He was truly wearing himself out with diligence, when a rich merchant took a fancy to him and gave him a good position; then another gave him a better, so that in a few years he had become a very rich man.

It is nice to add—for the benefit of those who sneer at Chinese gratitude—that at every new year he would travel, no matter how far away he might be, to see his old patron and friend. Nor did he ever grow too grand to go into the kitchen afterwards and gossip with the servants, sitting down in his sable robes and peacock's feathers without thought of snobbery, without desire to make himself appear great in humble eyes.

Chang-Chow-Fu was the last city Gordon took. Its fall closed his career, and the I.G. arranged most of the details regarding the disbandment of the famous "Ever-Victorious Army." He did more; once again he smoothed out a difficulty for the too impulsive Gordon. At the close of the rebellion the Chinese showed towards Gordon a warmth of feeling which it has seldom been their habit to show to foreigners. They thereupon begged Sir Frederick Bruce to advise them as to what would be a suitable reward to offer him for his valuable services to the Imperial cause. Finally a gratuity of L3,000 (Tls. 18,000) was decided upon; but when Gordon got wind of this, he was so furious at being treated like what he called "an adventurer," that he chased the messenger out of the camp.

Now the Chinese were utterly at a loss to understand a man who grew furious at the offer of a large sum of money, such an occurrence being without precedent. As usual in times of perplexity, they asked the ever-tactful I.G. to sound Gordon as to what he would accept. "Tell Wen Hsiang" (then Premier), was Gordon's answer, "that though I have refused the money, I would like a Chinese costume." Accordingly, by Imperial Decree, a costume was sent him, and, on Hart's suggestion, the famous Yellow Jacket was added. Gordon afterwards had his portrait painted in the full regalia, and, like a glorified Chinese Field-Marshal in his quaint garb, he still looks down from over the mantelpiece in the Royal Engineers' mess-room at Chatham.

Once again before his tragic death this strange soldier of destiny was to see China, though on this second visit he did not meet his old friend Robert Hart. He came in the early eighties direct from India, where he had been Private Secretary to the Viceroy. The position never suited his too independent character, and when the Chinese, perplexed over Russian questions, invited him to the Middle Kingdom, he gladly accepted their invitation.

Unfortunately the visit was a failure. His advice was unpractical, and though, as the first prophet of "China for the Chinese," he found a fundamental truth, he found it too soon for immediate utility. On political matters he and the I.G. disagreed; the latter was far too wise to hold with Gordon's somewhat visionary idea that China could raise an army as good as the best in the twinkling of an eye; and when Gordon left Peking after a very short stay, he left disappointed and disgusted.

It was, however, characteristic of him that before he had got farther than Hongkong he wrote an affectionate letter to his old friend, acknowledging himself in the wrong and giving the highest praise to that friend's policy. This, with all the rest of Gordon's letters to the I.G., was burned in the Boxer outbreak of 1900.

But what nothing could destroy was Robert Hart's admiration for the soldier hero. If the apparent inconsistencies of his character were numerous, all of them added force and picturesqueness to it, and only served to increase the affection of one who knew him and understood him most thoroughly.



CHAPTER V

ORDERED TO LIVE IN PEKING—"WHAT A BYSTANDER SAYS"—A RETURN TO EUROPE—MARRIAGE—CHINA ONCE AGAIN—THE BURLINGAME MISSION—FIRST DECORATION—THE "WASA" OF SWEDEN AND NORWAY

When his share in the arrangements for the disbandment of "The Ever-Victorious Army" was completed, the I.G. received a second order directing him to live at Peking. In those days Peking was the very last corner of the world. Eighty miles inland, not even the sound of a friendly ship's whistle could help an exiled imagination cross the gulf to far-away countries, while railways were, of course, still undreamed of.

The only two means of reaching the capital were by springless cart over the grey alkali plains, or by boat along the Grand Canal. Both were slow; neither was enjoyable, but since the latter perhaps presented fewer discomforts, Robert Hart chose to spend a week in the monotonous scenery of mudbanks, and land at Tungchow, a little town some fifteen miles from his destination. Thence he made his way over a roughly paved stone causeway—one of those roads that the Chinese proverb says is "good for ten years and bad for ten thousand"—between endless fields of high millet to the biggest gate of Peking itself.

To step through the gate was to step back into the Middle Ages—into the times of Ghenghiz Khan. The street leading from it was nobly planned—broad, generous; but rough and uneven like the hastily made highway from one camp to another. Rough, too, were the vehicles traversing it; the oddly assorted teams, mules, donkeys and Mongolian ponies, went unclipped and ungroomed; the drivers went unwashed. Loathsome beggars sat in the gilded doorways of the fur-shops, the incongruity of their rags against the background of barbaric splendour evidently appealing to none of the passers-by who hurried about their business in a cloud of dust.

At sundown the noise and bustle ceased; the big city gates closed with a clang, and the municipal guard, for all the world like Dogberry and his watch, made their rounds beating wooden clappers, not in the hope of catching, but rather in the hope of frightening malefactors away.



Yet Robert Hart had already seen far queerer places—and lonelier. I am thinking now of Formosa, that strange land of adventure where the veriest good-for-nothings, stranded by chance, have "owned navies and mounted the steps of thrones," and where he spent some time in 1864 inspecting the Custom Houses.

A most amusing story was told him on his travels there—a story too good to leave unrepeated, though he personally had no part in it—unless the laugh at the end can be called a part. During one of those terrible storms which periodically sweep the shores of Formosa, an American vessel was wrecked and her crew eaten by the aborigines. The nearest American Consul thereupon journeyed inland to the savage territory in order to make terms with the cannibals for future emergencies. Unfortunately the chiefs refused to listen, and would have nothing to do with the agreement prepared for their signature. The Consul was irritated by their obstinacy; he had a bad temper and a glass eye, and when he lost the first, the second annoyed him. Under great stress of excitement he occasionally slipped the eye out for a moment, rubbed it violently on his coat-sleeve, then as rapidly replaced it—and this he did there in the council hut, utterly forgetful of his audience, and before a soul could say the Formosan equivalent of "Jack Robinson."

The chiefs paled, stiffened, shuddered with fright. One with more presence of mind than his fellows called for a pen. "Yes, quick, quick, a pen!"—the word passed from mouth to mouth. No more obstinacy, no more hesitation; all of them clamoured to sign, willing, even eager to yield to any demand that a man gifted with the supernatural power of taking out his eye and replacing it at pleasure, might make.

On his return from Formosa the I.G. wrote a famous paper called "Pang Kwan Lun" ("What a Bystander Says"), full of useful criticisms and suggestions on Chinese affairs. Some were followed, others were not, but he had the satisfaction of hearing from the lips of the Empress-Dowager herself—when she received him in audience in 1902—that she regretted more of his advice had not been taken, subsequent events having proved how sound and useful it all was.

In 1866, having worked twelve years in China—seven of those years for the Chinese Government—Robert Hart felt a very natural desire to see his own country and his own people again. He therefore applied for leave, and was granted six months—none too long a rest after the strenuous work he had done.

Just before starting he said to the Chinese, "You will soon be establishing Legations abroad. Do you not think that my going will be an excellent opportunity for you to send some of your people to see a little of the world?" Yes, they agreed it would be; but—though they never told him so—I think the older conservative generation had grave doubts whether the adventurous ones would return alive. Europe was then a terra incognita. There might easily be pirates in the Seine and cannibals in Bond Street, not to mention the hundred mysterious dangers of the great waters and the fire-breathing monsters that traversed them.

Well, in the end, the prejudices melted and the party started, chaperoned by the I.G. Five in all there were, a certain Pin Lao Yeh, an ex-Prefect, his son and three students from the Tung Wen Kwan or College of Languages. Old Pin Lao Yeh, being the senior, wrote a book about his experiences, describing all he saw for the benefit of his timid homekeeping countrymen, and giving careful measurements of everything measurable—the masts of the steamers, the length of the wharves, the height of the Arc de Triomphe, as if in some mysterious way statistics could prove a prop to the faint-hearted. Of the four lads in the "experiment," two afterwards filled high diplomatic posts. A certain Fang I was made Charge d'Affaires in London and later Consul-General in Singapore, while Chang Teh Ming was made Minister Plenipotentiary to the Court of St. James.

The voyage home was uneventful, the little party's first adventure coming at their last port. Here the Customs had to be passed. With some pride, I should like to write, only I am sure it was with his usual modesty—the kind of modesty that made strangers say, the first time they saw him, "Is that all he is?" and after they had spoken with him for ten minutes, "Can he be all that?"—the I.G. presented his letter from the French Legation at Peking to the Chief Custom House Official Profound bows immediately from this worthy, then grand gestures and the magic words, "Passe en ambassade!"

Accordingly the "mission" passed—in true Chinese style. The first man by had a dried duck over his shoulder, the next a smoked ham, the third a jar of pickled cabbage, none too savoury, while all the attaches and servants were equally weighted down by pieces of outlandish baggage from which nothing in the world would have induced them to part, since nothing in the world could have replaced them in the markets of the West.

From Marseilles Robert Hart went on to Paris. Though this was his first sight of the Continent, he was too impatient to be home to linger, and he only remained long enough to hand over his charges to the Foreign Minister, who promised they should be treated with the utmost friendliness. They were indeed. Half the courts of Europe entertained them; they dined with Napoleon and Eugenie; had tea with old King William of Prussia at Potsdam, and travelled altogether en prince.

