Peking, Sunday, January 27, 1901, the same being the 
 seventh day of the twelfth moon of the 26th year of 
 the reign of H. I. M. Kuang Hsu. 
 
 There was one piece of good news to-day. It came 
 from the German headquarters and it was the first real 
 intimation of home-going that there has been. It was 
 in the shape of a letter written by Count von Waldersee, 
 the Commander-in-chief, giving his idea of what ought 
 to be done in the way of evacuating the Province of 
 Pechi-li. On the end of the peace demands there is a 
 note which reads something like this : " Until the above 
 conditions are complied with, to the satisfaction of the 
 powers, the undersigned can offer no expectation of a 
 withdrawal of the foreign force from Peking and the 
 province of Pechi-li." Ever since the note went in 
 everybody has been wondering what the powers would be 
 satisfied with, and nobody has been able to say. This 
 letter of von Waldersee says that when China complies 
 with the terms sufficiently, the evacuation can begin, so 
 far as Peking and Poa-ting Fu are concerned, and he 
 goes on and says that he thinks it would be sufficient for 
 China to go ahead and inflict the punishments that the 
 Ministers demand. 
 
 That is something like ! These punishments can be 
 inflicted in a day after the powers make known exactly
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 239 
 
 what they want, which they will probably do as soon as 
 the Queen is buried and they are able to have a meeting 
 again. Of course it is not certain that she will do it, 
 but she can do it, and my own opinion is that she will, 
 though for a time it is possible that she may do a little 
 kicking about it. But, as I have told you before, the 
 Chinese are sick of their job and they want to clear it all 
 up. Why wouldn't they? The Dowager and the 
 Emperor and all the big officials of the Court are living 
 in Chinese houses out in Singan Fu. They have a few of 
 the comforts of life, and the province they are in is 
 suffering from a famine. They are surrounded by want 
 and destitution on every side. Hundreds of people are 
 dying of starvation every day. The condition of things, 
 as near as I can find out, is terrible indeed. The people 
 are actually turning cannibals. Parents are killing their 
 children to avoid seeing them starve to death, women and 
 children are being sold into slavery to the few people who 
 have the means of buying. With affairs in their imme- 
 diate sight in such a condition it would be a wonder if 
 the Chinese officials were not sick of their jobs. They 
 are all anxious to return to Peking, and I believe they 
 are willing to make almost any sacrifice to bring about a 
 condition of affairs that will enable them to return. Of 
 course, the evacuation of Peking and Poa-ting Fu doesn't 
 mean the evacuation of the whole of China, but once the 
 start is made I think that the rest will easily be accom- 
 plished. 
 
 Peking, January 28, 1901, being the eighth day of the 
 twelfth moon of the 26th year of the reign of 
 H. I. M. Kuang Hsu. 
 
 There wasn't any news to speak of to-day, but to-night 
 Reeves and I had a house-warming and were highly 
 honored by the presence of the Minister and Mrs. and 
 Miss Conger, Miss Pierce, the niece of the Congers, 
 Lieutenant Hammond of the Ninth Infantry, Lieutenant 
 Slater, also of the Ninth, Lieutenant Munson of the Com- 
 missary, and Lieutenant Kearnes of the Sixth Cavalry. 
 Quite a party, wasn't it.? They all came in about 8 o'clock. 
 Munson had a guitar and Slater his cornet, and we had
 
 240 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 music and singing and a high old time — for Peking. THe 
 Minister entered into the spirit of the occasion with gusto 
 and had as good a time as any of the rest of us. He's a 
 pretty good fellow, Mr. Conger is, and I think I'll have to 
 remember him in my will. Miss Pierce is a young 
 woman who went all through the siege. She has lived 
 with the Congers ever since they have been out here. 
 The party did not break up until midnight, and it is 
 getting along towards i o'clock now, so I'll have to make 
 this a short letter. 
 
 Peking, Tuesday, January 29, 1901, being the ninth 
 day of the twelfth moon of the 26th year of the 
 reign of Kuang Hsu. 
 
 That letter of Count von Waldersee I told you about 
 in my letter Sunday has provided another chapter in 
 the feud between the Count and Dr. Mumm von Schwar- 
 zenstein, the German Minister. You will recall that I 
 wrote you about the trouble between them over the ques- 
 tion of rank, and how they would not go to the same 
 dinner for fear one might get a better place than the other. 
 Well, the Count wrote a letter and addressed it to the 
 Minister. At the close of the letter he said he left it to 
 the discretion of the Minister whether or not he would 
 bring it before his colleagues in the corps of Ministers. 
 Of course that was a request to bring it before them. 
 But Mumm von Schwarzenstein, it seems, put it away 
 in a pigeon-hole in his desk, and not once did it see the 
 light of day with Mumm's assistance. His colleagues 
 among the Ministers would still be in ignorance of the 
 Count's ideas had it not been for the fact that the Count 
 had had the forethought to send a copy of his letter to 
 each of the military commanders in Peking. The military 
 commanders of course promptly forwarded it to their 
 Ministers, and there you are. They got it in spite of 
 Mumm. Now I understand the Ministers are going to 
 try to have a meeting on Thursday, and they may call on 
 Mumm for his ideas on the military situation, just to see 
 what he will say. I don't suppose they will, but they may, 
 and if they do that will bring the thing to a head. I hope 
 they do.
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 241 
 
 I had another treat to-day in the shape of a small 
 bundle of Suns. They were from the ist to the 13th of 
 December. I noticed in the 12th that paragraph that I 
 told you about — missionaries and native Christians loot- 
 ing — and in the 13th I saw an interview with Dr. M., 
 a missionary who was out here. Of course you saw it. 
 Did you notice that he practically admitted what was said, 
 but excused the crime on the ground of necessity ? I 
 have got that statement of A.'s now, and he does 
 practically the same thing. I am going to send it on this 
 week if there is a mail going. I understand we may get 
 another mail out in a few days. A. tries to justify 
 himself by saying that everybody did it, which doesn't 
 seem to me to be a good defense at all. It is too much 
 in the two-wrongs-make-a-right plan to suit your humble 
 servant. However, they are the keepers of their own 
 consciences out here, and if it doesn't hurt them I am not 
 going to let it hurt me. 
 
 To-night the missionaries had a meeting, and took the 
 Ministers to task for not doing everything they, the mis- 
 sionaries, desired in the preliminary note. They also 
 framed a lot of demands they want the Ministers to insert 
 in the final treaties, when they are made. I sent some of 
 them to The Sun to-day. They are going to send them to 
 the Ministers to-morrow. 
 
 Peking, January 30, 1901, being the tenth day of the 
 twelfth moon of the 26th year of the reign of H. I. 
 M. Kuang Hsu. 
 
 A dull day again. Nothing at all has happened worth 
 telling you about. Last night there was a little rumpus 
 out in our back yard, where some Italian soldiers, loaded 
 with bug-juice, climbed over the wall of our compound, 
 under the insane notion that there were some Chinese 
 women to be had. They searched the servants' quarters 
 and broke into the house occupied by Mr. J. When 
 he tried to shoo them away, they pulled out knife bayonets 
 and were going to carve him. He sent up to the Ameri- 
 can Legation and a part of the guard hustled down and 
 started to arrest the dagos. They fled. The guard or- 
 dered them to stop. They didn't do it, and one of the
 
 242 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 guard pulled up his rifle and fired. He caught one of 
 them in the calf of the leg. It was a good shot, consider- 
 ing that the man was 250 yards away and there was only 
 the light of the moon to see by. 
 
 I am telling you all this at second-hand, for I was sleep- 
 ing soundly in my little bed, and I didn't hear about it 
 until this morning. Of course there will be an investiga- 
 tion and all that, and, from the way they are running mil- 
 itary matters out here now, I wouldn't he surprised if the 
 guard who fired the shot got court-martialed. It will be a 
 shame if he is, but that is the way things are running now. 
 The American soldier is not having a very happy time. 
 The rules of the American camp are so strict that the camp 
 is spoken of as a prison, with the officers as turnkeys, 
 while the soldiers are the prisoners. There has been more 
 or less of trouble there for some time. Friday several of 
 the officers are to be court-martialed for violating an order 
 not to leave the camp. You see everybody has more or 
 less trouble in life. 
 
 Peking, January 31, 1901, being the eleventh day of 
 the twelfth moon of the 26th year of the reign of 
 Kuang Hsu. 
 
 I got another letter from home to-day and have been 
 correspondingly happy. It was a long one and was written 
 December 12. That is not very recent, it is true, but 
 when a letter is a month old, anyway, a week or ten days 
 more or less added doesn't detract from it a particle. A 
 few days after you wrote that you ought to have received 
 a couple of packages and a lot more letters. They con- 
 tained the very gown that you spoke about. I certainly 
 hope that they reached you all right. The letter mailed 
 in San Francisco that you spoke of getting was one I gave 
 to General Wilson and asked him to mail for me at Naga- 
 saki, Japan. It would have gone by the same steamer 
 he sailed on, and I suppose he thought it just as well 
 to take it along with him and mail it when he reached 
 the United States. Whatever he thought, that is evidently 
 what he did. 
 
 In your letter of the 12th you tell me again about W.'s 
 refusal to go to school. Have you told him what I
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 243 
 
 told you to tell him about the Mahatmas of the Desert of 
 Gobi ? He may think I didn't mean that, but he will have 
 a very different idea when he sees one of these full-sized 
 Mahatmas with a hobgoblin head, pop in on him and 
 whisk him off in a basket to spend a few years shoveling 
 sand into the wind out here in China. Such a big boy as 
 he is ought to be good to his mother, and not worry her. 
 I can tell him that out in the Desert of Gobi, where the 
 sand is so thick that one can't see and the wind always 
 moans " Wa-o-o-o-o," it is very different from what it is 
 in Brooklyn, and the boys that the Mahatmas get out there 
 just wish they had never been born at all. They have to 
 keep shoveling sand all the time. They don't have any 
 warm, comfortable bed to go to at night. They don't have 
 any time to play, but they must shovel, and shovel, and 
 shovel, to keep the sand from falling around them and 
 covering them all up, while the wind blows " Wo-o-o-o-o," 
 never stopping even for breath. Whenever you think 
 it is necessary to send him out there write and let me 
 know, and I'll go out and whistle up the head Ma- 
 hatma. 
 
 I enclose in this letter a lot of seeds from a 
 gourd that I got at the Summer Palace of the Dowager 
 Empress of China. Gourds are tokens of long life, pros- 
 perity, happiness, and everything else good — in China. 
 When the Dowager received the ladies of the Legations in 
 the old times she would always present gourds to them. 
 They grew easily and big, and they polish up handsomely. 
 They are utilized in a hundred different ways. The last 
 time that I was out at the Summer Palace I picked two 
 from one of the favorite trees of the Dowager, and now I 
 have opened them and taken out the seeds. It may amuse 
 you as well as the children to plant them and grow a crop 
 of gourds straight from the grounds of royalty. You 
 had better tell the infants to ask their grandpa how to do 
 it. I am going to send some of the seeds to him and 
 grandma, too. The climate here is about the same as the 
 climate of Brooklyn, only colder, and there ought to be 
 no trouble about their growing.
 
 244 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 Peking, Friday, February i, 1901, being the twelfth 
 day of the twelfth moon of the 26th year of the 
 reign of Kuang Hsu. 
 
 Here is a fresh month started, but happily under more 
 promising auspices than any of those that have passed 
 since I started from home for heathendom. The Ministers 
 are actually going to meet Li Hung Chang on Tuesday, 
 and everything promises well indeed for an early settle- 
 ment. I don't Hke to rejoice in anybody's bad luck ; at the 
 same time, I can't help feeling considerable satisfaction 
 over the fact that I lifted that combination of correspond- 
 ents I told you about ofif its feet again in the matter of the 
 Waldersee letter, and they have been getting dispatches 
 about it from their offices. I hadn't any idea when I sent 
 it that it would be a beat, but it seems that it was. Two 
 of them told me to-day that they had been kicked at, and 
 they were thinking seriously of getting out and going 
 home. Well, as long as things go on that way, I guess 
 the old Sun is all right, don't you think so? I've got an- 
 other rod in pickle for them on Sunday, when I am going 
 to send a story about the famine, and still another on 
 Tuesday. I hope I can get away with both of them, but 
 I suppose that is altogether too much for me to expect. 
 
 Peking is again sufifering from an overdose of wind, 
 and the dust is so thick you can't see your hand in front of 
 your face. The result is that I have been no farther away 
 than the Legation, and I shall not go out at all to-morrow 
 if it is not a better day. I have taken a great abhorrence 
 to "lust. I guess that everybody does, after a time in 
 Peking, 
 
 Peking, February 2, 1901, being the thirteenth day of 
 the twelfth moon of the 26th year of the reign of 
 Kuang Hsu. 
 
 It is getting toward the middle of the last moon of the 
 26th year of Kuang's reign, isn't it? I'll very shortly be 
 celebrating another New Year's day. That, so far as I 
 am now informed, will wind up the calendar season, and 
 there won't be any more New Year's celebrations, for a 
 while, at least. What put into my head the approaching 
 one in Peking was a walk down the Chienmaine this after-
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 245 
 
 noon. I saw things that I hadn't seen before since I came 
 to China — children's toys — not toys such as we have in 
 America, but queer jiggers of all sorts, unmistakably 
 meant for children's playthings, though they didn't have 
 any labels on them, and perhaps I am talking about some- 
 thing that I do not know anything about. I find myself 
 doing that once in a while, here in China, and to-day I 
 didn't examine these things very closely, so it is possible 
 I am wrong. At any rate, they seemed to me to be 
 toys. 
 
 A China boy who was looking at one of the stands more 
 or less wistfully, pulled my coat and asked for a cash. 
 That is the tenth of a cent. He could say a word or two 
 of English (pigeon), and I gathered from what he said 
 that he didn't have any father or mother, and he did want 
 to buy a toy. I was in a hurry to get to camp, and I gave 
 him the cash without stopping to investigate further. 
 Sometime between now and Chinese New Year I'll stop 
 at a stand and investigate the matter and will write you 
 and the children a letter about Chinese toys. Here I'll 
 just tell you that Chinese New Year is really the Chinese 
 Christmas. They do their present-giving, similar to our 
 Christmas-giving, on that occasion, only they go into the 
 giving more thoroughly. The Chinamen give presents, 
 not only to the members of their families, but to all their 
 friends. Of course they get presents in return from all 
 their friends, too, so the matter evens itself up. But more 
 about this later, when I find out more about it. 
 
 To-day there was a funeral service held in honor 
 of the Queen. There was a great turn-out. There were 
 troops from all the nations represented here, and all the 
 Ministers and Secretaries in full uniform, more gorgeous 
 even than those worn by the Generals. A regular service 
 was read by a clergyman, and then came hymn-singing 
 and all the things that go to make up a proper funeral 
 ceremony. Meantime cannon were booming. A cannon 
 was fired every minute for loi minutes. All the British 
 soldiers wore bands of crepe around their arms, and are 
 going to continue wearing them, by the way, until along 
 in March, some time. Taken altogether, it was really 
 quite an impressive ceremony. It was a raw, cold day,
 
 246 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 and the wind was blowing fearful gusts, while the dust 
 swirled around and beat into the faces of the crowd that 
 had gathered. But everybody stuck it out to the end, and 
 a lot of people were foolish enough to stand bareheaded 
 during the greater part of the ceremony. I suppose there 
 will be the usual crop of pneumonia cases following the 
 ceremony, as there is after all outdoor functions at this 
 season of the year. 
 
 By the way, I heard a more or less alarming rumor to- 
 day, to the effect that there was a great deal of smallpox 
 in New York. Somehow or other a copv of Town Topics 
 reached here, and it was giving the New York papers 
 ballyhoo because they were not printing a lot about it. It 
 said that the disease was almost epidemic. Of course, by 
 the time you get this letter the danger will be passed, but I 
 am worrying a little about it, because I can't for the life 
 of me remember whether you have all been vaccinated or 
 not. My impression is that you have been, but I wish I 
 could remember for certain. 
 
 There is a good deal of smallpox in Peking. There is 
 always a lot of it here. The English, the Germans, and 
 the French have all had some, but the Americans have been 
 very fortunate, first, I think, because they are cleaner than 
 the others ; second, because they are more careful, and, 
 third, because they have all been vaccinated, and smallpox 
 hasn't any show at all with them. 
 
 Here is the end of a gossipy letter. I have gossiped be- 
 cause nothing has happened that was worth talking about 
 outside the tattle. Now that the Queen is out of the way, 
 I look to a bracing up of things. 
 
 Peking, February 3, 1901, Sunday, fourteenth day, 
 twelfth moon, 26th year of the reign of H. I. M. 
 Kuang Hsu. 
 
 Reading over your letter of the 12th again to-day, I 
 notice that you say something about sables for $25 and the 
 like. I think your judgment was right when you said you 
 thought very likely the story was a fake, like most Jour- 
 nal stories. If anybody is traveling around New York 
 with a $500 sable that he bought here for $25, he paid the 
 $25 for somebody to steal the sable for him. He never
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 247 
 
 bought it. Probably more tommyrot has been written 
 and spoken about the ridiculous prices at which things 
 have been sold in Peking than was ever written about any 
 event in history. For a while things did sell very cheap, 
 but it was only for a short time, and the heathen Chinee 
 has been making it up ever since by selling $2 things for 
 $4, and the like. 
 
 As for sables, there were comparatively few sables here 
 in the first place, and those that were looted were sold for 
 good prices — probably for a third of what they were 
 worth. As you know, the value of sables runs up in the 
 hundreds and thousands of dollars. You can imagine 
 what sort of a sable $25 would buy, even assuming it was 
 got for a third of what it was really worth. No, my dear, 
 the missionaries know the value of sable too well to let 
 any of them get away at any such price as that. There 
 have been more catskins sold here at $100 apiece than 
 there have been sables at $400, I can tell you that, and 
 many possessors of the aforesaid cat, proudly showing 
 their purchases now as sable, will have sad awakenings 
 when they ask people who know something about furs to 
 admire them. I will promise to comply with your re- 
 quest to the letter, though. If I see any $500 sables 
 looking for purchasers at $25 Pll lay in a stock of 
 them. 
 
 By the way, I don't like sable a quarter as well as I do 
 sealskin. It is not nearly so handsome, and I don't think 
 it makes up half so well. As for myself, I am running 
 more to gods than I am to sables. I am the proud posses- 
 sor at this moment of twenty-five brass gods, and I am 
 thinking seriously of adding to my collection as soon as 
 the opportunity arises. I think that by the time I get 
 through I'll have a table full of them, and when I get 
 home we will put that table in the heathen Chinee corner 
 that you speak of, and drape it with a gold embroidered 
 dragon that was the stand decoration of a Buddha in the 
 Forbidden City. I've got the gold-embroidered dragon, 
 too. It is on black silk and looks fierce enough to eat 
 ordinary mortals.
 
 248 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 Peking, February 5, 1901, being the sixteenth day of 
 the twelfth moon of the 26th year of the reign of 
 Kuang Hsu. 
 
 The Ministers and the Chinese Peace Commissioners 
 had their first joint meeting to-day, and, officially, peace 
 negotiations may be said to have begun. From what I 
 learned, it was more or less of a cat-and-dog affair. The 
 Ministers were after heads, and Li Hung Chang and 
 Prince Ching were trying to get them to be satisfied with 
 little blood and much banishment. ,But the Ministers were 
 not to be denied. The Ministers wanted gore. The more 
 of it the better. They wanted the head of Prince Tuan, 
 Prince Chuang Ying Nien, Kang Yi,Chao Shu Chiao, Hsu 
 Tung, Li Ping Heng, Duke Lan, Yu Hsien, Tung-fu- 
 Hsien, and two others. Li Hung Chang told them that 
 Kang Yi, Hsu Tung, and Li Ping Heng were dead, that 
 Tung-fu-Hsien , and Prince Tuan were away off in Kansu 
 with a big army, and would turn rebels if anybody tried to 
 get their heads ; that Ying Nien was a small official, and 
 surely the great nations of the earth wouldn't look for 
 such a little head ; that Chao Shu Chiao was a powerful 
 friend of the Dowager, and that his head was impossible ; 
 but Li said the Chinese would cut off the head of Yu 
 Hsien with pleasure, and that they would send a silk cord 
 to Prince Chuang to enable him to strangle himself. 
 Kind, wasn't it ? I don't know why I should tell you all 
 of this, because I have already sent it to The Sun, and you 
 have read it — that is, if you read the Peking dispatches, 
 and I suppose you do. 
 
 There has been a great time in the American camp at 
 the Temple of Agriculture, to-day, and I guess it will 
 be kept up for a week to come. A telegram came this 
 morning telling General Chaffee that the new Army Bill 
 had passed, and that he had been nominated for Major- 
 General in the regular army. He has been a Major-Gen- 
 eral of Volunteers ever since he came to China, but his 
 regular rank w^as only that of a Colonel of Cavalry. It is 
 a big jump from Colonel to Major-General, all at one time, 
 but Chaffee deserves it. He is a fine soldier, and he has 
 been a very good friend of mine since General Wilson went 
 away. The officers at the camp started in to celebrate as
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 249 
 
 soon as the news reached them, and, as I said before, I 
 guess that it will keep up for awhile. 
 
 The Army Bill strikes me nearer home. Lieutenant 
 Reeves, the Military Attache of the American Legation, 
 with whom I live, becomes a Captain under its provisions, 
 and he is naturally happy, and is talking about doing some 
 celebrating on his own account. I think, however, that 
 he will restrain himself. My friend P., from whom 
 I get a great deal of my Chinese news, is quite ill. I 
 shall miss him very much, I assure you. He has one of 
 those nasty bronchial colds and coughs such as I generally 
 enjoy in the Winter, but from which I have been practi- 
 cally free this Winter, thanks, I suppose, to the Peking 
 climate. 
 
 The last letters I mailed you — five, I think there were — 
 went off in the Legation dispatch-bag. They will be put 
 in the post at Washington. That will be the postmark on 
 them, so, when you see them, please don't assume that I 
 have come home and am liable to pop in at any time. I 
 only wish it was true, but unfortunately I am still here, 
 doing all that I can, be assured, to hustle along the slow- 
 pokes who are running, or rather walking, things 
 along. 
 
 There is nothing more to tell you, except that as always 
 you have all my love. 
 
 Peking, February 6, 1901, the same being the 
 eighteenth day of the twelfth moon of the 26th 
 year of the reign of H. I. M. K. Hsu. 
 
 Another red-letter day. I got a letter from home, and 
 it was even more welcome than ordinarily, because it said 
 that you had received the two packages I sent you in the 
 Legation bag along in November, some time. It was 
 dated December 20, and had not quite caught up with the 
 latest news by telegraph yet — that was December 25 — 
 but it was none the less welcome. I hadn't heard from 
 you at all about the packages, and I was afraid that pos- 
 sibly they had gone astray. I had given up entirely the 
 hope that they would reach you in time for Christmas, 
 and the fact that they did just tickles me to death. They 
 were pretty poor Christmas presents, it is true, but they
 
 250 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 were the best I could get here, and they showed all of 
 you at least that I hadn't forgotten you. 
 
 You have acted wisely in not sending anything to me. 
 Of course I would have appreciated a Christmas gift, 
 away off in China, but who would have thought, even 
 when I sent the packages to you, that I would still be here 
 to receive it ? When Christmas came, I certainly thought 
 that I would have been on my way back home long before 
 that. Then, again, sending anything to me out here is 
 not like sending things home to you. You have a fixed 
 residence. The post-office always knows where to find 
 you. You may have made up your mind by this time that 
 I have a fixed residence, and that it is in Peking, China. 
 But I haven't, and it is not safe to send things to me. I 
 might get them, and I might not. At all events, they will 
 be just as welcome when I get home. 
 
 I have some more pretty things for you, but I am not 
 going to tell you about them until I get home and can give 
 them to you myself. You see, I miss all the fun when I 
 send them. I hope by this time you have received the 
 two other packages I sent you by mail — I mean for the 
 kids' coats and the belt buckles. I am not worrying about 
 them, though, for if the other two reached you all right, 
 surely they will, also. 
 
 Peking, February 7, 1 901, being the nineteenth day of 
 the twelfth moon of the 26th year of the reign of 
 H. I. M. Kuang Hsu. 
 
 I learned a new one on the Chinese to-day. Of course 
 you have heard lots about the little feet of the Chinese 
 women, but I'll wager you never did hear that the Chinese 
 gentlemen were the same sort of idiots and covet little 
 feet, too, and bind up their feet to get them, just as the 
 women bind up theirs. The only reason they don't have 
 them and that they are not crippled like the women, is 
 that they don't begin binding them early in life. 
 
 I learned this to-day in a rather unexpected way. As 
 you know, Li Hung Chang has been a very sick man for 
 some time, and for a year or so before he was sick he was 
 unable to walk. To-day, in asking about his health from 
 one of his closest friends, the reply I received was, " Oh,
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 251 
 
 he is very much better, but he can't walk, and that keeps 
 him back a good deal." I asked what the trouble was 
 with his legs, and the friend told me that there was no 
 trouble with his legs, except that he had not exercised 
 any for years past, and that the reason why he had not 
 exercised was because his feet were sore. Then he told 
 me the story of this desire of Chinese gentlemen to emu- 
 late the example of Chinese ladies and have small feet. 
 
 Li Hung Chang's feet, he said, were frightfully de- 
 formed. Illustrating how they were, he put his thumb 
 under his other fingers, as near the center of his hand as 
 he could get them, and then the first and third under the 
 middle finger, pyramid fashion. Do you understand? 
 That made his foot pointed. He said that in Li's younger 
 days he bound his toes to keep them in that position, and, 
 of course, they finally grew that way. Now he is suffer- 
 ing the consequences. He has corns on both sides of all 
 his toes, and bunions all over the uncovered part of his 
 feet. Of course he can't walk. 
 
