Perhaps, after looking at this picture, there will not be so much wonder that occasionally a Caucasian selects a Chinese girl for a wife. That there are very attractive Chinese girls this picture evidences. The clothing, the ornaments, and the surroundings are all typical.
Many of the ponies that took part in the Peking spring meeting as racers, last May, have since served us with juicy steaks or toothsome sausages. The mule-meat is considered to be better, on the whole, than horse-meat, and in this opinion I fully concur. As we have only one donkey in the compound, none of us has as yet tried donkey-flesh; but the Chinese assure us it is even better than the larger animals.
Several days since one of the two cows in the compound, having gone dry, was killed for food, and a notice was placed on the bulletin board at the bell-tower that applications for portions of the meat would be received from all women and children, but that only such men as were wounded or ill could, upon a physician’s certificate, receive a portion.
Every one wanted some, expecting to highly enjoy a taste of fresh beef and a change from horse. The result was most disappointing. The cow was old and tough, and her flesh infinitely inferior to the regular ration of horse or mule.
The Chinese Christians, supported by us in the Su Wang Fu, having been for weeks upon nothing but cracked wheat or “hao liang” gruel, were longing for some animal food, and begged they might be given some of the dogs that continued to come from all over the city to feed each night upon the refuse in the moat between the Su Wang Fu and the British legation.
A few foreigners with shotguns, therefore, sallied forth yesterday and killed eight good-sized specimens of the canine race, that were forthwith handed over to the hungry converts for their consumption. Dog-hunting as a food supply will not be neglected in the future.
As after July 18th the shelling ceased, and some of the enemies’ soldiers, with an eye to business, brought a few eggs to the Japanese barricade for sale, a market department was established and placed under the care of Messrs. A. D. Brent and J. M. Allardyce, where eggs could be obtained pro rata for numbers of women and children in a household, compared with the supply on hand. These eggs were sold at four cents each. But often the supply only admitted of one egg being sold to a household of women or children. At other times an egg each could be obtained daily. But alas! the Chinese soldiers soon found out what their soldiers were doing, and promptly stopped it, so that after August 6th the market was obliged to close from lack of eggs.
On July 20th, two days after the shelling ceased, the tsung-li-yamen sent a present to the ministers of one hundred watermelons, seventy eggplants, sixty vegetable squashes, and one hundred cucumbers. Some few of the besieged, besides the diplomats, thus obtained the first taste of fresh vegetables they had enjoyed for a month.
The ministers’ request to the yamen that vegetable-venders be allowed to come to the barricades or the great gate, however, was denied, and we have since had no further supply. It is hard to know that within half a mile of us in any direction there is an abundance of fresh fruits and vegetables, and yet, owing to the closeness of our investment by the hostile troops, we cannot obtain a cent’s worth.