Indiscreet Letters From Peking | Page 3

the story again. And after
Port Arthur these pages may show something about which little has
been written--the psychology of the seige. The seige is still the rudest
test in the world. It is well to know it.
B. L. PUTNAM WEALE.
CHINA, June, 1906.

INDISCREET LETTERS FROM PEKING

PART I--THE WARNING
I
FRAGMENTS
12th May, 1900.
* * * * *
The weather is becoming hot, even here in latitude 40 and in the month
of May. The Peking dust, distinguished among all the dusts of the earth
for its blackness, its disagreeable insistence in sticking to one's clothes,
one's hair, one's very eyebrows, until a grey-brown coating its visible to
every eye, is rising in heavier clouds than ever. In the market-places,
and near the great gates of the city, where Peking carts and camels from
beyond the passes--_k'ou wai_, to use the correct vernacular--jostle one
another, the dust has become damnable beyond words, and there can be
no health possibly in us. The Peking dust rises, therefore, in clouds and
obscures the very sun at times; for the sun always shines here in our
Northern China, except during a brief summer rainy season, and a few
other days you can count on your fingers. The dust is without
significance, you will say, since it is always there more or less. It is in
any case--healthy; it chokes you, but is reputed also to choke germs;
therefore it is good. All of which is true, only this year there is more of
it than ever, meaning very dry weather indeed for this city, hanging
near the gates of Mongolian deserts--a dry weather spelling the devil
for the Northern farmer.
Meanwhile, is there anything special for me to chronicle? Not much,
although there is a cloud no bigger than your hand in Shantung not a
thousand miles from Weihaiwei, and the German Legation is

consequently somewhat irate. It was noticed at our club, for instance,
which, by the way, is a humble affair, that the German military attache,
a gentleman who wears bracelets, is somewhat effeminate, and plays
vile tennis and worse billiards, had a "hostile attitude" towards the
British Legation--that is, such of the British Legation as gather together
each day at the "ice-shed"--which happens to be the club's peculiar
Chinese name. The military attache is somewhat irate, because the
spectacle of the Weihaiwei regiment, six hundred yellow men under
twelve white Englishmen, chasing malcontents in Shantung, is
derogatory to Teutonic aspirations. Germany has earmarked Shantung,
and it is just like English bluntness to remind the would-be dominant
Power that there is a British sphere and a British colony in the Chinese
province, as well as a German sphere and a German colony. But the
German Minister, a beau garcon with blue eyes and a handsome
moustache, says nothing, and is quite calm.
Meanwhile the cloud no bigger than your hand is quite unremarked by
the rank and file of Legation Street--that I will swear. Chinese
malcontents--"the Society of Harmonious Fists," particular habitat
Shantung province--are casually mentioned; but it is remembered that
the provincial governor of Shantung is a strong Chinaman, one Yuan
Shih-kai, who has some knowledge of military matters, and, better still,
ten thousand foreign-drilled troops. Shantung is all right, never
fear--such is the comment of the day.
But the political situation--the situation politique as we call it in our
several conversations, which always have a diplomatic turn--although
not grave, is unhappy; everybody at least acknowledges that. Peking
has never been what it was before the Japanese war. In the old days we
were all something of a happy family. There were merely the eleven
Legations, the Inspectorate of Chinese Customs, with the aged Sir R----
H---- at its head, and perhaps a few favoured globe-trotters or
nondescripts looking for rich concessions. Picnics and dinners, races
and excursions, were the order of the day, and politics and political
situations were not burning. Ministers plenipotentiary and envoys
extraordinary wore Terai hats, very old clothes, and had an affable
air--something like what Teheran must still be. Then came the Japanese

war, and the eternal political situation. Russia started the ball rolling
and the others kicked it along. The Russo-Chinese Bank, appeared on
the scenes led by the great P----, a man with an ominous black portfolio
continually under his arm, as he hurried along Legation Street, and an
intriguing expression always on his dark face--a veritable master of
men and moneys, they say. This intriguing soon found Expression in
the Cassini Convention, denounced as untrue, and followed by a
perfectly open and frank Manchurian railway convention, a convention
which, in spite of its frankness, had future trouble written unmistakably
on the face of it. Besides these things there were always ominous
reports of other things--of great things being done secretly.