 This friend gave a very amusing account of the regular 
 visit of the corn doctor to the statesman. He said the 
 corn doctor brought with him an array of tools that would 
 fill a carpenter's tool-chest. There were saws of all sizes, 
 hammers, and a dozen different styles of knives, and 
 pincers of all sizes, and what not. He laid all these out 
 before the patient, and then got hold of a foot and started 
 to work on it. A part of the profession of a corn doctor 
 in China is to convince his patient that a corn is a little 
 tack of flesh that peels off the foot and then is forced into 
 it again by the shoe. So the doctor cuts around, and 
 swings his saws, uses his scissors, and finally gets the corn 
 round and sharp at the inner point. Then he takes a pair 
 of tongs, or tweezers, and with a quick jerk he pulls out a 
 pointed piece of hard flesh and holds it up in front of the 
 patient's eyes to show that it is really a tack of flesh. 
 What object he can have in convincing a patient that a 
 corn is such a thing I can't imagine, but probably the first 
 corn doctor in China had some object in convincing his 
 first patient that it was so, and all his successors have fol- 
 lowed his example, not knowing themselves what they 
 did it for.
 
 252 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 This friend of Li's told me that Li's son, who is twenty- 
 six years old, is already in almost as bad shape as his 
 father. He said the young man's feet were in awful con- 
 dition. He gave me the further information that the last 
 bath that Li had was in August. Li sticks to the custom 
 of all his countrymen. They never wash from the time 
 when warm weather ends until it begins again. Of course 
 they wash their faces and hands. To do that they use a 
 small teacupful of water a day — no more and no less. 
 They take the tips of their fingers, wet them in the cup, 
 and draw them over their faces. That constitutes the 
 day's wash. Nor do they change their clothing from the 
 end of warm weather to the beginning of it. In Summer 
 they change once a month, regularly, but as soon as it 
 begins to get cold they put on their heavy clothing, and 
 after that they add to or take from the garments as they 
 need, according to the weather. They never take off 
 those within three or four thicknesses of the skin. They 
 are a fine lot, are they not? 
 
 Peking, February 8, iQoi, being the twentieth day of 
 the twelfth moon of the 26th year of the reign of 
 H. L M. Kuang Hsu. 
 
 There is no word from the Chinese yet about what they 
 propose to do in the matter of heads — whether they 
 will give enough to go around, one for each Minister, or 
 not. I hope they will, I am sure. I should hate to see any 
 of the Ministers disappointed. A head is such a rare 
 souvenir, too. I am afraid if any of the Ministers should 
 be left without one for a parlor ornament he would be 
 broken-hearted. Really, I suppose, they have not de- 
 manded too many heads at all, but twelve seems a lot, and 
 I can't reconcile myself to that part of the demand where 
 they insist on the heads of these dead men. Without any 
 joking, it seems to me that they have overreached them- 
 selves in demanding that the sentence of death be 
 passed on the dead. 
 
 In China, the law is that when a man is sentenced to 
 death and is decapitated, the punishment does not cease 
 then. His children, if he has any, are deprived of any 
 offices they may hold. His property is all confiscated to
 
 ORDERED TO CHIN A 263 
 
 the Government, and his wife and family are left paupers. 
 Now, that may be all right in China, but I do not think it 
 could happen in any civilized country, and I don't think that 
 civilized people approve of visiting the sins of the father 
 in any such fashion. The Ministers want the sentence of 
 death passed on these dead men for the reason that they 
 want the families to suffer all the rigors of the Chinese 
 law. If that is not bloodthirsty and uncivilized, then I 
 don't know what is. 
 
 What possible satisfaction it can be to the great and 
 rich nations of the world to impose poverty and further 
 disgrace on women and children I can't see, and I don't 
 believe that when the people at home understand exactly 
 what is demanded and the reasons for it they will agree 
 to any such thing. I confess that I am getting a good 
 deal of the sentiment in such matters knocked out of me, 
 but there are lengths to which even so hard-hearted a 
 wretch as myself cannot reconcile his conscience, and this 
 is one of them. Well, we will see what will come of it 
 all. Whatever is to come of it, I hope will come quickly, 
 for I am getting tired of waiting. And I am afraid, if this 
 keeps up much longer, I'll get a thirst for heads myself. 
 
 Peking, February 9, 1901, being the twenty-first day 
 of the the twelfth moon of the 26th year of the 
 reign of H. I. M. Kuang Hsu. 
 
 This moon is waning, and the New Year is nigh unto 
 us Chinamen. Ten days more and we shall be right in 
 the midst of the festival season. There is not much to 
 tell you to-day other than that my missionary friend, the 
 Rev. A., is out of limbo. I forget now whether I told 
 you about his case or not. 
 
 Quite a long while ago he had a scheme for collecting 
 damages for all of his native Christians and his church 
 from the Chinese themselves. He went around to some 
 forty villages and collected about 80,000 taels. A few 
 days ago he went back there and was promptly arrested at 
 the instigation of some Roman Catholics. It appears that 
 they had the same sort of a scheme, but A. got there 
 first, and when they went around to these same villages 
 to make their collections, they found that he had all
 
 254 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 the money there was. Naturally they were enraged, so 
 they made complaint against A., and declared that he had 
 been blackmailing the villages. 
 
 The French and Germans, both of whom are notorious 
 blackmailers out here, went after A. as soon as they 
 heard that he was back in Chon Chon — rather resented 
 anybody else blackmailing in their field, don't you see? — 
 and they arrested him. He sent in to the Minister here, 
 and we kicked up such a row about the matter that A. 
 has been released, and both the French and the Ger- 
 mans insist that he has never been under arrest. You see, 
 they are a little afraid of your Uncle Samuel when he has 
 troops around. 
 
 A. isn't back from Chon Chon, yet, and I don't know 
 what he will say to that story. He will insist that he was 
 arrested, of course, but I guess that, whether he was or 
 not, the incident, so far as anything serious is concerned, 
 at least, is closed. I really think, myself, that A. 
 might have left a little for the Catholics. I don't like to 
 see a man take it all, even if he is a missionary. 
 
 There is a big celebration going on down at the camp 
 to-night, and I thank the Lord that I am not living down 
 there, and that I am not in it. There will be the finest 
 collection of heads in the morning, I am thinking, that 
 China has ever seen. It is the wind-up of the celebration 
 over the passage of the Army Bill and the making of 
 Chafifee a Major-General in the regular army. The Gen- 
 eral himself is being dined by the Minister and the peo- 
 ple of the Legation. It is purely a Legation affair, so I 
 am not in it, and I am just as glad that I am not, too, for, 
 as you know, if there is anything in the world that I don't 
 like, it is a public dinner of any sort. 
 
 I have had a pretty hard week's work, and I am tired, 
 and I am going to bed right now. So, good-night. 
 
 Peking, February lo, 1901, being the twenty-second 
 
 day of the twelfth moon of the 26th year of the 
 
 reign of Kuang Hsu. 
 
 Hold your breath now, and don't get excited while I 
 
 yell Wow-wow-wow! I'm coming home! Leastwise, I 
 
 think so. I got that letter from H. R, this morning, and I
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 266 
 
 (quote from it : " Mr. Laffan has written me once or twice 
 on the subject of letting you come home, now that the 
 prospect of further serious military operations is disap- 
 pearing. Unless the situation should change materially 
 meantime, I presume you will receive instructions to start 
 back soon after receiving this letter. By the way, will you 
 please say at the end of one of your cables after this 
 reaches you ' Chamberlin's letter received.' " I take that 
 to mean that they are just waiting until I get the letter to 
 tell me that my sentence has been commuted. 
 
 They wanted me to get the letter first because they have a 
 lot of things they want me to do on the way home. I'll go 
 from here to Tokio, the capital of Japan, and get a corre- 
 spondent there, and then to Hong Kong, and get one 
 there. Meantime, I'll stop at Shanghai again. From 
 Hong Kong I'll go to Calcutta in India, and across India 
 to Bombay, stopping at Allahabad on the way. From 
 Bombay I'll go straight to Europe, by way of the Suez, 
 and thence home. That sounds like a tremendous journey, 
 doesn't it, but it is all on the way home, and it won't take 
 more than a few weeks longer, at the outside, than it would 
 take to go back the way I came, across the Pacific. This 
 is the loth of February, and I hope that by the latter part 
 of March, or at farthest by the early part of April, I'll 
 be back home with you. Isn't that pretty good news for 
 one day, and a Sunday at that? You will pardon me, 
 if I do not write any longer letter on this occasion. I 
 think I'll have to join the Chaffeeites and do a little cele- 
 brating on my own account. 
 
 Peking, February 12, 1901, being the twenty-fourth 
 day of the twelfth moon of the 26th year of the 
 reign of H. I. M. Kuang Hsu. 
 
 The letter I wrote you on Sunday, I think, contained 
 good enough news to excuse my failure to write you yes- 
 terday. I haven't had a telegram yet telling me to start 
 home, but I am expecting one daily. I don't suppose I 
 can start much before March i, anyway, so it doesn't 
 make much difference. You see, we are still frozen up 
 here in Peking — that is, the river is frozen and the bay at 
 Taku, and to get out of the country it is necessary to go
 
 256 ORDERED TO^CHINA 
 
 up to Shanhaikwan and take a steamer there to Japan. 
 The trip is a long one, and as the river will be open about 
 March i, anyway, I see no use of going to all the 
 discomfort. I will get away practically as quickly by 
 waiting. Besides that, several days may elapse before I 
 get my orders. I can tell you they can't come 
 too quick for me. I want to get home, but, be- 
 sides that, I have had enough of China. A lit- 
 tle of it, as you have probably seen from my letters, 
 goes a long way. I am tired of pigtails and dirty faces, 
 and bleary eyes, and the never-ending call of " low yah, 
 low yah." That isn't the way it is spelled, but that is the 
 way it sounds. It means, '' Kind sir, kind sir, have pity." 
 It is the cry of the beggar, and it is heard on every hand 
 here in China. Begging is a profession, and there is a 
 society of beggars — a sort of a protective society, like a 
 labor union. If a man doesn't belong to it he can't have a 
 comfortable stand on the street and beg at ease, as it were. 
 Most of the beggars are the horrible creatures you have 
 read about. Many of them are blind, many are armless 
 or legless; and some of them cultivate great sores on 
 their bodies and heads. Practically all of their injuries 
 are self-inflicted, so it is impossible to have any pity for 
 them, and their cries are tantalizing. I can tell you, 
 nothing will make me happier than to shake the dust of 
 Peking from my feet, dig it from my eyes, blow it from 
 my nose, and shovel it out of my ears for the last time. I 
 think I'll dance a can-can and sing a song of joy. 
 
 Peking, February 14, 1901, being the twenty-sixtK 
 day of the twelfth moon of the 26th year of the 
 reign of Kuang Hsu, H. I. M. 
 
 It seems to me that in civilization this is Valentine's 
 Day. They don't have any such thing in China, and I 
 don't know what made me think of it. I haven't had any 
 valentine to remind me of it, I can assure you. As I said 
 in a letter I wrote you the day before yesterday, the val- 
 entine that would strike me best is the telegram that I 
 expect to get. It is still in the gloaming, but it certainly 
 can't be delayed long, even if the Chinese do continue to 
 kick and raise Cain, and say they won't give any more
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 257 
 
 heads. They are putting up what we might call a great 
 bluff, and they are capable of maintaining it just a cer- 
 tain time. By and by the allies will put up a bigger one, 
 and then the Chinaman will come down so quickly that it 
 will make his head swim. This will all happen, I am 
 sure, long before you get this letter, and I opine that the 
 heads that are to fall will do so, too. 
 
 I have told Reeves that I expect to get orders within a 
 few days to start home, and he is grieving over it. It will 
 leave him in our Boxer Temple alone. He doesn't like 
 that a bit. I tell him to get somebody else to come and 
 live with him, but he doesn't seem to like that idea much 
 better either. We certainly have gotten along finely to- 
 gether. I attended a dinner yesterday (and that is why 
 I didn't write). It was given by the Associated Press 
 men to General Chaffee. I didn't want to go, but it was one 
 of those cases where, if I hadn't gone, they would have 
 said that it was because the dinner was given by a man 
 on a rival concern, so I went and nearly froze to death. 
 To-day I am decidedly under the weather. The dinner 
 was given at the International Club, the dining room of 
 which is as big as a large-sized barn. There was just one 
 little stove in it, and I guess everybody caught cold. The 
 dinner wasn't good, either. The reason for that was that 
 nobody in Peking knew how to get or cook a good dinner. 
 In spite of all this, though, we had a pretty good time. 
 Everybody had to make a speech to General Chaffee, who, 
 as you know, has just been made a Major-General in the 
 regular army. 
 
 Peking, February i6, 1901, the same being the twen- 
 ty-eighth day of the twelfth moon of the 26th year 
 of the reign of Kuang Hsu. 
 
 I am getting over my cold fast and am all hunky-dory 
 again. I am pretty certain that my telegram, telling me 
 to come home, is on the way, but the telegraph is a good 
 deal like the mail here. It never is in any particular 
 hurry to get anywhere, and two or three days spent in a 
 journey from New York is nothing out of the ordinary, 
 though two or three hours ought always to suffice. I 
 have spent the last day or two looking for a man to take
 
 258 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 my place, and I have about half made up my mind to 
 appoint a young American artist, who is a friend 
 of Richard Watson Gilder. He doesn't know any- 
 thing about the newspaper business, but he is straight 
 and honest and clean and gentlemanly, and I think he has 
 the making of a man in him. Unless I can do very much 
 better I shall give him a chance. 
 
 I was down at the American camp to-day, and had a 
 talk with General Chafifee. I told him that I expected to 
 leave soon. He was genuinely sorry about it, I think. 
 He was very anxious that I should go to Manila with him, 
 but I think I shall cut Manila out of my calculations en- 
 tirely, and shall head stright for India from Hong 
 Kong. 
 
 Everybody is getting ready here now for the New Year 
 celebration which starts in on the 19th and lasts for five 
 days. I guess I've told you enough about that already. 
 I hope the Chinese will come to their senses and agree to 
 inflict the punishments the powers demand before the holi- 
 day begins, but I am afraid they won't. However, I am 
 not going to worry about it. 
 
 Peking, February 17, 1901, being the twenty-ninth 
 day of the twelfth moon of the 26th year of the 
 reign of Kuang Hsu. 
 
 It came to-day — the telegram, I mean ! It was from 
 Mr. Lord and said, " Appoint a good man in Peking and 
 come home." You bet I will, and I won't let any grass 
 grow under my feet. Good men in Peking, however, are 
 hard to find. There are only thirty or forty Americans here 
 who are going to stay here, and they differ only in degrees 
 of badness when they are considered as newspaper 
 propositions. Hunting for a good man would be like 
 Diogenes hunting for an honest one. I would need a deal 
 bigger lantern than he carried. I shall not waste my 
 time hunting for a good man, but I'll do my best looking 
 for the least bad one, and I guess the young man whom 
 I mentioned in a letter to you a day or so ago will turn out 
 to be that one, for the more I see of him the better I like 
 him, and the better man I think he'll make with some 
 experience. I told Mr. J. that I was going home
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 259 
 
 to-day, and he insisted on my taking a set of the altar 
 ornaments that once decorated the Temple of Heaven. 
 There are five in the set — four incense burners and a 
 libation cup. They are not very handsome, but they are 
 real curios, and they will make quite a valuable addition 
 to the bronzes that I already had. They are made of 
 bell metal, and, when polished, will look like pure brass. 
 They were made during- the reign of Chen Lung, which 
 was contemporaneous with the reign of George Washing- 
 ton in the United States, so they are considerably over a 
 hundred years old. I shall begin to pack my sixty-seven 
 gods to-morrow. You will notice I write " gods " with a 
 little g. Funny, isn't it? When I came out here I had 
 only one God and now I have sixty-seven others. One of 
 them is a fat old god of Wealth made of copper and with 
 a laughing face that makes one laugh every time it is 
 seen. A lot of them are lady gods. They are nearly all 
 of them brass, but I have some Chinese lady gods that 
 are made of copper. I guess that altogether I must have 
 500 pounds of them. How I am going to get them away 
 with me I cannot for the moment imagine, but I'll manage 
 some way. I hope that when I get them home they don't 
 charge me $300 or $400 duty on them. If they do, I 
 think I'll roll them off to the end of the dock and drop 
 them into the North River. I think a good deal of my 
 gods, but not that much, though, as a matter of fact, I 
 have no doubt that they are worth $1,000 or more in the 
 States as curios. 
 
 Well, I must go to the telegraph office and telegraph 
 to Taku, to see what the prospect of the river's unfreez- 
 ing is. I can tell better then what prospect there is of 
 my getting out of this heathen place. 
 
 Peking, February 19, 1901, being the Chinese New 
 
 Year, first day, first moon, 27th year of the reign 
 
 of Kuang Hsu. 
 
 Here's a Happy New Year to you in Chinese. There 
 
 was a lot of fire-cracker shooting, last night, and two or 
 
 three times I thought that the war had started up afresh. 
 
 About 5 o'clock this morning I woke up and looked out in 
 
 the temple court. My idea was that something wrong
 
 260 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 was going on, for there were unearthly sounds there. I 
 looked out, and there were all the servants in the com- 
 pound, gathered around a table which was loaded with 
 food. There were some thirteen or fourteen of them, and 
 they were all dressed in Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes, I 
 can tell you — everyone in the finest silks and satins, with 
 high-topped velvet boots on. It was the swellest-looking 
 outfit, I think, that I have ever seen. While I was look- 
 ing a fire was lighted and the whole crowd prostrated 
 themselves and knocked their heads on the ground. 
 
 I found out after the show was over that they were 
 giving the Kitchen God a send-off. The day before New 
 Year, according to the Chinese, the god that presides over 
 the kitchen in Chinese houses ascends to heaven and re- 
 ports to the big Joss the doings of the family in whose 
 kitchen he has been for the past year. He is gone a day 
 and then comes back and goes to work again. What he 
 tells the big Joss is written down in a big book and stands 
 against the family record. Now this Kitchen God, the 
 Chinese think, is susceptible to candy, so one of the things 
 they put on the table when they give him his send-off is 
 a plate of taffy. It is made so tough that it can't be 
 chewed, and woe to the man who sets his teeth in it, for 
 it will take a crowbar to dig them out. The Chinese think 
 that the Kitchen God, liking candy, sets his teeth in this 
 and tries to chew it. He can't, and he can't spit it out, 
 either. His jaws are literally glued together, and there 
 he is, helpless. He goes up to the big Joss, who asks him 
 to tell the bad things that have happened in the family, and 
 he doesn't answer because his mouth is stuck fast. Then 
 the family gets off without any bad marks. One would 
 think that, after a few years of this kind of treatment, the 
 Kitchen God would know enough to let the taffy alone, 
 but he has had his mouth glued up so-fashion every year 
 for hundreds of years, and he doesn't seem to learn any- 
 thing at all from experience. I watched that show until 
 it was over and then went back to bed. 
 
 I went out about lo o'clock in the morning, and here, 
 there, and everywhere I saw men hurrying around with 
 lighted lanterns. I couldn't make out what that was all 
 about, so I asked. I found that the men with lanterns
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 261 
 
 were looking for the people who owed them money. As 
 I have already told you, the Chinese New Year is a time 
 when all Chinamen must pay at least something on their 
 debts. It is the custom for the creditor to call on the 
 debtor and ask for his money. When a man has a large 
 business, of course he can't get to all of his debtors before 
 midnight the day before New Year's and he hasn't any 
 right to dun them on New Year's Day itself, so he main- 
 tains the fiction that New Year hasn't started by going 
 around with a lantern. As long as he keeps his lantern 
 lighted he is able to assert that it is the night before 
 and not New Year's Day, and so he reaches all his 
 debtors. 
 
 When the creditor goes to a debtor's house, he knocks 
 on the door. The debtor appears and tells him he has 
 no money with which to pay the bill, whereupon the 
 creditor immediately sets up a tremendous howling and 
 alarms the neighborhood. He calls the debtor all sorts 
 of names and abuses him in every way he can, all in a 
 voice loud enough to let everyone in the neighborhood 
 hear it. The debtor stands it as long as he can, and 
 then if he is able to give the creditor something on the bill 
 the creditor grabs it and yells for more. When he is 
 satisfied that the debtor hasn't any more, and that he can- 
 not disgrace him any farther in the eyes of his neighbors, 
 he goes away, shouting and grumbling. Queer country, 
 China, isn't it? 
 
 The day has been full of more or less new experiences 
 to me. I walked downtown this afternoon and there was 
 on unearthly din going on in most of the shops, all of 
 which were closed up. I asked about that, and was told 
 that the merchants were having a good time celebrating 
 the new year. I heard that their understanding of a good 
 time is to equip themselves with drums and bells and tin 
 pans, lock themselves up with all their relatives, and then 
 beat the drums and bells and pans and make as much 
 noise as they can. Of course, that's a queer sort of pro- 
 ceeding, but I don't know but that it is as sensible as the 
 American idea of getting drunk and raising Cain gen- 
 erally in other people's places, and I guess it doesn't leave 
 any more of a head, either.
 
 262 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 Well, I guess that is enough of a New Year story, 
 seeing that it's the third we have had this year, and I'll 
 wish you a happy one again, and say good-night. 
 
 Peking, February 21, 1901, the same being the third 
 day of the first moon of the 27th year of the reign 
 of H. I. M. K. Hsu. 
 
 I am still here, and likely to stay for seven or eight days 
 yet. My telegram to Taku didn't bring as favorable an 
 answer as I expected it would. The bay is still frozen 
 over and ships cannot come in. There is no evidence that 
 the weather will let up right away, but it always does 
 sooner or later, and there may come a change at any time, 
 so I am not going to be discouraged, particularly on a 
 day like this, when I have enjoyed a letter from you. 
 It is true it was pretty old, being dated December 
 29; nevertheless it was a very welcome one, and I en- 
 joyed it immensely. I was particularly glad to get it 
 because between now and the time when I get home I 
 don't expect that I will have much in the shape of news 
 from home. I wish I could fix it so that I could tell you 
 where I shall be on given dates, but I can't do that, for I 
 don't know myself. I shall strike London, however, and 
 I hope when I get there to find some letters from you. 
 If, when you get this letter, you write me, addressing it 
 care of the Laffan Bureau, London, I shall get it be- 
 fore I sail on my last lap for home. Don't forget, 
 now. 
 
 There was one piece of good news to-day. Early this 
 evening the Chinese Peace Commissioners sent a mes- 
 senger around to the Ministers asking them if they would 
 be satisfied if Ying Nien and Chao Shu Chiao, two of the 
 Cabinet Ministers, would strangle themselves. The Min- 
 isters had demanded that these two should be beheaded 
 along with some others. I have already told you the deli- 
 cate way the Chinese Emperor has of inviting a man to quit 
 this world with the least possible hurt to his (the man's) 
 feelings ; that is, to send him a handsomely mounted 
 silk cord in a box — a silk girdle, is, I believe, the name of 
 it officially. The recipient puts on the girdle within 
 twenty-four hours. He puts it on his neck and draws it
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 263 
 
 tight, with the natural consequence, — he dies for want of 
 breath. Some of the Ministers to-day didn't think it 
 would be a happy solution of the difficulty here to let the 
 Government hint to these gentlemen that their room was 
 better than their company, but, as the result in any case 
 would be a dead Chinaman, they finally consented. At 
 least I think they did, and, if they did, then undoubtedly 
 there will be a decree out in a day or two consenting to all 
 the demands of the powers relating to punishments, and 
 that will be the beginning of the end of all the trouble, 
 as well as of a number of Qiinamen who have lived in 
 this world too long and will undoubtedly be better off in 
 the Chinese happy hunting-grounds. 
 
 With this bit of society gossip, I'll close for the day. 
 
 Peking, February 22,, 1901, the same being the fifth 
 day of the first moon of the 27th year of the reign 
 of H. I. M. Kuang Hsu. 
 
 Well, my sweetheart, I am neither a prophet nor the 
 son of a prophet, but that edict that I told you would be 
 along in a day or two is at hand. The two gentlemen 
 whose names I mentioned will get their silk girdles to-day, 
 and the edict directs the two to use them on the sixth day 
 of the first moon, which is to-morrow, Sunday. " The bet- 
 ter the day the better the deed," did I hear you say ? The 
 Governor is appointed to go down and watch them do it. 
 Prince Chuang is also to get the silk girdle to-day, and a 
 number of other gentlemen are to have their heads 
 chopped off, all of which I trust will satisfy the powers. 
 You will forgive the ribald way in which I speak of these 
 things, but really I have lived so long in China, now, that 
 I seem to have some of that disregard for human life 
 (somebody else's human life) which is such a distinguish- 
 ing feature of the Chinese character, and then you can't 
 have much pity for some of these fellows. 
 
 For instance, there are two men here in the hands of the 
 Japs whose death is demanded by the powers and whose 
 execution is ordered by the edict that I speak of. One 
 of them is Hsu Ching Yu. Hsu was the Vice President 
 of the Board of Punishments — the same board which is 
 now to behead him — and his father was one of the Min-
 
 264 ORDEREDTOCHINA 
 
 isters of the T'suang Li Yamen. They were both bad 
 eggs, and did all they could to bring about the killing of 
 all the foreigners, but the son was the worst. They lived 
 in Legation Street, which some two years ago was mac- 
 adamized and made a decent road. When that was done 
 the old man said that it was the work of the foreign 
 devils, and he would never, never, use the street. To 
 avoid using it he built the back entrance of his house into 
 a front entrance, and cut a path from it over to the 
 nearest Chinese street, and he always used that. He 
 declared that he never could be happy until he lined the 
 inside of his coat with the hide of a foreign devil. 
 
