politics and political situations were not burning. Ministers
plenipotentiary and envoys extraordinary wore Terai hats, very old
clothes, and had an affable air--something like what Teheran must
still be. Then came the Japanese war, and the eternal political
situation. Russia started the ball rolling and the others kicked it
along. The Russo-Chinese Bank, appeared on the scenes led by the great
P----, a man with an ominous black portfolio continually under his
arm, as he hurried along Legation Street, and an intriguing expression
always on his dark face--a veritable master of men and moneys, they
say. This intriguing soon found Expression in the Cassini Convention,
denounced as untrue, and followed by a perfectly open and frank
Manchurian railway convention, a convention which, in spite of its
frankness, had future trouble written unmistakably on the face of it.
Besides these things there were always ominous reports of other
things--of great things being done secretly.

After the Russo-Chinese Bank and the Manchurian railway business,
there was the Kiaochow affair, then the Port Arthur affair, the
Weihaiwei and Kwangchowwan affairs, nothing but "affairs" all tending
in the same direction--the making of a very grave political situation.
The juniors to-day make fun of it, it is true, and greet each other
daily with the salutation, "_La situation politique est tres grave_,"
and laugh at the good words. But it is grave notwithstanding the
laughter. Once in 1899, after the Empress Dowager's _coup d'etat_ and
the virtual imprisonment of the Emperor, Legation Guards had to be
sent for, a few files for each of the Legations that possess squadrons
in the Far East, and, what is more, these guards had to stay for a
good many months. The guards are now no more, but it is curious that
the men they came mainly to protect us against--Tung Fu-hsiang's
Mohammedan braves from the savage back province of Kansu who love the