l
Europe, with five hundred sailors and marines cleaning their rifles
and marking out distances in the capital of a so-called friendly
Power; with our _pro forma_ despatches still being despatched while
our real messages are frightened; attempting to weather a storm which
the Chinese Government is powerless to arrest. The very passers-by are
becoming sheep-eyed and are looking at us askance.

Passers-by, did I say? But do not imagine from this that there are
many of these, for the Chinese have been for days avoiding the
Legation quarter as if it were plague-stricken, and sounds that were
so roaring a few weeks ago are now daily becoming more and more
scarce. A blight is settling on us, for we are accursed by the whole
population of North China, and who knows what will be the fate of
those seen lurking near the foreigner?

And now when we wander even in our own streets--that is, those
abutting immediately on our compounds of the Legation area--a new
nickname salutes our ears. No longer are we mere _yang kuei-tzu_,
foreign devils; we have risen to the proud estate of _ta mao-tzu_, or
long-haired ones of the first class. _Mao-tzu_ is a term of some
contemptuous strength, since _mao_ is the hair of animals, and our
barbarian heads are not even shaved. The _ta_--great or first
class--is also significant, because behind our own detested class
press two others deserving of almost equal contempt at the hands of
all believers in divine Boxerism. These are _ehr-mao-tzu_ and _san
mao-tzu_, second and third class coarse-haired ones. All good converts
belong to the second class, and death awaits them, our servants say;
while as to the third category, all having any sort of connection,
direct or indirect with the foreigner and his works are lumped
indiscriminately together in this one, and should be equally detested.
The small talk of the tea-shops now even says that officials having a
few sticks of European furniture in their houses are _san mao-tzu_. It
is very significant, too, this open talk in the tea-shops, because in
official Peking, the very centre of the enormous, loose-jointed
Empire, political gossip is severely disliked and the four characters,
"_mo t'an kuo shih_" (eschew political discussions), are skied in
every public room. People in the old days of last month heeded this
four-character warning, for a bambooing at the nearest police-station,
_ting erh_, was always a possibility. Now everyone can do as he
likes.