 With all that, though, the son was worse. When the 
 relief came to Peking, the father and son talked matters 
 over. The son said, " There is only one thing to do, Pa. 
 That is to commit suicide." 
 
 " I'll never do that," said the old gentleman. " The 
 foreign devils can't make me do that." 
 
 " Of course they can't. Pa," said the young hopeful, 
 " but if we don't do it the foreign devils will cut off our 
 heads and then we'll be in a fine fix. I tell you. Pa, it's 
 the only thing to do." 
 
 " Well, son, I don't want to cross the dark river alone. 
 Now, if I do it, will you come with me ? " 
 
 " Sure," said the son. " You don't suppose, Pa, that 
 I'd let you go alone." 
 
 I must digress here to say that the old man was worth 
 a mint of money and the young one wasn't worth a tooth- 
 pick, and while the latter was advising his father to com- 
 mit suicide he was mentally calculating what a fine time 
 he would have when the old man was gone. To proceed 
 with the story : 
 
 " Sure, Pa," said the son, " you don't think I'd let my 
 poor old dad go alone." 
 
 The old man studied a while and then said, " All right, 
 son, if you'll go I'll go, too." 
 
 At this the young man got a rope and with true affec- 
 tion assisted the old man to put it around his neck and 
 then helped him up on a stool and threw the end of the 
 rope over a rafter and made it fast. Getting down he 
 called, "All ready. Pa?" "Ready," said the old man,
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 265 
 
 and the dutiful son kicked the stool out from under the 
 sire and stepped back. 
 
 At this moment half a dozen of the old man's servants 
 rushed in and would have saved him, but the young man 
 waved them aside with his sword and said, " Stand back; 
 give him time to die." When he was sure that the old 
 man was dead he let the servants cut him down and then 
 he went out and began to spend the old man's money. 
 He was engaged in that pursuit when the Japs got 
 him. 
 
 Now, that is a true story of Chinese filial affection, and 
 I submit the matter to you. Can you waste any sympathy 
 over the coming death of such a person ? You have often 
 seen over the head of dispatches about war matters in 
 newspapers the words " Delayed in transmission." Well, 
 that is just the way I look on the execution of this man. 
 He has simply been delayed in transmission. This letter, 
 though, is stretching out to an interminable length and I 
 must bite it off. 
 
 Peking^ February 25, 1901, being the seventh day of 
 the first moon of the 27th year of the reign of H. 
 I. M. Kuang Hsu. 
 
 Yesterday was Sunday — Execution Day, we might call 
 it. There wasn't any news, so I didn't write. Last night 
 I dined at the Minister's. I had told him that I was 
 going home and he said I must certainly dine with him 
 again before I went, so I accepted. He had quite a party. 
 I didn't get home until nearly i o'clock, and I didn't feel 
 like writing after that hour. 
 
 I got bad news to-day. It was the sinking of the Rio 
 Janeiro near San Francisco with a large loss of life and 
 a lot of mails. It was the loss of the mails that affected 
 me personally. I do not know whether there were any 
 letters aboard for you from me or not. I know I sent off 
 a batch along in January, about the time the mail to catch 
 that boat closed, and it would be just my luck to have 
 them on it. Did I hear you say, " Thank goodness, some- 
 thing has happened to relieve me from the necessity of 
 reading a lot of trash? " Well, I don't blame you, for I 
 fear I have been a trifle prolific on this trip. However,
 
 266 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 when I do write daily letters I like to have you get them. 
 Possibly my fear in this case is unjustified. You can tell, 
 though, by the date and the number on the letters. If 
 there is a long lapse in the dates you can charge it to the 
 post-office department. If there isn't, then my letters 
 didn't get that boat and it is all right. I have been hus- 
 tling for information about when it will be possible to leave 
 here, and I think I'll begin that dust-ridding process in 
 about three days. The ist of March will see me heading 
 homeward, or Tien-Tsin-ward, at least. I may have to 
 wait a while in Tien Tsin to get a boat to Japan or Shang- 
 hai, but if I once get to either of those places I shall at 
 least be on my way, and I am very nervous to get started. 
 To-morrow I think I'll do my last bit of work. It will be 
 to witness the beheading of that young man I told you 
 about yesterday and the other man the Japs have. I have 
 made up my mind to appoint the young man I mentioned 
 in a previous letter to take my place, and I shall wind up 
 afifairs with more or less of a clear conscience. I've done 
 the best I could, at any rate, and no man could do any 
 better than that. Here's hoping that the office is satis- 
 fied with it and that I'll be with you all soon again. 
 
 Peking, February 27, 1901, ninth day, first moon, 27th 
 year of the reign of H. I. M. Kuang Hsu. 
 
 I saw the two executions yesterday. I officially ap- 
 pointed to succeed me. My work here is done. 
 
 I start homeward to-morrow. How is that for a batch 
 of news ? I know you don't like to read about executions, 
 so all I will tell you about them is that they were per- 
 formed in the presence of a huge crowd made up of 
 garlic-eating Chinamen, and the air smelled to heaven 
 from their breath. After the executions the heads were 
 sewed on again, which is quite contrary to Chinese cus- 
 tom, and the show was over. I have been completing my 
 packing to-day. I am all ready to start now, and I have to 
 attend a dinner to-night. Major-General Chaffee is giv- 
 ing me a farewell send-off at the camp, and as soon as 
 I finish this letter I'll put on my best togs, which I have in 
 the top of my trunk, and I'll be off. I'll cut this off here 
 and finish when I get back.
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 267 
 
 12 A. M. Well, I've had my send-off. General Chaffee 
 had quite a Httle party to see that it was properly done, 
 and I received all sorts of good wishes. Colonel Heistand, 
 the Adjutant-General, made me blush by saying, " Cham- 
 berlin, you go leaving none but friends behind you." 
 That was pretty nice, wasn't it? General Chaffee said, 
 among other things, " We have enjoyed having you with 
 us, and we are very sorry to have you go. We shall 
 always remember you with the best feeling." Every- 
 body else had something nice to say. It was quite flatter- 
 ing, I assure you, and even the ride in the horrible Peking 
 cart back to the house hasn't shaken all the vanity out of 
 me. I guess it will wear off, though. Good-night. I 
 must be up early in the morning. 
 
 Tien Tsin, China, eleventh day, first moon, 27th year 
 of the reign of H. I. M. Kuang Hsu. 
 
 At last Peking is a thing of the past. I am only ninety 
 miles on my 10,000-mile journey, but it took me all of 
 yesterday to make it and from the present outlook I guess 
 I'll be stuck here at least a week, if not longer. The bay 
 is still half full of ice and the fleet of ships that plies be- 
 tween this port and Shanghai hasn't started yet from 
 Shanghai. It will take them four days to get up here, a 
 day or two to unload, another day to load, and then they'll 
 b^ ready to go back. Until that time comes I'll have to 
 wait here, but I'm on the road home, anyway, and that is 
 sufficient to keep me satisfied with life. 
 
 I said good-bye to Reeves at 7 o'clock yesterday morn- 
 ing and started out with Mr. J. for the railroad. 
 You can imagine the sort of a journey it was when you 
 know that it was dark when we reached Tien Tsin. I 
 really think a jinrikisha would have made the run in 
 quicker time. The railroad has been running now for 
 several months, but it doesn't seem to have improved any 
 at all. When I got to Tien Tsin I went with J. to 
 his house and I am there now. I shall stay with him to- 
 day and to-morrow, when I am to go to the house of 
 a young American engineer, who has just con- 
 cluded a tremendous deal in coal-mining properties and 
 has cleared half a million dollars by it. He wants me to
 
 268 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 spend the rest of the time I am in Tien Tsin with him, 
 but I have promised a visit to Quartermaster-General 
 Humphrey and I'll move again in a couple of days. No 
 use wearing out one's welcome, don't you see? I have 
 already in previous letters expatiated on Tien Tsin, so I 
 won't bother you with any more about it now. 
 
 Tien Tsin, China, March 5, 1901, fifteenth day, first 
 moon, 27th year of the reign of H. I. M, Kuang 
 Hsu. 
 
 Yesterday was Inauguration Day in the United States, 
 and it was Moving Day in Tien Tsin. I am sorry that 
 I missed the inauguration, but I am glad that I moved. I 
 had a pretty good time at H.'s, but I do not know him 
 as well as I know General Humphrey and I am being 
 finely taken care of here. The General lives in a com- 
 pound which was formerly occupied by the missionaries 
 of the American Board of Missions and is filled up with 
 American houses. I have a room on the second floor of 
 his house, overlooking a tennis court and a lawn. Major 
 Foote, who is the American representative on the Tien 
 Tsin Provisional Gevernment, lives with him. They are 
 both of them fine fellows and they know how to take care 
 of their guests. I called on the Emmonses, yesterday, 
 and dined with them last night. Emmons, you will re- 
 member, is the Judge of the Provisional Government, 
 about whom I wrote a story when I was here before. 
 They are very nice people. 
 
 I have been making a lot of inquiries about steamers, 
 and I think the best that I can do is to take a steamer 
 leaving here Saturday. The fleet of steamers I spoke 
 about in my last letter to you left Shanghai yesterday 
 morning and will be up here Friday. The steamship men 
 say that one or two of them will go out Saturday after- 
 noon or Sunday morning, and I guess there is no ques- 
 tion that that is the best I can do. It means almost a 
 week in this place, but it is another one of those cases 
 where there is nothing else to be done. This steamer 
 will probably get me in Shanghai about Thursday or 
 Friday of next week, and I shall be able to get a steamer 
 for Hong Kong the following day. A couple of days'
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 269 
 
 stay there and I'll be off for India and fairly launched on 
 the way homeward. I promise you I will not let any 
 grass grow under my feet in covering the distance be- 
 tween Tien Tsin anc' Adelphi Street, Brooklyn. 
 
 Tien Tsin, March 6, 1901, being the sixteenth day of 
 the first moon of the 27th year of the reign of 
 Kuang Hsu. 
 
 I've spent the whole day gadding about Tien Tsin. 
 This morning I went over to the native city and spent 
 the time until lunch listening to the cases in Emmons's 
 court. The court was just the same, only there was not 
 so much beating, and so there isn't anything to tell you 
 about. I drove around the wall of the old city, which 
 is being torn down. This wall was built more than 500 
 years ago and was one of the best in the whole Chinese 
 Empire. It is forty feet high and fifty feet thick. You 
 can imagine what a massive affair it is. The allies are 
 tearing it down, chiefly as a reminder to China. Every 
 time a Chinaman thinks of the wall he will remember what 
 it was that brought about its razing, and will remember to 
 be good. At least, that is the theory. The way it will 
 work out, if I know anything about the Chinese, is this : 
 The Chinese men and women of to-day will tell their 
 children how Tien Tsin was once a beautiful city, with a 
 magnificent wall around it — a wall that had been built 
 centuries before by their ancestors ; that the foreign devils 
 came and tore down this monument of their ancestors' 
 greatness and left the city unprotected. Every bad 
 thing that happens will be charged to the tearing down 
 of the wall by the foreign devils, and the young men will 
 be taught that all their troubles are directly traceable to 
 that, so under no circumstances must the foreign devils 
 be forgiven. That is the Chinese of it. I have learned 
 that you can't deal with Chinese as you do with other 
 people, and you can count on about everything that 
 happens having directly the opposite effect upon their 
 minds from that which it has on the minds of Europeans 
 or Americans. With which bit of wisdom I'll close this 
 letter.
 
 270 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 Tien Tsin, March 7, 1901, being the seventeenth day, 
 first moon, 27th year of the reign of H. I. M. 
 Kuang Hsu. 
 
 I got three letters from home to-day, and am accord- 
 ingly happy. Two were from you and one from the 
 youngster. Your two were dated January 9 and 16, and 
 W.'s January 16. Your letter of January 9 was the 
 first I had received since the one dated December 29, 
 some eleven days before, and the one dated the i6th is 
 probably the last I shall receive until I reach London on 
 my way home, unless I am lucky enough to intercept 
 some in Shanghai, which I don't anticipate. I expect 
 now to reach Shanghai in time to get the steamer to 
 Hong Kong, which sails on the i6th. That will get me to 
 Hong Kong on the 20th and I will sail from there about 
 the 25th for Singapore, which is almost on the equator. 
 From Singapore I will take another ship to Calcutta, in 
 India, and then I will cross India to Bombay by rail. 
 There I'll take another ship and go to Aden through the 
 Suez, possibly stopping at Cairo, in Egypt ; thence to 
 Marseilles in France or Brindisi in Italy, whence I will 
 take a train direct to Paris. From Paris I'll go straight 
 to London and then straight home, having finished a 
 journey completely around the world. I can't tell you 
 yet when you may expect me to get to Brooklyn, even 
 approximately, for I don't know anything about the ships 
 after leaving Hong Kong, but I think it will be in the 
 neighborhood of the ist of May. As I have told you 
 before, I shall not let any grass grow under my feet. 
 
 You speak in your letter of January 9 of getting 
 twenty-one letters, all in a bunch. I can't imagine what 
 could have gotten into the mails to bring them to you 
 that way. You say they were numbered 69 to 75. Well, 
 the number of this one is, if my count is right, 185, so 
 you see what is in store for you yet. My, how I pity 
 you ! You don't tell me in your letter of the i6th 
 whether you had finished reading the twenty-one or not, 
 but I presume you must have done it. That's a good 
 girl ; stick at 'em and you'll wade through the lot to 
 clear water if you do. 
 
 I haven't settled definitely what I shall take in the way
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 271 
 
 of a steamer to Shanghai, but the fleet is on its way and 
 I have engaged passage on no less than four of them, all 
 alleged to sail Saturday. I think I ought to succeed in 
 catching one of the four. Of course I'll stop at Cliee 
 Foo on the way down, but that is only an hour or so. 
 
 By the way, I told you yesterday, I think, about the 
 tearing down of the Tien Tsin wall. Well, to-day I had a 
 present from General Humphrey. It was a stone that he 
 had taken from the Great Chinese Wall, which was built 
 250 B. c. I am going to have that cut up and made into 
 paper weights. I'll have a little inscription put on each, 
 and they'll make a fine souvenir of China, I think. Tell 
 W. how much I appreciated his letter, but tell him 
 the writing would have been a good deal better if he had 
 gone to school all Winter. 
 
 On Board the Steamer Tung Chow, MarcH 10, the 
 same being the twentieth day of the first moon of 
 the 27th year of the reign of H. I. M. Kuang Hsu. 
 
 Actually homeward bound at last ! The steamer hasn't 
 started yet, but I am on board, bag and baggage, and we 
 are ready to sail at any time. If you remember, this is 
 the same steamer that I came to Tien Tsin on, something 
 like six months ago. My last three days in Tien Tsin 
 were such busy ones that I actually didn't have a minute 
 to write, so you must forgive me for not writing you on 
 the 8th and 9th. I got a notice from the steamship com- 
 pany at 5 o'clock yesterday afternoon, that the passengers 
 for the Tung Chozv would have to leave Tien Tsin by the 
 7.30 A. M. train, so it was almost a case of run for it. I 
 made it, all right, so what's the difference ? I am travel- 
 ing south with J., the head of the Peking syndi- 
 cate. He is going home too. He lives in New York, 
 and he has been out here six years. Think of that ! You 
 can imagine how enthusiastic he is at the prospect of 
 seeing his family once more. The Tung Choiv is full of 
 passengers, but I don't know yet who they are. I don't 
 care, anyway. I'm coming home and that's the im- 
 portant part. There she blows ! — the whistle, I mean. 
 I'll cut this letter short and go up on deck to get my last 
 look at Tong Ku and Taku, Bad cess to them!
 
 272 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 On Board the Tung Chow off Taku, March ii, 
 1 90 1, being the twenty-first day of the first moon of 
 the 27th year of the reign of Kuang Hsu. 
 
 We are stuck on the bar ! That is a fine place for a 
 respectable man of family to be held up, isn't it? On a 
 bar ! The idea ! However, it is not a rum bar, so you 
 will have to forgive me. It is the bar across the entrance 
 of the harbor at Taku. We thought, when we started 
 away from Tong Ku, yesterday, that there was water 
 enough on the bar for the Tung Chow to get across. 
 There is where we missed it. She was drawing twelve 
 feet, and there was only ten feet on the bar, so we buried 
 ourselves in two feet of Taku mud and here we are fast. 
 The Captain says we will get off some time during the 
 day, and that, as the mud is good and soft, there is no 
 need to worry, so I am not worrying a bit. The only 
 thing I growl at is the delay. Six months in the East, 
 however, has made me more or less used to delays and 
 I am not even growling at them very hard. 
 
 It rained and blew and blustered yesterday afternoon 
 when we started, and it has been blowing ever since, so 
 it looked as if the trip back to Shanghai might be as bad 
 a one as the trip up on the Tung CJwzv was. I told you 
 in my letters then all about the steamer and about the 
 Chinese aboard and all that, so there is absolutely noth- 
 ing here to write about now. We are going to stop at 
 Che Foo, and after I look that place over I will tell you 
 about it. 
 
 On Board the Tung Chow, Che Foo Harbor, 
 China, March 13, 1901, being the twenty-third 
 day, first moon, 27th year, H. I. M. Kuang Hsu. 
 
 I have seen all that there is to see of Che Foo and am 
 back on board the Tung Chozv again, ready to proceed 
 south to Shanghai. The Captain hasn't come on board 
 yet. He has a friend on shore who is suffering from 
 delirium tremens, and he wants to get him aboard and 
 take him to a hospital in Shanghai, so he is holding the 
 ship to see if he can't make the arrangement. 
 
 I don't blame the man for getting delirium tremens in 
 Che Foo. After a careful inspection of the place I don't
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 273 
 
 see what else he could get, and I am not so sure that he 
 would have to drhik a great deal of liquor to get it, either. 
 Che Foo is built on high hills looking out to sea. Geo- 
 graphically, it is beautifully located. The view of the 
 sea is superb, but we must have more than a view of the 
 sea in this world, to be happy, and Che Foo is as lone- 
 some as a Sullivan County farm. It is not so always, I 
 understand, for in the Summer it is something of a resort 
 for Shanghai people. There is surf bathing and all that 
 in the Summer, but the rest of the year — my conscience, 
 the lonesomeness of it ! Nothing but missionaries and 
 Chinamen to associate with ! The missionaries are all 
 of the kind that wear pigtails and Chinese clothes, and I 
 have gotten so I just hate the sight of them. I think the 
 Chinese do, too. 
 
 There is nothing more to tell you of the Chinese in Che 
 Foo. They are just like the Peking and the Tien Tsin 
 Chinese. Che Foo is a center for the manufacture of a 
 heavy silk. I thought at first that I would buy a few rolls 
 of it, but when I saw the quality and heard the price I 
 changed my mind. It is the heavy, linen-colored stuff 
 that men's clothes are made of. It makes clothes good 
 enough to wear here in the East, but I ain afraid that if I 
 appeared on Broadway with a suit of it I would create a 
 sensation. That was the principal reason I did not buy. 
 
 Well, the Captain has just come aboard without his 
 drunken friend and he says that we will start. I'll wave 
 a da-da to Che Foo and for the last time, I hope, shake 
 ofif the dust of North China. I will not write you again, 
 until I get to Shanghai. It is useless, for it is simply 
 going over the same ground, or the same water rather, 
 that I have already traveled and written you fully about. 
 We are due in Shanghai on the 1 5th. 
 
 The Astor House, Shanghai, March 16, 1901. 
 
 Being the twenty-sixth day, first moon, 27th year 
 
 H. I. M. Kuang Hsu. 
 
 I got back to Shanghai last night after another one of 
 
 those tempestuous voyages on the China Sea. The old 
 
 Tung Chow rocked like a cradle all the way, but luckily 
 
 we didn't have the head winds we had going up, so we
 
 274 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 made better headway. I have my old room in the 
 Astor House, and shall probably be here for a week, 
 at least, waiting for a steamer to take me to Hong Kong. 
 Shanghai is the same as it was before, but it is not new 
 to me now, so things don't impress me as they did on my 
 previous visit. J. has the room next to mine. He 
 is a good traveling companion. He is going home across 
 the Pacific and is going to stay here until April ist, to 
 wind up some business matters. 
 
 The Congers got in this morning. They left Peking 
 after I did, and had a better trip down. They are going 
 home, too, for a six-months' vacation, and they are very 
 happy over it. Everybody in Shanghai seems to think 
 that Mr. Conger has been recalled. He has not been, 
 and as I am familiar with all the facts in the case, I told 
 the editor of The Shanghai Mercury, who interviewed 
 me this morning, and to-night The Mercury prints an 
 interview with me half a column long. 
 
 I took a drive this afternoon out the Bubbling Well 
 Road that I have already told you about. J. pro- 
 vided the carriage. After that I went out to buy 
 a trunk ; then I went to see F., the reformed mis- 
 sionary who is our man here, and paid him $450. That 
 completes the record of the day. I sat around the hotel 
 the rest of the day, looking glum and wishing that a boat 
 for Hong Kong would come along, but none came, and 
 none is advertised as due for some days, so I'll simply 
 have to possess my soul in patience. The sinking of the 
 Pacific Mail ship Rio Janeiro leaves the mail service from 
 Shanghai short one boat and the next mail won't be until 
 April. One of the Empress boats leaves Hong Kong 
 April 3, so I will save up my letters and mail them aboard 
 of her when I get to Hong Kong. She goes to Van- 
 couver and will beat the Coptic, which leaves April i. 
 
 The Astor House, Shanghai, March 19, 1901, twen- 
 ty-ninth day, first moon, 27th year H. I. M. Kuang 
 Hsu. 
 Still in Shanghai and no chance now of getting away, 
 I fear, until the 24th or 25th. The French mail left for 
 Hong Kong to-day, but with absolutely not an inch of
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 275 
 
 space to spare on her and I couldn't go, I've seen every- 
 thing there is in Shanghai to see, and I can tell you it is 
 mighty dull waiting around with little of anything to do. 
 
 I have been putting in some of my time here, talking 
 with the newspaper proprietors about the possibility of 
 selling them the Lafifan Bureau service, and I am very 
 much encouraged by the outlook. They want to get it, 
 but the cable tolls are too high, so it is hard to see how 
 they can afford it. It will cost them about $ioo a day, 
 gold, and in the East that is a good deal of money to pay 
 for news, where the people who read your papers can be 
 counted by hundreds rather than thousands. Shanghai 
 has a foreign population of about 7,000 and the English 
 papers have to depend on that number as the limit of their 
 possible subscribers. I don't know whether I'll be able 
 to sell the service or not, but I am going to do the best I 
 can. 
 
 There is still nothing new to tell you, so I'll stop writ- 
 ing and say good-bye again for a few days. 
 
 The Astor House, Shanghai, March 22, 1901, sec- 
 ond day, second moon, 27th year H. I. M. Kuang 
 Hsu. 
 
 This is fine paper the Astor House gives us to write 
 on, isn't it? It makes me weary every time I pick up 
 a pen. They are just as stingy about it, too, as it is 
 possible to be. When you ask at the desk for paper and 
 envelopes they give you one sheet and one envelope, and 
 they seem to do that more or less grudgingly. I have 
 only one yellow pad left and I'll need that on shipboard, 
 so I stick to this stuff, stingy as the hotel is. 
 
 Yesterday J. and I went out to the Nang Yang 
 College and had tiffin with F., who is the Presi- 
 dent, and for the first time I saw the Chinese boys playing 
 foreign games. There was an American baseball game 
 going on, and an English cricket game, and you would be 
 surprised to see how well the young Chinamen played. 
 Really, they did splendidly — I mean, of course, for China- 
 men. They didn't compare with American boys of the 
 same age, but they did mighty well, and with practice I 
 have no doubt they would very soon become expert.
 
 276 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 Their skirts were in the way and their shoes didn't permit 
 them to run anything Hke as fast as an American boy 
 could run. Nevertheless, they got over the ground 
 somehow. They were a very intelligent-looking lot of 
 boys, and Ferguson, who, of course, knew them all per- 
 sonally, said that they were fully up to the average in 
 intelligence with foreign boys of their own age. Fergu- 
 son has had an addition to his family since I was out 
 before. It was the ninth. You see, while he is a re- 
 formed missionary, he hasn't altogether gotten out of the 
 missionary habits, which bring $ioo a year more salary 
 for every baby in the family. He has sent his elder chil- 
 dren to the United States to be educated, and he is keep- 
 ing six or seven of the younger ones out here in Shanghai. 
 
 After tiffin to-day I went to see Sheng and I had 
 another talk with him. Sheng again impressed me as 
 being one of the smartest, shrewdest Chinamen I have 
 ever met. We talked about pretty nearly everything. 
 He was anxious to hear all about the condition of things 
 in North China and I had to tell him. It was really a 
 case of the interviewer being interviewed, but I enjoyed 
 it and he seemed to. I got some quite valuable stuff 
 from him about an American concession that I shall use 
 when I get home. 
 
 Well, good-bye again for a few days. I sail, I think, 
 on the 25th, in the English mail steamship Plassy, for 
 Hong Kong. 
 
 The Astor House, Shanghai, March 25, 1901. 
 Fifth day, fifth moon, 27th year H. I. M. Kuang 
 Hsu. 
 
 Just a word before I go on board the Plassy. She 
 starts from here at i o'clock in the morning and I am 
 going on board at 5 this afternoon. I have been packing 
 to-day, and going around saying good-bye to the 
 Shanghai folks who have been kind to me. I had 
 F. and some of his professors at tiffin with me 
 at the club to-day, went around and saw some of the 
 newspaper folk again, and had another ride with J., 
 finished up what little business I had here, paid my hotel 
 bill, and now I'm all ready to go on board the launch that
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 277 
 
 takes the Plassy's passengers down to Woo Sung, where 
 the ship is lying. I think that winds up alfairs in 
 Shanghai for me, and I am off again on my homeward 
 journey. The Plassy is due in Hong Kong on the 28th, 
 and I'll write you again from there. 
 