Meanwhile the I.G. declined any share in the lionizing, and slipped off to enjoy a quiet holiday in Ireland. The only inconvenience he found in being a private individual was when he passed the Customs in London. What a difference from Marseilles! About sixty passengers crowded into the examining room together, and a slouchy man with a short pipe came forward, eyed them critically, but instead of taking people in turn, spied out Robert Hart and said roughly, "I'll take you. Anything to declare?" pointing to his pile of trunks.

"Nothing but one box of cigars—Manillas."

The man scowled just as if he had discovered a gunpowder plot. Finally he asked Hart where he came from.

"Straight from China, from Peking."

"Oh," said the Examiner, softening a little, "that's such a long way I suppose we can let those cigars pass."

Then he went over to the waiting people, waved his hand and said, "You can go; that's all."

Robert Hart was so much amused at being picked out as the likely smuggler of the party that he could scarcely restrain himself from whipping out of his pocket a card with "Inspector-General Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs" on it and presenting it to the man.

He found his father and mother settled at Ravarnet, as proud as happy to see him back again, and he dropped quite naturally into the simple home life, resumed his affectionate intimacy with a clan of sisters just as if it had never been broken off, and took the same delight in simple pleasures that he had taken as a boy. Some of his relatives wondered a little at this.

"Let me look at you," said they, peering and peeking about him for the solution of the mystery. For mystery there must be when a great man—yes, that's what he was already—should look just the same on the outside as Tom or Dick or Harry—should even enjoy a simple breakfast of fresh herring and tea.

"I am just like everybody else," he would answer to their half-quizzical inspection. "No more noses or eyes than you."

Alas! this home life, delightful though it was, could not last very long. On August 22nd, 1866, he married that daughter of old Dr. Bredon of Portadown that his aunt had prophesied he would when, at the age of ten days, he lay upon her lap. The honeymoon was spent at the romantic lakes of Killarney, and very soon afterwards the young couple were on their way out to China again.

The house in Peking had been somewhat rearranged and remodelled while the I.G. was in Europe, in anticipation of his wife's coming. Without altering the picturesqueness of the original Chinese design, it had been adapted to Western ideas of comfort. The pretty pavilions with their upturned roofs remained; the ornamental rockwork of the courtyards, the doors shaped like gourds or leaves or full moons, were left untouched. So were the odd-shaped windows, real Jack Frost designs; but instead of paper, glass was fitted into the quaint panes and the stone floors, characteristic of Chinese rooms, covered with wood—a very necessary alteration in a town which, although in the same latitude as Naples, Madrid and Constantinople, has a winter as severe as New York.

Fortunately neither he nor his bride had a very keen taste for society, as in those days Peking could not boast of any. The Diplomatic Corps was small; no concession-hunters or would-be builders of battleships enlivened the capital with their intrigues, and the monotony of life was broken only by an occasional visitor.

Rarely, very rarely, there was a dinner party—a formal affair, to which the I.G.'s wife went in state and, as became her rank, in a big green box of a sedan chair with four bearers. Indeed this was the only possible means of going about comfortably at night in a city of unexpected ditches, ruts like sword-gashes, and lighted only by twinkling lanterns of belated roysterers.

The I.G. was therefore somewhat disconcerted when his chair coolies, having been six months in his service, came to say they could remain no longer. "It is not that we are discontented with our wages," the head man explained, "or that you are not a kind master, or that the Taitai [the lady of the house] is an inconsiderate mistress."

"Then you have too much work to do?"

"No, that's the trouble," the man replied, "we have not enough. Our shoulders are getting soft and our leg muscles are getting flabby. Now if the Taitai would only go out for twenty miles every day instead of for two miles every ten days as she does now, we would be delighted to remain in your service." Was ever stranger complaint made by servant to master?

Whenever work permitted Robert Hart and his wife rode out into the country on their stocky native ponies, sometimes to one and sometimes to another of the picturesque temples, pagodas and monasteries which then abounded in the hills near by. The favourite picnicking place of the little community—almost the only Imperial property open in those days—was the ruined palace of Yuen Ming Yuen destroyed by the Allies in 1860. It must have been a most charming spot, at all events in the autumn months, when the persimmon-trees, heavy with balls of golden, fruit, overhung its grey walls.

The original construction in semi-foreign style from plans by the early Jesuit Fathers was doubtless still easy to trace; an ornate facade brought unexpected memories of Versailles, while on crumbling walls old European coats-of-arms, carved, for the sake of their decorative beauty, beside Oriental dragons and phoenixes, remained to surprise and delight the eye.

Unluckily business too often stood in the way of pleasure, for the 'sixties were very busy years. China was just beginning to realize that she could no longer remain in peaceful self-sufficiency; intercourse with foreign nations she must have, willing or no; that meant drastic changes—changes in which the I.G.'s advice would be valuable. Thus circumstances helped him into a unique position, one without parallel in any other country; he was continually consulted on hundreds of matters not properly connected with Customs administration at all, and he was in fact, if not in name, far more than an Inspector-General.



Much of this advisory work, too, was of the most delicate nature: some involved intricate dealings with several Powers having conflicting interests. The slightest false move would often have been sufficient to snap the frail thread of negotiation. It is not to be wondered at if he made some mistakes—he would have been scarcely human otherwise—but as a rule his tact and energy carried to a successful issue whatever he began.

"What is your secret power of settling a difficult matter?" a friend once asked him. "Whenever I deal with other people, and especially with Chinese," was the answer, "I always ask myself two questions: what idea that I do not want them to have will my remark suggest to them, and what answer will my remark allow them to make to me?"

The habit of deliberating before he made a statement grew upon him, as habits will, exaggerated with time, and provided an excuse for at least one bon mot. A certain French Professor whom he had brought out with him for the Tung Wen Kwan once went to interview his chief.

"Well," said his colleagues on his return. "What did the I.G. say about such and such a thing?" The Frenchman shook his head ruefully: "He rolled the answer back and forth seven times, and then he did not make it." Probably the I.G. had learned by experience that a person can seldom pick up a hasty speech just where he dropped it.

Another time a very charming lady went up to him at a soiree with a rose in her hand. "May I offer you my boutonniere?" said she, smiling. The mere fact of a question having been asked him suddenly put him instinctively upon his guard; an uncommunicative look spread over his face, and to her horror and his own subsequent amusement, he answered, "I should prefer to consider the matter before answering."

In 1868 came the affair of the Burlingame Mission, with which—as with all the other events of the time in China—Robert Hart had much to do. Mr. Burlingame was then United States Minister in Peking, a personal friend of the I.G.'s and a most charming man with a genius for hospitality. Nothing pleased him more than to see half a dozen nationalities seated at his table. At one of these little dinners Burlingame noticed that a certain discussion was growing too serious and heated. Some of his guests were on the point of losing their tempers, for Envoys Extraordinary dislike being disagreed with, even by Ministers Plenipotentiary. He therefore picked up his glass of sherry in the most courtly manner in the world, held it to the light, studied it critically from every point of view, turning it now this way, now that.

"Look," said he suddenly, addressing the table in his most charming manner, "did you ever see sherry exactly like that before? Do you notice its peculiar colour? See how it shines—yellow in one light, reddish brown in another."

When he had drawn the interest, he went on to give the most delightful little lecture on sherries, their similarities, their differences, and their making, till the whole table listened with rapt attention and, listening, forgot their perilous discussion and the heat and irritation they had spent upon it.

These very qualities of tact and polish, combined with dignity and agreeable manners, made Mr. Burlingame popular with the courtly Chinese officials, and when he was about to return to his own country some of the Wai-Wu-Pu (Foreign Office) Ministers asked him to speak a good word for China in the United States. "Was not that an excellent idea?" they asked the I.G. next day. He agreed, and out of this trivial incident grew the Burlingame Mission to all the courts of Europe. Alas! the idea was visionary rather than practical, and doomed to disappointment—a disappointment which, luckily, Mr. Burlingame himself never felt keenly, since he died at St. Petersburg while his tour was still uncompleted.

At the same time that he was concerned with the Mission, the I.G. was "setting his house in order" with very practical measures. New Regulations for Pilotage, Rules for the Joint Investigation (Chinese and Consular) of Disputed Customs Cases, Rules for Coolie Emigration, each in turn claimed his attention, and it was he also who arranged with the Chinese that one-tenth of the tonnage dues—afterwards raised to seven-tenths—should be devoted to port improvements and lighting the coasts. Until he took the matter in hand, vessels had been obliged to grope around the difficult China coast in total darkness; to-day, thanks to his foresight, lighthouses are dotted from Newchang in the north to Hainan in the south, and a little fleet of three Revenue cruisers serves them.

A lawsuit called him to Shanghai, when these matters were off his hands, and kept him there for some weeks. He had time to enter into the social life of the place, meet all the people worth meeting, and, what he enjoyed most of all, hear the sermons of a certain Dean Butcher, famous for his wit. The first Sunday the I.G. "sat under" him, the Dean dragged out his discourse so interminably—and quite contrary to his usual custom—that Robert Hart actually took out his watch. Just as he quietly got it back to his pocket again and noticed that he had listened for fifty minutes, the preacher looked up from his manuscript and made Hart start guiltily as he said, "You ask, is the sermon done. No, my brothers, it is not done. It is read. Be ye doers of the Word, not hearers only." This bit of effect at the end, so cleverly led up to, accounted for the unnaturally long discourse.

Another time, when Robert Hart was present, Dean Butcher preached from a text in the Psalms, "If I go up to the heights, Thy Presence is beside me, and if I go into the utmost depths. It is there," etc. He had subdivided the sermon into headings—preached about God in heaven and God upon earth, when he suddenly began to cough a little. "The preacher's voice fails him," he said—cough, cough—"fails him, my brethren"—more coughs—"fails him"—still more gentle coughs—"and so we must leave God in hell till next Sunday."

