us as honoured guests probably cursed our race as soon
as our backs were turned, and that if the people had not understood
from the presence of troops and from the magistrates'
marked personal attentions that we were not to be molested,
we might have met with violence in a dozen places. The
opinions of such experienced men were not to be lightly set
aside.

All I can say is that on these suppositions the Chinese are
masters of the art of dissimulation, for in all our journeyings
through the very heart of the region where the Boxers originated,
and where the anti-foreign hatred was said to be bitterest,
we saw not a sign of unfriendliness. The typical official received
us with the courtesy of a ``gentleman of the old school.''
The vast throngs that quickly assembled at every stopping
place, while silent, were respectful. We tried to behave decently
ourselves, to speak kindly to every man, to pay fair
prices for what we bought; in short, to act just as we would
have acted in America. And every man to whom we smiled,
smiled in return. Wherever we asked a civil question we got
a civil answer. Coolies would stop their barrows, farmers
leave their fields to direct us aright. In all our travelling in
the interior, amid a population so dense that we constantly
marvelled, we never heard a rude word or saw a hostile sign.
I naturally find it difficult to believe that those pleasant,
obliging people would have killed us if they had not been restrained
by their magistrates, and that the officials who exerted
themselves to show us all possible honour would have gladly
murdered us if they had dared.