 March 26, 1901. On Board the Steamship Plassy, 
 China Sea. 
 
 I am out of China, now, and I'll drop the Chinese 
 calendar. I trust the moons won't bother me any more 
 for some time to come, at any rate. Unlike Chinese 
 ships, the Plassy got off on time. I was in bed and sound 
 asleep, and didn't get up to see it. The Plassy is a pretty 
 fine boat. This is her first trip out to the East. She has 
 been afloat only a year. She was built to use as a troop 
 ship in an emergency, and for that reason she is big and 
 roomy. 
 
 I was struck by one thing at the Peninsular and 
 Oriental jetty where I got aboard the tender. There was 
 a big crowd there to see the passengers homeward bound, 
 and what struck me was the greeting. It was — 
 
 " Why, hello, are you going home ? " 
 
 " Yes, I'm going home — thank God ! Are you going/ 
 home, too? " 
 
 " No, damn it." 
 
 If I heard that once, I heard it fifty times, I think. 
 This morning when I went in to breakfast the chief 
 steward, who assigned me to a seat, excused himself for 
 putting me at a side table with the other Hong Kong 
 'passengers by saying, " You see, sir, we wants to keep 
 all the 'ome people at the tables where they can stay, and 
 you are only going to 'Ong Kong, sir." 
 
 There is one thing about the P. and O. line that is a 
 great nuisance. It is the custom of dressing for dinner. 
 All the men have to put on dress suits. It is a fad that 
 has to be complied with. The man who doesn't comply 
 with it is an object of curiosity, and, much as I disliked 
 it, I disliked becoming an object of curiosity much worse, 
 so I put on dress clothes. It was lucky I did, for there 
 wasn't a man at the table who didn't wear the same, and I 
 would have been a sight if I hadn't. It was pretty cool
 
 278 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 on board, too, and some of the people wore light over- 
 coats outside the dress suits. Funny custom, isn't it, 
 when you must wear a dress suit even if you have to wear 
 your overcoat to dinner to keep warm ? I nearly froze to 
 death, myself. The Plassy is due to arrive in Hong 
 Kong day after to-morrow. 
 
 Hong Kong Hotel, March 28, 1901. 
 
 I have begun to see new things again at last, and from 
 now on I think it very likely I shall have more to write 
 about that will interest you. The Plassy arrived off 
 Hong Kong harbor at i o'clock to-day, and we sailed into 
 what I think is one of the prettiest harbors that I have 
 ever seen. Hong Kong is an island, pretty well sur- 
 rounded by other islands, all of which are small moun- 
 tains rising right up out of the water to a height of from 
 500 to 1,000 feet. They are close together and the pas- 
 sages between them, consequently, are narrow. The 
 shigs go into the harbor between chains of these mountain 
 islands. There must be six or seven miles of them be- 
 fore you reach the main island, on which the city of 
 Victoria, or Hong Kong, is built. The name of the 
 island is Hong Kong and that of the city Victoria, 
 though very few people call it that. It is just Hong 
 Kong to everybody. 
 
 Hong Kong is built on the side of a hill. The top of 
 the hill is 1,800 feet above the level, and on muggy days 
 like to-day the clouds are away below " the Peak." Dur- 
 ing the rainy season, they tell me, for two months you 
 can't see the Peak at all. The whole side of the hill is 
 dotted with houses. The wealthy people live nearest the 
 top, and some of their houses are truly mansions. It is a 
 fine thing, of course, to live up high, and the view is 
 superb, but it has its disadvantages. The air up there is 
 so damp, the people say, that every house has to have a 
 drying room and every stitch of clothing, when not in 
 use, has to be hung in the drying room in order that 
 it may be dry enough to put on the next time it is 
 needed. 
 
 The harbor itself was full of ships when we came in 
 to-day. Among others there were our own great battle-
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 270 
 
 ships, the Oregoii and the Kentucky. The Kentucky is 
 one of our new ships, and we think she is about the finest 
 thing in the warship Hne that floats. She has created 
 something of a sensation here. I was very much amused, 
 at two EngHsh naval officers who were passengers on the 
 Flossy. They sat opposite me at the table and three or 
 four times they got to talking about warships and dis- 
 cussed the Kentucky. Neither of them had seen her, but 
 they had read about her, and it was their opinion that she 
 wasn't much of a ship. Well, when the Plassy came into 
 port they were by the rail and they took good looks at the 
 Kentucky with their glasses. 
 
 " By Jove ! " said one, " not a bad-looking craft, is 
 she?" 
 
 " Not half bad," assented the other. 
 
 They were silent a moment, and then they began to 
 make comparisons with the Centurion, an English battle- 
 ship which was lying near by. The Kentucky showed at 
 least twice as many guns as the Englishman. The wind- 
 up of it was that the Englishmen confessed to each other 
 that "Really, old chap, our boats ought to carry more 
 guns," and " Don't cha know, she could make a very 
 nawsty fight." They agreed then and there to go aboard 
 and have a closer look at the Kentucky. 
 
 Hong Kong harbor is filled chock full of sampans. I 
 have already told you about these small boats. In China 
 people are born on them, live all their lives on them and 
 die on them. One small one that came alongside before 
 we were tied up to-day had as occupants a man, two 
 women, six children, and two dogs. The oldest child was 
 about seven and the others were graded in both age and 
 size, the smallest, a babe that I should take to be not more 
 than a month old, was slung in a sling across the back 
 of one of the women. The other children all had ropes 
 tied about their waists and the women held the ends of 
 the ropes. Now and then a child would fall overboard, 
 an incident that hardly disturbed the equanimity of the 
 other occupants of the boat. The woman who held the 
 end of the particular rope attached to that child's waist 
 would simply haul in the line and the squawking young- 
 ster, spluttering water, would be hauled back aboard
 
 280 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 and spanked. Think of being bom on a little boat and 
 spending your life there ! These people do it, as I said 
 before, and they are happy there, too, I suppose, because 
 they don't know anything better. 
 
 But besides the hundreds of sampans, the harbor of 
 Hong Kong has a great lot of steam lavmches. The peo- 
 ple here say that there are more steam launches in the 
 harbor than in any other harbor in the world. Whether 
 that is true or not I do not know, but there certainly are 
 a great many of them. The Hong Kong Hotel, where I 
 am stopping, has one that meets every steamer. I came 
 ashore on her to-day. When I walked up to the desk to 
 register the clerk looked at me without a quiver and 
 said, "Will you have an $8, a $io, or a $12 room?" 
 Well, it nearly took my breath away. The gall of a 
 Hong Kong hotel charging $8, $10, and $12 a day! 
 I told him I'd take a $10 room, and then I went up 
 to look at it. It was just a fair average $4-a-day 
 room. 
 
 I made some inquiries of casual acquaintances after 
 that. They all damned the Americans. They said the 
 Americans had spoiled Hong Kong, as they spoil every 
 place they go. They were made of money and they spent 
 it like water, paying anything that was asked and never 
 growling. Before the Americans took the Philippines, 
 they said, the Hong Kong Hotel was glad to get $3 a day, 
 and now they considered that they were doing a great 
 favor to let a room for as little as $10 a day. You see, 
 everybody from the States going to and from Manila has 
 to stop at Hong Kong and wait for a Manila boat, so the 
 place is always crowded with Americans who have money 
 to burn and who burn it. I didn't have much chance to 
 go around the city to-day, so I can't tell you any more at 
 present. I'll do that in another letter. 
 
 Hong Kong Hotel, Hong Kong, March 30, 1901. 
 I am beginning to think that I have a pretty large 
 circle of acquaintance in this world of ours. In all my 
 travels I have never yet found a place where I didn't run 
 across somebody I knew. Hong Kong is no exception. 
 I hadn't been here six hours when I heard a familiar
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 281 
 
 voice bawl out, " Well, for the Lord's sake, Chamberlin, 
 where did you come from ? Gosh ! last time I saw you 
 was in Tampa Bay, Florida." And another voice said, 
 " Well, I'll be hornswoggled. Last time I saw you was 
 in Santiago, Cuba. How are you, anyway ? " 
 
 The first man was Paymaster P., of the Irish bat- 
 tleship O' Regan, as she is known in the navy, and 
 the other was Ensign M., of the Concord. We three 
 stood there talking when along came Dr. R. of New 
 York, a dentist whom I knew there, and we had quite a 
 jubilation. Strange how one runs across people that 
 way, isn't it? Those three hadn't the remotest idea that 
 I was in this part of the world, and I hadn't the remotest 
 idea that they were. They have been here some time 
 and know Hong Kong pretty well, and to-day I have 
 been around with them, seeing sights. 
 
 There are a great many sights in Hong Kong to see. 
 First of all there are the shops. Canton, the biggest city 
 in China, is up the river ninety-five miles, and it is the 
 headquarters of the gold and silver manufacturers of 
 China. Half the shops on the Queen's Road, which is 
 the principal street in Hong Kong, are devoted to the sale 
 of gold and silver at prices that make your mouth water. 
 Every conceivable thing is made from the metals and 
 sold by weight. When you go into a shop to buy, the 
 keeper takes down what you want and puts it in a pair of 
 scales. Then he charges you the value of the metal and 
 lo per cent, added for the labor. If I had money I think 
 I'd just stock up with silverware and gold ware to last a 
 lifetime. Unfortunately I haven't money, so my busi- 
 ness is just a " look-see " one. 
 
 I laid in some white clothes to-day, to wear in India. 
 They were of cotton duck and cost $4.50 a suit. That 
 is $2.25 of our money. Couldn't complain of that, could 
 I ? There are any number of Japanese curio stores, too, 
 and the things in them are as cheap as they can be bought 
 in Japan. This afternoon I took a trip up to the Peak. 
 There is a railroad running up there. The cars are 
 drawn by cable. The road is just about as steep as the 
 switchback in America. You remember the trip we 
 made to Mauch Chunk and Glen Onoka. I thought of
 
 282 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 that to-day as I went up the Peak road here. The view 
 from the Peak here is certainly magnificent. The day 
 was clear and I could see miles in every direction. It got 
 cloudy and began to rain while I was up there, so that the 
 trip was not as enjoyable as it might have been. 
 
 I gathered in a few little souvenirs to-day, but I won't 
 tell you about them here. I'll save that till I get home, 
 which I think now will be about the first or second week 
 in May. I had intended going from here to Calcutta by 
 boat, but the first boat sails on April 15, and I can't waste 
 all that time, so to-day I bought a ticket to Singapore on 
 the German mail boat Stuttgart, of the North German 
 Lloyd line. She is due to leave here next Wednesday. 
 That's the best I can do. I can get a boat every few days 
 from Singapore to Calcutta. 
 
 Hong Kong Hotel, April i, 1901. 
 
 First I thought I would just write a big " April fool," 
 on this sheet of paper and let it go at that, but then I 
 remembered that I did not write to you yesterday and 
 thought better of it. Good of me, wasn't it? I have 
 been moseying around the shops again and gathering in 
 a few little trinkets — nothing of any value and nothing 
 worth talking about, but all Chinese-y as Chinese can be 
 and hence of more or less value as little souvenirs. The 
 American colony here has been overjoyed to-day by a 
 report from Manila that Aguinaldo has been captured. 
 According to the story, General Funston got him with the 
 aid of a company of the Macabebes. I hope it is true, 
 for that would have a very great moral effect upon the 
 Philippine question in the United States, and will go 
 a long way toward winding up the trouble in the 
 islands. 
 
 Talking with some Hong Kong people this afternoon 
 about the damage that Americans had done to the town, 
 they limited their accusations solely to the question of the 
 cost of living, and then went on and told how the Amer- 
 icans had made the place. Before the battle in Manila 
 Bay, they said. Hong Kong was a dead-and-alive place. 
 There was little money here. Labor was cheap. Every- 
 thing was cheap, and business was dull. Since the
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 283 
 
 American occupation of the Philippines, on the other 
 hand, business has been booming. There is never a time 
 when there are not four or five men-of-war in the harbor 
 and 300 or 400 Americans, either waiting to go to Manila 
 or returning from there, all of them spendthrifts and 
 leaving behind them wherever they go a trail of money. 
 On the whole, these Hong Kong people who complained 
 that the Americans had spoiled Hong Kong couldn't help 
 expressing the hope that they would keep on and spoil it 
 some more. 
 
 The Chinese I have seen down here are a different 
 class of people from those in the North. Most of them 
 are opium-smokers. They are less polite than in the 
 North, and they are never intelligent, I think. Down 
 here they don't know anything about the troubles in the 
 North, and they are indifferent to them. They haven't 
 any patriotism, and to them China seems to be Canton 
 only. The fact that the foreigners are occupying Peking 
 and have possession of the ancestral halls and the tombs 
 of their Emperors is no matter to them, and they don't 
 concern themselves about it. I talked with a number of 
 Chinamen about it to-day, and they didn't take the least 
 interest in the matter. 
 
 One thing that strikes me about Hong Kong is the ad- 
 ministration of justice to the Chinese. It is the first place 
 in China that I have visited where the Chinaman has a 
 fair show. Here he gets justice all the time. If a white 
 man hits him the white man is arrested and fined. If he 
 hits a white man he is arrested and fined. Of course he 
 hasn't all the privileges that a white man has, but he has 
 enough. All the servants here are Chinese boys. The 
 law looks after them, too. They go to work for the for- 
 eigners, and the law requires that they obey their masters 
 in everything pertaining to their work. For instance, if a 
 house-boy refuses to do any piece of work that his master 
 orders him to do, his master turns him over to the police. 
 He is brought up before the Judge the next morning, and 
 if the Judge decides that the work demanded was proper 
 house-boy work, he is sent to jail for a week or fined. If 
 a servant leaves your employ without proper notice, he is 
 followed up by the police and is arrested and fined. Here
 
 a84 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 is a clipping I got from one of the Hong Kong papers 
 this morning : 
 
 Before Mr. Kemp, 
 solicitor and his servant. 
 F. X. d'Almada e Castro, a solicitor, at present practising with 
 Messrs. Wilkinson and Grist, summoned his servant A. Yeng for 
 leaving his employ without giving proper notice. Prosecutor 
 stated that the defendant disappeared from the house and took 
 up a position with Mr. H. E. Noronha, of Balls Court East, Bon- 
 ham Road. He said he was going to Macao for a few days and 
 would get a substitute. He provided a substitute who broke 
 some porcelain cups and saucers. His Worship fined the accus- 
 tomed $5 or 14 days. 
 
 I wonder if laws like these wouldn't go a great way to- 
 ward settling the servant-girl question in America, 
 
 Well, the grist for the day is over. I have to 
 go to the bank, now, and get some money to pay 
 my hotel bill, and to pay for my steamship ticket, for 
 which I signed a " chit." The steamship company is a 
 robber organization, almost as bad as the hotel. It 
 charges $104 for a ticket to Singapore, and it is only a 
 five-day trip. 
 
 Hong Kong Hotel, April 2, 1901, 
 This will be my last letter from Hong Kong, and it 
 will be a short one. The Stuttgart goes to-morrow at 
 noon, and I'll have to be on board in the morning, so 
 there will be no time to write. My next letters will be 
 mailed at Singapore, down near the equator, and will go 
 to you by way of London, preceding me probably three 
 or four steamers. 
 
 There isn't much left to tell you about Hong Kong. 
 I went through the Chinese section of the city to-day, 
 and it was just about like all Chinese cities, except that 
 the houses were two stories high. Up North, you will 
 remember, they have no two-story houses. A man 
 built one there once, and the Dowager, looking out 
 of her window in the palace in the Forbidden City, one 
 morning, saw the top of it. She sent her messengers out 
 to find out what it was. When she heard, she sent for 
 the owner, and when he was brought in she berated him
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 285 
 
 for daring to build a house higher than the wall of her 
 city. Then she fined him $100,000, which he couldn't 
 pay, so she took the house and gave it to the Duke Lan, 
 her nephew. The Duke is one of the fellows who was 
 banished at the demand of the powers, and the house, at 
 the time of the relief of Peking, was taken possession of 
 by the Rev. Dr. T., of the Congregational mis- 
 sionaries. However, that is ancient history now, isn't 
 it? I started in to say that the Chinese houses in the 
 Chinese section of the city of Hong Kong are two stories 
 high. Not only that, but they are built of brick and have 
 many rooms, like foreign houses, which goes to show 
 that the Chinaman will adopt foreign ways if he has the 
 proper environment. 
 
 I have had more rows since I came to Hong Kong over 
 the subject of Li Hung Chang than I have had over all 
 subjects put together since I came to China. I am an 
 admirer of the Chinese statesman, I am free to say, and 
 all the Englishmen I have met hate him worse than poison. 
 They hate him so much that they can't help talking about 
 him, and when they blackguard him in my presence, I 
 naturally take up the controversy. Being of a somewhat 
 positive nature, I don't mince words, and I get the Eng- 
 lishmen so mad that they are ready to fight. However, I 
 haven't had any fights yet, and I guess now I won't have 
 any. I may have changed a few minds, however. 
 
 I went over to Kow Loon last night and dined with 
 Dr. R. and two men with whom he lives. Kow 
 Loon is across the harbor from Hong Kong. It is some- 
 thing like Jersey City and New York. You go on a ferry. 
 Nothing worthy of mention happened. That is a mistake. 
 I got a dinner composed of real food, and escaped for 
 one meal the abominable chow of this hotel, absolutely 
 the worst, I think, that I have had since I left America. 
 1 am going to tell the proprietor so when I pay my bill in 
 the morning. It won't do any good, but there will be a 
 certain amount of satisfaction in saying it, anyway. In 
 looking over the register to-day, I found that somebody 
 had written in it under his name, " This is the worst 
 hotel I have ever seen," and I felt like putting under that 
 " Those are my sentiments, too."
 
 286 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 They have a strange sort of a system here. The pro- 
 prietor of the hotel doesn't feed you. He farms the job 
 out to a Chinaman. He pays him about a dollar (Mexi- 
 can) a day, I suppose, and the Chinaman has to feed you 
 and make a proht out of it, too. He makes a profit all 
 right, too. Even in Peking the food was better, and that 
 is saying a good deal. 
 
 Well, I'll stop this chatter and say good-night. 
 
 On Board the Stuttgart, in the China Sea, 
 
 April 3, 1901. 
 
 Afloat again and pointing homeward. I sailed away 
 from Hong Kong a little after noon to-day, after a most 
 harrowing half-hour, one of the kind that make you ques- 
 tion whether you are afoot or on horseback. Three mail 
 steamers were booked to leave Hong Kong at the same 
 hour, noon, and altogether they took ninety people with 
 them. The people were all stopping at the Hong Kong 
 Hotel, and, of course, that institution couldn't manage 
 things, and, at the last minute, there was an awful mix-up 
 with the baggage. 
 
 A United States army officer, his wife, and myself were 
 the only passengers for the Stuttgart, and while our bag- 
 gage was ready last night, of course the hotel idiots left 
 it until the last moment, when the steam launch was ready 
 to start, and it was found that there was no room on her. 
 The Stuttgart was at Kow Loon. Our baggage was 
 loaded aboard a sampan, and the woman who ran it and 
 all her family started pulling for dear life for the other 
 side of the harbor, while the army officer and his wife and 
 I made a rush for the ferry. We got over there, but the 
 baggage, where was it? It certainly did not seem to be 
 anywhere. Now came time for the boat to start, and no 
 hide or hair of the baggage! The blessed harbor was 
 full of sampans, and you couldn't pick out the right one 
 to save yourself. Twelve-fifteen came and went. The 
 army officer's wife had hysterics, the army officer cursed, 
 and I swore that if it ever came in my power to ruin the 
 Hong Kong hotel I'd do it. Twelve-twenty and twelve- 
 twenty-five came, and still no baggage. The captain of 
 the ship was consulted. He said the Stuttgart would
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 287 
 
 have to start the moment the mails were aboard. Thank' 
 the Lord, they hadn't come yet. Twelve-thirty, and still 
 no baggage, but through the glasses, looking to the Hong 
 Kong side of the river, a little white launch could be seen, 
 putting out from the shore. It was the mail launch, and 
 we were lost. 
 
 That is to say, we thought we were. It was about four 
 minutes later when the army officer's wife recovered from 
 her hysterics sufficiently to say that she identified a hat- 
 box on an approaching sampan. It was still 300 yards 
 oflF, and the mail launch was running like the wind. Now, 
 I am not going to harrow your soul with the details of 
 the next seven minutes, during which the sampan came 
 creeping along, and after her came the mail boat, gaining 
 foot by foot every instant. You can imagine the scene. 
 All the passengers on the Stuttgart were aware by this 
 time of what was going on, and they crowded the rail and 
 in stentorian tones bawled encouragement to the China- 
 woman and her family in the sampan. Foot by foot the 
 launch came on, and inch by inch the sampan moved. 
 Heavens ! it makes me shiver to think of it, not that I 
 cared about the baggage so much, for if it hadn't arrived 
 I would have gotten ofif the boat and gone over and 
 kicked the hotel man, a thing I was aching to do, anyway. 
 The excitement of those few minutes sent the shivers up 
 and down my back. 
 
 Foot by foot the mail launch gained. Now it was less 
 than a quarter of a mile away. The Chinawoman and 
 the sampan then seemed to understand what all the ex- 
 citement was about, and with a Chinese shriek the woman 
 bent to the oar and her family did likewise. The launch 
 was only a hundred yards behind. The sampan doubled 
 her speed. The launch was fifty, forty, twenty yards 
 away, and at last the sampan bumped her nose into the 
 ship. She had won by a neck, and a mighty sigh went 
 up. 
 
 Well, sir, if baggage ever moved fast, that baggage did. 
 It fairly climbed up the side of the ship. The hat-box 
 came first, and the army officer's wife sank down on that 
 and moaned, " Thank God ! thank God ! " while her hus- 
 band fanned her with his hat. Well, that is the end of the
 
 288 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 story. The mails came up the Stuttgart's side at tHe same 
 time with the baggag"e, and the Stuttgart blew her whis- 
 tle and started off. There is a German band on this ship, 
 but I'll tell you all about that to-morrow, and I'll write 
 you the story of an event in the Hong Kong Hotel, too, 
 if I can find the time. 
 
 On Board the Stuttgart, in the China Sea, head- 
 ing straight for the equator, April 4, 1901. 
 
 This is the first ship I have sailed on since I began my 
 journeys that thought enough of its passengers to print a 
 passenger list. I enclose you a copy so that you can see 
 who my traveling companions are. The army officer's 
 wife, whom I told you about yesterday, is " Frau X.," in 
 the list. Her husband is an officer in the artillery. 
 She herself is a daughter of General Z. Her hus- 
 band's last station before the war with Spain was at Fort 
 Hamilton in Brooklyn, so you see they were neighbors 
 of ours. He has a four-months' leave, and they are 
 traveling home by way of Europe. 
 
 Funny, isn't it, how one learns so much in such a short 
 time? But that is the way, out in this part of the world, 
 and especially on shipboard. You meet a person, and in 
 about seven minutes you know all their history from the 
 time they were born. Of course the baggage incident I 
 told you about yesterday opened the way for an acquaint- 
 ance here. About half an hour after the baggage came 
 aboard and the Stuttgart had started off on her journey, 
 I sat talking with Mr. and Mrs. X. First, I want 
 to say that on this voyage I intended making a point of 
 not letting anybody know what my business was. I just 
 wanted to see if it was possible to travel five days and 
 keep one's fellow passengers in more or less ignorance 
 about one's private affairs. Well, to resume: I was sitting 
 talking with this couple, when Mr. X. said, " Your 
 name is Chamberlin, isn't it ? " I said that it was. 
 " Yes," he said, " I saw it on your baggage. We have 
 heard of you. You are with The Sun, aren't you? You 
 have been up in Peking ? " You could have knocked me 
 down with a feather. The name, of course, was easy 
 enough to get hold of, because all my baggage was
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 289 
 
 marked — but the rest of it! "Yes," Mrs. X. went 
 on, " we have heard all about you. You are a friend of 
 Colonel D. and of General Chaffee. The Colonel is down 
 in Manila, and he told us about you." So you see how 
 impossible it is to keep your business away from other 
 people. This is just in line with what I told you the other 
 day about meeting people you know, no matter where you 
 
 Besides the cabin passengers whose names are on the 
 enclosed list, the Stuttgart carries about 400 German sol- 
 diers, who have been on duty in North China, and 
 are returning home, and some thirty or forty German 
 officers. It is a home party altogether. The soldiers are 
 traveling in the steerage like a lot of emigrants, and the 
 officers travel first class. The ship carries a lot of second- 
 class passengers, too, but who they are I don't know. 
 The Stuttgart is a much better ship in every way than the 
 Plassy, and I must say I like the German way of doing 
 things better than the English. 
 
 Nothing has happened to-day to talk to you about, 
 except the beautiful sunrise, so I'll say good-bye again. 
 
 On Board the Stuttgart, in the Gulf of Siam^ 
 Good Friday, April 5, 1901. 
 
 Hot ! Gee whillikens ! I am back in the tropics, and, 
 so soon after a Pekingese Winter and a freezing trip 
 from North China, maybe I don't feel it. It is blistering. 
 Thank fortune, I had my Summer things with me when 
 I started, and I gathered in the white duck I told you 
 about in Hong Kong. I have on at this minute an under- 
 shirt and a white duck coat that buttons up to the neck 
 and a pair of white duck trousers. I don't see what else 
 I can take off when it gets hotter unless it is the under- 
 shirt. I suppose I could spare that. However, I may get 
 used to it before it gets hotter. 
 
