It is just seven weeks to-day since we came here for a few days until the troops should arrive, and food is running very short. There is, moreover scarcely any condensed milk in the compound Another European baby died yesterday, simply from lack of food. It lay in its little coffin looking so white and tired. Out of pity for the mothers the hospital steward makes little rough coffin-boxes for their babies. All mothers who have children and infants who are ill or weak seem fascinated by these pitiful funerals, and they all go to them.
There is a good, busy old hen who lays an egg every day. She is given an entire deserted courtyard in the American Legation, a part of which is not in use, and I have fed her personally, or seen that she has been fed, ever since I placed her there at the beginning of the siege. There are three babies here, ranging in age from twelve to eighteen months, who are slowly dying from lack of digestible food, I give an egg to each mother every third day. The eggs are beautifully fresh, and the horror of it all is that these agonized mothers know, and I know, that, could I give the egg to them each day, instead of every third day, their babies could probably live; but as I can’t, I have to divide them, and I cry with the pity of it.
Unless the troops come soon it is dreadful to think of the fate of the Chinese Christians in the Fu. Until now we have been able to give them a certain amount of food daily, but we can only spare this supply a few more days. These poor people will be forced to choose between leaving the Fu, with an almost certain chance of massacre, probably of torture, and staying where they are and dying of starvation.
No description of this place can give an idea of it as it exists to-day. To turn to Doré’s engravings in Dante’s “Inferno” would help. Every tree in the Fu, and there are many, has been stripped of leaves by these starving people; the smaller branches pulled and the bark chewed off. Diseased or not, these wretched people have been forced to remain here all together, as there is no other place for them. Carrion crows and dogs are killed and dragged to the Fu by sentries whenever possible, and these ravenous creatures pull the flesh from their bones and eat it without a pretence of cooking. Every morning when the two horses are shot at the slaughter-house, for distribution to the messes, half of the inedible parts are eaten with relish by these starving people.
The heat is intense, the ground in the Fu is brown and hard, the children are naked, and the adults wear little, but one and all are enveloped with the agony of relentless, hideous starvation. The white rice which we have used in the compound has been finished, and we now use the yellow or uncleaned rice, which is very sandy and gritty, and which even the coolies in ordinary times would never think of using. It is made into curries or eaten plain, but one has to swallow it in spoonfuls without closing one’s teeth on it, or it would be too much like chewing sand.
To-day a letter came from the Yamen saying that Li Hung Chang had arrived in Shanghai, and that he would soon begin peace negotiations by telegraph with the Ministers in Peking. Not a word was mentioned about our leaving for Tien-tsin, nor an apology for the continued sniping at night, and the occasional attacks which make us realize the lie that we are being “tenderly cared for and watched over by the Empress.” Apropos of this clever old statesman, Li Hung Chang, the story is told of him that when, after some months of hard work and successful diplomacy, he had completed the terms of the treaty of Shimonoseki with the Japanese after the China-Japan War of 1894, although the Chinese had been whipped, Li had procured a most advantageous treaty for his Empress, and while the ink was hardly dry on the document he procured an audience with T’si An, and after kowtowing the entire length of the audience-hall in great abasement, he finally reached her august presence and told her of the successful termination of the work she had entrusted to him.
All high Chinese officials are supposed to get plenty of legitimate “squeeze” out of their political sinecures, and expect no monetary remuneration from the Government or throne. At the end of the interview the Empress made a sign to him to indicate that he would receive a personal present for his services, which would be given him in the anteroom. Li Hung Chang had always been a great collector of Chinese ceramics, and his collections were promptly sold by him to the highest bidder at Christie’s in London for many pounds sterling. He was, in fact, notorious for this weakness, and it was well known that he would sell anything he owned, provided the amount offered was large enough, from the Russian sable coat in his own wardrobe to the fine latest antique, delicate-tinted rose vase he had procured. On leaving the audience-chamber, his eyes sparkled when a large cloth-of-gold bag, containing some heavy article, was handed to him by a eunuch. He flew to his own palace, hardly able to wait for his secretary, Mr. Pethick, who is one of the greatest connoisseurs on ancient Chinese art, to arrive and examine this new acquisition, which had come straight from the Empress-Dowager’s treasure store. Some time was spent in a careful examination to determine the dynasty during which this treasure was produced, but the date of this especial paste was lost, with its other technical classifications. After a long time Mr. Pethick lifted it gingerly, placed it on a table, put himself in front of it, drawing a wrap around his shoulders, and slowly, very slowly, held his hands up to it, turning them in the attitude of warming them at a fire.
Chinese need few words. Li understood, and was heart-broken. This was a clever reproduction made in Paris, and the secretary warming his hands before it meant it was so fresh from the pottery furnace that he could still notice the warmth. Naughty old Empress, fooling her most faithful of servitors!
Last night there was a very severe attack, coming from all sides at once, and the firing continued for many hours. It is outrageous, considering the letters we get every day from the Yamen, declaring to us that they give orders to their soldiers daily that there must be no more shooting.
It seems as though this “Chinese diplomacy” may be successful, and they may succeed in starving us out first. By negotiating indefinitely with our Governments and Li Hung Chang in Shanghai, and having assured the Powers we are quite safe, with plenty of food, they may be able to keep us here starving. What a refinement of cruel Chinese diplomacy that would be!