The committee on food-supplies have two articles in tremendous quantities—all kinds of tobacco (long black cigars and Egyptian cigarettes) and dozens of cases of wines, mostly red and white, which will be a great help to the Continentals here. These supplies were procured by the committee from deserted shops near enough to the Legation centre to make their procuring not too dangerous. I think the general public was more pleased at the arrival of these stores than were the missionaries in charge, for with misgivings the question arose surely in their minds, Were these things sent to us from Heaven or from the other place?
Friday, June 23.
The excitement to-day is terrible, and much more intense than anything we have yet had. Fires are starting in all our “lines.” The horror and dislike of leaving our respective Legations to concentrate in the British is nothing compared to the fact that if we leave our Legation the Boxers and Chinese soldiers will immediately burn them and loot them, and this may give them such a lust for loot and pillage that it may become an incentive strong enough to overcome their national fear of attacking, and make it most terribly difficult for us to hold out until the troops come. Until the troops come! What a wail that is! and it is heard at all times, and all people take their turn in asking somebody else, “When will they come?”
This afternoon we were in Mrs. Coltman’s room, and her sweet baby was asleep in a funny, old-fashioned, high-backed crib. Although the sound of exploding bullets was to be heard outside the house, we were much startled to feel one—you can’t see them, they come so fast—enter the room, hit the headpiece of the baby’s crib, detaching it from the main part, and bury itself in the opposite wall. An inch lower and it would have cut through the baby’s brain. His mother picked him up, and all of us flew into a room on the other side of the house, where we felt we would be free from shot, at any rate coming from that direction.
We were accompanied by the wife of the Chief, Mrs. Conger, conspicuous for her concise manner, and an open follower of Mrs. Eddy. She earnestly assured us that it was ourselves, and not the times, which were troublous and out of tune, and insisted that while there was an appearance of warlike hostilities, it was really in our own brains. Going further, she assured us that there was no bullet entering the room; it was again but our receptive minds which falsely lead us to believe such to be the case. With these calming (!) admonitions she retired, and I can honestly say that we were more surprised by her extraordinary statement than we were by the very material bullet which had driven us from the room.
All women are busy sewing up sandbags to strengthen our defence, while bullets are raining into the compound like hailstones. A man comes rushing to where we are working, and tells whoever is in charge of filling the sandbags that a hundred, or as many as possible, must be taken to such and such a barricade, or it cannot hold out. We get snatches of the real state of affairs very often in this way.
June 23.
Yesterday, the 22nd, the Austrian marines vacated their Legation, although Von Rostand, the Austrian Chargé d’Affaires, and other people greatly criticized them for having left too soon. These marines then went to the French Legation, and M. and Mme. von Rostand became Lady Macdonald’s guests at the British Legation. The Belgians stayed with the Austrians until they left, when they came to this compound, and the Belgian Minister also became a guest at the Legation. The Dutch compound and the Austrian compound are still burning.
Yesterday at ten o’clock in the morning a sort of terror, almost unaccountable, seemed to sweep over the entire length and breadth of our lines; the French soldiers got in a terrible funk, left their Legation to Boxers, fire, or anything else that might appear, and ran all the way without stopping to the British Legation, where they said everything was “lost.” The Germans also got the fright, but after coming up Legation Street half-way, they turned back, and not only took a stand in their own Legation again, but they sent men into the deserted French Legation and kept it manned, so that if the Boxers came they would be resisted, and not be allowed quietly to take possession.
The Russian compound is the only passage-way by which the American marines can escape and retire to the British Legation, and it was understood that in case of an attack from the Chinese serious enough to necessitate everyone leaving their Legations, the Russians would not close their big gate opening on Legation Street until our American soldiers had entered, when they would hold out there (in the Russian compound) as long as possible, and then retreat all together to the British Legation. Our Russian friends, however, forgot this little arrangement, and when our men were also seized with this panic and left the Wall, and retreated through our Legation across Legation Street to the Russian gate, they found it not only locked and barred against them, but no one near enough even to hear them knocking. They excused themselves afterward by saying they had left a tiny gate open farther down the street, but as none of our people knew there was such an entrance, we thought this a rather poor excuse.