 We dropped the last point of land in China out of sight 
 at 6 o'clock last night, left the China Sea, and sailed 
 into the Gulf of Siam. The land was the French colony 
 of Anam. About the only amusement on board ship is 
 reading, and luckily I brought along a lot of magazines 
 I got in Hong Kong. Of course, outside of that, there is
 
 290 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 some fun in studying the characters of my fellow-pas- 
 sengers. 
 
 There is an old man aboard, an Englishman and a K. C, 
 who was the chairman of the local Plague Committee in 
 Hong Kong in 1894, when 2,000 people died with it in the 
 city and 50,000 died at Canton up the river. He told me 
 more stories about the plague last night than I had heard 
 in all my life before. It certainly is a horrible disease. 
 India is full of it all the time, but it doesn't attack 
 Europeans or foreigners. In Hong Kong only two white 
 people have died of it. They were nurses, and of course 
 were working around the patients all the time. Like all 
 plague diseases the bubonic lives in darkness and filth, 
 and dies in sunlight and air. The only way the thing was 
 controlled in Hong Kong was by driving the people out 
 of the filthy houses and keeping them out. They built 
 a high wall around the infected district and let no one 
 enter for six months. The district should have been 
 burned, but the Government would not permit that, and 
 at the end of the six months the Government sold the 
 building material in the infected houses for a paltry $300 
 and permitted it to be used anywhere in the city. The 
 result is that Hong Kong has never since been free of the 
 plague. While I was there, there was an average of four 
 or five new cases a day, and as many deaths. Now, let 
 me hear another Englishman criticise our local govern- 
 ments in America and I'll tell him that story. That $300 
 has probably cost 3,000 lives already. 
 
 The Stuttgart is due in Singapore Sunday night or 
 Monday morning. Singapore is about 100 miles north 
 of the equator. I think I'll have to take a run down and 
 jump over the line just for fun. 
 
 On Board the Stuttgart, in the Gulf of Siam, 
 Saturday, April 6, 1901. 
 
 We live and learn, don't we? I have just been gather- 
 ing a fund of knowledge about promotions in the Ameri- 
 can army and the distribution of the favorite posts. The 
 Gulf of Siam.near the Straits of Malacca, is a funny place 
 to get such information, isn't it? But here is where I 
 have gathered it, nevertheless. The lesson I have
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 291 
 
 gathered is that it is as good a thing to have a wife when 
 you are in the army as it is when you are in civil Hfe. 
 Now, this series of letters on the Stuttgart began with a 
 tale of an army officer's wife and her baggage. Let it 
 end with an army officer's wife and her husband. 
 
 The lady to whom I refer is very frank, refreshingly 
 so. Her husband is a Captain. She didn't get him his 
 captaincy, but she did get him a soft post in the States. 
 How ? Why, by getting acquainted with three or four 
 of the United States Senators and the Adjutant-Gen- 
 eral. She got well acquainted with them, gave them two 
 or three dinners^ and told them how she just doted on 
 Fort Hamilton and Brooklyn, and they said, " Why don't 
 you go there to live?" Whereupon she said, "Oh, but 
 poor X. couldn't hope to get detailed there." And 
 they said, "Oh, we'll fix that." And they did! Easy, 
 wasn't it? 
 
 Then, when the Spanish war broke out and her hus- 
 band wanted to go to the Philippines, where he wovild 
 have a chance to distinguish himself, she just renewed 
 her acquaintance with the powers that be and sighed at 
 the bad fortune that kept the men at Fort Hamilton on 
 duty there when they, particularly her husband, were so, 
 so anxious to fight. The powers agreed with her that it 
 was a shame, and said they'd see what they could do. 
 The husband went to the Philippines, taking the place 
 of some fellow who didn't have any wife to sigh for him. 
 The Army Bill came along and gave her husband promo- 
 tion. He is returning to the States. He thinks the best 
 fort in the States is at the Presidio, in San Francisco, and 
 she says to her husband, " Now, you just leave me in 
 Washington and Pll get it for you," and he says, " That's 
 all right. I shan't bother you. When we're there Fll 
 take a two-weeks' leave, and you can see what you can 
 do." And she says, " Well, you'll get the Presidio all 
 right." 
 
 And there you are ! You see, a wife is a mighty handy 
 thing to have when you are in the army. I certainly am 
 going to watch and see if the Captain lands in Presidio. 
 If he does, I shall advise every unmarried man in the 
 army to get married quickly, then pick out the posts they
 
 292 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 want, and send their wives to Washington. I Hope tHe 
 post at the Presidio is not commanded now by a man with 
 a wife. It might result in bad feuds among the ladies. 
 
 Well, this stage of the voyage will be over 
 to-morrow evening, when the Stuttgart arrives in Singa- 
 pore, which is the chief town in the Straits Settlements. 
 I shall stay there only long enough to catch a steamer to 
 Calcutta, and then I'll be off for the Bay of Bengal and 
 another lap on the homeward journey. By the way, if 
 the children will get their geographies they can trace my 
 whole journey, and, by following my letters, can learn 
 something about this part of the world that it might take 
 them a much longer time to learn at school. Start them 
 in at San Francisco, take them to Honolulu, Japan, 
 Shanghai, Tien Tsin, Peking, back to Shanghai, Hong 
 Kong, and so on around. 
 
 On Board the Stuttgart, off Singapore, April 7, 
 1900. 
 
 This is Easter Sunday evening, and Singapore is in 
 sight. In fact, we are lying just outside the harbor 
 waiting until morning, so that we can enter and go up to 
 the dock. The letters that I have written you since I 
 came aboard the Stuttgart I will mail on board, so this 
 will be the last of the series that you will get by the 
 present mail. 
 
 Not much to tell you, except to repeat what I 
 said the other day. It is sizzling hot. Easter Sunday 
 was observed on board the Stuttgart with a sacred con- 
 cert by the brass band, and this afternoon free beer was 
 served to the 350 German soldiers who are going home. 
 They had an accordion, a drum and a triangle, and they 
 made merry and had a concert of their own. The Stutt- 
 gart has only two or three passengers for Singapore, and 
 they are travelers like myself. One of them is bound 
 for Penang and one for Borneo and the other for 
 Batavia, in Java. Borneo and Java are both south of the 
 Strait, and Penang is one of the towns farther up on the 
 peninsula on which Singapore is the chief city. _ I don't 
 suppose this interests you, but T swear I am getting dull- 
 headed as a mule. I can't think of a thing to write about
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 293 
 
 in the absence of anything happening on the steamer, and 
 there hasn't been a happening worth recording since I 
 came aboard, at Hong Kong. However, I am 1,400 
 miles nearer home than I was at Hong Kong, so I re- 
 joice accordingly. I'll tell you about Singapore after I 
 have seen it, so until then good-bye. 
 
 Singapore, RiVFFLEs' Hotel, Monday, April 8, 1901. 
 
 Please don't assume because I am living at Raffles' 
 Hotel that I am stopping at a gambling house or a church 
 fair. I don't suppose Raffles was to blame for his name, 
 and of course he had a right to go into the hotel business 
 if he wanted to. You will notice by this letterhead that 
 he has gone into it in several towns besides Singapore. 
 The Stuttgart got up to her dock here about 8 o'clock this 
 morning and I have been seeing Singapore since. It is 
 not a bad town, but there is not enough in it to make it 
 worth an extended letter. A good many things here, 
 however, are not like the same things in other places. 
 
 For instance, the horses here are all about the size of 
 Shetland ponies. The drivers are all Malays, and all 
 the wagons have a little bag of fresh cut grass tied on 
 behind. When the wagons are waiting for fares the 
 Malay driver takes a little bunch of grass from the bag 
 and lets the ponies nibble from his hands. So you see, 
 when a pony is not working it is always eating. Not 
 only does the driver feed the pony when he is waiting 
 for a fare, but when he has a fare and just stops for a 
 minute, off he jumps and holds out the grass to the little 
 beasts. When you are ready to go on in one of these 
 public conveyances, the driver doesn't climb upon the 
 seat and say " g'lang " ; he takes hold of the pony's 
 bridle and starts him off by pulling at him. He runs 
 along beside him until he gets him going moderately fast, 
 and then he jumps up on the shafts and finally climbs on 
 the seat. 
 
 Besides the public hacks they have 'rickshas here as in 
 Japan and China, but they are not the narrow things that 
 are used in those countries ; they are all of them wide 
 enough to carry two passengers on the seat. The coolies 
 are just about the same size as the coolies in Japan and
 
 294 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 China, so they may be said to work twice as hard for the 
 same amount of money. 
 
 So much for the passenger transportation department 
 of the Straits Settlements. The freight is all carried in 
 two- wheeled carts drawn by buffaloes with humps between 
 their shoulders. They are harnessed to the carts by 
 means of a yoke, but to guide them they have a piece of 
 rope run through their noses and brought up, the two 
 ends being crossed in front of their heads, and then tied 
 to the horns. It is a rather cruel-looking arrangement, 
 but whether it is cruel or not I can't say, as I have never 
 had it tried on me. 
 
 Singapore harbor reminded me very much of the har- 
 bor at Honolulu. While we were waiting for the doctor 
 to come aboard this morning, twenty or thirty canoes, 
 each with a native on his knees, were paddled up and the 
 natives bid for chances to dive for money. Anything 
 over a lo-cent piece was sufficient. The passengers 
 gathered along the rail and began throwing away their 
 small change, just as the passengers did in Honolulu. 
 No matter how far off a coin was thrown, head first over- 
 board would go the native and without a miss he would 
 come up with the piece. But it wasn't the diving that 
 caught me; it was the skill with which they managed to 
 get back into their boats. These boats were narrow 
 affairs which a person not used to canoeing would upset, 
 just trying to sit up straight. When a native dived, his 
 boat went adrift. When he came up he would swim to 
 the drifting boat and quicker than you could say Jack 
 Robinson he would be in. Naturally, slopping around 
 as they did, the little boats took in a good deal of water 
 and every once in a while the occupant would bail it out, 
 not with a tin can, or a dipper, or in any American way, 
 but with his foot. He'd slip one leg out from under him 
 and shoot forward his foot like a streak of lightning, and 
 it never took more than about three punches to drive out 
 all the water there was in the boat. 
 
 But to get back to Singapore. White clothes are the 
 fashion here, and two-storied hats. I don't know what 
 else to call the hats, I'm sure. They are made of pith or 
 cork, with wide brims. They look as though they
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 296 
 
 weighed a ton and they actually weigh about as much as 
 an ordinary straw hat. They set away from the head 
 and then they shield you from the sun, which is certainly 
 hot here. They look like the devil, but they feel all 
 right, I know, for I have possessed myself of one. This 
 dress I speak of as being in fashion. I mean, of course, 
 in fashion with foreigners. As for the natives, they are 
 happy in a single garment. That is a kind of skirt. It 
 is big enough to wrap around you twice, but it is wrapped 
 only once. Then it is caught close to the body in front 
 with one hand and what is left of it is pulled out with the 
 other. It is folded over one side and then folded back. 
 That makes four thicknesses at the stomach, and these 
 four thicknesses are rolled over and over three or 
 four times. This rolling fastens the skirt on so that it 
 won't fall ofif and won't pull apart, and the only way to 
 get it off is to unroll it. 
 
 Besides this skirt, the natives have long hair, and that 
 completes their apparel. When they want to sit down 
 they squat like monkeys, their knees on a level with their 
 chins. The dress of the women is the same as that of 
 the men, but they are vain creatures and wear much 
 jewelry. You have heard of the woman with rings on 
 her fingers and bells on her toes, who was bound to have 
 music wherever she went, or words to that effect. Well, 
 the Malay woman beats her. She wears two sets of 
 earrings in her ears. One set hangs from the lobes, like 
 civilized earrings. The other set is hanging from a hole 
 in the upper part of each ear. Then she wears nose 
 rings, one fastened in each nostril, and she wears toe 
 rings, you might say, one on the index toe of each foot, if 
 the toe next to the great one could be dubbed the index 
 toe. The earrings and nose rings are of gold, and the 
 toe rings are of silver. I can tell you, they make a great 
 show. No native wears shoes or other foot covering, 
 and the consequen ce is t hat the feet of most of them are 
 shaped like this : -^,s^ 
 
 I am not much of an artist, but that will give you the 
 idea. Well, I guess that is enough about the people. 
 
 As for the hotel, it is a smashing big place and just 
 about as bad as it is big. However, I have been in many
 
 296 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 that were a heap sight worse. A room here consists of a 
 bedroom, a small dressing room, and a bath room. Out 
 in this part of the world if you got into a bath tub as we 
 do at home the people would think you were crazy. 
 The bath tub is a round bowl of water about three feet 
 deep. Beside it is a bucket, and, to take a bath, you 
 stand in the tub, dip the bucket into the water and then 
 pour it over you. Funny way to bathe, isn't it ? It is the 
 shower bath principle, but why they don't introduce 
 modern shower baths I can't for the life of me imagine. 
 Besides these rooms, which are all a part of your one 
 room, a section of front stoop goes with it. It is fenced 
 in to keep other people out. The food is the worst 
 feature of the hotel. I'll write you again to-morrow, and 
 tell you what else I have found out. 
 
 Singapore, Tuesday, April 9, 1901. 
 Singapore itself is not a very beautiful city, but I must 
 say the country around it is delightful. I went out this 
 morning to visit the newspapers here and found that I 
 had got around too early for the proprietors, so I told 
 the driver of my cab to drive me about. He started out 
 and drove for two hours over roads that were simply 
 perfect. Among other places he took me to a very beauti- 
 ful Botanical Garden that is supported by the Govern- 
 ment. I say it was very beautiful. I mean com- 
 paratively, of course. It was not nearly so beautiful as 
 either Central Park or Prospect Park, but compared to 
 the average run of show places in this part of the world 
 it was very fine. I also drove about the city itself. It 
 is about like all other cities in the East. The stores are 
 nearly all of them kept and the business is done by the 
 Chinese. The shops are just as dirty as the average 
 Chinese shop, and there is nothing at all attractive about 
 them. The only things here in the way of souvenirs are 
 sea shells and Malacca canes, made of the joints of the 
 malacca bamboo. When they are polished and properly 
 smoked (burned, they call it here) they make a very 
 beautiful stick. They cost $1 Mexican apiece, or 50 
 cents of our money, and I think I'll buy one or two to give 
 away. I don't mean that the smoked ones are a dollar
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 297 
 
 each. They run up as high as $15.00 or $20.00, but the 
 common ones, which are very fine indeed, cost only a 
 dollar each. While the Malays are the natives here, 
 nearly all the work is done by Chinese. All the servants 
 except the nurses are Chinese. The language is Malay. 
 People all speak to their Chinese servants in Malay. 
 Queer, isn't it ? 
 
 I was reading over the rules of the hotel this morning. 
 One of them says that all permanent guests must provide 
 their own servants. The hotel condescends to look after 
 transients. I asked the clerk what was called a per- 
 manent guest, and he said that when a person stayed a 
 week he was expected to have a servant of his own. I 
 shall not stay a week — I have resolved upon that. The 
 people here are none of them in a hurry, wherein they 
 resemble the entire East, and the foreign business men 
 have the same lack of knowledge about the things they 
 ought to know that is characteristic of China. For in- 
 stance, I went to the steamship company this morning to 
 find when I could get a boat to Calcutta. " I'm sure I 
 don't know," said the man I saw. 
 
 " Well, when do you expect one to go? " I ventured. 
 
 " Well," said he, " perhaps in a day or two." 
 
 And that was as near as I could come to it ! I after- 
 wards made a visit to the harbor^ and found a boat, the 
 Captain of which thought maybe he might sail to-mor- 
 row. I am pinning my faith on that. She goes to Ran- 
 goon in Burmah, and there is a mail steamer leaving 
 Rangoon for Calcutta twice a week. I certainly hope I 
 can get away to-morrow, for Singapore, I must confess, 
 rather palls on me. 
 
 Singapore, Wednesday, April 10, 1901. 
 I leave here at daylight in the morning for Rangoon, 
 making close connection there, I hope, for Calcutta. Ran- 
 goon is in Burmah, across the Bay of Bengal from India. 
 I ought to arrive in Calcutta on the i8th, Allahabad 
 on the 2 1 St, Bombay on the 23rd, and then I'll sail away 
 for the Suez and Paris, London and Home. I thought 
 until last night that the old rule of meeting people you 
 know wherever you go would fail here, but a young fel-
 
 298 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 low came and sat down at my table in the dining room. 
 He was plainly an American, and very naturally we got 
 into conversation. He turned out to be Dr. T., an 
 assistant of Dr. Bull in New York, and the friend and 
 school-mate of Dr. S. and Dr. McW., who were fellow 
 passengers of mine on the Peking, coming to China. 
 We spent a mighty pleasant evening together. He is 
 going to Java at daylight, and then he is going home, 
 getting to London about the same time that I do. 
 
 I finished up all my business in Singapore this morn- 
 ing, packed my trunk and have sent it off to the steamer, 
 and now I am only waiting until I get my dinner before 
 going on board the ship, the Palamcotta, a British boat. 
 There is not much left to tell you about Singapore, except 
 that here they do everything just the opposite to what they 
 do it in our part of the world, exactly as in China. 
 I forget now whether I mentioned in any of my letters this 
 cantankerous custom of always doing things backside 
 foremost. As I sat on the porch of the hotel this morn- 
 ing, looking out on the water, the thing struck me forcibly. 
 I saw several boats being rowed. I noticed that all the 
 oarsmen stood up and pushed the oars instead of pulling 
 them, as we do. Then I noticed the 'ricksha men. 
 They all pushed the 'rickshas instead of pulling them. 
 They stood between the shafts and took hold of them 
 forward of their bodies, then pushing as they ran. I 
 saw some men alongshore hauling in some rope, and I 
 noticed that, instead of taking hold of the rope and pull- 
 ing, they grabbed it ahead of their bodies and pushed on 
 it. The thing hadn't struck me before, but when I noticed 
 these instances I remembered that everywhere in the East 
 that I have been, people push instead of pulling, as we 
 do. It is just another evidence of the cantankerousness 
 of this part of the world. 
 
 This brings to mind another strange thing that I don't 
 think I have mentioned. That is, in China, the distance 
 from A. to B. is sometimes less than a third of the dis- 
 tance from B. to A. For instance, if you ask a China- 
 man how far it is from Feng Ti to Kow Loon he will tell 
 you it is 20 li (Chinese miles). If you ask him how far 
 it is from Kow Loon to Feng Ti he will tell you it is 60
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 299 
 
 li. The reason is that from Kow Loon to Feng- Ti it 
 is uphill, and your Chinaman figures that it takes three 
 times as much energy to go from Kow Loon to Feng Ti, 
 uphill, as it does to go from Feng Ti to Kow Loon, which 
 is downhill. Therefore, it is three times as far, and you 
 might argue with him a thousand years to prove that 
 the distance was exactly the same, and you wouldn't con- 
 vince him. 
 
 Oh, there is one Singapore custom that I forgot to 
 mention. Everybody here sleeps with a Dutch wife. 
 Don't get shocked, now, when I tell you that I have been 
 sleeping with one for two nights. A Dutch wife is a 
 perfectly round bolster, the purpose of which is to give 
 your knees a little elevation, so that the air can get all 
 around you better. It is cussed hot here, as I have already 
 told you, and the beds don't have any bedclothes. You 
 just lie down and then stick one knee over the Dutch 
 wife and the air gets a fine shot at you. They are mighty 
 comfortable things. 
 
 I don't think of anything else to tell you about Singa- 
 pore, and so I'll say good-bye. My next letter will be 
 written on board the Palamcotta. 
 
 On Board the Palamcotta, in the Straits of 
 Malacca, Thursday, April ii, 1901. 
 
 I am at sea again, this time on an English ship, and I 
 have the distinguished honor of being the only first-class 
 passenger aboard. I am bound for Rangoon, in Burmah, 
 and if I have good luck I shall get there on Monday morn- 
 ing and catch a steamer Monday afternoon for Calcutta, 
 arriving there Thursday. The Captain of the Palamcotta 
 is inclined to be friendly. He is 44 years old. He was 
 born in England. He came here when he was 19 years 
 old, in the employ of the British-India Steam Navi- 
 gation Company. After serving nine years he got his 
 captaincy. He has been a Captain sixteen years, and is 
 now completing his twenty-fifth year in the company's 
 employ. When he has finished that he is going home to 
 England, and is going to try to get the company to give 
 him a pension of £100 a year. His salary is £600 a year, 
 but he makes quite a good deal on the outside. Last year
 
 300 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 was the best year he has ever had, and he cleared £i,ooo. 
 On an average, however, he has made only iSoo a year. 
 He is the youngest Captain in the company's employ, and 
 he says he is the best. 
 
 Up to four years ago, the loth of June coming, the 
 Captain had never seen a woman whom he would care 
 to make his wife. On that day his ship arrived in Cal- 
 cutta, and in the crowd waiting to greet one of the pas- 
 sengers was a beautiful girl. She had blonde hair, blue 
 eyes, and a peaches-and-cream complexion. She was 26 
 years old the 26th of May, then passed. The moment he 
 saw her he fell in love with her. He found out that she 
 was the daughter of the Chief Justice of Calcutta, and 
 his heart sank within him, knowing that he, a poor ship 
 Captain, had no chance to wed one so high in social life. 
 However, being an Englishman, he thought he'd have a 
 try at it, anyway, and finally he succeeded in getting an in- 
 troduction to the lady. After a reasonable courtship he 
 asked her to marry him, and she said she would, only her 
 father and mother both opposed it. He went at the old 
 folks and finally convinced them that if he didn't marry 
 the girl with their consent he would marry her without, 
 and, after a stormy interview, they consented. They 
 were married, and he made a home for her at Rangoon, 
 on a beautiful hillside, where they lived a continual 
 honeymoon for nineteen months. They had a little girl, 
 23/2 years old, last Easter. The wife died sixteen months 
 ago, July coming. He tried to keep the child with him, 
 but its grandmother insisted on having it with her at home 
 in England, so she has had it ever since. 
 
 When the Captain goes home, after his twenty-five 
 years' service, he is going to marry his sister-in-law — 
 that is, his wife's sister. She is only 20 years old, and is 
 one of the loveliest girls in the world. He hasn't told her 
 yet that he is going to marry her, and he is not going to 
 say anything to her about it until he sees her in England. 
 It is against the law of the Episcopal Church to marry 
 one's wife's sister, but it is easy enough to get around 
 that by going to the Continent. That is what he is going 
 to do. 
 
 But wait; maybe you are not interested in all this.
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 301 
 
 I confess that I wasn't, but the Captain told it all to me 
 on an hour's acquaintance, so I made up my mind there 
 must be something- in it and have jotted it down. If it 
 does not interest you, of course, you can forget it right 
 away, and no harm will have been done. 
 
 The Palamcotta is skirting along the coast of the Strait, 
 and a beautiful coast it is, too. She is a big cargo ship, 
 with a crew entirely of Malays and only five white men 
 aboard, the Captain, two mates, the Chief Engineer, and 
 myself. The Malays always address a white man as 
 " Marster." They are not nearly as good workers as the 
 Chinese, nor are they as honest, while they can lie with a 
 perfectly straight face, an accomplishment, by the way, 
 that is not uncommon in the East. Now, let me see ; I 
 don't think there is anything left to talk about but the 
 weather. It is simply perfect. There is just enough breeze 
 blowing to take the edge off the heat. I certainly hope it 
 will keep up until we get to Rangoon. But that is almost 
 too much to expect. If this letter interests you, sweet- 
 heart, I'll let you know more about the Captain to-mor- 
 row. 
 
 Rangoon, in Burmah, April 15, 1901. 
 I am at Rangoon at last, but only for three hours. The 
 steamer for Calcutta leaves here at 2 o'clock, and it was 
 
 II o'clock when the Palamcotta arrived. I wrote you 
 only one letter on the trip up because, as I told you in 
 that letter, I was the only passenger on the ship, and there 
 was absolutely nothing to write about except the Cap- 
 tain's family fortunes and misfortunes, and I imagine 
 that you heard all of those that you wanted to hear in 
 my one letter. I have been around Rangoon and have 
 seen all that was possible to see in the short time I had, 
 and I am writing this on the ship, which I expect will 
 start almost any moment. 
 
 They have one show place here. It is a gold-plated 
 pagoda, one of the largest in Burmah. I think I wrote 
 you a letter from China about pagodas. Well, this is just 
 one of those things, but it is much larger and much hand- 
 somer than anything I had ever seen before, and, as I 
 say, it is gold-plated. That is literal, too. The whole
 
 302 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 exterior of the building is faced with gold leaf. The in- 
 terior, of course, is the abode of gods — brass, wood, and 
 otherwise. 
 
 But what interested me here much more than the pa- 
 goda was the elephants. You know Burmah is a great 
 place for elephants, and they use them here to work. 
 There is lots of teak wood in Burmah. You know that 
 teak is extremely heavy and extremely hard. There are 
 sawmills in Rangoon where it is sawed into boards and 
 into logs, and it is in these mills that the big elephants 
 work, with the strength of a score of men and with human 
 intelligence. If anybody had told me what they did I 
 certainly would not have believed it, but seeing is beUev- 
 ing. Each sawmill has two or three elephants, and each 
 elephant has a rider. Every bit of lifting that there is to 
 be done about the mills is done by the elephants. They 
 walk down to the river and pull the huge logs out of the 
 water. They lift them up, balance them on their tusks, 
 and take them in and put them in place for sawing. Then 
 they take the sawed lumber and pile it up. They pile it 
 perfectly even. 
 
