I do not know at what hour the ultimatum came to-day; it may have been eleven in the morning or one in the afternoon; but one thing I do know is, that here, at four in the afternoon, the great majority of one thousand Europeans are shaking, absolutely distraught.  It is evident therefrom that there is something impressive and demoralising to most people in the idea of finality, and that on the threshold of the twentieth century, courage, since it is seldom dealt in, is hardly a great living force.  It makes one realise, too, that with all their faults, the aristocrats of France, who, a hundred years ago, were condemned to the shameful death of the guillotine and went in their tumbrils through streets filled with cursing crowds of sansculottes, with scorn and contempt written on their features, were rather exceptional people.  Things have changed since then, and the so-called Americanisation of the world has not conduced to gallantry.  Fortunate are we that there is no white man’s audience to watch us impassively, and to witness the effects of this bombshell of an ultimatum which has come to-day.  There is nothing so humiliating as abject fear.  Curiously enough, the women bear it much better than the elder men, who are openly distraught; and when I say women, I mean all the women, both those belonging to the Legations and the dozens of missionary women who have crowded in.  Nearly everyone of them is better than the elderly men; at least, they try and say nothing so as not to add to the terrible confusion....

But the ultimatum—­what is it, and against whom is it so summarily directed?  Briefly the ultimatum is a neat-looking document written on striped Chinese despatch-paper, and comes from the Tsung-li Yamen, or office charged with the overseeing of “the outside nations’ affairs”—­which are the affairs of Europe.  After very briefly referring to a demand made by the allied admirals for a surrender of the Taku forts off the muddy bar of the Tientsin River—­about which we know nothing—­it goes on to say that as China can no longer protect the Legations, the Legations will have to protect themselves by leaving Peking within twenty-four hours, dating from to-day at four o’clock.  That is all.  Not another word.  Yet in other words this document means this:  that the demand of the admirals must have been refused; that they would not have made it unless something disastrous had happened to S——­ and to Tientsin; that acts of war have already been committed, and that it will be no longer a Boxer affair, but a government affair.  This makes our position desperate enough in all truth.  There is to be war....  The ultimatum was conveyed to the eleven Legations and the Inspectorate-General of Foreign Customs in twelve neat red envelopes by trembling t’ing ch’ai of the Chinese Government, and in spite of some attempt at first to hide its contents was soon known by everyone.  The twelve copies, indeed, were exactly alike, twelve bombshells, which, bursting in twelve different parts