June 10. Five hundred marines and sailors left Tientsin to relieve us. They can get as far as Anting, twenty miles south of here, by train, and will then have to march the remainder of the distance. If prompt they should arrive to-morrow. Methodist mission is fortifying the place with strong brick walls and barbed wire.
After this telegram I was notified that the wires south were cut, and sent only one message more, on July 12, by way of Kiachta, relating the murder of the Japanese secretary and urging prompt government action looking to our rescue.
The history of the growth of the Boxer movement seems to me to have been clearly shown by these telegrams, so that any one of ordinary understanding could have been, by June 1, if in possession of this series of dispatches, fully acquainted with the situation.
The United States minister, the British minister, and the French minister were each acquainted with all the above major facts and much more minor detail.
CHAPTER IV
DIARY OF THE AUTHOR FROM JUNE 1 TO JUNE 20
CHAO SHU CHIAO