 Most of the boards are so heavy that ten men couldn't 
 lift one of them, yet a single elephant will pick up a board, 
 walk a hundred yards with it, and deposit it on a pile with 
 no apparent effort at all. When he gets it on the pile 
 he will walk to the end and push it back and forward 
 until it is perfectly even with all the other boards in the 
 pile. Then, after a pile is finished, he will squint one 
 eye down the ends, and if, by any chance, a board is mis- 
 placed, he will push it with his tusks until it is straight. 
 All this is done without a word of telling. 
 
 While I was watching the elephants 12 o'clock came. At 
 the sound of the whistle every elephant stood still in his 
 tracks, dropped whatever he might be carrying, and then 
 walked off to get his dinner. That is what the average 
 laborer in the United States does, you know, — on the 
 stroke of the hour, drops everything and goes to eat. The 
 men at the mills told me that no amount of coaxing or 
 driving would induce one of the elephants to do a bit of 
 work from twelve to 1.30 o'clock, and that, if the whistle 
 sounded to resume work a few minutes before the time, the
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 303 
 
 big brutes would simply stand where they were and re- 
 fuse to move until the full time was up. They seemed 
 to know to a minute when the time was up, and then, 
 without any urging, back they would go to work. The 
 show was certainly a wonderful one, and I would not have 
 missed it for a great deal. I send you a book of pictures 
 of Rangoon, and one of them shows two of these ele- 
 phants at work. I think I could have spent a whole day 
 watching them. 
 
 The people here are interesting, too. They vary in 
 color from chocolate to black. The women are fine-fea- 
 tured, and the men are, most of them, high-class in ap- 
 pearance. Their dress, of course, is outlandish, but it is 
 very picturesque. The men wear shirts like the natives in 
 Singapore. They run to high colors — bright red, green, 
 vivid blue, pink, and the like, a brilliant yellow being 
 greatly fancied by them. They wear the immense head- 
 gear of the Indians, but, instead of being plain white, the 
 turban is usually some bright color that makes it very 
 picturesque. The fact that the older ladies smoke clay 
 pipes or huge cheroots, and that the younger ones smoke 
 cigarettes, does not add to their attractiveness, it is true, 
 but when they all do it one gets used to it very quickly. 
 For instance, I have been here only a couple of hours, 
 and it has ceased to be strange to me already. This 
 is a great place for silver work and wood-carving, but I 
 haven't had a chance to see any of it. 
 
 The steamer I am going to Calcutta on is the Malda, 
 of the British-India Navigation Company. She is little, 
 and she looks uncomfortable. But she'll have to do. She 
 is also crowded with passengers. I've got a miserable 
 little stateroom right over the wheel, where I suppose it 
 will be impossible to sleep. 
 
 Hello, we are off! The whistle has just blown, and the 
 Malda is slipping away from the wharf. One of the pas- 
 sengers is a fat lady. She is standing about five feet from 
 me, waving her handkerchief at a man on the pier. She 
 has just yelled, " Don't wait, Jim." Jim nods to her. 
 She has just yelled, " Go away, Jim; don't wait; the sun 
 is fearful." Jim still stands there, looking at the ship 
 and waving his handkerchief. She is yelling again, " Jim,
 
 304 ORDEREDTOCHINA 
 
 do get out of the sun ; you'll be sunstruck. Dear Jim, go 
 away ! " She stamps her foot. Jim doesn't budge. Again 
 she cries, " Jim, do you hear me ? Go away ! It isn't 
 lucky to watch anybody sail off." 
 
 Ah, there we have it. I thought she wasn't very much 
 worried about Jim's chances of escaping sunstroke. She 
 is superstitious, and she doesn't want to take any chances. 
 Jim is slowly moving away. Now he has disappeared. 
 She is gathering up in her arms two of the homeliest, 
 wretchedest-looking pups I have ever seen, and she is 
 kissing them and hugging them. I wish Jim could see 
 that. Whew, it's tough ! 
 
 I guess all the passengers are out here on the deck. 
 There are two Parsee ladies in native costume, and two 
 nurses, also native, with half a dozen children. The 
 whole party is gathered along the rail, waving handker- 
 chiefs, though we are half a mile away from the pier. 
 There are three or four more or less prosperous-looking 
 citizens. There is a man with a broken nose and a fox- 
 terrier, a fat globe-trotter, armed with a lot of Cook's 
 Guides, and a thin youngster, who looks as if he intended 
 to be seasick. These are all the first-class passengers that 
 I see now, but the whole forward part of the boat is 
 packed and jammed with natives. There must be 200 of 
 them. Well, I'll close this letter, and will tell you more 
 about my fellow-voyagers in another, when I get to know 
 them better. 
 
 On Board the Malda, in the Bay of Bengal, 
 
 April 17, 1901. 
 
 The fat lady is seasick ; the Parsee ladies haven't been 
 seen since an hour after the ship started ; the thin young 
 man who looked as if he intended to be sick is holding 
 out bravely. The man with the broken nose is walking 
 around with two eyes bunged up; the globe-trotter is 
 busy trying to find out what my business is, and your 
 humble servant is getting more or less enjoyment out of 
 life, aided by the knowledge that he is homeward bound. 
 Now, as to the fat lady's seasickness, I don't know 
 whether the sea did it or the dogs. She hugged and 
 kissed those ugly little brutes until everybody who saw
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 305 
 
 her was more or less sick, and, if it wasn't the dogs that 
 made her sick, it certainly is a wonder. 
 
 The Parsee ladies have reached the stage where they 
 are afraid the ship won't sink. At least I judge that they 
 have from the noises coming from their cabin. All the 
 cabins on the Malda open on the main saloon, which is 
 below the deck, and is used as the dining room, so when 
 those of us who eat are at our meals we hear pretty nearly 
 everything that goes on. You can imagine the joys of 
 tiffin, for instance. The waiter brings on soup, and to 
 the left, from the cabin of the Parsee ladies, comes a series 
 of whoops that indicate that the ladies are turning them- 
 selves inside out. Next will come a fine dish of tripe, 
 and from the right, where the fat lady lies, comes a groan 
 too terrible to describe, followed by a series of the most 
 discomforting noises, and an " Oh, Lord ! poor little 
 doggy ; yes, it's too bad mamma's so sick — you too — 
 who-o-o-op ! oh, Lord, oh. Lord ! " Then silence 
 until another course is served. Oh, I tell you, it is im- 
 mense. 
 
 But, to turn from the ladies a moment and take up the 
 case of the gentleman with a broken nose and a fox-ter- 
 rier and bunged-up eyes. You will recall that he didn't 
 have bunged-up eyes when the ship started, and will, of 
 course, conclude that he met with an accident. That con- 
 clusion will not be exactly correct, unless you consider 
 being eaten in your sleep (with malice aforethought on 
 the part of the eatee) an accident. You see, it is this way. 
 The Malda has the red-ant habit. It is a peculiarity of 
 ships in this part of the world to take up with some species 
 of the lower forms of life. For instance, the Palamcotta 
 had the cockroach habit. Never in all my thirty-five 
 years of life have I seen such a grand display of cock- 
 roaches as there was on the Palamcotta. Among them 
 were the fathers of the race — roaches that measured two 
 inches long and were equipped with wings. Of course, 
 I wouldn't want to make the positive statement, but it did 
 seem to me that possibly the Palamcotta was the cock- 
 roach heaven and that these big roaches were angels. 
 Why not? Angels have wings, and I never saw cock- 
 roaches before that did. What a happy thought it is.
 
 306 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 isn't it, that even the little roaches have a future beyond 
 Hooper's Fatal Food ? Who knows ? 
 
 But I am wandering. I started to tell you about the 
 man with the broken nose, the fox-terrier, and the bunged- 
 up eyes. As I said, the Malda has the red-ant habit. 
 There are millions of them (ants, I mean). I have ex- 
 amined them closely. They have red bodies forward and 
 black bodies aft, and their legs are striped alternately 
 red and black. Well, it was hot down below last night, 
 and the groans of the fat lady, together with the moans 
 of the Parsee ladies, made it mighty unpleasant in the 
 staterooms, so the man with the broken nose and the fox- 
 terrier (Capt. H., of His Majesty's service, if you 
 please) decided to sleep on deck. He chose for his rest- 
 ing-place a spot midway between the after compass and 
 the vegetable box, which is on deck. Well, he had been 
 asleep about three hours, when he woke up. That is 
 to say, when he tried to wake up, or, to be more accurate, 
 when he tried to open his eyes. They were glued tight. 
 He tried to tear them open with his hands, and he felt 
 that they were like two fiery balls. Then he felt of himself 
 all over, and he found himself truly a thing of knobs and 
 patches. He got a man to help him up and to lead him 
 to water, and there, at the end of an hour, he succeeded 
 in prying one eye half open. 
 
 Through this half-open optic, the Captain saw himself 
 in a glass, and for a while thought of suicide. Truly, he 
 was an awful-looking object. If he had been a punching- 
 bag for the Hon. James H. Jeffries he couldn't have 
 looked worse. You see, the red ants had been making a 
 meal of him. The funny part was that the more they ate 
 the bigger he got, and the more there was to eat. I have 
 just had a talk with the victim, and he talks of suing the 
 company. The swellings have gone down somewhat, but 
 he is still far from eligible for a beauty show. He ap- 
 pears to be a very nice sort of fellow. 
 
 I wish it had been the globe-trotter who had been eaten. 
 This globe-trotter is an Englishman — one of the offen- 
 sive kind who sticks his nose into everybody's business, 
 and he has been busy at mine all day, though what busi- 
 ness of his my business is I can't for the life of me see.
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 307 
 
 I am quite sure that before the day is out he will ask me 
 the question point-blank. If he does, I am going to tell 
 him that I am a professional millionaire. 
 
 There, I knew he was going to do it, but I didn't have 
 the nerve to tell him the millionaire story. I had just 
 written the paragraph above when he came and sat down 
 on the table, casually casting an eye on what I was writ- 
 ing. He talked about the weather and about Captain 
 H., and then he said, " By the way, what business 
 did you say you were in ? " I looked at him a minute, 
 and then I said, " I didn't say." He looked at me, re- 
 marked " Oh ! " and walked ofif. Funny how curious 
 some people are, isn't it? Well, I'll stop this tittle-tattle, 
 that must be tiresome to you, and will say good-bye 
 until I get to Calcutta. That will be to-morrow after- 
 noon. 
 
 Calcutta, India, April 19, 1901. 
 
 The fat lady recovered and appeared in all her fatness 
 with a homely pup under each arm. The Parsee ladies 
 decided at last that life did have some attraction, and, on 
 the whole, they were happy that the ship did not sink. 
 The swelling went out of the eyes of the man with a 
 broken nose, and he again became quite happy. Only 
 the globe-trotter was not altogether himself. He had 
 not learned what my business was. 
 
 This was the state of affairs when the Malda entered 
 the river with a good Irish name (the Hooghly) that 
 leads up to Calcutta. Calcutta is 120 miles by this river 
 from the Bay of Bengal. Like all Asiatic rivers, the 
 Hooghly is yellow and of about the consistency of cold 
 pea soup. The Malda got to her dock about 5 o'clock 
 yesterday afternoon, and, the Captain and the pilot and 
 all the officers of the ship, having urged me to go to the 
 Grand Hotel because the food there was the best, I got 
 into a hack and drove to the Great Eastern. You see, I 
 had had a sample of the Captain's idea of good food all 
 the way from Rangoon. 
 
 On the boat I had been approached by a colored gen- 
 tleman who had assured mc that he would take care of 
 my baggage, and after I had paid 5 rupees duty he did
 
 308 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 take charge. After I got to the hotel this same colored 
 gentleman came to me and told me he had decided to take 
 me as his master during my stay in Calcutta. All I had 
 to do was to pay him i rupee a day, and he would do the 
 rest. Then he went to work, opening my bags and tak- 
 ing out my clothes and brushing them. Of course I was 
 helpless. His name is Abdul Hamid. I tried to argue the 
 matter with him, assuring him that I wasn't accustomed 
 to a retinue of servants, but he only smiled in a pitying 
 sort of a way, making me feel a good deal like the sum I 
 am to pay him daily — 32 cents. 
 
 Abdul Hamid had no more than decided to do me 
 the favor of employing me as his master when he assured 
 me that I must have a punka coolie. I think I have told 
 you about punkas. They are everywhere in the East. 
 They hang from the ceilings, and are pulled backward 
 and forward by coolies attached to ropes, and, of course, 
 they keep the air circulating and a breeze in the room. 
 The one in my room hangs over the bed. Abdul told me 
 that I had to have a day coolie and a night coolie, the day 
 man to get 6 cents a day and the night man 7 cents a night. 
 Each of them works when the room is occupied, and the 
 extra pay for the night man is given because a person oc- 
 cupies his room at night more than he does in the daytime. 
 For instance, when the person is sleeping there is a steady 
 pull of eight hours for the punka coolie. Of course I had 
 to do what Abdul told me, and I got a day coolie and a 
 night coolie. I must say I never got so much satisfaction 
 crt of 13 cents before. Think of being fanned continu- 
 ously, even when you sleep, and the heat here is so op- 
 pressive that it is simply impossible to get along without it. 
 
 Well, at 7 o'clock last night Abdul told me it was time 
 to dress for dinner, and then I found that he had laid out 
 all my dinner clothes, and was waiting to assist me to get 
 into them. Ah, I can tell you, Abdul is a fine nigger. At 
 dinner he stood behind my chair and bossed the other 
 servants around. It was worth a rupee a day to hear him 
 do that. Being so late in the afternoon it was not possible 
 for me to do anything in a business way before to-day. 
 Abdul told me so last night. I had a good sleep, thanks 
 to the ever-swinging punka.
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 309 
 
 This morning The Englishman and The Statesman an- 
 nounce my arrival thus : " Mr. W. J. ChamberUn, special 
 correspondent of the The York Sun, has arrived in Cal- 
 cutta, on his way home to America, after a prolonged so- 
 journ in the Far East. Mr. ChamberUn comes direct 
 from Peking." These newspaper people are a great peo- 
 ple for finding out things, aren't they? I hadn't told a 
 soul who I was or where I came from. I guess it must 
 have been Abdul. He found out probably when he 
 searched my bags and trunks. There is no question about 
 it, Abdul is a great man. 
 
 I went around to see the newspaper people to-day, and 
 got more or less encouragement, but I don't know yet 
 whether I shall be able to accomplish what I want. I 
 haven't seen enough of Calcutta yet to tell you anything 
 about it, so I'll say good-bye without further comment. 
 
 Calcutta, April 20, 1901. 
 
 Calcutta is hot and uncomfortable and dirty and bad- 
 smelling. That about sums the thing up, I think. The 
 plague is rampant here. The natives are dirtier than the 
 Chinese and are not so clever, but they all think they are 
 better than white folks, so you can imagine what kind of 
 folks they are. The town is big. It has more than a 
 million and a half of people in it. The native city, which 
 is indescribably filthy, is built all around that part of the 
 city occupied by the whites. There is a horse-car line. 
 Imagine horse-cars with the thermometer at 100 in the 
 shade ! Very few people travel in them, the natives using 
 them almost exclusively. 
 
 There is one thing about the Indian native — he never 
 bothers a tailor. His dress is a winding sheet, tucked in 
 here and there to hold it in place. His hat is another 
 winding sheet, which I have already told you about. His, 
 and particularly her, favorite attitude is a squat. They 
 sit on the ground, their feet close to their seats and their 
 knees tucked under their arms. It is a position the ordi- 
 nary individual couldn't get into if he tried for a week, 
 but it is apparently the acme of comfort to these people, 
 and they will sit that way hours at a time. They are not 
 nearly as hard-working people as the Chinese, nor are
 
 310 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 they as intelligent. I mean now, of course, the coolie 
 class. The higher-class people are extraordinarily in- 
 telligent. 
 
 Last night I dined with B., the editor of The English- 
 man, which is one of the principal papers in the city, and 
 talked over plans with him. His paper, unfortunately, 
 is tied up with the opposition on account of a stock 
 interest on the part of the proprietor, and so I can't do 
 anything with him. But I got some quite valuable tips 
 from him. 
 
 Of course you want to know all about the news of Cal- 
 cutta, so I take pleasure to-day in sending you three of 
 the leading journals. To read them you stand on your 
 head and kick your heels together. I wouldn't advise you 
 to sit up nights reading them. I thought you and the 
 children might want to see what sort of papers Calcutta 
 has. Well, I must close this letter at once. I have an 
 appointment in half an hour that I must keep. It is with 
 The Statesmen people. 
 
 Calcutta, April 21, 1901. 
 I finished up in Calcutta this afternoon. I am all 
 packed, and at 6 o'clock I am off to Allahabad, which is 
 in the center of India. I'll get there, if I have good luck, 
 at 14.22 o'clock to-morrow. That would be 4 o'clock 
 and 22 minutes in the United States. Out here they run 
 the whole twenty-four hours out in a stretch, beginning 
 a midnight. Between midnight and i o'clock it is o 
 o'clock. Then at i o'clock it starts, and at 11 o'clock at 
 night it is 23 o'clock. Just another of those contrary 
 things you find out in the East, you know. I shall be at 
 Allahabad only a day or so, and then I'll go on to Bom- 
 bay, where I'll get a steamer straight for Marseilles. 
 Very likely it will be the steamer that these letters go on, 
 so when you get them I'll be just about starting home 
 from Europe on the last week of my journey around the 
 world. 
 
 Watson's Esplanade Hotel, 
 
 Bombay, April 25, 1901. 
 As you will see by the date of this letter, I have crossed 
 India, and, if I have good luck to-day and to-morrow.
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 811 
 
 and see the people I want to see, I shall be ready to sail 
 for Marseilles on Saturday. France — Great Scott, that's 
 only seven days from Brooklyn ! It is about fifteen days 
 from here to Marseilles, and I shall have to change 
 steamers at Aden. I will take a steamer from Australia 
 there. 
 
 I haven't written you since Sunday, the day that I left 
 Calcutta. The reason is that Indian railroad trains 
 are not the luxurious palaces we have in America, and I 
 have been in Indian railroad trains almost constantly 
 since I left Calcutta at 7 o'clock Sunday night. People 
 had told me that the trains were always crowded, and 
 that I'd probably have an awful time. But people are not 
 always to be trusted. I had purchased a first-class ticket, 
 and I found myself a lone first-class passenger, with a 
 compartment all to myself. 
 
 Indian railroad cars are modeled after the English cars. 
 Each one contains three compartments, each compart- 
 ment holding six people. There are two seats, each about 
 the length of a man. They run lengthwise. Over them 
 are two padded boards that let down. At night two of the 
 passengers grab the seats, two the padded boards, and 
 the other two take the floor. Everybody carries bedding 
 with him. Being alone, I had the choice, and I took one 
 of the seats and passed about as uncomfortable a night 
 on it as a man could possibly pass. 
 
 There is one other thing I want to tell you about the 
 cars. They have a device for cooling that is unique. It 
 is hotter than mustard in India, you know, and they have 
 to do all sorts of things to keep cool. This device that I 
 speak of is a false window. Instead of glass it is made of 
 the twigs of some fragrant plant, and, by turning a little 
 cock, water from a tank on the roof leaks down and keeps 
 these twigs wet. Outside the window there is a shield 
 that turns out a bit, and catches the wind made by the 
 forward motion of the train. The water cools the wind, 
 the twigs give it an aromatic smell, and you have a cool 
 breeze as long as the water lasts. Twice between Cal- 
 cutta and Allahabad all the passengers had to get out of 
 the train and be examined by a doctor to see if they had 
 the plague. Calcutta, you know, has hundreds of cases
 
 312 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 all the time, and everybody from there is under suspicion. 
 So has Bombay. We had no cases in the train, and were 
 passed. We got to Allahabad Monday noon. 
 
 Now, I thought Calcutta was hot, but Allahabad could 
 give it cards and spades and beat it. It was simply blis- 
 tering. The town is a tremendous native settlement, and 
 about the only white people in it are connected with the 
 British Government. I stopped at Kellner's Retirement 
 Rooms, over the depot, and started right out to get my 
 work done. While the inhabitants are almost all natives, 
 the biggest and most important paper in India is printed 
 there. I told the carriage man to drive me to the office, 
 and he took me all over Allahabad, finally driving into 
 what looked to me like immense private grounds. I 
 stopped him and told him I didn't want to call on the 
 Governor — I simply wanted to go to the office of The 
 Pioneer. He talked Punjab at me, and I let him go on 
 to a beautiful house in the center of the grounds. It was 
 the office of The Pioneer. Every window and every en- 
 trance was shielded by a screen of the same sort of twigs 
 that the railroad cooler was made of, and nine or ten 
 naked coolies were busy tossing water on them. I went 
 inside, and really^ after the heat outside, the place felt 
 like an ice-box. It was a most grateful change, I can 
 assure you. 
 
 I found The Pioneer men a fine lot of people. The 
 editor said that his Calcutta man had telegraphed him 
 that I had arrived in India, and he had told him to see 
 me and have a talk with me. Nothing would do but I 
 must come and have dinner with him that evening, etc., 
 and so on. I spent a very pleasant hour with them. I 
 had to buy a pair of shoes, and when I left the newspa- 
 per office I asked the driver to take me to a shoe store. 
 He drove me all around Allahabad again, and then into 
 another immense private estate that I thought must surely 
 be a Rajah's palace. But it wasn't. It was just a shoe 
 store. I found that all the shops in Allabahad were 
 similarly housed and surrounded by big lawns and gar- 
 dens, and that each one kept from ten to twenty coolies 
 throwing water on twig screens to keep the place cool. 
 
 Now, I don't know much else to tell you about
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 313 
 
 the place — at least that I can put in a letter. The Indian 
 natives are a dirty, miserable lot — worse than the 
 Chinese. They are most of them beggars. I mean none 
 of them is ashamed to beg. The popidar means of loco- 
 motion in the interior is a two-wheeled cart, like a 'rick- 
 sha, but heavily built, with an umbrella for a top, and 
 drawn by a stunted horse instead of a man. There are no 
 barber shops. The barbers all carry their shops under 
 their arms, and if you need a shave they hold you up 
 and tell you so. If you agree with them they shave you 
 on the spot without further ado. At every railroad sta- 
 tion barbers tell you that you want a shave, and they will 
 shave you while the train waits — that is, in two or three 
 minutes. At every station there are beggars who stand 
 off and call to you. They are usually children. 
 
 I have heard many Englishmen talk of the evils of the 
 tipping system in America, but Heaven forbid that it 
 should ever become so bad there as it is here. If you as 
 much as look at a native, he holds out his hand to you, 
 palm up. My hotel bill at Allahabad was 6 rupees. I 
 thought I was getting off easily. I had six pieces of 
 baggage. Six coolies came, and each took one piece. As 
 I was starting for a train I saw a crowd drawn up by my 
 door. I asked the room-boy, " Who are these people ? " 
 
 He said : " They wish your honor a very pleasant 
 journey." 
 
 I said " Damn ! " 
 
 " This," said he, pointing to the man on the end of the 
 line, " is the water-boy who brought the water for Your 
 Honor's bath." 
 
 " Oh," said I, and a half-rupee left me. 
 
 " This," said the room-boy, " is the man who pulled the 
 punka for Your Honor yesterday." 
 
 " Oh," said I again, and another half-rupee left me. 
 
 " This," said the room-boy, " is the man who pulled 
 the punka while Your Honor slept." 
 
 I groaned in spirit, and parted with eight annas 
 more. 
 
 " This," said the room-boy, " is the man who whitened 
 Your Honor's shoes." 
 
 Another half-rupee.
 
 314 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 " This," said the room-boy^ " is the man who brought 
 lemonade to Your Honor." 
 
 Heavens, would it never stop? Another half-rupee 
 disappeared. 
 
 " This," said the room-boy, " is the man who pulled 
 the punka for Your Honor when he ate his dinner, and 
 this one when he ate his breakfast." 
 
 Two more half-rupees. 
 
 " This," said the room-boy, " is Your Honor's ser- 
 vant who called the carriage." 
 
 " Good Lord ! " I thought, and I parted with another, 
 
 " This," said the room-boy, " is the man who brought 
 Your Honor ice." 
 
 Another half-rupee. 
 
 " This," said the room-boy, " is the man who waited 
 on Your Honor at table." 
 
 I breathed hard, and said, " Thank Heaven, he is the 
 last." 
 
 " This," began the room-boy again, but, with a wild 
 cry I fled, my pockets empty, and as I ran I heard a wail, 
 " Your Honor has forgotten me." 
 
 Oh, it was awful. I thought I had escaped. But there 
 at the station, waiting by the car, were the six coolies who 
 had carried my baggage, each with outstretched palm. 
 The train was just starting. I threw them all the money 
 I had left, limped into the compartment and shut and 
 locked the door, and, as we pulled out of the station, I 
 saw that room-boy coming on the wings of the wind and 
 h. "■^d the plaintive wail, "Your Honor has forgotten 
 mc ! " I crawled under the seat and kept concealed until 
 Allahabad was out of sight. Heaven forbid that I should 
 ever see the place again. 
 
 I got to Bombay last night and haven't seen enough 
 of the town to tell you anything about it yet. 
 
 Watson's Esplanade Hotel, 
 
 Bombay, April 26, 1901. 
 
 Let me see. When I left you yesterday I was under a 
 
 seat in the Bombay mail, just pulling out of Allahabad, 
 
 and in my ears was ringing the plaintive wail, " Your 
 
 Honor has forgotten me ! " It was like a nightmare.
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 315 
 
 Never shall I forget Allahabad. My trip to Bombay was 
 uneventful except for another hold-up by a doctor, who 
 wanted to see if I had the plague yet. I didn't have it, 
 and I came on all right, but with that cry, " Your Honor 
 has forgotten me ! " still ringing in my ears. As if I could 
 ever forget him ! 
 