Some years afterwards, when the I.G. was in Shanghai again, he went to a luncheon at which Dean Butcher was present. Every one was asked to tell a story, and when Robert Hart's turn came, he told one of a certain clergyman of his acquaintance—the name he mercifully withheld—who had "left God in hell till next Sunday." The face of Dean Butcher during the telling was a study in sunset colours, but no one except himself and the I.G. remembered the particular preacher who had been so indiscreet.

Before he left Shanghai Robert Hart received the first of his long series of honours. It came with delightful unexpectedness, with no warning of its arrival; simply, one day as he was going to see his lawyer, Mr. (afterwards Sir Nicholas) Hannen, a passing postman handed him a little brown-paper parcel with Swedish stamps on it. As he had neither acquaintance nor official correspondence with Sweden or Norway, he was completely puzzled as to what it might contain. Greatly to his surprise, on opening it he found an order, the "Wasa" of Sweden and Norway, the very first foreign recognition of his international work in China. Coming as it did just at that moment, it was singularly opportune and acceptable, and ever afterwards I know it held a peculiar place in his affections, even when he received a shower of Grand Crosses from every civilized country in the world.



CHAPTER VI

BIRTH OF A SON—THE MARGARY AFFAIR AND THE CHEFOO CONVENTION—A SECOND VISIT TO EUROPE—THE PARIS EXHIBITION OF 1878

Three important things occurred in Robert Hart's life between the years 1870 and 1879. In 1873 his only son was born; 1875 was marked by the beginning of the famous Margary affair, and in 1878 he went as President of the Chinese Commission to the Paris Exhibition.

A propos of the birth of his son, there was a very strange—almost what a Highlander would call an "uncanny"—sequence of dates in the I.G.'s own life. The year that he himself was born, the 20th of February—his birthday—fell on the 23rd day of the Chinese First Moon. Once more it fell on the 23rd of the First Moon in 1854, the year he came to China, and not again until 1873, when his son first opened his eyes on this best of all possible worlds. A coincidence if you like, but still a very remarkable one all the same.

In 1875 the famous Margary affair, destined to become so complicated later on, first appeared upon the stage of politics in the simplest possible form. There was one hero and one villain, with a crowd of shadowy accomplices looking over his shoulder. To this day it is not certain how many there actually were. We can distinctly follow the unfortunate hero—his name was Margary, his occupation Interpreter at a Consulate—on his journey across Yunnan to Burmah as far as Tengyueh. We know he was cruelly done to death there, but we cannot sift out truth from falsehood in the rumours that he met his death with the connivance—and perhaps even under the orders of—the provincial authorities.

The simple fact of a white man's murder was, of course, bad enough; but when that white man was an official and on a mission, it was a hundred times worse. Negotiations between the British Legation and the Chinese began immediately. On the one side heavy compensation was demanded, on the other it was argued over and delayed. Neither party would move a step forward, and presently the Yunnan outrage got hopelessly mixed with every other disputed question of the day; new demands sprang up beside old ones; both parties, as Michie says, found themselves "entangled in a perfect cat's-cradle of negotiations," and the Chinese in the privacy of their yamens were beginning to ask themselves gloomily, "Will the English fight unless we make full reparation?"

Would they? There was the rub. But now, the crisis being safely passed, I may tell that they would—that they very nearly did—and that the thing that prevented them was nothing more nor less than the moving of the Customs pew in the British Legation Chapel from the front of the church to the back. So do great events sometimes hang upon trifles.

After the arbitrary moving of his accustomed seat, the I.G. remained away from the Sunday services for more than a year. Then, just when the political atmosphere was most electric, Bishop Russell, an old friend of Ningpo days and a charming and genial Irishman, came to Peking on a visit. He was to preach in the Legation Chapel the next Sunday, and the I.G. could not resist the temptation of going to hear his old acquaintance.

Russell was a man of an unconventional and spontaneous type. Because other people did things in a certain way was no reason why he should do the same. Consequently, instead of beginning the service by reading the usual verses, he said, "I would like the congregation to sing a hymn"; and the hymn that he chose was "God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform." It happened to be one of Robert Hart's favourites, but beyond feeling pleasure that this particular hymn should have been chosen, the incident made no great impression on him at the time.

As soon as the service was over, he went to shake hands with the Bishop. Russell, however, was obliged to hurry away to address a Chinese meeting; there was scarcely a moment for talk then. "We must have a chat about old times," said he cordially; "when may I come and see you—on Tuesday?"



"By all means on Tuesday. Don't forget," was the answer, and the I.G. left the chapel with the rest of the congregation.

He noticed as he went out that Sir Thomas Wade had not been in church, which struck him as odd. Surely in a small community like Peking, where a Bishop in the pulpit was a rarity, the British Minister would have made it a point to hear him preach—unless something very unusual had occurred. Hart therefore went at once to call on Wade and see what the news might be. News? There was enough and to spare, all of the most sensational kind. Another deadlock had been reached in the negotiations. Blacker clouds than ever obscured the horizon; war was as near as flesh to bone. Luckily the I.G. saw at once that the new contretemps was due rather to accident than design. A misunderstanding of Chinese despatches—which are always open to several translations—had given Wade a wrong impression of the force of their contents, and the I.G. accordingly begged permission to explain the point at issue as he saw it.

Two hours later the Minister came completely round to his view, and the critical moment was safely passed.

On Tuesday at the appointed hour Bishop Russell went to see Robert Hart. They talked long over old Ningpo days, and presently Russell said, "D'ye know, Hart, my converts have grown to have such faith in me that they believe I can not only show them the way to heaven, but arrange matters on this earth as well. What do you think they said, now, before I came up to Peking? They said I was coming to prevent a war with England. And that to me!" added the Bishop, laughing his wholesome laugh, "who, as you know, am the last man in the world to concern myself with politics."

"Well," replied the I.G. solemnly, "you have prevented war with England all the same." And he told the Bishop the whole story. "If you had not come to Peking," he concluded, "I should not have gone to church. If I had not gone to church, I should not have noticed the Minister's absence, and therefore should not have gone in to see him. Consequently I should never have known of the difficulty which then threatened the negotiations, and might not have been able to help remove it. Truly, Russell,

'God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform.'"

Thus, by a romantic episode, the crisis was tided over—for a time. Alas! only for a time. A second set-back, more serious even than the first, interrupted matters again just when they seemed to be going on most smoothly. It occurred on a Saturday night. On Monday morning, without saying a word to Hart—or indeed to any one—Wade started off posthaste to Shanghai to "await orders from his Government." This bad news greatly upset and alarmed the Yamen. "You must follow him at once," was the order they sent the I.G., so within twelve hours he too was on his way to Shanghai, determined on making one more effort to avert the war which, like a sword of Damocles, was hanging over China's head.

He was again successful, in so far as he obtained the British Minister's consent to reopen negotiations with the Chinese. But where?—that was the question. Should they be held at Shanghai, with the Viceroy from Nanking to assist, or should they be held at Chefoo, with the Viceroy of Chihli (who happened to be the great Li Hung Chang) to help? Wade decided for Chefoo, which, as a cool seaside resort, was especially suited for the broiling months of August and September; and Robert Hart immediately wired to Peking to arrange that Li should come to Chefoo. The Tientsin people protested vigorously against their Viceroy's going. They even went so far as to throw petitions in hundreds over the walls of his yamen—petitions all reminding him of the fate of Yeh Ming Shen, the Governor-General of Canton in 1858, whom the British seized and sent to Calcutta, where he died.

Yet, in spite of their warnings, Li showed sufficient absence of superstition and sufficient patriotism to go, which was certainly rather noble of him, more especially as his personal inclination was against touching the affair at all. This he told the I.G. frankly when they met, and even upbraided Robert Hart rather sharply for, as he said, "dragging him into the business. If they fail—and there has been no luck about these negotiations before—I shall be blamed, whereas if they succeed, it is most unlikely that I shall get any credit."

But the I.G. reassured him in answer to his complaints. "There will be no trouble," said he, "no trouble at all if you work with me. Say nothing, arrange nothing, promise nothing that we do not both agree upon beforehand." Every evening at ten o'clock, therefore, the I.G. would go to Li's house, and the two would remain talking, often far into the night, of what had been done during the day and what was to be done on the morrow.

Unfortunately in some mysterious way the plans and proposals they discussed leaked out, allowing the other side to checkmate their best moves and woefully retard progress. It was really too provoking just as these troublesome negotiations promised to end so well; it meant precious time wasted; it meant unnecessary anxiety and worry. But no matter, history has never been made without trouble to its makers; the I.G. was well prepared for obstacles; he met them with patience, discovered their cause with rare intelligence, remedied them with despatch—and this time the Convention was safely signed. Pens had been poised over it so long that I can imagine he breathed a sigh of relief when the signatures were actually on the document.

A big banquet celebrated the signing—a grand affair given by Li to the personnel of the drama. Most of the Foreign Ministers from Peking were present, they having come down to Chefoo to see what was going on. Two British admirals had put in for the same reason, so the banquet did not lack distinguished guests. The display of uniforms, medals and decorations was dazzling, while the decorations of the hall were as gorgeous as splendour-loving Orientals could devise.

The clever Li toasted the occasion by a happy speech, in which he dwelt on the joy of meeting so many friends together. Most of them he had known (outwitted, too, I daresay) for some time, but now, unhindered by the restraints of public business, he could enjoy their society with a freedom hitherto denied him, and he concluded, "Since at this port of Yentai [Chefoo] beautiful scenery delights the eye and cool breezes give health to the body, it is fitting that our minds should be in harmony with the beauties of nature, cultivating friendship and sincerity as being the noblest traits of human character." All of which was very pretty sentiment, and if some poetic licence got mixed in with the truth, surely the occasion justified the alliance.

