The Boxer movement of 1900 came as a great surprise, at any rate to the majority of the Powers, and during the outbreak the sole aim of some of the legations seemed to be to secure their own advantage and defeat the aspirations of the rest. This might partly explain how the most guilty persons escaped punishment, and the old state of affairs in China soon returned.
The foreign ministers came back and occupied their new quarters, protected by thicker walls, which the Boxers would have more difficulty in pulling down. I do not know whether I ought to take all I was told about these fortifications seriously, but the garden walls seemed to have been built in the belief that they were indestructible. A few hundred soldiers are kept here by the respective Powers to protect their subjects in case of war. They might suffice in the event of a street riot, but if this nation of four hundred millions should some day determine to act in unison, these walls and the ornamental sentries would, I am afraid, make a very poor defence. In fact, it is hardly to be believed that, if China were once more to attack the European legations, she would employ a mob for the purpose. It is more likely that she will wait until her army is reorganized and armed with modern rifles and Krupp guns.
The new quarter exhibits the same defects as the old. The walls, indeed, are a little higher and the barracks have additional wings, but they remain isolated as before.
It is always a difficult task to throw up defensive works within a city—even the value of the most efficient is questionable; but, if these precautionary measures were absolutely needful, it would certainly have been better to enclose the entire European quarter with a stronger common wall, as is the case with the Imperial city. This would have made it possible for the garrisons of the legations to defend any point attacked conjointly. And it would have had the further advantage that a really pretty, shady town would have been built in the Anglo-Indian style, amongst earthworks planted with trees, instead of a number of insanitary separate walled prisons.
Or would it not have been better to build the European town outside the city gate, between the canal and the railway, where the movement of Pekin is least felt? Neither money nor concessions were wanting, and, both for hygienic and strategical reasons, it would have been far better. The air is purer there, and, in the event of danger, the chances of escape or of obtaining assistance from without are far greater.
The present European quarter in Pekin reminds one of a town which has been rebuilt, after violent earthquakes, on the same spot and in the same way, on that most unsubstantial foundation—chance.
IV
THE TARTAR CITY
The outward appearance of the city, with the exception of the European quarter, is the same as of yore. The ground plan of Pekin is very regular, and is formed of two squares, one the Tartar, the other the Chinese town, each surrounded by a separate wall, with a total number of thirteen gates, with gigantic double-roofed towers.
The centre is occupied by the Imperial city, within which is the Purple or Forbidden City, and inside this we come at last to the Emperor's palaces, private mansions, villas, tea-houses, and temples. The Imperial Palace is itself intersected by gardens, lakes, and streams, and looks more like a city than a palace, nay, like a miniature picture of this whole-walled country.
