A commonplace, uninteresting place at first sight—just the ordinary railway station with the usual sheds, iron bridge, offices, refreshment‐room. Yet here, not long before, white men and yellow had closed in deadly struggle, and the rails and platforms had been dyed red with the blood of heroes. The sides of the iron water‐tank, the walls of the engine‐house, were patched and repaired; for shells from the most modern guns had rained on them for days. The stone walls were loopholed and bullet‐splashed. Many of the buildings were roofless, their shattered ruins attesting the accuracy of the Chinese gunners. At yonder corner the fanatical Boxers had burst in a wild night attack, and even European soldiers had retreated before the fury of their onslaught. But the men of the hitherto untried Hong Kong Regiment, sturdy sons of the Punjaub plains or Frontier hills, had swept down on them with the cold steel and bayoneted them in and under the trucks; until even Chinese fanaticism could stand it no longer and the few survivors fled in the friendly darkness. For that brave exploit, the Subhedar Major of the corps now wears the Star of the Indian Empire. From the mud walls of that village, scarce two hundred yards away, the European‐drilled Imperial troops, armed with the latest magazine rifles, had searched with deadly aim every yard of open ground over which the defenders advanced. Across this ditch the Boxers, invincible in their mad belief, had swarmed in the face of a murderous fire, and filled it with their dead. Not a foot of ground in that prosaic railway station but had its tale of desperate fanaticism or disciplined valour.
EUROPEAN CONCESSIONS, TIENTSIN, AND THE PEIHO RIVER
CHAPTER II
TIENTSIN
THE foreign settlement of Tientsin and the Chinese city are entirely separate, and lie some distance apart. The former, resembling more a European town than an alien lodgment in the heart of the Celestial Empire, boasts wide roads and well‐kept streets, large offices and lofty warehouses, good public buildings and comfortable villas, a racecourse and a polo‐ground. It is divided into the Concessions of the various nationalities, of which the English, in size and mercantile importance, is easily first. The difference between it and the next largest—the French—is very marked. The latter, though possessing a few good streets, several hotels, and at least one long business thoroughfare with fine shops, speaks all too plainly of stagnation. The British quarter, bustling, crowded, tells just as clearly of thriving trade. In it are found most of the banks, the offices of the more considerable merchants, and all the municipal buildings.
The Chinese city, perhaps, has more charm for the lover of the picturesque, though it is less interesting now than formerly, since the formidable embrasured wall surrounding it has been pulled down by order of the Allied generals. In it stands a grim memento of another outburst of fanaticism against the hated foreigner—the ruins of the Roman Catholic Cathedral, destroyed by the Chinese in 1870. The city itself is like unto all other Celestial cities. Narrow lanes, low houses, ill‐kept thoroughfares, gaudiness and dirt intermingled, stench and filth abominable. To it, however, was wont to go the seeker after curiosities, choice silks, or rich furs from Manchuria and Corea. But the retributive looting that fell on it after its capture has left it bare indeed.
On the platform of the railway station almost the first friendly face we saw was that of perhaps the best‐known man in North China, Major Whittal, Hyderabad Contingent. Interpreter in Russian, fluent in French and German, his linguistic abilities had been responsible for his appointment to the scarcely enviable post of Railway Staff Officer at Tientsin. In a town that held the headquarters of every foreign army, where troops and stores of all kinds were despatched or arrived daily in charge of representatives of the different forces, such a position required the possession of a genius for organisation and infinite tact and patience. Even as we greeted him, French, Russian, or German officers and soldiers crowded round, to harry him with questions in divers tongues or propound problems as to the departure of troop trains or the disposal of waggons loaded with supplies for their respective armies. The Britisher is usually supposed to be the least versed of any in foreign languages. But the Continental officers were very much surprised to find how many linguists we boasted in our expeditionary force. At every important railway station we had a staff officer who was an interpreter in one or more European languages. There were many who had passed examinations in Chinese. A French major remarked to me one day: “Voilà, monsieur, we have always thought that an Englishman knows no tongue but his own. Yet we find but few of your officers who cannot converse with us in ours. Not all well, certainly; but, on the other hand, how many of us can talk with you in English? Scarcely any. And many of you speak Russian, German, or Italian.” It was not the only surprising fact they learned about the hitherto despised Anglo‐Indian army.