 Bombay is a cleaner, better, and I should say, from what 
 I have seen of it, a much more progressive city than Cal- 
 cutta. Everybody wears a pith or a cork helmet here. 
 Even the horses are fitted with them. It looks funny to 
 see a team of horses drawing a fashionable carriage go 
 spinning along, a big white helmet on the head of each. 
 The fashion is not confined to the private horses. Even 
 the street-car plugs wear white helmets. The natives 
 wear their heads done up in a hundred yards of white 
 sheeting, more or less. I have already told you how they 
 wrap it. When I see them I can't help thinking how 
 much better they would look if they sort of spread the 
 hundred yards around a little more, so that it would cover 
 their bodies. You see, it strikes you as a little strange 
 to see a hat made of a hundred yards of stuff, and clothes 
 of something less than one yard. It is not giving the 
 body a fair deal. You will remember some years ago the 
 ladies in the United States used to wear a bit of court- 
 plaster on one cheek. That was to set off their com- 
 plexions, I think you told me. Well, it strikes me that 
 that must be what the natives of India wear clothes for. 
 Their total apparel, exclusive of the hundred-yard hat, 
 covers about as much of their skin, proportionately, as 
 the bit of court-plaster covers the ladies' faces. Being 
 white, it certainly sets off their complexions with startling 
 effectiveness. 
 
 By the way, there are some things I think I forgot to 
 tell you about the railroad. None of the cars is fitted 
 with tanks for drinking water. But when the train stops 
 natives run along the car windows selling soda water, 
 lemonade, and ginger-pop at 2 annas a bottle, and other 
 natives have plain water at i anna a pint. They carry the 
 plain water in pigskins. The whole hide of a pig is taken 
 and sewed up. It is practically water-tight. One of the 
 legs is left unsewed, and this is the spigot through which'
 
 316 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 the water is served. As for the water itself, I must con- 
 fess I don't know anything about it. I haven't had a 
 drink of plain water since I left San Francisco eight 
 months or more ago. It has always been bottled water 
 of some kind. I have got a hankering, now, for just 
 plain water, but I won't chance it until I get back home 
 where I can be sure of what I am drinking. 
 
 I am having some trouble with one of my eyes at the 
 present time. I can't imagine what it is unless that room- 
 boy at Allahabad put a hoodoo on it with his " Your 
 Honor has forgotten me! " It (the eye, I mean) is very 
 bloodshot, and can't stand the light, so I am wearing 
 dark glasses. I am going to see a doctor about it this 
 morning. I don't think it is anything more serious than 
 a cold. I don't mind wearing the glasses except that 
 they make me look like a tourist, and that is expensive. 
 The whole population of India is laying for tourists, and 
 when they get hold of one they bleed him. Sometimes I 
 think they must have taken me for a tourist at Allahabad. 
 Well, I'll wind up this fol-de-rol and go to see the 
 doctor. 
 
 Watson's Esplanade Hotel, 
 
 Bombay, April 27, 1901. 
 It is sailing day again. Surely this is a flying sort of an 
 existence that I am leading. I finished up my business 
 in Bombay last night, and the Peninsular, of the P. and O. 
 line, sails at i o'clock. I am a passenger on her, bound 
 for Aden, where I change to the Australia, of the Aus- 
 tralian line, and go on through the Suez Canal and the 
 Red Sea to Marseilles. I am due there May 12, which is 
 the day this letter is due in London, and will probably 
 start for America about the time you get this. I'll be in 
 London, probably, booking my passage home to Brook- 
 lyn, and a week later I'll see you. I just grabbed my hat 
 and threw it in the air when I wrote that. As on all 
 sailing days, I am busy. I'll cut this short right here. Of 
 course I'll write you on the journey. 
 
 London, W. C, Thursday, June 15, 1901. 
 Still in London, and still hustling, and now I've a new 
 job that will take me another week and perhaps ten days.
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 317 
 
 The Laffan service is to be extended to Denmark, Nor- 
 way, and Sweden, and I am going up there on a third trip 
 to make arrangements, leaving London Monday night 
 and doing my level best to get back in time to take Satur- 
 day's steamer. It will be an awful hustle, but I think 
 with the hope of seeing you a week sooner, as an under- 
 current, I can do it. You know how hard I'll try. 
 
 You've heard of the land of the " Midnight Sun." 
 Well, that's Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and I'll be there 
 the longest day of the year, so that I shall see the sun 
 shining at midnight, just as brightly as it does at noon- 
 day. While I am burning up to get home, I'm awfully 
 glad to have the chance to see that part of the world, that 
 I shall probably never have an opportunity to see again. 
 
 Oh, you can't imagine the fund of stories that I have to 
 tell you about the strange things and strange people I 
 have seen. I don't believe it will be possible to be dull 
 for a year at least. While I'm impressed with every- 
 thing that I see, the old impression that I told you of is 
 stronger every day ; home is best, America is grander and 
 
 better than all these, and Street is the best 
 
 spot in all America for me. How I wish I were with you 
 and the babies now or that you were here with me, seeing 
 more of the world every day. It's hard to be separated 
 for so long a time, but it will be all for the best in the 
 end, for the knowledge of the world that I am gaining 
 now must be of cash value to us both in the future. 
 
 This letter is a short one, but I've so many things to 
 do that I can't make it longer now. I'll telegraph you 
 the day I get back from the " Land of the Midnight Sun," 
 and tell you the day I shall sail for home. There won't 
 be any more delay, I'm certain. Kiss and hug the babies 
 for me and tell them how anxious I am to see them again. 
 
 Hotel D'Angleterre, Copenhagen. 
 
 KjEBENHAVN, June 19, 1901. 
 I have just time for a brief note before I am off to 
 catch the train for Stockholm, which is in Sweden. What 
 I have to tell you is, most of it, of the kind that I am sav- 
 ing up to retail to you when I get home, but just a brief 
 catalogue won't spoil it. I left London Sunday; was in
 
 318 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 Berlin Monday, Hamburg yesterday, and got here to 
 Copenhagen this morning. I have been hustUng all day. 
 I have seen a good deal of the city, and now I'm off. A 
 thousand times yesterday I wished that you were with me. 
 Hamburg is simply a beautiful city. I had about ten 
 hours there with nothing to do, and I put it in sight-see- 
 ing. You know that is not my line as a rule, but I 
 really think it was one of the most enjoyable days that I 
 have ever spent, and I couldn't help feeling mean because 
 I didn't have you there to enjoy it with me. 
 
 I had dinner out at a great German garden, where 
 there was an orchestra of a hundred pieces, and it played 
 selections from Wagner all the evening. I did not leave 
 there until lo o'clock at night. But it was broad daylight 
 still. You see, the place is so far north that the days are 
 very long, and there is scarcely any night at this season 
 of the year. Copenhagen is neither so beautiful nor so 
 easy to get to as Hamburg. I left Hamburg at ii o'clock 
 last night and traveled twenty-four hours by train, first, 
 until 2 o'clock in the morning, then by boat across the 
 Baltic Sea until 7 o'clock, and then by train again. I am 
 about dead for want of sleep, I can tell you. Stockholm, 
 where I go from here, is still farther north, and then I 
 go straight north again to Lapland, across the Arctic 
 Circle, where I will satisfy my curiosity about the mid- 
 night sun, in the land where there is no night half the 
 year and no day the other half. Maybe it will ajnuse the 
 children to take their geographies and look up some of 
 the places their Pop is visiting, though they will have 
 to do it pretty quickly after they get this letter, for I 
 shall be home myself almost as soon. 
 
 Copenhagen, June 26, 1901. 
 Here I am back at Copenhagen again ; I have traveled 
 all over Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, and I think I 
 have finished my work now, and am off for home. I 
 got in here so late this evening that I missed the Hook 
 of Holland, and I have to wait over until noon to-morrow. 
 It's more serious than a day's delay, for it makes me miss 
 Saturday's steamer, and I cannot get away before 
 Wednesday. To-morrow's train lands me in London
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 319 
 
 Saturday morning at just about the time the steamer on 
 which I intended going home sails from Liverpool, and 
 catching it is out of the question, 
 
 I have wished a thousand times that you were along on 
 this trip. The three countries that I have seen are sim- 
 ply beautiful. From Copenhagen, where I was when I 
 wrote you last, I went to Stockholm, in Sweden. It is 
 called the Venice of the North, and it is certainly a most 
 beautiful city. I had a whole day there, and after seeing 
 the men I wanted to see, I took a carriage and drove 
 around the city. I visited the king's palace among other 
 things. 
 
 That night I started for the " Midnight Sun." I found 
 I would not have time to see the actual midnight sun, so I 
 went as near it as time would allow. That was Drontheim, 
 which is in the north of Norway. On the way up I had to 
 travel second-class ; the railroad company sold me what 
 they called a first-class berth, and I found it was in the 
 meanest sort of a little room with three other men. Then 
 maybe I wasn't mad clear through. I had an upper 
 berth, too, and that made me still more angry ; and, in ad- 
 dition to that, one of the three men in with me was a 
 consumptive, and that made me nervous. Well, I did a 
 heap of kicking to the conductor, a big Swede, who didn't 
 understand a word of it. After a while I made him un- 
 derstand that I had to have a lower berth, and then one 
 of the three men in the car said that he preferred an upper 
 to a lower, and asked the privilege of exchanging with 
 me ; of course I was agreeable. I did not learn until the 
 next morning that the obliging man was Prince Bema- 
 dotte, the son of the king. Of course I couldn't help then 
 but be satisfied. We became quite well acquainted. I 
 told him a lot of Chinese stories, and he told me a lot of 
 Swedish ones. It was when he was leaving me that he 
 held out his hand, and said, " Well, I hope that some time 
 you will think of Prince Bernadotte." Well, you could 
 have knocked me over with a feather ; but I braced up and 
 told him I hoped to see him in America some day. I got 
 " chummy " then with another of my fellow travelers, who 
 spoke a little English, and he told me the story of the 
 Prince^ who is the second son of the king. He fell in
 
 320 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 love with one of his mother's maids-in-waiting, and, in 
 order to marry her, he had to give up his title to the 
 throne. He did it. Since then he has been doing a lot 
 of missionary work ; he was on his way this trip to preach 
 to the Laplanders. 
 
 My second friend, the man who told me all of this, was 
 a quiet, unassuming sort of man, and I didn't think he 
 was anybody in particular, when, lo and behold, the first 
 station from Drontheim, a lot of Norwegians came on 
 board and greeted him, and when the train reached Dron- 
 theim there was a brass band at the station. This man 
 was put at the head of the procession and he rushed off. 
 I found out that he was a big member of the Swedish 
 parliament. So, you see, I had very distinguished travel- 
 ing companions. 
 
 We got to this Norwegian town at 9 o'clock in the even- 
 ing. I sat up until 11.30. Then the sun went down. 
 I sat up until 12.30 and it rose again. In the intervening 
 hour I read papers by daylight ; what do you think of 
 that? It never grew any darker than it is at this season 
 of the year in broad day at 7 o'clock. It was a queer sight. 
 I went to bed at 3 o'clock in the morning with the sun 
 shining as brightly as it does at home at midday. 
 
 From Drontheim I went on to Christiania, in Norway; 
 that is the capital. I got there Sunday, and could do no 
 business, so I rested. It was practically the first rest that 
 I had had since I left London. Christiania is the capital 
 of Norway. I visited the royal palace there, too. Then I 
 went out on Monday and did what business I had come to 
 do and started on again, back to Denmark, and here I am. 
 Since I left London, I have visited Holland, Germany, 
 and Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. Pretty good, isn't 
 it, for ten days? Thank the Lord, now I'm coming home, 
 home, home, and I hope to stay a while. Oh, I've got so 
 much to tell you; I'm just brimming over with things 
 that I have seen and heard. How I wish that I were with 
 you now, that I could begin, or, better still, that you were 
 with me here. I shall never be quite happy until I can 
 bring you to Europe and show you around; let's hope 
 that it will be soon. Well, it's midnight, and Fm off to 
 bed. Good-bye, until I see you ten days hence,
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 321 
 
 The New York Sun Office, London, W. C, 
 
 July 2, 1901. 
 
 I got back from the trip to Denmark, Norway, and 
 Sweden on Saturday morning, and have been so busy 
 since that there has not been time to write. Of course 
 I was too late to catch Saturday's boat, and, even if I 
 had been in time, business would not have permitted. I 
 expected to sail to-morrow on the Majestic of the White 
 Star line, which will take this letter, but she is full up, 
 so it will be impossible for me to get away before Satur- 
 day, when I'll find room, I think, on the St. Louis. Mr. 
 L. is going home on her, and I'll travel with him. 
 
 You can't imagine how happy I shall be when I once 
 get started on the last leg of this journey around the 
 world. I am just longing to be with you all again. I 
 am more homesick than ever I was before in all my life, 
 and that is saying a good deal, I can tell you. My stay 
 in Europe has been most delightful. Everything has 
 been done by my friends here that could be done to make 
 it happy and I have enjoyed it, but there hasn't been a 
 day when I have not wished very very hard that I could 
 get away, or that I had you with me to help enjoy it. 
 Impossible wishes — I'm full of them, am I not? With 
 H. R.'s family I have incurred social obligations that I 
 don't believe we shall ever be able to repay, but we'll do 
 our best when they come to America. The stay here has 
 done me an immense amount of good, for while I have 
 had work all the time, it has been a practical rest for me, 
 and my nerves, which were in a bad condition when I 
 landed, are ten times better. Think of me talking about 
 nerves, will you? Nevertheless, after the work and the 
 hardships of China I had a more active set of them than 
 even you have ever had, my sweetheart. They've calmed 
 down now, and I feel as fit as ever I did in my life. 
 
 I have spent this whole morning thinking of you all, 
 dear. I read in the London papers of the awful heat in 
 New York. Over here it has been cool and rainy, and 
 I guess I have been in luck being here. Of course, 
 you got my two letters from Denmark. You can't 
 imagine how much I have missed hearing from you these 
 last three weeks, but I know it is all my own fault. I
 
 322 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 told you I was coming right home. Well, I thought I 
 was. Every steamer was going to take me. I have 
 paid for not going, in lonesomeness. Well, I am going 
 off now to engage passage on the St. Louis, and if I catch 
 her I'll be with you three days after you get this. 
 Good-bye until then. 
 
 London, July 17, 1901. 
 
 When I wrote you last two weeks ago to-day I think 
 I was as certain as I was that I would have my next meal 
 that the following Saturday would see me on- board the 
 St. Louis on the last lap of this journey around the world. 
 But you know that saying " The best laid plans of mice 
 and men gang aft aglee." In that letter I think I con- 
 fided to you the fact that I had discovered that I had 
 nerves and that they had been working overtime but were 
 all right, and I had actually engaged passage for 
 Brooklyn. 
 
 Well, just two days later I made a still more important 
 discovery about myself. That was that I had a liver. 
 I had known before in a more or less general way that 
 some people did have livers, but it had never occurred to 
 me that I had one, and the shock of the discovery was 
 such that I took to my bed. You know I never could 
 stand surprises, and this discovery of a liver in my in- 
 wards was very surprising. I might have gone on and 
 never known anything about it and lived and died happy 
 as they do in the story books, had it not been for the fact 
 that my liver got ambitious to be the biggest thing of 
 its kind on earth. Well, as I told you, I was so surprised 
 at the discovery that I went to bed. I must confess that 
 I was egotistical enough to think that it was enlargement 
 of the heart and not of the liver for a while, but when I 
 had an expert go over me, he assured me it was just plain 
 liver all right enough and he insisted on my staying in 
 bed. There really isn't any use, though, of going into 
 details here. I'll tell you all about it when I get home. 
 I didn't let you know about the matter before because I 
 knew that it was nothing serious and I did not want you 
 to worry. I got up yesterday morning and came down- 
 Stairs feeling fine as a fiddle. Certainly better than I
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 333 
 
 have felt at any time during the past six months, when, 
 as I have told you, I have been a shade off with nothing 
 the matter that I could define. 
 
 While I am up and about and feeling as fine and 
 healthy as a young colt, my treatment is not done yet. 
 Fortunately for me, Mr. Laffan was here when I made 
 the astounding discovery. I was going to sail with him, 
 in fact. He was simply splendid. He ordered that I 
 should have everything I wanted and that I should go to 
 the Continent as soon as I could get away. 
 
 One of the very necessary things to do when you have 
 a liver is to go to Carlsbad and drink the water and take 
 the baths. That was about the first thing the Doctor 
 ordered, and by the time that you get this letter I will be 
 there, drinking water by the barrel, I suppose, and taking 
 a bath every fifteen minutes. The treatment there is 
 three weeks, and you become like a sylph in form. Then 
 you have to take a week to recuperate. That will be in 
 Switzerland. After that you are an absolutely new man. 
 I don't know whether you are labeled " Made in Ger- 
 many " or not, but the important part is that you are new 
 and you never have a recurrence of the trouble, so when 
 I do get back you'll have a brand-new husband. 
 
 You can't tell how thankful I am that I discovered 
 the liver when I did. If it had been a day later I would 
 have been aboard the steamer and that would have been 
 awful. If I had come back from Norway in time to take 
 the steamer the week before I would have been sick in 
 that awful hot spell in New York and I don't know what 
 would have happened. 
 
 I have been treated like a prince for sure. H. R. and 
 his family have done everything in the world for me, but 
 I'll tell you all about that when I get home. The only 
 thing that I have missed, is you yourself. I couldn't 
 help longing occasionally that you were with me, for I 
 was so homesick. Now, beginning to-day I will resume 
 my daily letters to you. I have been saving up things to 
 tell you and I think I've got at least a year's supply on 
 hand. I don't dare trust any more to my memory, and 
 shall tell you every day just what happens, just as I did in 
 China. Please don't under any circumstances worry
 
 324 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 about me, for I tell you truly I am better to-day than I 
 have been in, I said six months, I really think I am better 
 than I was when I left home. 
 
 The Carlsbad trip is simply to make it impossible for 
 me to have any similar trouble again. You will hear 
 from me by every steamer. As I don't know just where 
 I will stop in Carlsbad you had better write me to the 
 office here and H. R. will forward the letters. I will 
 cable you direct once a week, so that you will know that 
 everything is all right. Everything is all right, except 
 my longing to get home and be with you all again. That 
 won't be cured until I get there. 
 
 Oh, how I wish I could be with you all this minute. 
 Of course, school is over, and the children are with you. 
 I hope they are behaving, and not worrying you. Bless 
 their little hearts, I know they don't mean to do it ; and 
 C, I wonder if he is as much a chip of the old block as he 
 was when his dad went away. Well, I'll be with you all 
 mighty soon now, and will know by personal inspection. 
 
 By the way, there is one lucky thing — if I was at 
 home and up, I suppose I should be away on that plagued 
 strike, so I wouldn't be with you anyway. 
 
 London, W. C, Thursday, July i8, 1900. 
 
 I am simply disgustingly healthy and I start for Carls- 
 bad to-morrow morning, at 9 o'clock. I have been feel- 
 ing so fine the last two days, that yesterdav I had a long 
 talk with the Doctor, and tried to make him agree to let 
 me off from the trip ; I didn't feel that I needed it and 
 I did want to go home. But he was an Englishman and 
 of course was obstinate, and I couldn't make any head- 
 way with him. He admitted that I surprised him by 
 being so healthy, and he insisted that the trip wasn't 
 necessary for the present, but for the future. Well, under 
 the circumstances I couldn't very well say that the future 
 could take care of itself, and so we ended just where we 
 began and I will take the train in the morning. 
 
 I go from here to Dover, then to Ostend in Brussels, 
 then to Cologne, then up the Rhine to Frankfort-on-the- 
 Main, and then across Southern Germany to Bavaria, get- 
 ting there Sunday evening. I'll start right in drinking
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 325 
 
 water and will get through the job as quickly as possible. 
 I will cable you from there the day you ought to receive 
 the letter I wrote you, of my astounding discovery of a 
 liver, so you will know things are booming. Yesterday 
 was such an uneventful day that there isn't anything left 
 to talk about but myself, and I'm sure I've stuffed you 
 full enough in these two letters to last until I get to 
 Carlsbad. I probably won't have time to write you a 
 letter on the road, but I will drop you a fancy postal card 
 or two. 
 
 Bayreuth, Saturday. 
 This is the bridge over the Rhine at Cologne, and I had 
 to cross it to get into the city. I go on this morning 
 toward Carlsbad, stopping to-night at Reudeheim, and 
 then going Sunday, by way of Frankfort. Well and 
 happy. 
 
 Sunday. 
 I'm at Frankfort, but this is a Cologne postal. I go 
 on to Carlsbad at 2 o'clock. I'm feeling bully. 
 
 Carlsbad, July 24, 1901. 
 Surely I have become something of a wanderer on the 
 face of the earth, haven't I? Here I am now, in Austria, 
 prepared to tackle that barrel of water a day that I told 
 you about in the last real letter I wrote you, to lose my 
 liver and to do all other things necessary to make me 
 brand new from top to bottom. It is Wednesday, and I 
 have just arrived. I ought to have been here Alonday, 
 but the trouble was that the railroad from Frankfort here 
 ran through the town of Bayreuth. Now, Bayreuth is 
 one of the famous places of the world because Richard 
 Wagner was born there, and every two years all the 
 Wagner cranks who can afford it go there and the operas 
 he wrote are produced in a theater especially built for 
 their production by King Ludwig of Bavaria, who, you 
 will remember, was known as the Mad King and jumped 
 overboard and was drowned some years ago. They call 
 this affair at Bayreuth a Wagner festival, and this year 
 it began on Monday, the day I struck Bayreuth. It was
 
 326 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 the chance of a lifetime that probably never would come 
 again, and I felt so infernally healthy that I couldn't 
 resist the temptation and I stepped off. 
 
 I had luck and I got tickets for the first two perform- 
 ances and promptly joined the Wagner cranks. The 
 theater is up on a hill and commands a view of the town. 
 It was built after Wagner's own ideas and is unique in 
 the way of a theater. It seats about 1,400 people. But 
 it is not the theater that is the interesting part of it — it is 
 the whole atmosphere that surrounds the place. The 
 opera Monday was " The Flying Dutchman." It was 
 the sixtieth anniversary of the writing of that opera, and 
 that was the reason it was chosen this year for the open- 
 ing of the festival. It was to start at 4 o'clock in the 
 afternoon, and I just mingled with the cranks until that 
 time. I went to Wagner's house and looked through it. 
 I visited his favorite beer garden and the woods he used 
 to walk in, stared at pictures of him that were to be seen 
 in every window, and finally, when the procession started 
 up the hill, I joined the procession. It was made up of 
 people of all nationalities, including many Americans. 
 
 I got up to the theater at a little before 4 o'clock. At 
 ten minutes to four six heralds with brass trumpets 
 walked from entrance to entrance of the theater, and blew 
 the first bar of the opera music. In five minutes they 
 blew it again. At the second blow I noticed the crowd 
 all scrambling to get in, and I scrambled with it and 
 found my place. At one minute of four the trumpets 
 sounded again and then every door was closed. Any- 
 body who hadn't got in before that last horn missed the 
 opera. As nearly as I could see, though, there wasn't a 
 vacant seat in the whole place. 
 
 Well, about a minute after the doors were closed every 
 blessed light in the place went out and there was total 
 darkness. Then there came silence. Not a soul moved. 
 Suddenly the overture began. The orchestra wasn't in 
 sight. All you could tell was that the music was coming 
 from somewhere down in front, and such an orchestra 
 I never had heard before in all my life. It was simply 
 perfect. Well, I can't describe the music. The dark- 
 ness and the big crowd and the silence all got you into the
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 327 
 
 mood to listen, and the music took hold as no music had 
 ever before taken hold of me. It was simply splendid. 
 
 I sat two and one-half mortal hours in that theater, and 
 just listened and watched, without as much as stirring. 
 I was as bad as any of the cranks. There was no inter- 
 mission between the acts. I didn't want any. I was 
 content to listen. The opera itself was all in German, 
 and of course I didn't understand a word of it. But that 
 didn't make any difference. I must confess that after it 
 was over I was something of a Wagner crank myself. 
 Having a ticket for Tuesday's performance you couldn't 
 have dragged me away from Bayreuth without seeing it, 
 and I stayed over Tuesday. The opera was Parsifal. 
 This is supposed to be one of the greatest of the Wagner 
 operas, and it has never been produced anywhere but in 
 Bayreuth. Wagner's widow has a copyright on it, and 
 won't let it be played anywhere else. It is a religious, 
 or you might say sacrilegious, piece. My experience 
 was the same as the day before. I was simply spellbound 
 by the thing and wasn't ashamed to own up to it. 
 
 Well, I got away to-day for Carlsbad and here I am. 
 It took two days to see Bayreuth, but I think they were 
 well spent. I shall begin the treatment here in the morn- 
 ing. It consists simply of drinking the water, eating 
 plain food, going to bed at 9 o'clock and getting up at five 
 in the morning, and then walking miles and miles every 
 day. I feel so well that I am really almost ashamed to 
 go ahead with it, but I suppose it is the only thing to do 
 if I want to keep perfectly well in the future. I suppose 
 you will get my letter telling you of my astonishing dis- 
 covery about my liver to-day, and in the morning I shall 
 cable you, so that you may know that I am all O. K. 
 
 As I have just landed in Carlsbad I can't tell you any- 
 thing about the place, and I'll write you again to-morrow, 
 after I find out something about it. Now, please don't 
 under any circumstances worry about me, because I am 
 all right, and absolutely the only thing that bothers me is 
 the time it takes to finish up this water business. I am 
 so anxious to get home and be with you all again that I 
 begrudge every minute of this time, but there is no way 
 out of it. Gee! maybe I won't enjoy it when I finally
 
 828 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 do get there. In the meantime, as I told you before, I 
 think I can thank my lucky stars that I discovered I had 
 a liver in this place where livers can be mended, rather 
 than at home, where they can't be. 
 
