From the few poor wretches I found able to speak, in most cases I gathered their expression of opinion "that it was through foreign soldiers coming to fight the Tien-ping (Ti-ping troops) that their distress had been occasioned." Some said that "they had come from places taken by the Kwan-ping (Imperialist troops), and reaching where I found them, could get nothing to eat, were unable to travel farther, and so had lain them down to die." Whenever I came to villages where the people were not yet reduced to the last stage of famine, mothers were offering their daughters to any one who would take them; but even this was unavailing! Although in other parts of China the young women would have been taken for evil purposes, in Ti-pingdom the laws strictly prohibited everything that was condemned as immoral, so they were left to starve if provisions were not supplied from better motives. These fearful scenes are so vividly impressed upon my memory that I am sorry I ever had the misfortune to witness them.
The desolating sword of Asiatic warfare has been ruthlessly carried into provinces for years in the most flourishing condition under Ti-ping rule. Hundreds of once happy villages have been obliterated from the face of the earth they once adorned, while the decaying skeletons of their industrious and inoffensive people are thickly scattered throughout the surrounding country, changing into a vast Golgotha and desert what would otherwise have remained an earthly paradise.
As many people would probably feel inclined to deny that the Anglo-Manchoo forces created the desolation I have described, because it has frequently been misrepresented by interested persons that the Ti-pings were the devastators, I have selected two or three statements which entirely corroborate my own.
The following narrative was given by a gentleman who has comparatively lately traversed the silk districts in search of mulberry-trees and silkworms, in order to estimate the probable extent of the next silk crop, and the causes of the present great fall-off. It appeared in the Friend of China, Shanghae paper, of January 13, 1865, from which I quote:—
"When Burgevine went to Nankin, that time the country between it and Soo-chow was a garden for loveliness. For eighteen le (Chinese miles) along the canal, on either side, the banks were lined with houses—the inhabitants busy as bees, and as thriving as they had reason to expect to be. With the reversion of Soo-chow to the Imperialists, these houses and numerous bridges disappeared. For the whole eighteen le there is not a roof—the country around, as far as the eye can reach, is a desert. The people have fled from the Imperialists as though they dreaded them like wolves and tigers; nor man, nor woman, nor child, nor beast of any description to be seen. Fowls, ducks, pigs, buffaloes—no such thing to be got for love or money.
"Twenty-seven le from Soo-chow brought me to Soo-za-qua, formerly a custom-house station, now the abode of part of the residue of Gordon's force....
"The place is an oasis in the desert. For miles after leaving it, indeed, all the way thence to Wu-see, the same barren, weed-overgrown appearance meets the sight. Pheasants, partridges, and a wild deer now and then, gave me plenty of amusement for my fowling-piece. But the number of bleached skeletons, skulls, or partially decayed dead bodies, is awful to look at—to count them would be impossible—they literally cover the ground for miles. As for traffic in boats, there was none; trade is all gone. Wu-see is in ruins. Where they were going I could not make out, perhaps the boatmen themselves did not know beyond their next stage, but the number of soldiers passing up in boats was legion, the contrast between them in their fat, saucy appearance, and that of the meagre, starved-looking wretches in the streets, being very striking. Before reaching Wu-see I passed a camp of from 20,000 to 30,000 soldiers—impudent rascals, shouting after me, 'Yang-qui-tsze, Yang-qui-tsze' (Foreign devil),[56] till I was tired of hearing them; beckoning me to come on shore; waving spears and dashing them out to show what they would do if they could. They have evidently no love for Westerns, these Imperial Imps....
"On to Chang-chow-foo, for 95 le, still the same howling desert, not a working soul to be seen. The depth and strength of the weeds now are prodigious. Alack, for my search for mulberry-trees! I could not see one. All are cut down, and if wood at all were seen, it was borne by hungry-looking people, propelled by soldiers who had impressed them into the wood-cutting line. It was for such a state of things as this, was it, that Gordon gave his talents? His reward would be a sorry heart (?), could he only view the misery he has made. They are perfectly rabid after firewood, these same Mandarin soldiers, and cut down green wood and everything they meet. I should say there must be from eight to twelve thousand men at Tan-yang, which I next got to—Loo-tszeur, a village between Chang-chow-foo and it, having disappeared to a brick; not a soul to be seen, though they have established a custom-house station about five le from it.
"Tan-yang, a small city on the left bank of the canal, is almost entirely deserted. Soldiers presenting here, as at the other places, the same fat, saucy appearance I before noticed, some of them wearing bangles, earrings, and jewels of value, while the people around are clotheless and miserable, and how the poor wretches live at all is a mystery. All that I saw them grubbing at was a species of porridge, consisting of the husks of paddy, a mess one would not give a horse. Oh, the skulls again! From Chang-chow-foo to Tan-yang the ground is literally white, like snow, with skulls and bones. The massacre of the unfortunate Taipings (inoffensive villagers, most likely) must have been awful! Between Chang-chow-foo and Wu-see stands a dilapidated pagoda, said to be 4,000 years old, and I went to look at it. What was my surprise to find it crammed with dead bodies, from which slices had been cut to eat as food!... I went on for 45 li beyond Tan-yang; the farther I went, the country getting worse and worse, if it were possible for there to be a difference when one description of 'bad' does for all, and I began to think that my search for a mulberry-tree, in what, under the Taipings, was a splendid silk-producing country, was useless, and I had better turn back."
Here we have the testimony of an impartial mercantile gentleman. Comment is needless. We will now turn to the evidence given by two of Gordon's own officers, men who were present during the operations against the Ti-pings, but who were ultimately honest enough to admit the truth. The following extracts are from a letter which appeared in the Friend of China, April 28, 1864:—