No, we cannot afford to laugh.  We must seek the opinion of those people who were confined within the walls of Chao-t’ong city—­the silence of their own homes broken up by the distant uproar of a frantic chorus of yells and angry disputations, sounding, as it were, their very death-knell, as if they were to form a manacled procession dragging their chains of martyrdom to their own slow doom—­before we show contempt for the opinion of those who would tell the truth.  There is more of Boxerism in the far-away interior parts of China than we know of.

Even as late as the middle of January of the year 1910 there was no rumor of any uprising.  About this time, however, to supply a serious deficiency in the revenue caused by the dropping of the opium tax, since that drug had ceased to be grown, a general poll-tax was levied, which the people refused to pay, and at the same time they demanded that they be allowed again to grow the poppy.  Among the population of Chao-t’ong-fu, or more particularly among the people around the city, especially the tribespeople, this additional tax was supposed to have been caused by the Europeans, and other wild rumors concerning the Tonkin-Yuen-nan Railway (to be opened in the following April), which gained currency with remarkable rapidity, added to the unrest.  It required only that brilliant phenomenon of the heavens, with its wonderful tail—­none other than Halley’s Comet—­to bring the whole to a climax.  This was altogether too much for the superstitious Chinese, and he looked upon the comet as some evil omen organized and controlled by the foreigner especially for the working of his own selfish ends in the Celestial Empire; and a number believed it to be a heavenly sign for the Chinese to strike.

That the riot was being started was plain, but the first definite news the foreigners received was on February 5th, when an I-pien (one of the tribes), whose little girl attended the mission school, was captured and compelled to join the rebelling forces between T’o-ch-i (on the River of Golden Sand[O]) and Sa’i-ho, in a westerly direction from the town.  A march would take place on the fifteenth of that month, the Europeans would be assassinated, their houses would be burned and looted—­so ran the rumor.  By this date, for two days’ march in all directions from Chao-t’ong, the rebels had camped, and a motley crowd they were—­Mohammendans, Chinese, I-pien, Hua Miao, and other hooligans.  Mobilization was effected by spies taking round secret cases (the ch’uandan) containing two pieces of coal and a feather—­a simile meaning that the rebels were to burn like fire and fly like birds.  Meanwhile, military forces had been dispatched from Yuen-nan-fu, the capital (twelve days away), and from Ch’u-tsing-fu (seven or eight days away), and these, to the strength of a thousand, now came to the city, and it was thought that the brigadier-general would be able to cope with the trouble now that he had so many armed troops.  Soldiers patrolled the city walls (which, by the way, had to be built up so that the soldiers might be able to get decent patrol), more were stationed on the premises of the Europeans, and every defensive precaution was taken.  The officials were in daily communication by telegraph with the Viceroy, and at first the riot was kept well in hand by Government authorities.