During the weary weeks of the siege many fell under arms, and many more among the orphans and sisters of charity died of exhaustion.
The recent graves forming the small cemetery in the inner garden were dug to receive the bodies of these new martyrs.
But, after all, Christian faith triumphed over pagan hatred, and finally the hour of deliverance struck. And today Pei-tang and its cathedral stand finer and stronger than before, to the benefit of humanity and the glory of God.
III
THE NEW LEGATION QUARTERS
It is now a month since I arrived in Pekin. The autumn has passed quickly—and October is the finest time during the whole year in the yellow capital, for the weather is mild and clear. In the morning it is cool, and frosts are not rare at night. But later in the day the skies are cloudless, and the sun is often as hot as in summer. As regards climate—which, by the way, is an important factor in the life and progress of a nation—Pekin is a bundle of contrasts. The summer is hot, the winter extremely cold, the spring wet, and the autumn very dry. Since my arrival there has been no rain, but occasionally it has become cloudy, and as dark as if the sun were eclipsed. The wind, when blowing from the north, sweeps sand from the desert of Gobi before it, and shrouds the whole town in a veil as it were. This sand spreads over the whole atmosphere like a dense fog, through which one can hardly see a yard's distance. It penetrates windows, doors, even cracks, and buries the whole district like a stream of lava. After a sand-storm the sky clears, and becomes bluer than the blue dome of the Mediterranean, smooth and translucent as though cut out of a gigantic sapphire. This contrast between dull and bright weather seems to create two distinct towns; in the one all is gloomy, in the other all is bright. That is the reason why those who have described Pekin have either found everything sombre, or have looked upon it through rosy spectacles. The truth lies between the two extremes. I go so far as to say that each is correct—but only relatively.
The traveller who would describe Pekin ought to make daily notes of what he has seen and heard when he sees and hears it, and use light and shade as an artist on his canvas. He who adopts this method will be more successful than those who merely restrict themselves either to recording salient points, or matters of historical importance, or to advocating some political idea.
The longer I live within the walls of Pekin the more am I convinced that, in spite of her decadent condition, she is yet full of vitality and, like Constantinople, embodies a national ideal.
In the afternoon I stroll over to the international area and pay a visit to all the legations. My amiable guide, who was here during the siege, when so many of the defenders perished, can supply information as to many dark episodes of the Boxer rebellion, and shows me where the most serious attacks were made, how they bombarded the legations from the city wall over there, how they used to throw blazing torches on to the roofs of these houses, and how they tried to blow up that quarter.
Looking at the place now, it seems incredible that the garrison—a mere handful—should have been able to withstand the frenzied crowd; but one must not forget that it was a mob, not a disciplined army.
As to the French and English legations, the former was reduced nearly to ruins, while the latter suffered comparatively little damage, but lost more lives.