Our anxiety has been something frightful, and at this moment, many days since we were told that troops were coming to our relief, we are apparently no nearer rescue than at first. We can’t comprehend it. Night before last, after being driven away by our hot rifle fire, the Boxers turned on the defenseless shopkeepers in the southern city, and burned many acres of the best business places and native banks.
They also burned the great city gate, known as the Chien Men, an imposing structure of many stories high, which must have illuminated the surrounding country for miles. Surely our troops must have seen the glare, if they were within forty miles of us. We begin to fear they have met with an overwhelming force of Chinese soldiers, and have been driven back to Tientsin.
The tsung-li-yamen, or foreign office, is utterly powerless, and yet it continues to send us messages stating it is going to protect us, and it has the Empress issue daily edicts, which, while apparently condemning the Boxers, really encourage them.
MAIN GATE TO PEKING, DESTROYED BY BOXERS SEPT. 16, 1900
This is one of Peking’s main and most imposing gates. Notice the massive building above the wall; note the solidity of the wall itself; an idea of its great height can be formed by noticing how small a proportion is occupied by the arch and yet how small a proportion of the arch is actually required for the passing vehicles.
The Manchu soldiers have stood idly by in thousands, and have seen the frightful butcheries of converts and suspected converts, without raising a finger to interfere. When questioned why they did not obey the edicts authorizing them to repress arson and looting they have replied, “We have other instructions.”
Mauser bullets are nightly fired at our sentries, and every night we have to turn out a number of times to repel the cowardly natives, whom we find sneaking down upon us, and who dare attack only under cover of darkness.
The behavior of our women and children under these circumstances has been remarkable, and their courage and bravery above all praise.