e missionaries to put dirty blood on the doors of some
of the houses, and that if it were not cleaned by the Boxers the inmates
of the house would all become fatally mad.
"Such superstitious power had never been heard of in foreign countries,
so I thought it was the Boxers' design to make people know that they could
dissolve such calamities.
"Outside the Hai-Tai Gate two women, who were considered to put
dirty blood on the door, were killed at once. A rumor said that the red
lantern girls could pull down high-storied houses with thin cotton strings,
and could set fire to the house simply by moving a fan, and also said they
had the power of hanging a rock of several pounds on a hair.
"Upon a certain day there were several Boxers passing along Chia-Min-Hsiang,
among whom a young one was captured by the German guards. It was then rumored
that this Boxer was so well exercised that he was not slightly wounded,
though the Germans tried to dig his eyes out.
"In the evening shortly after my arrival at my house, large numbers
of persons, carts, and horses were running eastward from the main street
inside the Hai-Tai Gate; all the men of the shops were hurried to shut
their doors; some one cried out that the Boxers had entered the Hai-Tai
"After a moment some concentrated smoke rose to a great height
and a noise of firing guns was heard. By judging the noise and direction
of the smoke, I knew it was the American missionary building near the entrance
to Hu-Tung, inside the Hai-Tai Gate, which was burnt down by the Boxers.
"The Boxers as they were walking northward ordered every shop
to burn incense. Then the English hospital, the house of Yu-Keng, present
Chinese Minister in France, all the shops thence southward to the entrance
of Teng-Shi-Kou, the American church in Teng-Shi-Kou, the French church
at Pa-Mien,-Tsao, the dwellings of the professors of the imperial college,
were burnt one after the other.
"According to what the people said, the way in which the Boxers
burnt the churches was that they only used a bundle of incense, read charms,
and told all the bystanders to cry 'Burn!' loudly, and then they threw
the incense into buildings which caught at once, but houses next the churches
were left in safety.
"Thus the people believed that the Boxers actually possessed the
souls of spirits in their bodies, otherwise the houses in the neighborhood
would have caught fire too.
"In the morning of the next day the fire was yet in a fierce state;
the smoke was so much that it looked like big masses of clouds. In the
street the Chinese Christians were running about because they were too
anxious to take refuge.
"In Teng-Shi-Kou several Boxers came crying 'Sha! Sha!' ('kill,
kill!') loudly with swords in their hands. As they were passing along,
two Christian women, each having a little child in her arms, met with the
Boxers. When they were just going to kill those Christians, I was in such
a sorrowful state that I could not bear to see them die. Then I turned
back on my journey and walked toward the Hai-Tai Gate. In the main street
I saw several dead bodies, which I was told had been killed by the Boxers.
"Some time later very concentrated smoke was rising up violently.
It was found that the Boxers set fire to the medicine shop in Ta-Cha-Lan,
outside the Chien-Men. At first the Boxers did not allow the shops in the
neighborhood to remove their goods, saying that the fire would only burn
the one which they wanted to destroy, but could do no harm to any other.
"But two or three others began to burn, and the Boxers wrote charms
on yellow papers, which, so they said, could stop the fire where they were
"After a few minutes the fire spread to such an extent that they
allowed the shops to extinguish it with water, but it was impossible. In
the theatre house a man tried to put down the fire with dirty water, which
gave the Boxers excuse; so they said that the god of fire became angry
for the dirty liquor, therefore the fire ruined those that were innocent.
This fire destroyed about two square li, including a gate of the Chien-Men.
Since then very 