Li certainly had reason to feel pleased with himself and his work. The Convention was excellent—though it might have been still better had Robert Hart had more of his own way. He wished, and the Chinese agreed, to include in it clauses relative to the establishment of a national Chinese Post Office and the opening of mints for uniform coinage throughout the Empire. But it did not suit all parties to allow one man to make too many suggestions, and so his schemes were frustrated.

Still, over and above all petty international jealousies he had scored another diplomatic triumph, and the Chinese were duly grateful to him for his share in the work. That was, after all is said, the secret of his unique position—that confidence of his Chinese employers which he never lost. Probably the real reason he kept it so well was because of his calm and reticent character, because he could never be moved to anger and impatient words. Sir Thomas Wade, on the contrary, was a man of exactly the opposite type, and his ch'i, better translated as excitability than anger, often increased his difficulties at a difficult time.

The I.G.'s association with the great Li Hung Chang by no means ceased after the Margary affair. Business in the succeeding months frequently took him to Tientsin—the nearest port, eighty miles from Peking, and the post of the Chihli Viceroy—and whenever he was there, he had a standing invitation to lunch with Li—an invitation which he very often accepted.

What greatly appealed to him about Li's household was its absolute simplicity. Instead of a wearisome array of courses, never more than two plates were served—fish, and perhaps a dish of chicken, cooked, of course, in the Chinese manner and eaten with big portions of rice. The first was seldom touched. Li would say to his guest, "If you do not want any fish, we will send it in to the Taitai" (his wife, who, according to Chinese etiquette, was dining in the next room); and Robert Hart, always the smallest of eaters, would invariably answer "No," leaving the fish to go whole and untouched to Madame Li, much to her husband's delight.

One day afterwards in Peking the I.G. happened to speak with his Chinese writer about Li Hung Chang's household—praising a simplicity so rarely to be found in the yamens of the rich and powerful. There happened to be a long interval before he lunched with the Viceroy again, and when he did, he noticed to his horror that the servants were bringing in an array of dishes suitable for a feast. Shark's fins preceded expensive pickled eggs and followed choice bird's-nest soup. What could the change mean? Simply that his complimentary remark, maimed and contorted beyond recognition by ill-informed or mischievous persons, had travelled to Li's ears, and that he had therefore determined to treat his guest with the greatest possible formality.

"You shall not have the chance to go away again and say that you have been fed like a coolie in my house," said the Viceroy proudly at the end of the banquet.

"Nevertheless, the very simplicity of your hospitality was what I most appreciated," the I.G. replied. "But if you believe that I could have made any such remark, and if you persist in altering the style of my reception, I shall not come to lunch with you again."

As if the cares of treaty making and Customs supervision, coupled with the responsibility of being unofficial adviser to the Wai-Wu-Pu, were not enough for one man, the I.G., at the request of the Chinese, undertook to supervise China's part in the international exhibitions of Europe. First came the Viennese Exhibition in 1873. He set his various commissioners of ports collecting the products of their provinces—silks, porcelains, lacquers and teas. It sounds so simple, but often what may be told in a dozen words may scarcely be done in as many months, and little less than a year of writing and planning and directing can have elapsed before all details were in order, and his four Commissioners of Customs were driving, like the Marquis of Carabbas, in a glass coach through the streets of Vienna. The Chinese spared neither pains nor expense to make a good showing, and gave a gala performance at the Opera in return for Austrian hospitality.

In 1878 came the Paris Exhibition, and to this he went himself as President of the Chinese Government's Commission. He arrived in Paris just before the Exhibition opened—just in time to be present at the great opening ceremony in fact. This was a very grand affair, but with—for him—a ludicrous climax. Coming away, he and his secretary lost their carriage in the crowd, and had to walk the whole way home, not a cab being obtainable—and this, too, in elaborate and heavy uniforms, and at the risk of being hooted by gamins. But by good luck, in those days gold lace and medals were so plentiful that they attracted no embarrassing attention.



Numberless functions, of course, took place in connection with the Exhibition, and scarcely a night passed without some gigantic official reception at which two or three thousand people were present. The Minister of Education, for example, gave a magnificent soiree at which the old dances, the stately minuet and the graceful pavane, were danced in splendid and appropriate costumes. Bernhardt, then at the height of her powers, recited one night at the Elysee; so also did Coquelin. But to Robert Hart these "crushes" were often an ordeal. Conventional entertainments never had a great attraction for him; besides, these gatherings were really too big for any one's comfort or pleasure; conversation was nearly impossible, and nobody felt at home.

What he did enjoy was a drive in the beautiful Bois with his children, from whom, for the sake of their education, he had already been separated for several years. Or else he liked to take them to the many excellent concerts then being held. They often went to hear the Norwegian singers who, so the advertisements said, had walked all the way from their northern home in their quaint national costume, and they scarcely missed a Wednesday at the Trocadero, where there were contests of massed bands.

Music, in fact, would draw Robert Hart any day, for he loved it dearly. Other people might talk learnedly about various schools and tone poems; he took all he could get silently and with a thankful heart; and because in far-away Peking he could not count upon others playing for him, he performed the prodigious feat of learning to play both violin and 'cello himself without a teacher, and long after he was a man grown.

Just before the Exhibition closed, all the fine blackwood furniture of the Chinese pavilion was presented to the Marechale MacMahon. The I.G. had to make a speech on this occasion, which he greatly dreaded, having none of that love of getting on his feet that is characteristic of the south of Ireland Irishman; but when he did so his voice, always soft and gentle, with the faintest trace of Irish accent, never wavered for a moment, and every word he said could be heard by all.

Whether it was the speech making or the festivities or the hard work or a combination of all three I cannot say, but Robert Hart suddenly found himself over-tired and threatened with a breakdown of health by the time the Exhibition closed. Sir William Gull, the famous specialist, whom he consulted, put the case tersely to him: "If you will do work, work will do you."

There was nothing for it then but six weeks of idleness at Ischl, with long walks in the wonderful clear air, another six weeks at Baden-Baden, and a quiet winter at Brighton. So, much to his regret, he had very little opportunity to see London or enjoy the life and gaiety which would have been such a happy contrast to the solitude of Peking. A few hasty visits—I think the longest lasted scarcely ten days—left him no time at all to meet the many men whose acquaintance would have meant so much to him.

The only thing he did of a semi-political character was to accept an invitation from the Reform Club to address them on the opium question. The men he met there had all their opinions and convictions settled beforehand; they had really invited him, the great authority on China, to agree with them, and no schoolboys who had found that sixpences had been put into their pockets in the night could have been more surprised than they when he did not.

At least, it is not exactly accurate to say that he disagreed; he took a practical view of a question which at that time was regarded with much heat and sentiment. He quoted statistics to them, proved that foreign opium was smoked by only one-third of one per cent of the population of China, and by the calm sanity of his views made much of their agitation seem unnecessary. But they were finally consoled when he agreed with them that even so small a percentage in so large a population meant millions of smokers, and that it would be well to rescue these from so damaging a habit.

This was the last public affair in which he took part before the close of 1878, when, being sufficiently recovered in health, he started back to China, little thinking that he was not destined to see Europe again for thirty years.



CHAPTER VII

YUAN PAO HENG SUGGESTS PROHIBITION OF OPIUM SMOKING IN CHINA—NEW BUILDINGS FOR THE INSPECTORATE—THE FIRST INFORMAL POSTAGE SERVICE—THE FRENCH TREATY OF 1885—OFFERED POST OF BRITISH MINISTER

Curiously enough, almost as soon as Robert Hart was back in Peking (1880) the opium question was brought to his attention again. This time it was by a Chinese official—one Yuan Pao Heng, an uncle of the famous Yuan Shih Kai, whose influence is paramount in the Flowery Land to-day, and who more than any other single man was probably responsible for the Imperial Edict (1906) which ordered the opium traffic to be abolished within ten years.

The uncle was as bitter an enemy of the drug as his nephew, but though his views were sound they were in advance of his time, and the I.G. very properly pointed out to him that the cultivation of the poppy could not be stopped suddenly. However wise theoretically it might be to do this, practically it would be dangerous. A great source of revenue must not be cut off abruptly, or China might find herself in the position of the man in the old fable, who thoughtlessly mounted the tiger, and then found out too late that he had forfeited the right to dismount when and where he pleased.

Haste in the Far East is a commodity for which it is easy to pay too high a price—when it is obtainable at all—which, to tell the truth, it generally is not. "Change slowly—if change you must" has ever been the motto of China, and for years the capital itself was an example of the saying. Improvements were not encouraged. There were no more public buildings in 1879 than in 1863. I doubt if a single tumble-down wall had been replaced—the dirt and smells still remained, and the roads were no smoother. Only a few more Legations had established themselves there, and, by clustering together, they formed what might by courtesy be called a Legation Quarter, which lay between the pink wall of the Imperial City—the innermost of the ring of three cities that form Peking—and the frowning, machicolated grey wall of the Tartar town.

The Chinese, partly no doubt with the idea of keeping all the foreigners together and partly for the convenience of business, presently gave the I.G. a piece of land in this quarter, and he accordingly moved down to comparative civilization—as we understand it—from his far-away corner of the suburbs, as soon as the buildings were ready. He had a modest row of low offices, several houses for his staff, each standing, Indian fashion, in its own compound, and, in a large garden, his own dwelling.

