The Last Days of Pekin - Pierre Loti

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cannon on all sides begin a military welcome for our admiral, beneath the heavy curtain of black smoke; the gay light smoke from powder blossoms like sheaves and goes off in white masses, while up and down the iron masts the tricolor rises and falls in our honor. Everywhere trumpets sound, foreign bands play our Marseillaise—one is more or less intoxicated with this ceremonial, always the same yet always superb, which here borrows an unaccustomed magnificence on account of the display of the fleet.

      And now the sun is at last awake and shining, adding to the day of our arrival a last illusion of midsummer heat, in this country of extreme seasons; in two months' time it will begin to freeze up for a long winter.

      When evening comes, our eyes, which will weary of it soon enough, are feasted upon a grand fairy-like spectacle, given for us by the squadron. Suddenly electric lights appear on all sides, white, or green, or red, twinkling and sparkling in a dazzling manner; the big ships, by means of a play of lights, converse with one another, and the water reflects thousands of signals, thousands of lights, while the rockets race for the horizon or pass through the sky like delirious comets. One forgets all that breeds death and destruction in this phantasmagoria, and for the moment feels oneself in the midst of a great city, with towers, minarets, palaces, improvised in this part of the world especially for this extravagant nocturnal celebration.

      September 25.

      It is only the next day and yet everything is different. A breeze came up in the morning—hardly a breeze, just enough to spread over the sea big vague plumes of smoke. Already furrows are being made in this open and not very deep roadstead, and the small boats, continually going and coming, bob up and down bathed in spray.

      A ship with the German colors appears upon the horizon just as we appeared yesterday; it is immediately recognized as the Herta, bringing Field-Marshal von Waldersee, the last one of the military commanders expected at this meeting-place of the Allies. The salutes that yesterday were for us, begin anew for him, the whole magnificent ceremony is repeated. Again the cannon give forth clouds of smoke, mingling tufts of white with the denser variety, and the national air of Germany is taken up by all the bands, and borne on the rising wind.

      The wind whistles stronger, stronger and colder; a bad autumn wind, that plays about the whalers and the tugs, which yesterday circulated readily among the various groups of the squadron.

      It presages difficult days for us, for in this uncertain harbor, which in an hour's time becomes dangerous, we shall have to land thousands of soldiers sent from France and thousands of tons of war supplies. Many people and many things must be moved over this rough water, in barges or in small boats, in the cold and even in the night, and must be taken to Taku across the river's changing bar.

      To organize this long and perilous undertaking is to be our task—that of the marines—during the first few months, an austere, exhausting, and obscure rôle without apparent glory.

       AT NING-HIA

       Table of Contents

      Oct. 3, 1900.

      In the gulf of Petchili on the beach at Ning-Hia, lighted by the rising sun. Here are sloops, tugs, whalers, junks, their prows in the sand, landing soldiers and war supplies at the foot of an immense fort whose guns are silent. On this shore there is a confusion and a babel such as has been seen in no other epoch of history. From these boats where so many people are disembarking, float pell-mell all the flags of Europe.

      The shore is wooded with birches and willows, and in the distance mountains with strange outlines raise their peaks to the clear sky. There are only northern trees, showing that the winters in this country are cold, and yet the morning sun is already burning; the far-off peaks are magnificently violet, the sun shines as in Provence. Standing about among the sacks of earth collected for the erection of hasty defences, are all kinds of people. There are Cossacks, Austrians, Germans, English midshipmen, alongside of our armed sailors; little Japanese soldiers, with a surprisingly good military bearing in their new European uniforms; fair ladies of the Russian Red-Cross Society, busy unpacking material for the ambulances; and Bersaglieri from Naples, who have put their cock-feathers onto colonial caps.

      There is something about these mountains in this sunshine, in this limpid air, that recalls the shores of the Mediterranean on autumn mornings. Not far away an old gray structure rises among the trees, twisted, crooked, bristling with dragons and monsters. It is a pagoda. The interminable line of ramparts which winds about and finally loses itself behind the summits of the mountains in the distance, is the Great Wall of China, which forms the boundary of Manchuria.

      The soldiers who disembark barefooted in the sand, gaily calling out to one another in all tongues, seem to be the sort who are easily amused. What they are doing to-day is called "a peaceful capture," and it seems more like a celebration of universal fusion, of universal peace, yet not far from here, in the vicinity of Tien-Tsin and of Pekin, the country is in ruins and is strewn with the dead.

      Copyright, 1901, by J. C. Hemment French Cavalry Orderly with Despatches

      The necessity for occupying Ning-Hia, of holding it as a base of supplies, had been impressed upon the admirals of the international squadron, and day before yesterday all the ships had prepared for a struggle, knowing that the forts on the shore were well armed; but the Chinese who lived here, warned by an official that a formidable company of cuirassiers would appear at daybreak, preferred to leave the place—so we found it deserted on our arrival.

      The fort which overlooks the shore and which forms the terminus of the Great Wall at its sea end, has been declared international.

      The flags of the seven allied nations float there together, arranged in alphabetical order at the end of long poles guarded by pickets—Austria, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, Russia.

      The other forts scattered over the surrounding heights have been apportioned, the one belonging to France being situated about a mile from the shore. It is reached by a dusty road, bordered with birches and frail willows, which crosses gardens and orchards turning brown at the same season as our own—gardens exactly like ours, with modest rows of cabbages and pumpkins and long lines of lettuce. The little wooden houses too, scattered here and there among the trees, resemble those of our villages, with red tiled roofs, vines trained in garlands, and little beds of zinnias, asters, and chrysanthemums. It is a country which should be peaceful, happy, yet which has in two days' time become depopulated through fear of the approach of the invaders from Europe.

      On this fresh October morning the sailors and soldiers of all nations are hurrying and skurrying along the shaded road that leads to the French fort, seeking the pleasures of discovery; amusing themselves in a conquered land, catching chickens and pilfering salads and pears from the gardens. The Russians are taking down the Buddhas and gilded vases from a pagoda. The English are driving with sticks the cattle captured in the fields. The Dalmatians and the Japanese—fast friends of an hour's standing—are making their toilet together on the banks of a stream, and two Bersaglieri who have caught a little donkey are riding it astride, almost bursting with laughter.

      And yet the sad exodus of Chinese peasants which began yesterday still continues; in spite of the assurance given them that no harm would be done to any one, those who were left felt themselves too near and preferred to flee. Whole families departed with bowed heads; men, women, children, all dressed alike in blue cotton gowns, and loaded with baggage, even the babies resignedly carrying their little pillows and mattresses.

      One scene was heart-breaking. An old Chinese woman—very, very old, perhaps a hundred years old—who could scarcely stand up, was going, God knows where, driven from her home, where a company of Germans had established themselves; she went away, dragging herself along with the help of two young lads who may have been her grandsons and who supported her as best they

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