regard for Americans and American missionaries. But policy
was probably also a factor. The officials felt that any further
attack on foreigners would be a pretext for further foreign
aggression, an excuse for Germany to advance from Kiao-chou,
and they were anxious not to give occasion for it. Each
official was apparently determined to make it plain that he was
doing his duty in trying to protect these foreigners so that if
they got hurt it would not be his fault. Perhaps, too, he was
not averse to showing the populace that foreigners had to be
guarded. I was half ashamed to travel in that way. But I
could not help myself. Sometimes I felt that the guard was not
so much for us as for the Chinese, assuring nervous officials that
foreigners should have no further excuse for aggression and
warning the evil-disposed that they must not commit acts
which might get the officials into trouble.

Whatever the reasons were, they were plainly impersonal.
No one of us had any official status nor were we as individuals
of any consequence whatever to Chinese officials. We were
simply white men and as such we were regarded as representatives
of a race which had made its power felt. Perhaps
the soldiers and the orders of Governor Yuan Shih Kai had
much to do with the quietness of the people, but some way
I felt perfectly safe. Whether any attack would have been
made if I had been allowed to journey quietly with my one or
two missionary companions, I am not competent to judge.
Foreigners who had lived many years in China told me before
starting that my life would not be safe beyond rifle shot.
They have told me since that the profuse attentions that we received
were mere pretence, that the very officials who welcomed