A LADY IN PEKIN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 11644, 4 May 1901, Page 1 (Supplement)

A LADY IN PEKIN.

LADY .MacDONALD'R STORY OF THE EIGHT WEEKS' SIEGE AN!) DEFENCE OF TDK BRITISH LEGATION. It was a strange crowd huddled within the walls of the British Legation at Pekin during those two hot and weary months last summer, when the foreigners were fighting for their lives against the yellow hordes of Imperial troops and not'less Imperial Boxers.

Seventeen nationalities were jostling each other there : nine hundred souls compressed within limits which usually held but sixty. For food, a scanty ration of pony or mule flesh, made into soup; Indian corn, rice, black bread. For occupation, the making of sheets, pillow-cases, and shirts for the hundred and thirty sick and wounded in the hospital, and the construction out of rich silks and brocades of some 50.000 sandbags to fend off the enemy's lire.

The daily round of duties was done to a weird accompaniment. In the distance sounded the uncanny note, of Chinese horns marshalling more troops in order; over the Legation compound the bullets screamed and whizzed unceasingly, and from the City wall came at intervals the boom of Chinese guns, aimed so well thai on one occasion a. shell fell within four inches of a lady's pillow, and another exploded on the very spot where the British Minister had been standing a few minutes before. The story of those terrible eight weeks is admirably told by Lady MVicDonald in the Lady's Magazine, and if is a stirring picture which the. British Minister's brave wife unconsciously paints of the courage and unselfishness of the. devoted little band of men and women who set themselves the task of mitigating for the rest the horrors of a siege which threatened every day to have so unspeakable an ending. NOT ALT- GLOOXI. Yet with tragedy looming so near, and the threat, of it whistling through the air till at times the bullets fell like rain, "causing the leaves to fall as if in autumn," there was no pause in the daily business of living, and though these were anxious hours, says Lady Mac Donald, the siege was not all gloom'. "Characters which .needed some severe test came out for good or bad the. one predominating feature of all was pluck; the nervous people could be counted on two hands. " Children, indifferent to the almost everpresent ping and whizz of bullets, with bits of red sashes tied round them, played at being Boxers, built miniature barricades, fired imaginary guns, divided themselves into attacking and defending parties, and vied with each other in picking up bullets and bits of shell." As the weary days went on, however, and the little band, cut off from the outer world, iJeard no tidings of the help that was so long in coining, the youngest of the children drooped anil pined in the vitiated air, and six or seven died, while strong men broke down from sheer strain, and others were carried off by typhoid. One, a Swede, went mad. and had to be placed under restraint. He escaped, and made his way to the enemy's camp, where in his delirium he gave the Chinese such information of the disposition of the defences as enabled them to redouble the effectiveness of their attack'. Lady Mac-Donald here tolls? for the first, time the inner story of Sir Claude's memorable message to the foreign troops at Tientsin. A small boy of thirteen volunteered to carry a message through the enemy's lines, and dressed, as a beggar, with the message secreted in a bowl of rice, he set dauutles.-ly out. on a journey full of perils, which occupied sixteen days in the accomplishment and nearly as many in the return. The Bell lower was used as the news centre, and here all and sundry communications were pinned on to big boards. One of these notices was to the effect that: "From to-day everyone will be placed on half rations of bread and pony." Another ran : " Found, in a garment sent to be washed, a set of false teeth. Owner can have them by applying to president of the laundry." This claim was never made. Here is a pathetic: notice, speaking of illness: "For exchange, anything in my storeroom for a bottle of Valentine's meat juice." ax hour's wild delirium. For about a week before the day of deliverance, the enemy's fire became incessant. " Night and day the noise beat in our ears. until there were moments when one felt one would go mad. At last one hot, hot night, August 13, the enemy seemed to become desperate. We had not a moment's peace; bullets, diversified by an occasional wellphwtted shell, came pattering and crashing on to the roofs.

"It was pandemonium. Sleep was impossible, a.nd things looked so ugly that the [headed alarm bell was rang twice between the hours of seven and twelve and the reserves and volunteers stood to their arms ready for anv emergencies. "About 2 a.m. I heard the unmistakable rattle of Maxims. Almost afraid to believe mv ears, I woke my husband, who, worn out, had fallen asleep, and soon the compound was alive and mad with joy. In Cti~ brilliant, moonlight, men and women, in sketchiest, attire, were running- about lauguing, crying, shaking hands, scarcely knowing what they were about. The only sad one among us was the unhappy widow ol tin German Minister." After an hour's wild delirium, silence settled down mice more, but it was no longer a, silence bom of despair. All the next morning the firing of the heavy guns crept closer and closer, until at hall-past one an excited messenger from the Tartar City v. all reported that troops were coming througn the water gale. "A lew minutes afterwards. with loud cheering, a, handful ot Sikhs, tired, bee-rimed with dust, and pouring with heat, dashed on to the tennis lawn, waving their guns. At their head was Major Scott, of the 3rd Sikhs. Jhe Britishers were in first, and we were saved.