XI
THE IMPOSSIBLE
30th September, 1900.
...
Prince Ching has been here a number of days now—I have not even taken the trouble to note how many—but still nothing has been done. They say that half the Powers refuse to treat with him until things are better arranged, and that the Russians have already raised insuperable difficulties because they say the Japanese have the big Manchu in their pocket. Others argue that expeditions must really be launched against a number of cities in Northern China, where hideous atrocities have been committed, and where missionaries and converts were butchered in countless numbers during the Boxer reign. Until these expeditions have marched and had their revenge, there can be no treating. There must be more killing, more blood. That is what people say.
The fleeing Court has reached Taiyuanfu, it is reliably reported. This is three hundred miles away, but the Court does not yet feel safe; it is going farther west, straight on to Hsianfu, the capital of Shensi province, which is seven hundred miles away. That is a big gulf to bridge; yet if there is any advance of European corps in that direction, already Chinese say that the Empress will flee into the terribly distant Kansu province—perhaps to Langchou, which is another four hundred miles inland; perhaps even to Kanchau or Suchau, which are five hundred miles nearer Central Asia. These cities, lying at the very southwestern extremity of the Great Wall of China, look out over the vast steppes of Mongolia, where there are nothing but Mongols belonging to many hordes, who live in the saddle and drive their flocks of sheep and their herds of ponies in front of them, forever moving. It is nearly two thousand miles in all; no European armies could ever follow, not in five years. They would slowly melt away on that long, interminable road. With such a line of retreat open the Court is absolutely safe, and knows it. It can act as it pleases.
Prince Ching is so miserably poor, they say, and has so little of the things he most needs, that he has been forced to borrow looted sycee from corps commanders and to give orders on the Southern Treaty ports in payment. It is an extraordinary situation.
A number of little expeditions have already been pushed out forty, fifty and even sixty miles into the country, feeling for any remnants of the Chinese armies which may remain. I went with one of these faute-de mieux, as Peking has become so gloomy, and there is so little to do that it fills one with an immense nostalgia to remain and continually to contemplate the ruins and devastation, from which there can be no escape.
Never shall I regret that little expedition into the rude hills and mountains, where climbs in wonderful manner the Great Wall of China. It was divine. There was a sense of freedom and of openness which no one who has not been a prisoner in a siege can ever experience. In the morning sweet-throated cavalry trumpets sounded a réveillé, which floated over hill and dale so chastely and calmly that one wished they might never stop. How those notes floated and trembled in the air, as grey daylight was gently stealing up, and how good the brown earth smelt! I almost forget the other kind of trumpet—that cruel Chinese trumpet which only shrieks and roars.
Each day we rode farther and farther away, and higher and higher, beating the ground and examining the villages, from which whole populations had fled, to see that no enemy was secretly lurking. Travelling in this wise, and presently climbing ever higher and higher, we came at last to little mountain burgs, with great thick outer walls and tall watch-towers, where in olden days the marauders from the Mongolian plains were held in check until help could be summoned from the country below. It was a wonderful experience to travel along unaccustomed paths and to come on endless ruined bastions and ivy-clad gates, which closed every ingress from Mongolia. Once these defences must have been of enormous strength.