This, like the rest, was a bungalow—for the Chinese in those days objected to high buildings lest they should overlook the Palace—and built in the form of a letter H, partly from a sentimental connection with his own initial, and partly to utilise all the sunshine and southerly breeze possible. Two fine drawing-rooms, a billiard- and a dining-room filled the cross-bar of the letter: one of the perpendicular strokes was the west, or guest wing; the other contained his own private offices, a special reception-room, furnished in Chinese style—stiff chairs and rigid tables—for Chinese guests, and his living-rooms. It was characteristic of the man that these were the most unpretentious rooms in the whole house.

Undoubtedly one of the chief reasons which allowed Peking to preserve its mediaeval aspect intact for so many years was the difficulty of communicating with the rest of the world for several months of the year. Its port, Tientsin, was ice-bound from November to March, and the foreign community was therefore completely cut off during the long winter. Neither letters nor papers enlivened la morte saison until the I.G. conceived the idea of arranging a service of overland couriers from Chinkiang, a port on the Yangtsze, to Peking. The seven hundred miles intervening was covered by mounted men, who took from ten to twelve days for the journey, and they as well as their mounts—the latter of course in relays—were provided on contract by a clever old mafoo (groom) who had the reputation of getting the best ponies for the Tientsin amateur race meetings, and who was in league with all the picturesque Mongol horse-dealers.



On the whole the system worked admirably, though of course there were occasional hitches. Sometimes a messenger was attacked by bandits on the way and had his bags stolen. I know once the I.G. chuckled over such a disaster. It so happened that in the missing bags there was one letter which he had written giving an appointment in the Customs to a certain man. No sooner was it gone than he regretted what he had done, and would have recalled his decision had it been possible. Well, believe it or not, this and one other were the only two letters of that lost pouch ever discovered, and they came into the possession of a French Missionary Bishop and were afterwards returned by him to the I.G.

Now and again, too, an accident happened to the incoming mails even after they reached Peking. Of course they were taken direct to the Inspectorate for sorting, and while headquarters were still in the Kau Lan Hu Tung the messenger was more than once thrown on his way down to the Legations—perhaps he met one of those gong-beating processions which would be enough to frighten a hobby-horse—and his mails recklessly distributed by the terrified animal. And sometimes a courier would stumble into a ditch in the rainy season when the road was all river, and narrowly escape being drowned, but these little incidents were only the fortunes of war.

It is not to be wondered at, considering the international work he was doing, that his own country decorated Robert Hart as early as 1879. It is only strange—to me—that they gave him no more than a humble C.M.G. But this was soon changed into a K.C.M.G., and, as it happened, at a most opportune moment—-just when an American University conferred an LL.D. upon him. There he was within an ace of being called "Doctor" for the rest of his life, when the knighthood providentially came to save the situation. The K.C.M.G. was followed by a G.C.M.G., and the G.C.M.G. by a baronetcy, both the Liberals and Conservatives giving him honours alternately. The last, the baronetcy, came from Gladstone's Ministry, and with it he received a friendly letter from the Grand Old Man, who always admired him immensely, and said so when a brother of the I.G.'s—at the time in Europe acting as interpreter to Li Hung Chang—was presented at a big dinner to the Premier.



"So you are a Mr. Hart from China," he remarked. "You should feel very proud of a man who has made his name illustrious for all time."

France was not long behindhand in adding to his ever-growing list of honours. He had the "Grand Officier" of the coveted "Legion" in 1885 after bringing safely to a conclusion the French Treaty of that year. Undoubtedly this was one of the most picturesque and interesting incidents with which he was ever connected, and perhaps it will not come amiss to give some details of how it came about.

The trouble began over a disputed boundary—the Tonkin frontier, to be exact. One side, the Chinese, wanted the Red River for the dividing-line, would hear of nothing else, declared loudly that this was the natural division; the other, France, was equally obstinate for the older frontier between the State of Tonkin and China proper, because this meant far more land for her. Meanwhile, in the disputed area, Liu Yung Fuh, a very famous soldier of fortune—somewhat of an Eastern d'Artagnan—roamed to and fro with his band of "Black Flags," threw in his lot with the Chinese, and made harassing raids on the French side of the disputed border-line. Like the picador at a bullfight, he maddened his enemy with dart-pricks, and the Chinese, who, to continue the simile, had the toreador's part to play, reaped the enmity he provoked. The French gave them battle at Pagoda Anchorage, routed them utterly, and seized Formosa. This was the point where the I.G. first came upon the scene. Once again he was to play his old part of peacemaker. With the Nanking Viceroy Tseng Kuo Tseun as collaborator, so to speak, he went to Shanghai to interview the French Charge d'Affaires, M. Patenotre, and see what could be done.



This Viceroy, by the way, was what we should call a self-made man; that is, he had not risen to office by the usual route, which in China is the way of a scholar. Undistinguished for any particular learning, he had none of those literary degrees which the conservative Chinese of those days prized above every other possession. He was, moreover, quite conscious of his limitations and spoke of them to the I.G. a propos of the visit to Shanghai of two men who held the much-coveted position of Literary Chancellors.

"It will not be possible for me to make a success of these negotiations with the French," he exclaimed ruefully, "because whatever I do these two men will find it out and disparage it in every way they can. You see their view-point is that of distinguished scholars, and they despise an unlettered man like me."

"But what would you say," replied the I.G., "if these two learned gentlemen were made your colleagues in the business—if they were ordered to work with you and share the responsibility?"

"Ah, that would be too good to be true," was the Viceroy's answer. Nevertheless it did come true, because the I.G. telegraphed to Peking about it, and shortly afterwards an Imperial Edict appointed them to be associated with Tseng Kuo Tseun. Did ever any one find a more diplomatic method of avoiding jealousies and closing the mouth of criticism.

In government business even more than in private affairs the great danger always is what the wise old Chicago pork-packer described as "the weak mouths that let slip what they ought to retain." Indiscreet talk has upset many a politician's apple-cart—even the legitimate bumps on the road are not such serious obstacles. It almost spoiled the Margary affair, it threatened the French Treaty no less seriously. Again and again the two parties attempted to come to an agreement over the troublesome boundary question; again and again they failed. And why? Simply because the vexatious gossip that is the curse of small communities interfered. And then to add to the existing complications a Customs vessel, the Fei Hoo, was seized by the French as she was landing stores for a lighthouse in Formosa. They would not let her go, saying she had landed letters as well as stores. Perhaps she did—no one can say—but contraband mail on board or not, she had important duties to perform. All the lighthouses along that coast depended on her for supplies, could not, in fact, function without her, and all vessels of every nationality in China seas depended on those lights, so her detention was worse than aggravating.

The I.G. explained this to Monsieur Patenotre and urged him to free her. "Ca, c'est l'affaire de l'amiral," was the answer, and the Admiral, when communicated with, refused to do anything. With many regrets Monsieur Patenotre told the I.G. this, adding: "You'd better go to Paris." He probably little thought that his advice would be taken au pied de la lettre, but within an incredibly short time the barren negotiations at Shanghai were abandoned, and the I.G. had telegraphed at length explaining the whole position to his Resident Secretary in London and directing him to go to Paris, see M. Jules Ferry, then Premier and Minister for Foreign Affairs, and try to settle something about the Fei Hoo there. M. Ferry received him very cordially, said he would be interested in hearing anything such an authority as Sir Robert Hart might have to say, but, all civilities aside, the matter rested with the Admiralty, and he would be obliged to refer it to them.

Next day the Secretary, a certain Mr. Campbell, went again for his answer and found it unfavourable, for the Admiralty was still in that state of mind which we call firm when it occurs in ourselves, obstinate when it occurs in others. M. Ferry personally was distressed over the refusal. But what could he do beyond asking Mr. Campbell politely if there was any other matter about which he would like to speak? Here was an opportunity the I.G. had luckily foreseen—and prepared to meet. Thanks to his foresight, Mr. Campbell was able to take out of his pocket several long and carefully worded telegrams giving a resume of the situation. They suggested a workable compromise; it was adopted, and peace pourparlers began once more. The I.G.'s one stipulation on entering upon them was that they should be kept absolutely secret. And this time they were. Except Prince Ching and one Tsungli Yamen Minister, nobody knew, nobody even guessed, that anything unusual was even "on the carpet," as the French say; and in order to deepen the impression that no political anxieties were darkening the horizon, Robert Hart embarked in private theatricals—a thing he had never done before, or since—and played Pillicoddy.

Alas, the path of treaties never did run smooth! When arrangements were just on the point of being concluded the Court suddenly desired to retract some of their promises, thinking too much had been given away. This was a cruel blow to the I.G., who well knew that the French would never agree to the proposed changes and that the painstaking work of weeks would topple over like a house of cards. As for China's position in case the Treaty fell through, the less said about that the better.

Notwithstanding, the I.G. did speak of it, and forcibly, to Yamen Ministers, who did not listen—not because they would not, but because they dared not for fear of exceeding their powers and bringing Imperial censure on their own heads. What the I.G. must do, said they, was to send a telegram immediately to Paris and say the Treaty could not be signed as it was. He promised to do this—what else could he do?—and went home from the Yamen disheartened, discouraged, and in no mood for work.



A weaker man would have "gloomed" openly; he did nothing more despairing than stroll into the office of one of his secretaries and have some talk about indifferent matters. None the less it was an unusual thing for him to do, as, whenever they had business together, his secretaries came to him, and he must have been pushed to it by one of those mysterious impulses that sometimes shape men's destinies. Was it the same strange impulse that sent him over to the bookcase in the corner of the room, that made him pick out, at random, and without thinking what he was doing, a volume of the Chinese classics, and when he opened it carelessly made his eye light on the sentence "Kung Kwei Yih Kwei,"—literally, the "work wants another basket"? (The phrase is part of one of Confucius' sayings.) "If a man wants to build a hill so high," says the Sage, "he must not refuse it the last basketful of earth."

