THE CRISIS IN CHINA,

Otago Daily Times, Issue 11925, 25 December 1900, Page 2

THE CRISIS IN CHINA,

THE PAO-TING-FU EXPEDITION.

No. JT. THE ELUSIVE BOXER.

COUNTRY LTFE IN CHINA,

HOW THE AUSTRALIANS FARED.

(Br Ouk Special ConnESro.iDEXT ix China.)

TIENTSIN. November 13. As if. now known, neither of the columns advancing upon Pao-ting-fn, through the heart of (he Boxer country, mci. with any strong show of opposition. The Boxer element was undoubtedly present in every village ire passed through; but, deeming prudence better than valour in the face of a large force lileo ours, the members of the rebel soeieiy simply discarded their distinctive insignia, and came out to greet us at the village gates, a mere group of peasants welcoming the foreign stranger, offering him water for his horses, and politely bowing him out at the other end of the village. It is a difficult matter to fight an enemy when that enemy refuses to be an enemy any longer; ami as a Boxer without his uniform is simply a Chinese peasant, it, is hard for a puzzled army to effect anything. Mr Dooley has said that a light is not over when the man underneath has had enough; it is the man on top who decides that question. But in China things go by contraries, and the fight here is over as soon as,the Boxer underneath lias had enough. He simply says he' won't play— and there is an end of the matter. We can't fight him if he won't fight; but, of course, we can still punish him for his past misdeeds. That, i? a matter in which up to the present the Allies have shown a curious apathy, the result either of the civilised world's dislike to kirk a grovelling foe, or the difficulty of identifying the proper fallen foe to kick. THE CHINESE IMPERIALS.

TV position with regard to the Chinese Imperial soldiers was also a peculiar one. The Allies having decided that they were not .it war with China, left the Chinese Imperial soldiers in the position of a friendly force • which position the Chinese lost no opportunity to strengthen. As soon as the relief of Jicntsm and capture of the capital proved that the Boxer rebellion had failed, the Imperial soldiers, who had fought and whose military training had made them n foe besides which the Boxers were contemptible, turned upon the party they had aided, and resolved to sacrifice the Boxers rather than 'themselves. Prohablyacting under the orders of Li Hung Chang, as soon as the Chinese soldiers in the Pno-tinsr-fn district beard the news 01 our approaching expedition they set vigoro'^lv to work to fight their quondam allies. In all the towns we passed through on our march we heard of the presence of bodies of Chinese Imperial soldiers who bad been sent from Pno-ting-fu and the south in order to suopress the Bnxer, rising. This ingenious, tale, was repeated to us again and again, but evidently tlip soldiers were not too confident, of our belief in their protestations, for on our approach they invariably fled. From one town on (lie morning of the day of our arrival

tho last of a huge force of 1000 men had itist

withdrawn. These men had been billeted in the place for a fortnight, and had as a consequence eaten the inhabitants out of house nnd home. Our cavnlrv captured vori'-ns parties of armed Imperial soldiers, but the irenern! decide:! that lie could do nothing to them. Ho had to treat them as allies—unwelcome, rerhans.—and restored them to

liberty, with their arms and ammunition. The "ttitnde of thc>«e warriors towards our force i? perhaps best shown by a message which their le.ider sent to our general as wg were approarhiiiT the town of .Ten Chiu on our return march. Tho Chinese colonel wished to know whether our column was advancing to the city in peace or in war. If we desired peace. his troops would willingly come nut and "kow-tow" to us: but if we meant war, his troops would run away ! This was the simple nnd satsfnrtorv course he would nursue. Tt wns only a Chinaman who would have hit upon such a safe and easy solution of an awkward problem. As it happened, at the last moment lie distrusted our assurances that wo came on peace intent, and, with his army, he ran away!

