confusion in the Palace that nobody knows anything reliable.




XI

SOME MEN AND THINGS


16th June, 1900.

* * * * *

No developments have taken place during the past few hours. So far
very few men have been conspicuous; and as it is these few who have
brought about the only developments, and outlined our position, and
that they are to-day all terribly tired, we have absolute monotony. I
have not heard what the German Minister has been doing, but it is
rumoured that he is engaged in trying to re-establish communication
with Tientsin and the sea by bribing the Tsung-li Yamen smaller
officials to take down packets of his despatches by pony-express. It
seems doubtful whether this will succeed. For all communication has
absolutely ceased now, and the Customs postal carriers say that it is
impossible to get through by any stratagem, as all the roads are
swarming with Boxers and banditti. The Chinese Government, in its few
despatches to some of the Legations, is clearly temporising and trying
to save itself. There is no means of knowing what is going on inside
the Palace, or of understanding what the Empress Dowager has decided.
Everybody says it is all topsy-turvydom now in the capital, and that