In our regular military hospital were several Tartar soldiers, some of them severely wounded, who had been picked up on the field of battle by our establishments, and now treated like our own men. In due time they recovered from their injuries as far as art could effect their restoration; they came to appreciate the comforts of their position so much that among their numbers no anxiety was expressed to be discharged. Application was made to the Chinese local authorities to receive them. The reply by them was to the effect that “the men having fallen in battle, they were officially dead; there being no precedent of dead men coming to life again, they could in no way recognise or acknowledge them.” A liberal sum of money was subscribed by us for them; it was distributed among them; they were then, with military formalities, handed over to the local authorities, to be by them sent on to the care of the British Representative at Pekin. Before being so disposed of, they were seen by the bishop already mentioned. To his question, “What do you now think of the Barbarian doctors?” the answer given by one was that he could no longer fight as an infantry soldier, but he might do so as a cavalry man; by a second, that “he had been left upon the field dead, his wife a widow, his children orphans. By the care shown to him, he had been lifted up from death, fitted to return to and work for those dependent upon him; nor had he breath in his chest sufficient to express his gratitude for it all.”

Among the inmates of the hospitals pertaining to our force were some of the Sikhs who, during the advance of the army on Pekin, had the misfortune to be taken prisoners, and subsequently subjected to cruelties as already mentioned. Their wrists bore large cicatrices, marking the position of the cords with which they had been so tightly bound that ulcers in which maggots crawled were results, the agony so great that several of their companions in misery had become delirious, and died under it. On September 18, a party of eighteen, including an officer, all of Fane’s Horse, were taken prisoners; of them the officer and eight sowars succumbed under the atrocious cruelties to which they were subjected, the remaining nine being now in hospital.[233] But it would serve no good purpose to give particulars in regard to these sad occurrences.

Our French allies suffered in health during the period of greatest cold to an extent even greater than did our own men, the circumstance being readily accounted for by the fact that the former were insufficiently provided with warm clothing; indeed, many of them were dressed as when on board the transport ship in which several months previous they had been brought, via the Red Sea, to China. Whereas with us, every honour was shown at the burial of such soldiers as succumbed to the circumstances of our position, no such formality was seen by any of us in the quarter occupied by the French; but as day by day the black wooden crosses increased in number in their cemetery, these silent tokens told that they too had the hand of death among them. A temple had been converted by the French into a military hospital; the sick accommodated therein well cared for, its administration altogether under the Intendance, the duties of medical officers limited to professional attendance on the patients. Among the latter was a soldier who bore marks precisely like those of our own men already alluded to as having been made prisoners and tortured, he having been of their party.

While the winter cold was most intense an epidemic of small-pox raged among the native Chinese, and to a less degree among both the British and French portions of our combined force. In the latter, General Collineau, its commanding officer, was an early victim. As he expressed himself before he lost consciousness, it was hard that after having escaped the dangers of various campaigns, including thirty battles, he should come to Tientsin to die of such a disease. He entered the army as a private soldier, obtained each succeeding step for services in the field, culminating in that of general officer for the Italian campaign.

Our British soldiers suffered severely in health, and, what was remarkable, to a greater extent than did the Sikhs, although the latter paid less attention to warm clothing and care of their persons in other respects than the British soldier. Our officers were affected variously; the younger, and those who had not undergone tropical service, enjoyed the cold weather immensely; but with those of us who had but recently undergone the wear and tear incidental to the Mutiny campaign, things were very different, the severity of the winter cold inducing among us serious illness.

CHAPTER XXII
1861. TIENTSIN. CHEFOO. NAGASAKI. DEVONPORT

Fraternity of beggars—​Relief fund—​A Buddhist nunnery—​A Buddhist temple—​Ancestral worship—​A pantheistic mosque—​A Chinese dinner—​An opium den—​A missionary plan—​Postal arrangements—​Remittances—​Vegetation—​Birds—​Mr. Bruce proceeds to Pekin—​Camp formed—​The Spirit of Fire—​French “ideas”—​“Sheep grows its own wool”—​Taipings—​Sir John Mitchell—​Sickness among troops—​Emperor dies—​Trip to Chefoo—​Town and vicinity—​Taoist temple—​Resume duty—​The force breaking up—​Nagasaki—​Places visited—​Embark—​Homeward bound—​Aden—​Cairo and Alexandria—​Death of Prince Consort—​Devonport.

The Fraternity of Beggars constitutes one of the institutions peculiar to Tientsin, the numbers of mendicants to be met with being very great indeed, comprising old and young, fat and lean, the healthy, the deformed, and the diseased. One particular class are to be seen almost devoid of clothing on the upper part of their persons, even in the coldest weather, when the thermometer ranges from zero to a few degrees above, the use of thick clothing and furs by most people considered indispensable; yet that their health in no way suffered from such exposure was evident by their appearance. Another notable class represent to some degree the order Flagellants, their appeals for charity emphasized by a series of self-inflicted blows on their bodies by means of a piece of wood or a brick-bat. These several classes live in communities, one of which I visited. In a wretched hut, in coldest winter, destitute of fire, thirty-five men, all in a state of nudity, were huddled together, having a cubic space per head of 57 feet. The atmosphere was foul and offensive, the inmates for the most part strong, and to all appearance healthy. Here, as in China generally, the rule that “once a beggar, always a beggar,” has few, if indeed any, exceptions.