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. UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY Los Aneeles University of California SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 305 De Neve Drive - Parking Lot 17 • Box 951388 LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 90095-1388 Return this material to the library from which it was borrowed. y IQ'Q ot CaMomia, Los Angeie L 005 331 656 8 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACIUTY DS 709 C356A3 1903 AA 001053 663 9 't m : 1 1 ii ■ IpI''! Ii! Ill