Transcriber’s Note
The cover image was restored by Thiers Halliwelland is placed in the public domain.
See endof this document for details of corrections and other changes.
THE ATTACHE AT PEKING
THE ATTACHE
AT PEKING
BY
A. B. FREEMAN-MITFORD, C.B.
AUTHOR OF ‘TALES OF OLD JAPAN,’ ‘THE BAMBOO GARDEN,’ ETC.
London
MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited
new york: the macmillan company
1900
All rights reserved.
[v]
PREFACE
These letters were written many years ago, butin China, and especially at Peking, the old orderchanges slowly, and they are at any rate afaithful record of the life which was led by thosewhose duties lay, as the Chinese say, “withinthe walls.” They profess no more than that.Those who wish to learn more about Chinaand Chinese manners must go to that monumentalwork of the late Dr. Wells Williams,The Middle Kingdom, to Sir John Davies’sfascinating book, The Chinese, or to ProfessorDouglas’s book on Chinese society.
It will occur to many people to ask how itcomes that we should have lived for so manyyears peacefully, travelling through the countryunarmed, in the midst of a people capable of[vi]the atrocities which have recently taken place.China is of all countries the land of contradictionand of paradox. But I think that thosewho read these letters will see that though,for obvious reasons, they were written in aspirit of optimism, there was an undercurrentof feeling that at any moment things mightbecome very different. For instance, if theinsurrection in Shantung had not been quelled,and the rebels had marched upon Peking,which was undoubtedly part of their programme,the tragedy of 1900 might, andprobably would, have been anticipated in1865. Moreover, although we were riding atanchor in smooth water, there were from timeto time uncomfortable signs of disturbancebelow. I remember how on more than oneoccasion we were warned that on such andsuch a day there would be a massacre ofEuropeans for the old reason, the murder ofbabies whose eyes were used for purposes ofphotography. These stories were put aboutby intriguing mandarins, who succeeded indeceiving even some of