THK COUNTRY. The whole of the march of 130 miles was over a pin in broken un by occasional dykes i niitl trpiv-lipq, b-jt for the most pnrt rendered nb-.olutelv level liy long cultivation. West of Pao-tiug-fn the hills rise—a continuation of the chain thai- pomes close to Poking; but between thes» cities raid the sea there is one raft plain d.oHnd with villages, and cultivated every inch. There i< no waste land in China.

except that triven up to the graves. These evidences of (he vast population of China are to be found everywhere. Outside every city

there is o hitjye rtiain covered virh circular mounds, lookine-like ant-bills, of all sizes: this i« tlio (rpiipwl cemetery. Ami pvery village and farm ha? near it some field piven over to the keeping of its (lend. But the reverpn.ee which promnts <he Chinese to leave these squares unfilled does not alwnvs rise sunerior to their instincts of thrift, nntl frequently the cultivation of the land encroaches noon the cemetery, tint often the mound" rise out of a field of kitolinne or wheat, How thickly the villages are scattered over the big plain hetvveen Pao-tincr-Fii and Tientsin may he gauged hv a calculation T made from aetunl observance on tl"» march: there is a village every two inilns in every direction throughout this plain. Our rnncl went from village to village—each usually set about with wiliow-i and pines, and often omfe hidden by Hie thick GTOWIIi nf foliage. T>>c plain* were onite tVcoless: every snare inch wns reouired for cultivation: hut about the villages tree* were crown for firewood and for protection and shade. One day we marched through a chain of villages Hint were set upon slight elevations at the edee of what was marked on the maps us a huge marsh. The marsh was now ,1 dry plain: but, in each bouse in tlic villages there was a boat—v sufficient comment on the unusual drvno"" of !V s'\ison.

A CHINESE FARM. Tlio time of the year was late autumn, when the kaoliang had been cut and the prnin nearly all threshed and stored. In tins nearly every house had a full store of grain. On many of tlir thre--hing no"™ *!le Slni" was still spread out after Hireling, the thresher being a stone roller, and around were stacks and bundles of straw, piles of yellow Tnd'an corn cobs, and sheaves of kaoliang, with perhans a, layer nf peanuts spread out to dry. Tn fact, the likpnesn to on ordinary farm scene, suoh as we have in New Zealand, is startling-. Here and Micro we saw the farmer winnowing his seed by throwing it up against, the wind in flip immemorial way: and the two round stones nf the Scriptures, between which the grain was ground, were (lie common objeetp of every house. Tlio fields were always small, compared with the paddocks of the colonies. A strip of young wheat would alternate with a si rip of kaoliang stubble, or nerhaps a ploughed field would intervene. There were no hedges, no fences, no barbed wire. The Chinaman jus', places a stone at the corner of his land—recalling the nrohibiHon against removing a neighbour's landmark,—and if in wot weather Hie traveller on the rond through his field enn-onchps? on his land the owner just digs a trench or two at ri<vh< angles to the road, and wants to see thai traveller's cart bogged. A LAND OF CHICKENS AND PEAKS. It was an idea! country to campaign in. firnin and straw in plenty for the horses were to be had in every village; the owner usually made no objection to bur taking it: he recognised that it would have made no difference anyhow. The Chinese nonies never had so much rich food in their lives before; my pony, in spite of the work I gave him, grew visibly fatter every day. But it \vn« (ho men who fared the best of all. The villages swarmed with chickens—and chicken is more tasty than bully beef. The peasants were expert in the art of Incline their fowls and eggs; but the native followers and Pnnjaub Tnfnntrv were experts in the art nf finding. The Victorians wore not slow io learn the game, and after a day's march the Australian bluejackets marched info ramp, each with his chicken in his hand. Sometime? the'village wouM he compelled to supply so many ducks, foivls, and eggs. Occasionally every man in the column had his fowl for dinner; but neither brown nor white troops wanted for the general supplies. Eacli man preferred to catch his own supper. WhoJo crates of chickens wore often found, and killed and plucked half an hovr later, rcadv for the pot on arrival in camp. fn addition, the. villagers would often meet us with biiT baskets of pears—juicy, but tameless. —and there \vn° always water for our horse ready drawn. Once an officer and myself got into a, pigeon loft, and the moss that evening was joyful. Tn the houses there were often flour and a meal made of millet, from which

a correspondent made excellent porridge. Sugar and salt were often to be looted, and I frequently camo upon cans of good green tea. Artichokes, carrots, onions, radishes, and lettuces were more or less plentiful; sheep and cattle could be captured; indeed, it was a, land of plenty. As a sample of what could be done with the materials in hand, leS me give the menu of one of the dinners of the men in the Australian contingent. It ran: Chicken soup, roast beef (fresh) and bnked potatoes, roast fowl, boiled fowl, doughnuts, stewed pears, coffee. But oven this fare did not content everyone. One of the colonials came to me with a fowl in his hand.'

"After all, what is one1 fowl, sir?" lie said. " Why, a man could eat a fowl for hit lunch! "