n,
for my object has been always to put myself into the skin of
those I may be with, and I like these people as much--well, say
nearly as much--as I like my countrymen.

"There are a lot of people in China who would egg on revolts of A
and B. All this is wrong. China must _fara da se_. I painted this
picture to the Chinese of 1900: 'Who are those people hanging
about with jinrickshas?' 'The sons of the European merchants.'
'What are those ruins?' 'The Hongs of the European merchants,'
etc., etc.

"People have asked me what I thought of the advance of China
during the sixteen years I was absent. They looked superficially
at the power military of China. I said they are unchanged. You
come, I must go; but I go on to say that the stride China has
made in commerce is immense, and commerce and wealth are the
power of nations, not the troops. Like the Chinese, I have a
great contempt for military prowess. It is ephemeral. I admire
administrators, not generals. A military Red-Button mandarin has
to bow low to a Blue-Button civil mandarin, and rightly so to my
mind.

"I wrote the other day to Li Hung Chang to protest against the
railway from Ichang to Peking along the Grand Canal. In making it
they would enter into no end of expenses, the coin would leave
the country and they would not understand it, and would be
fleeced by the financial cormorants of Great Britain. They can
understand canals. Let them repair the Grand Canal."

Having arrived at Peking, Gordon was received in several councils by
Prince Chun, the father of the young Emperor and the recognised leader
of the War Party. The leading members of the Grand Council were also
present, and Gordon explained his views to them at length. In the
first place, he said, if there were war he would only stay to help
them on condition that they destroyed the suburbs of Peking, allowed
him to place the city in a proper state of defence, and removed the
Emperor and Court to a place of safety. When they expressed their
opinion that the Taku forts were impregnable, Gordon laughed, and said
they could be taken from the rear. The whole gist of his remarks was
that "they could not go to war," and when they still argued in the
opposite sense, and the interpreter refused to translate the harsh
epithets he applied to such august personages, he took the dictionary,