Here was a direct answer to the I.G.'s own perplexity. Perhaps one more effort and his work, too, might be successful. At any rate he would keep back the fatal telegram for a day.

Next morning he went to the Yamen again. The first thing the Minister said to him was, "Have you sent that telegram?" And they were all anxiety till they had his reply, which, strange to say, they received with profound sighs of relief, for once again the Court had changed their minds—had come to see the folly of risking a break in the negotiations—and the Ministers, who feared the I.G. had already taken the step they had insisted on so firmly the day before, were prodigiously relieved to find nothing definite had been done. Then, when he told them the reason, how Confucius had guided China from his grave, they were still more deeply impressed.

The telegram that the I.G. did send that morning to his London agent was "Sign the Treaty. But don't sign the 1st of April," he added, for they were then in the last days of March. The sudden relief from anxiety made him want a little joke—but he did not want it in the Treaty. Unfortunately nobody appreciated the sally. His Resident Secretary solemnly wrote on the telegram when he handed it to the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, "Don't sign on the 1st of April—parce que c'est un jour nefasfe—because it is an unlucky day." Either as a Scotchman he deplored the unseemly frivolity, or he thought the French could not appreciate a poisson d'Avril, and so racked his brains for a serious reason to justify the I.G.'s objection.

It so happened that the very day this message went to Paris, Sir Harry Parkes's funeral took place. After a useful and eventful life he died, as every one knows, at the summit of his ambitions while he was British Minister in Peking. Just as the I.G. was going into the chapel for the service, one of the Legation Secretaries drew him aside to communicate a most important piece of news. A wire had come in only a few minutes before offering "the appointment of Her Britannic Majesty's Minister Plenipotentiary and Envoy Extraordinary at Peking to Sir Robert Hart." To say the I.G. was surprised is not to say enough. The offer, coming as it did under such solemn circumstances, made an impression upon him too deep for words. Looking down at the coffin half hidden in flowers, he could not help feeling the vanity of earthly glories. "We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can take nothing out," said the voice of the preacher. The Envoy Extraordinary and the beggar travel towards the same goal, and one is scarcely more indispensable than the other. Any pride he might have had in the new dignity was most effectively taken out of him, and I think that never in his life did the I.G. feel a deeper humility than on this day when, invited to take the Legation, he stood the one black-coated coated figure amid a blaze of diplomatic uniforms.



In the evening Mr. O'Conor (afterwards Sir Nicholas), the First Secretary of the British Legation, came to dine with him and hear his answer—which was that for the present he could not take up the appointment as British Minister because of those Franco-Chinese negotiations. So well had the secret been kept this time that O'Conor had not the faintest idea anything important was going on; he heard the news with amazement. Might he telegraph it home to his Government? Yes, he might, provided he did not speak of the matter in Peking.

At the same time the I.G. begged that his appointment might not be gazetted just then, for possibly the French would not care to negotiate with a man about to become British Minister, and even if they made no formal objection, the fact could not fail to have considerable influence on Chinese affairs.

Accordingly the news was temporarily suppressed. But the I.G. afterwards had the personal satisfaction of hearing through a lady of the Court that when O'Conor's telegrams about the whole story were laid before Queen Victoria, she said, "I am very glad that we shall have for our next Minister in China the man who arranged such delicate negotiations as these."

By all the laws of climax the incident should close here; no writer would dream of dragging it out further, but unfortunately in real life there is little respect for climaxes, and that vexatious Treaty coquetted with her suitors once more. Really it was enough to make anybody lose patience altogether. When the ground was clear at the very last moment, how absurd that the Black Flags and the Chinese should win a big victory over the French at Langson and that, in consequence, there should have been an interpellation in the French Senate causing the Jules Ferry Ministry to resign suddenly and leaving the Treaty still unsigned.

The victory affected the Chinese no less seriously; in the twinkling of an eye they were split into two parties. The military side, elated with their success, was all for continuing the war ("Those we have beaten once we shall beat again," said they), and the wiser councils of the civil side only just carried the day, for, flushed as the soldiers were with victory, it was not easy to make them see that their success was but temporary, and the best, in fact the only thing, for China to do was to hurry on with the Treaty.

Then the endless telegraphing began again. The I.G., by the way, had spent Tls. 80,000 (over L10,000) on telegrams, a sum which, had the Treaty failed, would not have been repaid easily. But it was too late to stop now. Once more he wired instructions to his Secretary.

"You must face the jump. Go direct to the President and lay the matter before him." In those days, when he was manoeuvring for a big success, the I.G. sometimes risked much on the turn of a card.

Mr. Campbell went to President Grevy, and later to the Foreign Minister de Freycinet. Things, as they seemed most desperate, took a brighter turn; difficulties melted away, and at last, on the 4th of April, 1885, M. Billot, afterwards Ambassador at Rome, was appointed by the French Government to sign for France, and the Resident Secretary of course signed for the Chinese. Thus the work was really completed by those last basketfuls of earth, and the long months of anxiety and strain brought to a happy conclusion much to everybody's satisfaction.

Later, M. de Freycinet asked the I.G. to continue and arrange the detail Treaty, as the first had been really little more than a Protocol. The second went through without a hitch, and on June 9th Li Hung Chang and M. Patenotre signed it at Tientsin.

Next day the I.G. had a telegram from London from Lord Granville saying that the Gladstone Ministry was about to resign. "If your appointment as British Minister at Peking is to be published before the new Government under Lord Salisbury comes in, it must be gazetted immediately." He was then able to answer. "Yes. Publish whenever you please. The French Treaty was signed yesterday, June 9."



Sir Robert Hart planned to go into the Legation in August, on the anniversary of his wedding day. Of course you may be sure he had reported the matter to the Chinese and sent in his resignation in good time. But, as they gave him no definite answer, there was nothing for it but to remind them that he had agreed to go—and soon. Downcast faces listened; a most unconsenting silence answered.

"Well, are you willing?" said he at last. "Is Her Majesty the Empress-Dowager agreeable to receiving me as British Minister?"

"Oh, yes," they replied; "she would rather have you than any one else, because, with your great knowledge of China, it will be very pleasant to do business with you. Besides, you are an old friend of ours."

"Then is she willing to have me leave the Inspectorate?" continued the I.G., still feeling a subtle sense of their dissatisfaction. They brightened up at this. It was evidently the cue they had been looking for. "That is the point," said one of the Ministers, plucking up courage. "Her Majesty would much prefer that you stayed with us."

The upshot of it all was that he stayed; he felt that in the face of the Yamen's remarks he could not treat such kind and considerate employers as the Chinese otherwise. But one of the quaintest touches in the whole affair was that his strongest private reason for holding back, at first, from the splendid appointment as British Minister was that he did not wish to tie himself for five years longer in China—and yet after all he was to stay twenty-five willingly in the land of his exile.



CHAPTER VIII

AN IMPORTANT MISSION TO HONGKONG AND MACAO—THE BEGINNING OF A PRIVATE BAND—DECORATIONS, CHINESE AND FOREIGN—THE SIKKIM-THIBET CONVENTION—FORMAL ESTABLISHMENT OF THE POST OFFICE—WAR LOANS

Robert Hart therefore went quietly on with his work in the Customs (1885), setting personal ambitions calmly aside, and finding—let us hope—his reward in the satisfaction which the Chinese and the service generally expressed at his sacrifice of the British Government's tempting offer.

The very year after it was made, an important piece of business, safely, even brilliantly concluded, added greatly to his reputation. This was the settlement of questions relating to the simultaneous collection of duty and likin on opium—two of the burning questions of the day in the south. China had long desired to levy both taxes at one and the same time, but without an arrangement with the Hongkong and Macao Governments this was impossible, as clever smugglers usually contrived to hurry the drug safely into either British or Portuguese territory before the Chinese authorities could lay their eyes, much less levy their duties, upon it. Moreover, once it had crossed a frontier, redress was impossible.

To remedy this unfortunate state of affairs, the I.G., together with a certain Taotai, was sent on a mission. Great pourparlers were held with the Hongkong authorities, who finally agreed to the concessions he asked—provided the Macao authorities should do the same. Luckily they did with readiness—even with enthusiasm—as they themselves were anxious for a quid pro quo from China.

The Portuguese position in Macao had always been a peculiar one—unofficial is the word which best describes it—for though they had quietly occupied the place since the far-away days of the Mings, the Chinese had tolerated the strangers without recognizing them, only now and then murdering one by way of protest. Here, then, was their chance to obtain official status, and the Governor, a shrewd man, seized it. The matter went through without a hitch; China, in addition to getting her own way on the likin question, was given the right to open her Custom Houses at Kowloon (Hongkong) and Lappa (Macao), while Portugal on her side agreed never to sell or cede Macao to any other Power without China's consent.

A slight passage-at-arms between the I.G. and a certain Chinese official enlivened the proceedings, and threw an amusing sidelight on Oriental methods. This man, when Robert Hart met him in Canton, said with amazing frankness, "I had a spy in Hongkong who repeated to me faithfully all that went on there, all that you did, all that you said; but I had nobody in Macao. So will you please tell me what happened in the latter place?"

When the I.G. refused, saying the business concerned only himself and the Yamen, the fellow was first genuinely amazed, then righteously indignant, finally secretly vindictive. He nursed the grievance for years, and revenged himself at last by memorializing against the I.G.'s famous Land Tax Scheme, which, weathering a storm of bitter criticism, lived to enjoy great praise.

