Yesterday—Sunday—there was a lot of good work done. Nevertheless, Mr. Norris, the chaplain, who is one of the hard-working members of the Committee on Fortifications, gave us half an hour for the service held in Lady Macdonald’s dining-room—the regular chapel of the compound being occupied by the American Protestant missionaries—and I must say that it was comforting. This room is something of a wreck, denuded of all draperies for sandbags, walls riddled with large and small bullet-holes, a life-sized painting of Queen Victoria occupying the entire wall at one end of the room, hung quite crooked and peppered with shot. A great beam from the ceiling protruded some 4 or 5 feet down into the room, where it had been forced by a spent cannonball crashing into the side of the house, and over all this ruin was the unmistakable atmosphere which clings to a room where many people eat three times a day, and where the staff of servants is not equal to the work. It was but six weeks ago that I was a guest at a most charming dinner given in this very room, surrounded by what then seemed to be the unutterable and interminable calm that comes from the possession of the best things to make life pleasant in the Far East. The other denominations had their services as well some time during the day.
The hot weather began last week, and the thermometer is 109° in the shade. I wear shirt-waists and short skirts; the men wear filthy clothes that they work in and most of them sleep in. They never wear collars—no washing of linen for three weeks, and, from the looks of them, most of them only shave every fourth or fifth day. Life is now settling down to a routine, and one would think that the people of this compound had never done anything else all their lives but get up during each night when a general attack begins. Each man goes to his appointed post, or if for a change we have no general attack, the men quietly get up at all hours and go to their sentry work.
Photo, Elliott & Fry
SIR CLAUDE MACDONALD
The Marquis Salvago sits chatting with his wife, a very beautiful woman, in a chaise longue most of his time. M. Pichon, the French Minister, nervously and ceaselessly walks about, telling every one who chats with him: “La situation est excessivement grave; nous allons tous mourir ce soir.” M. de Giers, the Russian Minister, walks eternally between his Legation and the British compound, and looks every inch a Minister. Poor Señor Cologan, the Spanish Minister, and doyen of the corps, is very ill. M. Knobel, the Dutch Minister, offered his services as a sentry to the Committee on Defences, but stated at the same time that he did not know how to shoot, and was very short-sighted. Needless to say, his offer was not accepted. Mr. Conger, the American Minister, walks about. Sir Claude Macdonald, the British Minister, is now the Commander-in-Chief, unanimously elected to that position by his colleagues, and he tries sincerely to do his duty as such. I believe he is fully competent, as he used to be a captain in the British army before entering the diplomatic service. His path is a thorny one, however; most of the Legations are so jealous of this compound being the centre and last stronghold par excellence, that they are outrageously inconsiderate of all orders issued, and, notwithstanding the great gravity of the situation, they put everything in Sir Claude’s way to keep his plans from reaching successful maturity. A small incident may be cited to show this horrid and prevalent spirit.
The French had put in an application with the Committee on Fortifications for picks and shovels to be sent to their Legation for important night barricade work. The missionary in charge of them at the British Legation failed to send them; either they were all in use on equally important work, or there was an oversight on his part. Having failed to receive them, Herr Von Rostand, the Austrian Chargé, who has joined the French in their compound, at twelve o’clock last night returned to the British Legation, where he and his wife were accepting Lady Macdonald’s hospitality, and took it upon himself to wake Sir Claude up, and insultingly shouted that Sir Claude was responsible, and he alone responsible; that the French Legation was not being properly defended, etc. (especially the etc.). Sir Claude said that he would discuss anything relative to the safety of the Legations at any time in the proper manner, but the way that Von Rostand spoke made it impossible for him to talk to him at all. The Von Rostands then took up their abode at the French Legation, which was natural more or less, as the Austrian soldiers are helping them.
A question going round the compound is: When the French and German Legations must be given up, where will the Von Rostands go? The fact that one is a Minister or Chargé does not help to find one new quarters, as every room, hall-way, and closet, was long ago appropriated. The charming doyen of the Corps Diplomatique, the Spanish Minister, Señor Cologan, sleeps on a mattress in the tiny hall of the house that was given to the French Minister for himself and official family. He has to go to bed late and get up early because people have to walk over him. He has a tiny shelf on which to put his few toilet possessions, but he sleeps in all his clothes, as everyone sees him. The Dutch Minister sleeps in a tiny storeroom of the very small Second Secretary’s house, that we now call the Russian Legation, where the fifty-one people composing M. de Giers’s official personnel are housed. As this room is a storeroom, his nights are a constant fight with cockroaches. Such is the way rank is treated when it is a fight for life.
July 16.
A steady rain has begun that promises to last for several days, a sure but not very heavy downpour, and with it comes a greater number of mosquitoes and fleas than would otherwise be the case. The sticky black flies seem to be of a different family from those one is accustomed to elsewhere. It is awful to see them feasting themselves on these filthy and ill-smelling Chinese people, half of whose bodies are usually covered with a hundred of these pests; but the Chinese are so accustomed to them that when they prepare their food they do not object if some, or I should say a great many, get into it. The “slaughter-house,” of course, is a great centre for these disgusting flies, and as we are only a few doors from it, the feeling of having these beasts swarming over everything in one’s room, oneself included, is distinctly unpleasant. To an imaginative person, who may have been so unfortunate as to study “The Life of the Microbe,” these scavenger flies would certainly cause him to lose his mind.
The room at the back of Dr. Poole’s house, which we occupy, is damp, and all night the fleas and cockroaches that appear would horrify anyone. We sent our mosquito-nets and hair-mattresses to the hospital, so that every night we lie on our straw-stuffed bag, doing duty as a mattress, on the floor, and unless one lies in a pool of bug-powder there is no such thing as sound sleep. Until quite recently we had no insect-powder, and the nights were unimaginable. Our bodies were most frightfully bitten. Lately, however, a steward at the hospital concocted a powder of materials which he had on hand. It makes one sneeze, it is so powerful; but under these circumstances sneezing is a joy. One knows our arch-enemies are dying, although this does not affect the ungetatable mosquito, who sings on nightly.