robbers flocked to their standards with every new conquest,
impelled by no higher motive than that of pillage and gain.
Rumours became rife in every village and hamlet, and as they
neared the capital the wildest tales were told in every nook and
corner of the city, from the palace of the young Emperor in the
Forbidden City to the mat shed of the meanest beggar beneath the
city wall.

My wife says: "I remember just after going to China, sitting one
evening on a kang, or brick bed, with Yin-ma, an old nurse, our
only light being a wick floating in a dish of oil. Yin-ma was
about the age of the Empress Dowager, but, unlike Her Majesty,
her locks were snow-white. When I entered the dimly lighted room
she was sitting in the midst of a group of women and
girls--patients in the hospital--who listened with bated breath
as she told them of the horrors of the Tai-ping rebellion.

" 'Why!' said the old nurse, 'all that the rebels had to do on
their way to Peking, was to cut out as many paper soldiers as
they wanted, put them in boxes, and breathe upon them when they
met the imperial troops, and they were transformed into such
fierce warriors that no one was able to withstand them. Then when
the battle was over and they had come off victors they only
needed to breathe upon them again, when they were changed into
paper images and packed in their boxes, requiring neither food
nor clothing. Indeed the spirits of the rebels were everywhere,
and no matter who cut out paper troops they could change them
into real soldiers.'

" 'But, Yin-ma, you do not believe those superstitions, do you?'