Indiscreet Letters From Peking | Page 6

ramming down a wad on top; have witnessed
a handful of iron buckshot added, but with no wad to hold the charge in
place; have noticed that the master Boxer gesticulated with his lethal
weapon the better to impress his audience before he fired, but have not
noticed that the iron buckshot tripped merrily out of the rusty barrel
since no wad held it in place; and finally, when the fire-piece belched
forth flames and ear-breaking noise at a distance of a man's body from
the recruit's person, they have seen, and with them thousands of others,
that no harm came. It is astounding, miraculous, but it is true;
henceforth, the Boxer is officially invulnerable and must remain so as
long as the ground is parched. That is what our Chinese reports say.
There are myriads of men already in camp and myriads more speeding
on their way to this Chochou camp of camps, while in village and
hamlet local committees of public safety against the accursed foreigner
and all his works are being quite naturally evolved, and red cloth--that
sign manual of revolt--is already at a premium. The whole-province of
Chihli is shaking; North China will soon be in flames; any one with
half a nose can smell rebellion in the air....
This is one side of the picture, the side which friendly Chinese are
painting for us. Yet when you glance at the eleven Legations, placidly
living their own little lives, you will see them cynically listening to
these old women's tales, while at heart they secretly wonder what
political capital each of them can separately make out of the whole
business, so that their governments may know that Peking has clever
diplomats. Clever diplomats! There have been no clever diplomats in
Peking since G---- of the French Legation took his departure, and that
purring Slav P---- went to Seoul.
Of course Peking is safe, that goes without saying; but merely because
there are foolish women and children, some nondescripts, and a good
many missionaries, we will order a few guards. This, at least, has just
been decided by the Council of Ministers--a rather foolish council,
without backbone, excepting one man. All the afternoon everybody was
occupied in telegraphing the orders and reports of the day, and these
actions are now beyond recall.

Guards have been ordered from the ships lying out at the Taku bar. The
guards will soon be here, and when they have come the movement will
cease. Thus have the eleven Legations spoken, each telegraphing a
different tale to its government, and each more than annoyed by this
joint action. Incidentally each one is secretly wondering what is going
to happen, and whether there is really any danger.
It has been directly telegraphed from London by Her Majesty's
Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Lord Salisbury, so gossip says, that as
quite enough has been heard of this Boxer business it must cease at
once. Is not the South African War still proceeding, and has England
not enough troubles without this additional one? It is almost pathetic,
this peremptory order from a vacillating Foreign Office that never
knows its own mind--this Canute-like bidding of the angry waves of
human men to stand still at once and be no more heard of. People in
Europe will never quite understand the East, for the East is ruled by
things which are impossible in a temperate climate.
Meanwhile, in the Palace, whose pink walls we see blinking at us in the
sun just beyond Legation Street, all is also topsy-turvy, the Chinese
reports say. The Empress Dowager, shrewdly listening to this person
and that, must feel in her own bones that it is a bad business, and that it
will not end well, for she understands dynastic disasters uncommonly
well. She has sent again and again for P'i Hsiao-li, "Cobbler's-wax" Li,
as he is called, the reputed false eunuch who is master of her inner
counsels, if Chinese small talk is to be believed. The eunuch Li has
been told earnestly to find out the truth and nothing but the truth. A
passionate old woman, this Empress Dowager of China, a veritable
Catherine of Russia in her younger days they say, with her hot Manchu
blood and her lust for ruling men. "Cobbler's-wax" Li, son of a cobbler
and falsely emasculated, they say, so that he might become an eunuch
of the Palace, from which lowly estate he has blossomed into the real
power behind the Throne, hastens off once more to the palace of Prince
Tuan, the father of the titular heir-apparent. As Prince Tuan's discretion
has long since been cast to the winds, and Lao t'uan-yeh, or spiritual
Boxer chiefs, now sit at the princely banqueting tables discussing the
terms on which they will rush the Tartar city