the Chao-t'ong
Rebellion_. _Halley's Comet brings things to a climax_. _Start of the
rioting_. _Arrival of the military_. _Number of the rebels_. _They hold
three impregnable positions, and block the main roads_. _European ladies
travel to the city in the dead of night_. _A new ch'en-tai takes the
matter in hand_. _Rumors and suspense_. _Stations of the rebels_. _A
night attack_. _Sixteen rebels decapitated_. _Officials alter their
tactics_. _Fighting on main road_. _Superstition regarding soldiers_.
_One of the leaders captured by a headman_. _Chapel burnt down and
caretaker rescued by military_. _Li the Invincible under arms_. _Huang
taken prisoner_. _Two leaders killed_. _Rising among the Miao_. _Mission
work at a standstill_. _Child-stealing, and the Yuen-nan Railway rumor_.
_Barbaric punishment_. _Tribute to Chinese officials_. _British
Consul-General_. _Resume of the position_. _An unfortunate incident_.

Despite the fact that this chapter was the last written, it has been
thought wise to place it here. It deals with the Chao-t'ong Rebellion,
of which the outside world, even when it was at its height, knew little,
but which, so recently as a couple of months prior to the date of
writing, threatened to spell extermination to the foreigners in
North-East Yuen-nan. And the reader, too, may welcome a digression from
travel.

In spite of all that has been written in previous and subsequent
chapters, and in face of the universal cry of the progress China is
speedily realizing, of the stoutest optimism characteristic of the
statesman and of the student of Chinese affairs, a feeling of deep gloom
at intervals overcomes one in the interior--a fear of some impending
trouble. There is a rumor, but one smiles at it--there are always
rumors! Then there are more rumors, and a feeling of uneasiness pervades
the atmosphere; a local bubble is formed, it bursts, the whole of one's
trust in the sincerity of the reform of China and her people is brushed
away to absolute unbelief in a few days, and it means either a sudden
onrush and brutal massacre of the foreigners, or the thing blows over
after a short or long time of great strain, and ultimately things assume
a normality in which the detection of the slightest ruffle in the
surface of social life is hardly traceable.

Such was the Chao-t'ong Rebellion, luckily unattended by loss of life
among the foreigners. It is not yet over,[N] but it is believed that the
worst is past.