To perform this work of feeding so many mouths, there are committees—­committees far too big, since everyone is anxious to join their safe ranks—­committees which, although they number men of all nationalities, are simply standing examples, I opine, of the organising capacity of the Yankee and his masterfulness over other people.  For it is the Yankee missionary who has invaded and taken charge of the British Legation; it is the Yankee missionary who is doing all the work there and getting all the credit.  Beginning with the fortifications committee, there is an extraordinary man named G——­, who is doing everything—­absolutely everything.  I believe there are actually other members of this committee—­at least, there are some people who assist—­but G——­ is the man of the hour, and will brook no interference.  Already the British Legation, which at the commencement of the siege was utterly undefended by any entrenchments or sandbags, is rapidly being hustled into order by the masterful hand of this missionary.  Coolies are evolved from the converts of all classes, who, although they protest that they are unaccustomed to manual work, are merely given shovels and picks, sandbags and bricks, and resolutely told to commence and learn.  Already the discontented in the outer lines are sending for him and asking him to do this and that, and the hard-worked man always finds time for everything.  It is a wonder.

And behind this one man fortifications committee there are many other committees now.  There is a general committee which no one has yet fathomed; a fuel committee; a sanitary committee; nothing but committees, all noisily talking and quite safe in the British Legation.  Out of the noise and chatter the American missionary emerges, sometimes odorous and unpleasant to look upon, but whose excuse for not shouldering a rifle and volunteering for the front is written on his tired face.  It is the selfsame Yankee missionary who is grinding the wheat and seeing that it is not stolen; it is the American missionary who is surveying the butcher at work and seeing that not even the hoofs are wasted.  And I am sad to confess that it is he who is feeding those thousands of Roman Catholics in the Su wang-fu, while the French and Italian priests and fathers, divorced from the dull routine of their ordinary life, sit helplessly with their hands folded, willingly abandoning their charges to these more energetic Anglo-Saxons.  This Protestantism is not my religion, but for masculine energy there is none other like it.  I would not have you think by this and my constant irritation that there are no Englishmen doing well; it is merely that the ponderous atmosphere of the British Legation is such that very few men who live habitually there can shake themselves free from it even in such times as these.  I know that half of them are much upset at the role they are being forced to play, but who can help them?