T had not been within sight of the Pei ho's banks since the Boxer gale had blown mo over the Taku bar nearly two years ago. I was eager to sco with my own the storm-swept field and to discover, if I could, ming fragments which might furnish my fancy with more tangible evidence of its meaning thai what Thad read had done.
While waiting for the Tientsin train L wandered towards the dismantled forts at the mouth of the river, The ce guarded by a few foreign <eniries, little little were carrying away to the river bank all that was left to mark the sites of tke once formidable. thrice-captured, forts of Tuku, little dreami that there was any cause for shame in this particu lar mode of making their livelihood.
But more pathetic than so matter-of-fact an exhibition of the absence of patriotism on the part of these subjects of the Great Pure Dynasty, were the little mounds of alkaline mud near by, beside which, driven into the soggy soil. were wooden signs stating that beneath these mounds rested the bones of men of other blood, who for love of kin and country had fought and died on alien soil. Not really dead: they live een yet enshrined in grateful hearts in many climes.
But what of those who toil on yonder forts? More truly dead ara they. for these are they who never to themselves have said, "This is my own, my native land."
Once on the train I began to feel at home. The carriages seemed exact reproductions of those I used to ride in. The country through which we passed had the same monotonous evenness with which T had been familar in the days gone by. But hero and there along the line, where once were prosperous villages, emptiness and ruins told of the tornado which had passed that way. Even the train itself crept along more slowly than of yore, as if made cautious by the calamitous experiences of the days not long past.
the Tientsin station the most cor spicuous change was the absence of the rabble who useil to board the train before it had come to stand-till and fight li the traveller of his own luggage. mong themselves for the honour of re-
Under the military management everything was done "decently and in order."
On emerging from the station and {crossing the bridge of boats, which had been moved a hundred yards or more down stream, one felt as if he were entering a strange city. New streets and new butidings in the French settlement made one wonder whether this were really Tientvu, But the illusion was only for a moment. Once we struck Victoria Road we were in the midst of familiar sights. In fact it required no Little exercise of the imagination to believe that this part of the settlement had ever been fired upon.
There was a marked change in the peo-pie. They exhibited an unwonted celerity, of motion, which witnessed to the effectiveness of military discipline. Instead of waiting a half-hour for your Iuggage to turn up it was trundled off on Japanese two-wheeled carts ahead of your ricsha, Instead of the dog-trot of former days, your ricsha coolie went off as if shot from cannon, and tore along streets keeping yeu in mortal fear lest you should be spilled out at every turning.
Of course the native city had changed ils appearance greatly. Actually }to circumvent. the city in a riesha, travelling all the while on a fine frroad road built where the wall had formerly stood, gave me a sensation which I fool Sure was quite akin to that of the little girl who refused to own hor father when she first saw him after he had shi en of his heavy beard. What the sensations of the Chinese must be when they travel in wheeled vehicles over the foundations of their once trusted bulwark, can be imagined from the simile which dropped from the lips of one of them in my hearing comparing the wall-less city to a nude female.
That the Chinese will want the wall rebuilt is something of which there can be little doubt. But the fact that they want it restored is the very reason why the Powers will not permit them to restore it.
An old Chinese friend told mo that, the work of levelling the wall was chiefly done by ex-Boser workmen who did not belong to Tientsin, They had turned Uh spears and swords into picks and she' Exen the children on the streets made lifo pleasant. for these turncoats by taunt 2 them with a two-line doggerel, run-[nz as follows:
"First our cakes you ato up all; Now you've come to spoil our wall."
The reference in the first line is to the large flat cakes of unleavened flour, mixed h brown sugar, upon which the Boxers
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.