But the political situation—­the situation politique as we call it in our several conversations, which always have a diplomatic turn—­although not grave, is unhappy; everybody at least acknowledges that.  Peking has never been what it was before the Japanese war.  In the old days we were all something of a happy family.  There were merely the eleven Legations, the Inspectorate of Chinese Customs, with the aged Sir R——­ H——­ at its head, and perhaps a few favoured globe-trotters or nondescripts looking for rich concessions.  Picnics and dinners, races and excursions, were the order of the day, and politics and political situations were not burning.  Ministers plenipotentiary and envoys extraordinary wore Terai hats, very old clothes, and had an affable air—­something like what Teheran must still be.  Then came the Japanese war, and the eternal political situation.  Russia started the ball rolling and the others kicked it along.  The Russo-Chinese Bank, appeared on the scenes led by the great P——­, a man with an ominous black portfolio continually under his arm, as he hurried along Legation Street, and an intriguing expression always on his dark face—­a veritable master of men and moneys, they say.  This intriguing soon found Expression in the Cassini Convention, denounced as untrue, and followed by a perfectly open and frank Manchurian railway convention, a convention which, in spite of its frankness, had future trouble written unmistakably on the face of it.  Besides these things there were always ominous reports of other things—­of great things being done secretly.

After the Russo-Chinese Bank and the Manchurian railway business, there was the Kiaochow affair, then the Port Arthur affair, the Weihaiwei and Kwangchowwan affairs, nothing but “affairs” all tending in the same direction—­the making of a very grave political situation.  The juniors to-day make fun of it, it is true, and greet each other daily with the salutation, “La situation politique est tres grave,” and laugh at the good words.  But it is grave notwithstanding the laughter.  Once in 1899, after the Empress Dowager’s coup d’etat and the virtual imprisonment of the Emperor, Legation Guards had to be sent for, a few files for each of the Legations that possess squadrons in the Far East, and, what is more, these guards had to stay for a good many months.  The guards are now no more, but it is curious that the men they came mainly to protect us against—­Tung Fu-hsiang’s Mohammedan braves from the savage back province of Kansu who love the reactionary Empress Dowager—­are still encamped near the Northern capital.

The old Peking society has therefore vanished, and in its place are highly suspicious and hostile Legations—­Legations petty in their conceptions of men and things—­Legations bitterly disliking one another—­in fact, Legations richly deserving all they get, some of the cynics say.

The Peking air, as I have already said, is highly electrical and unpleasant in these hot spring days with the dust rising in heavy clouds.  Squabbling and cantankerous, rather absurd and petty, the Legations are spinning their little threads, each one hedged in by high walls in its own compound and by the debatable question of the situation politique.