Once this Mission was over, the I.G. travelled no more. Things were so well established by this time that there was no need for him to tour the ports, and increasing work kept him ever closer to his desk in Peking. Never was a man, I think, who lived a quieter or more orderly life, or who had less recreation in his days. He went little into society; when he did, his rare appearances were immensely remarked—much as the passage of a comet might have been—and if he made a visit, it was talked of with pride all through the community. Indeed, the hostess who could say "The I.G. took tea with me to-day," was something of a heroine. He read much and wrote prodigiously, sending out—and receiving too—the mail of a Prime Minister.

One extravagance, and only one, did he permit himself—I am thinking of his private band. Yet even that he did not deliberately seek. The idea came to him unexpectedly, put into his head by the Commissioner of Customs at Tientsin, who wrote one day that he had among his subordinates the very man for a bandmaster. Pathetic derelict, a bandmaster without a band! Acting upon a sudden inspiration—perhaps with some subtle intuition of the important part the music was to play in the life of the community in after years, and of all the pleasure it was to give—the I.G. sent money from his private purse to buy instruments and music, though until that moment the idea of a band in Peking had seemed infinitely remote if not utterly preposterous.



Some dozen promising young Chinese were at once collected and initiated into the complicated mysteries of chords and keys. They learned quickly and well—so well that within a year eight of them were ready to come up to the capital and teach others. A doubtful venture became an assured success. More and more players were added; a promising barber, lured, perhaps, by the playing of his friend's flute, abandoned his trade and set to work on the 'cello; or a shoemaker, forsaking his last, devoted himself to the cornet. The neighbouring tailor laid aside his needle; the carter left his cart, bewitched away from everyday things by the music. It may be the smart uniform had something to do with the popularity of the organization; there is ever a fine line between art and vanity—but why dwell upon an ignoble motive?

Suffice it to say, whether from pure conceit or better things, the little company grew till it reached a score, and, under a Portuguese bandmaster, touched a high level of perfection, playing both on brass and strings with taste and spirit. The Tientsin branch flourished equally well and became ultimately the Viceroy's band, and the mother of bands innumerable all over the metropolitan province of Chihli. But in reputation it never equalled what was known throughout China as the "I.G.'s Own."



In spring and autumn his musicians gave an open-air concert in the Inspectorate garden every Wednesday afternoon. Of course, this was the event of the week so far as society was concerned. Peking residents, as well as many distinguished strangers who happened to be passing, came to listen. The scene was invariably animated; ladies walked about under the lilacs, which in April hung over the paths like soft clouds of purple fog, displaying their newest toilettes; diplomats discussed la situation politique; missionaries argued points of doctrine; correspondents exchanged bits of news. All nationalities, classes and creeds were represented in this cosmopolitan corner of the world, but the lions and the lambs agreed tacitly to tolerate each other for the sake of hearing the familiar tunes, warming as good old wine to the hearts of exiles, and for the sake of seeing the mysterious man whose advice, given, as it were, under his breath, shaped the course of events in China.

He guessed well enough what brought the people, and would sometimes remark laughingly, "They come; I know why they all come. It is just to get a sight of the two curios of Peking, the I.G. and his queer musicians."

Occasionally Chinese guests would mingle with the rest, lending with their silken gowns and silken manners a touch of picturesqueness to the scene. I can well remember seeing the famous Wu Ting Fang, whose alert manner made him a general favourite. He prided himself upon it—and rightly. "How old do you think I am?" he asked his host one day. "Perhaps forty-five," was the reply. "Forty-five! What a guess! Sixty-five would have been nearer—and I mean to live to be two hundred."

He went on to explain carefully how this feat was to be accomplished. The first thing, naturally, was diet. The man who would cheat time should live on nuts like the squirrels (do they contrive to do it, I wonder?). Under no conditions should he touch salt, lest a dangerous precipitate form upon his bones, and he should begin and end each meal with a teaspoonful of olive oil. So much for the physical side: the mental is no less important. "I have hung scrolls in my bedroom," Wu Ting Fang went on to explain, "with these sentences written upon them in English and in Chinese: 'I am young, I am healthy, I am cheerful.' Immediately I enter the room my eye falls upon these precepts. I say to myself, Why, of course I am, and therefore I am." Was ever simpler or saner method discovered for warding off old age?

Towards the end of 1889 the Chinese Government, desirous of paying the I.G. a special compliment, chose to confer upon him an honour never before given to any foreigner. Without precedent and without warning, the Emperor issued an Imperial Decree raising him to the Chinese equivalent of the peerage. Henceforth he belonged to the distinguished company of Iron Hatted Dukes—at least not he but his ancestors did, for this was no ordinary father-to-son patent of nobility. The topsy-turvy honour reached backward instead of forward, diminishing one rank with each succeeding generation.

The Chinese reason as follows: "If a man is wise or great or successful, it is because his forbears were studious or temperate or frugal. Therefore, when we give rewards, shall we not give them where they are justly due?" Something might be said for a point of view so diametrically opposed to our own, but the question of ethics has nothing to do with my story.

The strange feature of it is that the very night before the Edict appeared—when the I.G. had not the slightest hint of what was in store for him—he dreamed of his father's father—a thing he had not done for years. Dressed in a snuff-coloured suit, with knee-breeches and shining shoe buckles, he appeared walking down the little street of Portadown leaning heavily upon a blackthorn stick and murmuring sadly, "Nobody cares for me, nobody takes any notice of me." Nobody, indeed?



The very next evening at a dinner party at the French Legation some one told the I.G. of the new honour, gazetted an hour before, and how an Emperor, with a stroke of his Vermilion Pencil, had deprived the ghost of a grievance.

Equally romantic was a coincidence that happened when the I.G. was made a Baronet in 1893. The question of arms then coming up, he made all possible enquiries concerning those which his family had a right to use. Without doubt the Harts did bear arms in the days of William of Orange, when they were granted to the famous Dutchman Captain van Hardt who so distinguished himself at the Battle of the Boyne. But after his death the family grew poor; the arms fell into disuse and were forgotten so completely that one descendant thought they might have been a hart rampant, while another declared they were a sheaf of burning wheat.

Robert Hart was not the man to grope long in a fog of mystery. He decided the question once and for all by submitting a blazon of his own choice to the College of Heralds, and his design—three fleurs de lis and a four-leaved shamrock—was sanctioned, as it had not been previously applied for.

The search for the original arms was naturally given up then, but by the merest accident they were ultimately found. Some member of the family happening years afterwards to stroll through a very old cemetery in Dublin, curiosity or idleness led him to examine the tombstones. One in particular attracted his attention, perhaps because it was more dilapidated and tumble-down than the rest. He gently scraped the moss from the inscription and found that he had stumbled on the long-forgotten tomb of Captain van Hardt, and underneath the hero's name he found a coat-of-arms, half obliterated yet still recognizable. It showed three fleurs de lis and a four-leaved shamrock.

But it must not be imagined that Robert Hart was the man to rest on his laurels or to regard honours as so many flags of truce entitling him to draw out, even for a time, of the battle of work. From 1889 to 1903 he was deeply engaged on that very important business the Sikkim-Thibet Convention. The Thibetans having crossed the border into Sikkim, a State protected by the British, the British in return sent an expedition into Thibet and, since there was trouble about the frontier, refused to go out again. This was a very disagreeable predicament for China. She turned, as usual, to the man who never ceased labouring on her behalf, and, as usual, he rose to the occasion.

Mr. James Hart, the I.G.'s brother, lately returned from delimitating the Tonkin frontier, was sent posthaste to assist the Amban, the Chinese Resident in Thibet. As a result of this wise choice, the preliminary Treaty was put through by 1890, and the Chinese Customs opened stations in Thibet. Three questions relative to trade, however, remained to be settled, and for three long years negotiations over these dragged on at Darjeeling.

Needless to say it was a slow and often wearisome business, with the interest, to my mind, unfairly divided. On one side, the Thibetan side, there was picturesqueness enough, though not without discomfort too, for many a time the envoys must needs cross mountain-passes so deep in snow that a hundred Thibetans marched ahead treading it down, and not less often they must sleep in the rudest camps and eat the unsavoury cuisine of the country. But on the other, the Peking side, there was nothing but hard and dreary work, since every word that the Chinese Commissioners said was telegraphed back to the I.G., and then carefully discussed with the Yamen.

No sooner was quiet restored in Thibet than anxiety about war with Japan began to agitate the Chinese capital. The air was as full of rumours as a woman of whims. One day, happening to find himself beside Baron Komura, the Japanese Charge d'Affaires in Peking, the I.G. half laughingly remarked, "So you are going to fight China after all? I suppose you will win." "Oh, one never knows," was the Minister's diplomatic reply. Strange to say the general opinion among men less practical and less well-informed than the Inspector-General, was that China would easily win a war against Japan—if it came to war—just as later the unanimous opinion in the Far East was that if Russia fought Japan, Russia must conquer.

But subsequent events proved Robert Hart right. China, after a brief struggle, was severely beaten, and peace came as a relief. Then immediately the question of loans to pay off the indemnity arose. Two small war loans of Tls. 10,000,000 each were floated, it is true, during the actual hostilities, but the first big loan of L16,000,000 was not arranged till so late as 1896.

The I.G. had the matter in hand; but unfortunately, just as he was about to complete it, French and Russian banks offered to lend the sum at a cheaper rate of interest, and so it was given to them. They also agreed to float a second loan for L16,000,000. But at the last moment, either because of some hitch in the minor arrangements, or because the Chinese suddenly thought it might be unwise to put all their eggs in one basket, they turned again to Robert Hart.