 Kiss and hug the little ones for me, and tell them how 
 anxious pop is to see them. 
 
 Carlsbad, July 25, 1901. 
 
 I have told you that I was lonesome in Carlsbad. One 
 of the last injunctions I got when I left London was to 
 get acquainted with folks, get into the fun of the place, 
 and have a good time. Now when I'm off on business, 
 of course I never have any trouble getting acquainted 
 with folks, but when it's a job of this kind, it's all quite 
 a different matter. Well, I got lonesome and lonesomer 
 in this yellow town, until Saturday, when the injunction 
 occurred to me, and I said, " Why, certainly, that's easy, 
 what's the use of being lonesome ; I'll go out and get 
 acquainted." So I started out to the spot where the yel- 
 low men parade, and coming there I looked over the 
 bunch and selected my man. He looked pretty nearly 
 as I felt, but he looked as if he might have more talk in 
 him, so I slid up to him and remarked, " It would be a 
 fine day if it wasn't raining, wouldn't it? " Well, I can't 
 tell you what he said, but it sounded like a page out of 
 the Russian dictionary and at the same time he grabbed 
 his watch pocket. Of course I saw right away that I had 
 made a mistake, and I backed off while my lonesome 
 friend, looking very much disgusted, resumed his walk. 
 
 Probably I would have been wise if I had stopped there 
 and had made no further effort to get acquainted, but I 
 hated to give up so easily, so I waited my chance and 
 spotted another one in the crowd. I made my way over 
 to where he was standing in the crowd and putting on 
 my best smile, I said, " I wonder if this rain is going to 
 continue ? " He looked wildly around and then blurted 
 out something that to me sounded like Norwegian, but 
 that may have been either Swedish or Danish ; at the 
 same time he clutched the glass of hot water, that he held 
 closer, as if I had designs on it, and again I realized that 
 I had made a mistake, and again hustled off with mumbled
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 329 
 
 apologies. The first set-back I hadn't minded so much, 
 but this second one simply made me more determined, 
 and I swore a mighty swear, that I would get acquainted. 
 My third try was at a little fellow ; he wasn't quite as 
 yellow as the others, and he looked more cheerful. 
 Moreover, he had a copy of the Paris Herald in his hand. 
 I thought to myself, " Well, I can't be mistaken here," 
 and with a light heart I cantered up to him and remarked, 
 " Good-afternoon." He gazed at me blandly and then 
 demanded, " Parlez-vous Frangaise ? " I gasped " No," 
 and bolted off into the crowd, running plump into the 
 arms of a fat girl. I suppose that I meant to apologize, 
 but I sputtered " Sprechen Sie Deutsch ? " and she glared 
 at me and sputtered back, " Aw rats, why don't ye's look 
 where ye's are goin'." That was too much. I saw that 
 my last chance to get acquainted with anybody was gone, 
 and that there was nothing left but to take to the woods, 
 and to the woods I took. I climbed until the rain stopped 
 and darkness followed day and the moon came out and 
 spread a mellow light. Then I sauntered back to my 
 hotel and climbed in a near window, while the crickets 
 chirped divinely and the tree toads chanted with glee. 
 Heart-rending, wasn't it ? But wait, the worst is to 
 come; I'll tell it to you to-morrow, in my letter. I need 
 only add here, that I have sworn never again to try and 
 get acquainted with anybody without a proper introduc- 
 tion. 
 
 I am waiting anxiously for a letter from you ; when 
 I get one I'll stop being lonesome, for a while anyway. 
 I'm getting on splendidly and looking forward with all 
 my senses to the day when I can start really and truly 
 for home. 
 
 Carlsbad, Austria, July 26. 
 I am about winding up the second day of my sentence 
 to Carlsbad and it's boiling waters, and I feel fine as a 
 fiddle. I must say I like the place and it is a great sport 
 coming here to lose a liver, or for anything else. I told 
 you yesterday that the town was full of hotels ; well I 
 find it also full of music. One of the first things that 
 struck me about it was that pretty nearly everything was
 
 330 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 free. For instance, when I walked around and found a 
 concert going on in almost every corner, I always saw the 
 sign, " Admission Free." Then, at the springs, where I 
 went to get water with the thirty-seven thousand other 
 people with livers that they wanted to get rid of, there was 
 nobody around who said anything about money. I 
 passed in my cup, like the rest of the livers, and the water 
 was passed out regularly, at fifteen minute intervals. 
 
 I got the explanation of it all to-day, when the tax 
 collector came around and charged me fifteen florins for 
 music and ten florins for the cure. The whole business, 
 I learned, is owned by the town and is run by the town, 
 and is paid for by the people who come here to take the 
 waters, or cure as it is called, though visitors have to pay 
 the tax whether they take the water or not. It is with 
 money raised in this fashion, that the whole town of 
 Carlsbad, to say nothing of the Springs, is supported. 
 Her streets are kept clean, her police are paid, the schools 
 are run, and all the local officials get their money from the 
 cure tax. The natives of Carlsbad, apparently, don't 
 pay any tax at all ; it's a fine thing for them, isn't it ? 
 The plan strikes me as a mighty good one, for the people 
 who get the real benefit from the waters pay for what 
 they get. 
 
 This afternoon I took an eight- or ten-mile walk in the 
 woods. The place is surrounded by woods, and they 
 form a big park. Thousands of dollars have been spent 
 in laying walks through them, and these walks are just 
 as fine as the best sidewalks that the town affords. There 
 are miles and miles of them, and of course there is always 
 a crowd everywhere. Then every once in a while you 
 run across a band, too, and you can lie down on the grass 
 or sit on one of the benches that line the walks, and rest 
 while you listen to the music. I must say, so far as I 
 have seen, there is no place for recuperating invalids 
 that even approaches this. Don't you think I was in 
 luck to be so handy to it when I found that I had an 
 ambitious liver^ that had to have the conceit taken out of 
 it ? I certainly do. The only cloud in the sky is that I' 
 haven't you here to help me enjoy it. 
 
 I haven't made any acquaintances yet, and it's lone-
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 331 
 
 some ; but it is a good deal of fun to watch the people 
 traveling around with their cups tied to them and now 
 and then stopping at a spring and getting a glass of water 
 that comes bubbling up at a temperature of 165. Oh, 
 by the way, did I tell you that Julian Ralph had just left 
 here? You know he has been working in London for 
 some years. During the early part of the South African 
 war, he was a correspondent in South Africa for the 
 Daily Mail of London, and he was slightly wounded 
 there. About six weeks ago he was taken sick in Lon- 
 don with a liver and he was sent here. He finished up 
 his treatment here, just before I got here, and now he has 
 gone off to the Alps to recuperate. He got rid of about 
 25 pounds while he was here. I don't know whether 
 it was all liver or not. I had myself weighed yesterday, 
 and tipped the scales at 169 pounds 2 ounces. You 
 see I am still not a sylph, but that is a good deal better 
 than 190 pounds, isn't it? I think that probably I'll get 
 down to 150 while I am here and that will be about the 
 right weight for my height. My ! won't I be an Adonis 
 though? I suppose I'll have to have all my clothes taken 
 in. 
 
 I'm awfully lonesome for a letter from you ; it has been 
 such a long time since I heard. I'm not blaming you, 
 you understand, for it is my own fault. You stopped 
 writing because you were sure I was coming right home ; 
 and so was I : I was as certain of it as I was that I was 
 alive; I didn't even suspect then that I had a liver. I'm 
 looking forward to a letter that I know must be on the 
 way. I wish the children would write to me too ; if they 
 only knew how much it would take away the loneliness 
 of this exile, I know that they would. Please don't let a 
 moment's worry about me trouble you, for, as I cabled 
 you yesterday, I am actually in better health now than 
 I have been at any time for a year past, and I am getting 
 better all the time. I'll be so healthy by the time I leave 
 here, that there will be no living with me. 
 
 CARLSRAn, July 27, 1901. 
 Day No. 3 has passed, and I am still feeling so disgust- 
 ingly healthy that I am tempted to pack up my duds, tell
 
 332 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 the Doctors all to go to and start Londonward,on the 
 
 way home. There is one good thing about it, I certainly 
 am losing flesh. On Thursday I weighed 169 pounds, 
 and yesterday I had dropped to 167. Two pounds in a 
 day is not half bad, is it? Before I go to bed to-night, 
 ni have myself weighed again and see if I have dropped 
 another 32 ounces. If I have I guess my estimate of 
 150 pounds, when I leave here, won't be far out of the 
 way. I wouldn't mind if it were not for my clothing. 
 It will be a nuisance to have to have that all altered, won't 
 it? 
 
 This is Saturday and as dull as dishwater. How I 
 wish that you were here to drive the blues away and cheer 
 things up a bit. The only amusement is listening to 
 music, and that palls on you, and watching people with 
 livers. You don't know how tired I get looking at faces 
 of various degrees of yellow. One thing that a bad liver 
 does to a person, is to give a very yellow face ; beside 
 most of the people here, I am in the very pink of condi- 
 tion ; I'm not a bit yellow and my eyes are clear. Hun- 
 dreds of the visitors are as yellow as jaundice and the 
 whites of their eyes even are the color of sunflowers. 
 One hates to look at them. 
 
 To-morrow morning I have another interview with my 
 funny little German Doctor, and in all probability he will 
 change my spring to a stronger one. You see I'm get- 
 ting along fast; I'm doing exactly as he says, and I'm not 
 going to delay my return to complete health, a single 
 day. I'm sleeping a great deal better than I have for a 
 year, and I'm doing more walking; there is another 
 reason why I wish that you were here ; you would have 
 to walk with me, and before we got through, you would 
 be doing your ten miles a day too. 
 
 I got hold of the Paris edition of the Herald, to-day, 
 and found in it the first news that I had had since I left 
 London. The most interesting thing was that there was 
 trouble with the Brooklyn bridge, and that seventeen 
 strands of the cable had broken. I'm glad I'm not com- 
 pelled to travel back and forth over it ; it would be a case 
 to take the awfully jammed ferry boats or walk, and one 
 is about as bad as the other. I also hear that Rear-
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 333 
 
 Admiral Schley has demanded a full investigation of his 
 conduct at the battle of Santiago. That's a big victory 
 for The Sun, it seems to me. I don't suppose these things 
 interest you much ; they interest me because every line of 
 American news interests me; I have been without it for 
 so long. 
 
 You can't imagine how good I'm getting ; I go to bed at 
 lo o'clock, regular as clockwork, and am up when the 
 first strains of the band sounds down at the spring. I 
 wash, shave and dress, and get down to the springs at 
 7 o'clock, sharp, and every ten minutes, for the next three- 
 quarters of an hour, I drink a goblet of that infernal hot 
 water. Then I walk an hour before breakfast and for 
 breakfast I eat two pieces of Zwieback and a boiled tgg 
 and drink a cup of tea; that's all I get until i o'clock, 
 when I have my dinner, or Zimmer, as it is called in 
 Austria. At 7 o'clock I get my supper, and then I go 
 to my room. It's all as regular as clockwork, quite as- 
 tonishing for me, isn't it? I hope that when I get home 
 I will be able to be as regular for a while at least. If I 
 was at home now, it's nine chances out of ten that I'd be 
 away in the West somewhere on one of the strikes, that I 
 read are going on. 
 
 Well, good-bye again, for 20 hours. In my letter to- 
 morrow, I'll tell you what the doctor says. 
 
 Carlsbad, July 28, 1901. 
 
 Well, I saw my little Dutch Doctor to-day, and I'm 
 getting along " bully." He didn't change the water, but 
 he did my bath ; and after this I am going to take what he 
 calls a pine-needle bath. This is because my left foot 
 has formed a habit of going to sleep at unseasonable 
 hours. He told me three or four pine-needle baths would 
 fix it up better than new. Funny as he is, I think him a 
 very good doctor. 
 
 It's Sunday, dear, and as everywhere else on the Conti- 
 ent, in Europe, there is no Sunday to speak of ; in Carls- 
 bad all the stores are open ; the streets are just as crowded 
 and people are going about apparently doing exactly what 
 they do every other day in the week. I thought there 
 wasn't much Sunday in China^ but I think there is really
 
 334 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 less here. I am sitting writing in my room in the Duke 
 of Edinburgh Hotel, and from my window I can hear 
 the music of two brass bands, while out in the street I 
 can see people sitting drinking beer. 
 
 There is hardly anything to tell you to-day. The hotel 
 is jammed full of people, all of them with livers and 
 most of them carry their livers in their faces; a thing 
 that thank the Lord I haven't done. It makes me tired to 
 look at them, I just had a look at myself in the glass, 
 and I can tell you I look a good deal more like a man 
 hunting for pleasure, than a man hunting for health, 
 and, honest Injun, I think that's what I am. If you were 
 with me this minute I couldn't get a bit of sympathy out 
 of you, I look so healthy ; and I shouldn't want any 
 sympathy either, I feel so healthy. The water and the 
 air and the food here certainly agree with me, and with 
 the regular hours it seems exactly like a vacation. If I 
 wasn't so lonesome I'd be happy, and to-morrow I'll be 
 over a part of that for a while, for a party of people who 
 were at Bayreuth, where the operas were, that I told you 
 about, are coming here for a time at least, and there'll 
 be somebody here that I know, but the whole party 
 couldn't make up for an hour or so of you; I'm just as 
 homesick for you as I can be. How I wish I could have 
 you here, if only for a few days : but there, I'm always 
 wishing for what I can't have. Thank Heaven, anyway, 
 every day makes the parting shorter and I'll soon be on 
 my way home to be with you and the little ones again, 
 this time, I hope, for a long time. In the mean time, I am 
 getting health and strength, and that's a good deal, isn't 
 it? This letter to-day is a short one, because I haven't 
 yet had my walk; I am going to start right now, on a 
 ten-mile walk through the Pine woods, and while my legs 
 are working I'll busy my thoughts with home, sweet 
 home. 
 
 Carlsbad, July 30, 1901. 
 I told you in my letter yesterday, that I would con- 
 tinue the tale of the misfortunes of a lonely man. Well, 
 it was Sunday morning; I went down to the Springs to 
 get my water at 6:15 o'clock. There stood my Russian;
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 336 
 
 he was talking to a policeman and he pointed me out, 
 I made myself scarce in the crowd and stumbled right 
 into my Scandinavian. I dodged him only to come face 
 to face with my Frenchman, who wore a smile of exas- 
 perating superciliousness. I staggered away from him 
 and, horror upon horrors, I trod upon the toes of the fat 
 
 girl, who spluttered, " Well, of all the impudent " But 
 
 why continue? Only the woods were left again, and 
 again up into them I climbed. I walked and I walked and 
 I walked. Rods turned into miles, miles into leagues. 
 
 On and on I went. At last it was near night ; I came 
 out on a place called Kaiser Park ; I made my way around 
 that and struck out on an almost deserted road for the 
 hotel. By and by I came to a bench ; it was deserted ; I 
 was tired ; I sat down. I suppose I must have gone to 
 sleep. How long I slept I do not know, but at last I woke 
 up and started. There in front of me, in the middle of the 
 road, was an omnibus. There was a huge white umbrella 
 over the driver, and on this umbrella in letters over a foot 
 long, were the words " All cars transfer to Bloomingdale, 
 59th St. and 3rd Avenue." I rubbed my eyes ; I read 
 again, " All cars transfer to Bloomingdale, 59th St. and 
 3rd Avenue." I noticed that the omnibus was drawn 
 by the same crowbait that draws the Fifth Avenue stages. 
 The omnibus, itself, was not so familiar. I looked at the 
 umbrella again. There were the words still, " All cars 
 transfer to Bloomingdale, 59th St. and 3rd Avenue." 
 Like a flash it came to me that my liver was all a dream. 
 Then, I thought of China, and Japan and India, and I 
 wondered if the whole business had not been a dream. 
 There staring at me were the words, sure enough, " All 
 cars transfer to Bloomingdale, 59th St. and 3rd Avenue." 
 I could remember China ; I could remember Japan ; I 
 could remember India; I could remember London, but 
 bless me if I could remember crossing the Atlantic, and 
 yet there was the familiar Fifth Avenue stage sign, " All 
 cars transfer to Bloomingdale, 59th St. and 3rd Avenue." 
 It began to dawn on me that something had happened; 
 I remembered in a vague sort of way trying to get 
 acquainted with somebody. I reached out on either side 
 of me for the padded walls of the cell I thought I must
 
 336 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 be in; they were not there. I looked again, and again 
 was the sign staring at me, " All cars transfer to Bloom- 
 ingdale, 59th St. and 3rd Avenue." Slowly I got on my 
 feet ; I wandered over to the omnibus, I got aboard, I 
 gave a dime to the conductor, I murmured " Gi' me a 
 transfer to Bloomingdale, the asylum, not the store," and 
 I sank into a corner feeling that I would be cared for at 
 any rate. When I woke up it was in front of Pupps 
 Hotel, and then I knew that I had been asleep, neverthe- 
 less, when I looked on the front of the omnibus there was 
 the umbrella with the sign, " All cars transfer to Bloom- 
 ingdale, 59th St. and 3rd Avenue." 
 
 How that umbrella got over here in Austria, is some- 
 thing I can't even guess, but if I find the man who brought 
 it, I am going to lick him, wouldn't you ? Well, that for 
 the present is the end of trouble for a lonely man at Carls- 
 bad. When I have more I'll tell it to you. Now, I'm 
 going to take my pine-needle bath and drink some more 
 water. 
 
 P. S. Oh ! I forgot to tell you I'm all O. K. in spite of 
 loneliness ; please remember me to all the folks. 
 
 Carlsbad, July 31, 1901. 
 This is a morning crowd at Carlsbad. I'm in it. 
 
 Carlsbad, August i, 1901. 
 
 Yesterday wound up my first week at Carlsbad, and as 
 I told you I thought I would be, I have been promoted to 
 new springs. I saw the Doctor again yesterday morn- 
 ing, and started right off to new springs, both of them 
 cooler than the Felsengerell, in which I started. One is 
 the Theresabrunn, and the other the Marktbrunn. I 
 suppose my next promotion will be to the Spoudil, itself, 
 and then I'll be about ready to start off somewhere to 
 recuperate before starting for home. I didn't write you 
 a letter yesterday, but I sent you a postal with a picture 
 of the crowd that take the waters in it. 
 
 I wish you could see that moving crowd of " livers " 
 as it walks up and down between drinks. It numbers 
 thousands and it comes from all parts of the world. 
 There are a plenty from our country. I send you a copy
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 337 
 
 of a paper that is printed here, that contains the names of 
 the latest arrivals from England and America. You 
 will see how widespread livers are, and that New York 
 and Brooklyn send their quota. 
 
 When one is under treatment here he has to take the 
 treatment at intervals of fifteen minutes. For instance, 
 I have to get up at 6 o'clock in the morning ; I go down 
 to the Springs, arriving there at 7 o'clock ; then, I go to 
 the Theresabrunn and drink one glass of the water ; I walk 
 around fifteen minutes with the crowd, and then I go 
 back and at 7:15 I drink another glass ; then I walk up to 
 the Marktbrunn and at 7 :30 I drink a glass of that, walk 
 around for another fifteen minutes, and at 7 45 go back 
 and drink another ; then with five glasses of hot water in 
 my inside, I have to walk an hour before I get my break- 
 fast. 
 
 Well, everybody else in this big crowd has to do the 
 same thing, so you can imagine the scene in Carlsbad 
 any morning. I am certain that the treatment here is 
 doing me a lot of good and is really making me over; 
 after my one week my skin is clear and pink ; there isn't 
 a shade of yellow in it. My eyes are clear and bright 
 instead of heavy and dull. These are things that I can 
 see myself. The doctor says that my liver is in much 
 better shape ; I am going to him again to-morrow, just to 
 give him a chance to make another examination, he says, 
 but / say, make another $2.50. 
 
 Carlsbad is not prolific for space writing, and I'll have 
 to close this letter for want of interesting material. God 
 bless you all and see us soon reunited. 
 
 Carlsbad, August 6, 1901. 
 One of the penalties of leaving a liver in the town of 
 Carlsbad, is to have a headache, not just an ordinary 
 headache, but one that takes the top of your head off and 
 that makes you feel like the smallest Austrian coin, a 
 "heller." It takes 150 of these to make 30 American 
 cents, so you can tell just how mean one feels when he 
 is possessed of it. Well, I've had it ever since the day 
 that I wrote you last, which, if I remember rightly, was 
 the first of August. I haven't felt like writing or doing
 
 338 ORDERED TO CHINA 
 
 much else, but I have sent you a postal card every day. 
 To-day, I'm feeling more or less sprightly again, so that 
 I take the opportunity of resuming my letters. 
 
 The headache, as I told you, is merely a part of the 
 formula of having a liver, and there is absolutely nothing 
 to worry about when one has it. The funny little Dutch 
 doctor who is attending me, tells me it is caused by the 
 carbonic acid in the water, and that it generally lasts a 
 week or so ; I shall probably have two or three days more 
 of it; but in the meantime I certainly do enjoy this 
 respite. I wanted him to give me something for it, but 
 he said that any medicine would interfere with the work 
 of the waters, and he couldn't do it. Finally, yesterday, 
 he said it would be a good thing to put a mustard plaster 
 on the back of my neck ; so this morning when I went 
 down to get my water, I stopped at a drug store and 
 bought a little box of plasters. I want to testify to their 
 value. They were great. I came back to the hotel and 
 put them in the bureau in my room ; that was less than 
 two hours ago, and here I am writing letters. No, I 
 didn't open the box. They are still in the drawer, and I 
 didn't go near the bureau, which is across the room. 
 They worked through the tin box and the space. 
 
 Well, this is the thirteenth day in Carlsbad ; only eight 
 days left, and then a week more, somewhere in the moun- 
 tains, and I'm off for home I hope. Won't that be fine? 
 You can't imagine, sweetheart, how the time is dragging 
 and how I long to be away. Headache and all, my daily 
 routine here has been the same. Up at six in the morn- 
 ing and down to the Theresabrunn spring, where I drink 
 one glass, walk fifteen minutes, and come back and drink 
 another; then to the Marktbrunn spring, where I drink 
 another, walk fifteen minutes, and come back and drink 
 another. Wait one hour and get a breakfast of coffee 
 and Zwieback, wait an hour and take a pine needle bath ; 
 wait an hour and get dinner; wait an hour and go walk- 
 ing in the woods ; walk two hours and a half, and drink a 
 cup of tea and eat more Zwieback ; wait two hours and 
 eat supper ; walk two hours and go to bed, drinking more 
 water before I do it. A sort of a busy day, isn't it? con- 
 sidering the only object of it all is to have more liver.
 
 ORDERED TO CHINA 339 
 
 I don't know yet just where I shall go when I leave 
 here, but it will be either to some place in Switzerland, 
 which is on the way back to London, or to the Austrian 
 Tyrol, which is a part of the Alps, in Austria. The 
 doctor says that he will tell me when he finds out exactly 
 what the treatment here has done for me. I don't care 
 much where I go just so it is over with quickly and I can 
 get started for home. I am watching every day now 
 for a letter from home ; one ought to have reached me 
 before this, but I suppose there is some delay in the mails. 
 I hope that you wrote as soon as you got my letter telling 
 about this liver of mine. I am so anxious to hear from 
 you all that I can hardly contain myself. I haven't had 
 any more adventures, such as I wrote you about in my 
 two last letters. If I do I'll let you know about them. 
 Maybe it is because I haven't tried to get acquainted any 
 more. 
 
 P. S. Remember me to all the folks, and don't let any- 
 body worry about me, for I'm all right. 
 
 Carlsbad, August 6, 1901. 
 
 This is my second letter to you to-day ; since I wrote 
 the other one, I have received your letter of July 25th. 
 To say that I was astonished at the contents of 
 your letter is putting it very mildly. The idea that dear 
 little G. has had typhoid fever has shocked me completely 
 off my pins, and H. just escaping being burned to death, 
 — I think I have a right to go back to my headache, as 
 I have very promptly done. Since I received the letter 
 I learned that the office cabled H. R., telling him that G. 
 had typhoid. This was only two days after I discovered 
 that I had a liver, and of course they did not tell me, 
 particularly as the cable said that the case was a mild one. 
 After that H. R. got a cable every day, telling how G. 
 was. 
 
 Since I have learned the facts, T have been feeling very 
 pouty about their not telling me, but of course it was for 
 the best, and was it not kind of them to keep posted and 
 be ready to do whatever might seem best? Sweetheart, 
 I do thank God for all his mercies; I do thank him most 
 heartily; surely he has blessed us. You were right in
 
 340 ORDEREDTOCHINA 
 
 assuming that my illness was more or less serious. I 
 thought I let you see that in the letters I wrote. I'll tell 
 you all about it in detail when I get home ; but as I've 
 been telling you in my letters from here, I'm all right 
 now, and with the exception of the headache that comes 
 from the use of the water, I haven't a pain or an ache. 
 You will surely have a new husband when I get home; 
 if you haven't then all the doctors that I have seen are 
 liars. They have all held up their right hands, solemnly, 
 and sworn that Carlsbad would make me a new man. 
 Of course by this time your troubles are practically over. 
 I certainly hope and pray that they are. G. of course is 
 running around again, H.'s burns are all right again, 
 and C. is probably contemplating the parlor window and 
 measuring the distance that he fell, while W. is advising 
 him not to fall again. Oh ! how I wish I was there 
 watching it all. God bless and care for you all. 
 
 CABLEGRAM. 
 
 London, August 14, 1901. 
 Chamberlin died Carlsbad yesterday. Notify friends. 
 
 H. R. C.
 
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