normally as to find us quietly retreating down the Tientsin road.
Others kept sending out servants to discover at what price carts would
undertake to drive the whole way down to the sea, or at least to
Tientsin. Forty, fifty, and even one hundred taels were demanded for
three days' work; and then, although the carters said they would come
if the government sends proper escorts of soldiers as has been
promised, Heaven only knows if they will ever dare to move near our
stricken quarter. Still in some Legations they ordered fifty carts at
any price, with the most lavish promises of reward for those that
could manage to secure them. All the official servants soon came back
trembling, saying that they had found a few carts, but that it was _pu
yi t'ing_--not at all sure whether the carters would dare to move when
daylight came. For the whole city is already in a fresh uproar; people
are flying in every direction in the night. Stories come in of
officials who have been pulled out of their chairs and forced to
_K'et'ou_ to Boxers to show their respect to the new power. Prince
Tuan has been appointed President of the Tsung-li Yamen, high Manchus
have been placed in charge of the Boxer commands, and rice is being
issued to them from the Imperial granaries. There is no end to the
tales that now come in, since everybody has understood that there is
no need for concealment and that there is going to be some sort of
war. At two o'clock I even began to get news of what the Empress
Dowager had been doing, and how the Boxer partisans had become so
strong that it was absolutely impossible to hope for anything but the
worst.

Once when I got some details which I thought of importance, I tried to
find my chief in order to communicate it to him. But he was lost in
the middle of the night, conferring unofficially with some of his
colleagues; and I could but feel immensely amused when in his office I