Late one night a Yamen messenger came clattering down the silent streets, the sound of his pony's hoof-beats echoing from the compound walls and arousing the whole quarter, there was a prodigious thumping on the big outer gate before a sleeping watchman could be made to roll out of his wadded quilts; but finally, after prolonged consultation, the despatch was taken in to the I.G., the messenger calmed with tea and a pourboire, and quiet once more restored. Next morning, early, the I.G.'s cart was at the door—a vehicle, by the way, interesting in itself, since it was chosen by Hung Ki, the man who liberated Sir Harry Parkes—and Robert Hart started for the only shop in Peking, ostensibly to buy toys for his children friends, as it was near Christmas.



In those days the Legations watched his movements very closely; he wished them to hear that his little expedition was purely a pleasurable one. No doubt they did, for not a soul knew that, when he casually strolled into a bank near by, it was to quietly produce a paper from his pocket and say, as one might say "Good day,"—"I have here a loan agreement for L16,000,000, but I can only give it to you on condition that you sign immediately."

Half an hour later the necessary signatures were on the document—the whole great matter put through. Looking back upon the success, one marvels at how he contrived it so rapidly that, once the news was out, people caught their breath with astonishment. Instinctively he must have felt it was a psychological moment when a man is required to take responsibility—to presume even on his power, and that in a moment's hesitation all might have been lost.

In 1896 came the formal establishment of the Imperial Chinese Post Office—in itself the work of many a man's lifetime. Money had to be found for the experiment from the Customs funds first, then innumerable rules and regulations framed and experiments tried before it became a practical working institution. The I.G.'s wonderful grasp of detail stood him in good stead then, for a hundred details came daily under his notice, and he was consulted on every possible subject—from a design on a postage stamp to the opening of a new department. To him, indeed, belongs the entire credit for the designing and building of the greatest success of recent years in China—a postal service, grown beyond the most sanguine hopes, which not only pays its own way but is beginning to turn over some revenue—indirectly, of course—to the Imperial Treasury.



Meanwhile the "five years longer" that he had privately set as the term of his life in China when he refused to become British Minister at Peking (1885) were long since passed, and five other years had followed them, yet he had never found it possible to return to his own country. Each spring he debated whether he might safely leave his unfinished plans, which, ranging as they did over a vast number of subjects, could not well be given half completed into other hands, and each spring some new problem claimed his attention. In 1896, however, he faced a harder decision than usual. The road was perhaps unusually open—and yet he knew that, half hidden, there were obstacles waiting to be met.

At this crisis of indecision he decided to do what he had so often done before—consult the Bible. This had been a habit of his father's before him; in fact, his whole family had asked guidance on every venture they undertook, no matter how humble it might be, and the training of his childhood was not outgrown. He accordingly took the Bible lying on his desk and opened it at random one evening. There, truly enough, was an answer clear and unmistakable in the very first verse his eye lighted upon—Acts xxvii. 31: "Paul said to the centurion and to the soldiers, Except these abide in the ship, ye cannot be saved." It immediately decided him to remain in China, and he suffered no more from perplexity or indecision.

Robert Hart was indeed deeply religious. Unlike so many men who have passed their lives in the East, he never absorbed any Eastern fatalism, nor did the lamp of his faith ever burn dimly because he mixed with men of other and older creeds. The Christian ideal he always considered the highest in the world; but once, when trying to live up to it, he was brought to confusion, though not through any fault of his own.

One day, as he was leaving the gate of a certain mission where he had been to pay a call, a Chinese of the poorer classes, unkempt and dirty, came and threw an arm about his shoulders, saying, "I see you are also coming away from the mission, so we are brothers in Christ. I will accompany you on your way."

The I.G. afterwards confessed that his first feeling was one of irritation at the man's familiarity—which amounted almost to impertinence—and his second, disgust at the grimy hand so near his collar. To summarily shake it off was a natural instinct. But, when he thought a moment, he clearly saw the absurdity of professing a creed of universal brotherhood and then, as soon as some one attempted brotherly familiarity, of repulsing him. Therefore he suffered the man's arm to remain as far as the corner of the big street, where he made a determined effort to get free, saying, "My way lies in this direction," and attempting to slip off before his companion could see which point of the compass "this" was.

But the fellow-Christian was observant and consistent. "Oh, I will come with you," he said, in the tone of one doing a kindness, so the I.G. could do nothing but resign himself to his fate. Baronet and coolie made a triumphal progress down Legation Street, much to the amusement of the sentries on guard, and by the time he reached his own door the former felt a few shamefaced doubts about the advisability of mission methods which inculcated the equality of man irrespective of colour, class, and cleanliness.

1899 saw the Germans take possession of Kiaochow, and the question of establishing a branch of the Chinese Customs there was discussed and settled, China finally obtaining the right to open her own Kiaochow Custom House, with a German staff of her own employees.

This was the last important international work he undertook before the memorable Siege in 1900. Already the first mutterings of the storm sounded. The first Boxers appeared in Shantung—a little cloud of fanatics scarcely bigger than a man's hand. But soon they were spreading over all the north of China, and even spilling into the metropolitan province of Chihli itself.



CHAPTER IX

THE PROLOGUE TO THE SIEGE—BARRICADES AND SCALING LADDERS—THE SIEGE PROPER—A MESSAGE FROM THE YAMEN AND AN IMPORTANT TELEGRAM—RELIEF AT LAST—NEW QUARTERS—NEGOTIATIONS—THE CONGRESS OF PEKING—AN IMPERIAL AUDIENCE

Some three weeks before the beginning of the Siege proper Peking was in a state of great unrest—how great no one, not even the I.G., could accurately judge. But as each day brought new alarms and constant reports of Boxer misdoings all over the city were confirmed by terrified eye-witnesses, it was thought wise to make some practical preparations for defence. The Legations were luckily provided with guards, whose officers, acting in concert, agreed to hold a square that included the whole quarter and the Customs property as well. Unfortunately the few troops made a pitifully thin line when they were spread over the area to be defended, and the Customs Staff, at the I.G.'s suggestion, organized themselves into a Volunteer corps, kept regular watches day and night, and prepared to assist generally in case of emergency.

Indeed they did even more; with his permission they set to and fortified the Inspectorate compounds, turning his garden into a trampled wilderness. Barricades were built across what was known as Inspectorate Street while the I.G. stood by and refreshed the thirsty workers with beer from his cellar; the big gate was loopholed, the walls strengthened, and clumsy look-out platforms, reminiscent of the Siege of Troy, constructed. From these I can guess he must have watched—and with what feelings!—the progress of the dreadful fires starting over the city; must have seen, down the long straight street, native Christians burning like torches, and must have heard the fiendish shouts of "Kill!" "Kill and burn!" issuing from a thousand hoarse throats.

The situation was terrifying enough in all conscience—yet nothing to what it was to be later when the handful of white men, encumbered with women, children and converts, were to stand against Imperial troops in addition to these savage hordes of Boxers, whose infinite daring, due to a belief in their own invulnerability, was somewhat mitigated by their inferior weapons.



From first to last the I.G., though no longer young, showed admirable coolness and courage in the face of the crisis. He sent frequent despatches, full of excellent and sane advice, to the Yamen. Alas! they went unheeded. So did the telegram he got through to Li Hung Chang on June 12th. This was his final effort to save a desperate situation, and the message ran: "You have killed missionaries; that is bad enough. But if you harm the Legations you will violate the most sacred international obligations and create an impossible situation."

It did no good, unluckily; things had gone so far by this time that they must go still farther with inevitable motion, and whatever Li himself thought of the insane idea of attempting to exterminate foreigners, he could do nothing to stem the tide of mistaken Boxer patriotism.

On the 13th the telegraph wires were cut; and on the 19th an ultimatum arrived from the Yamen giving the foreigners twenty-four hours to leave Peking, and offering to convoy them with Chinese troops as far as Tientsin. The Ministers held meeting after meeting; they were somewhat shaken, but, still trustful, determined to accept the Chinese Government's offer of an escort as far as the sea. Against this proposal, however, the non-diplomatic community threw the whole weight of its disapproval, fortunately—as things turned out—overbearing it, since the Chinese Government, with the best will in the world, was not at that moment in a position to assure the safety of any one. The very best proof of this, if further proof were needed, was the murder of Baron von Ketteler, the German Minister, on the morning of June 20th.

The shock of that news filled the community with horror and consternation. The suddenness of the tragedy, the treachery of it, were appalling. Plainly no protection could be hoped for, and the same afternoon all non-combatants were ordered into the British Legation, as that was the largest compound in Peking, and the one most suitable for a last stand should the worst come to the worst. The I.G., of course, went with the rest. If it cost him anything to calmly walk out of the house he had occupied for years, leaving all behind him—he took a last look around the rooms, I remember, as though to impress their picture on his mind—he gave no sign, just as he showed none of the natural alarm which, with his responsibility for a large staff with wives and children, he must have felt.



The history of the Siege proper, like the history of the Taiping Rebellion, has been written a hundred times. Praise and blame have been variously distributed; flaws picked in one another's behaviour by a dozen eye-witnesses, but it is not my purpose to attempt to arbitrate over details which each man naturally sees through his own glasses. Only so far as the I.G. was personally concerned with the events of those two unhappy months need they be touched upon here.

At first the wildest confusion prevailed in the Legation. Misunderstandings about where a final stand should be made, doubts whether it should be made in Peking at all, had delayed very necessary preparations. There was not shelter for all the refugees, and some literally camped under the big ting-erhs (open pavilions with roofs but no side walls), their hastily collected household goods lying around them. The Customs, however, fared better than that; they were given a small house, into which they packed themselves as best they could. The I.G., who refused to accept any special privileges, slept in a tiny back room and cheerfully ate the mule, which was hatefully coarse while it was fat and unutterably tough when it grew lean. Indeed, his marvellous adaptability to difficult conditions was soon the talk of that little company.