e to
take revenge for their former defeats.
"But I said that this victory could not be true, for we had never
gained a victory like this during the war with the Japanese. They said
we had the help of the Boxers. I asked them how could they destroy war-vessels?
"They said that the Boxers could burn them simply by pointing
at them with their fingers. I knew that they were foolish, but I durst
not say any more, or they would tell the Boxers that I was a betrayer.
"The Boxers lately got the power of killing any person they wished;
therefore when they saw any man, woman, or child they disliked, they killed
at once on the road. Fire continued every day. Some people said that there
was very little food and ammunition left in the legations, and that they
would die of hunger in a few days.
"Though the attempts proved fruitless, the Catholic Church in
Hsi-Shi-Ku had been attacked four days. Some Boxers said that part of it
had been destroyed, but very few people believed. Prince Ching suggested
that it was against treaty and international law, and also unreasonable,
to attack foreign ambassadors; moreover, it would be impossible for a weak
country like China to resist several powerful nations.
"Prince Tuan, hearing this, became very angry with him, and said
that now so many people arose at the same time they must kill every foreigner
in the world.
"Five hundred of Tung-Fu-Hsiang's soldiers were killed and wounded
during the attack upon the French Legation. The Boxers could not burn the
Catholic Church at Hsi-Shi-Ku, so cannons were necessary to be used.
"The Tsung-Li-Yamen was afraid that Boxers would destroy its buildings,
and asked Prince Tuan to send some Boxers to guard it against the soldiers
from plundering the treasury. The Boxers at once wanted to kill the head
cook, who is, of course, a cunning man, for the food he prepared was very
"The Boxers, as they themselves said, but not all true, could
distinguish the Christians from the Buddhists by a mark of a cross on the
temple or forehead. During these days rumor said that at present there
were some persons who could put a cross mark on one's forehead simply by
blowing with the mouth or with a fan.
"On this account most of the people went to the Boxer's altars
to be examined. About nine-tenths of the people who did go to the altar
had the cross mark on the head. Some people said that in the Chinese city
a mark of a cross could not be cleared off without paying a tael of silver
for each. People thought that this was the Christian's magic power, but
I believed it was the Boxers cheating them, for I had never heard the Christians
possess magic power.
"In the streets some yellow papers pasted on the wall said that
on the seventh day of the seventh moon all the people should wrap their
heads with red cloth, and on these four days - seventh and fifteenth days
of the seventh moon, and first and ninth days of the ninth moon - they
should not eat cooked food, otherwise Niu-Lang, a spirit, would not help
the people to pass the calamity, and also foreigners could not be stopped
"A proclamation was issued by the metropolitan commander-in-chief
of infantry, in which rewards of fifty taels of silver for the capture
of a living foreign man, forty for a woman, and thirty for a child were
"One day when I was in the Yamen a man ran in suddenly and said
that there were Christians in Chao-Tang-Tsu-Hu-Tung, the lane just opposite
the one in which the Tsung-Li-Yamen is situated. The Boxers in the Yamen
immediately ran to the house showed to them by the messenger. When they
arrived the house had already caught fire. Some yellow Boxers captured
the holder of the house, and sent him to Prince Chuang's house to be examined.
Now, no persons could be put to death without being sent to Prince Chuang's
house to be examined.
"One day a long succession of firing guns was heard. It was the
bombardment of the British Legation.
"In the morning of the twenty-first day, when I was walking in
the main street at Tan-Pai-Lou, I saw one of the Jung-Lu's soldiers talking
with several passers-by, and I overhead that e