r he suggested that we might be of some
assistance to the wounded in the city, and with rude crosses of red cloth
pinned to our white shirt sleeves we left the hospital, accompanied by four
Chinese attendants bearing a stretcher. In the compound we met a chair in
which was lying an old man groaning loudly and dripping with blood. Beside
him were his wife and several boys. The poor woman was crying quietly and,
between her sobs, was offering the wounded man mustard pickles from a small
dish in her hand! Poor things, they have so little to eat that they believe
food will cure all ills!

The bearers set the chair down as we appeared and lifted the filthy rag
which covered a gaping wound in the man's shoulder, over which had been
plastered a great mass of cow dung. Just think of the infection, but it was
the only remedy they knew!

We took the man upstairs where Dr. Trimble was preparing to operate on the
fellow who had been shot in the abdomen. The doctor was working steadily
and quietly, making every move count and inspiring his native hospital
staff with his own coolness; the way this young missionary handled his
cases made us glad that he was an American.

On the way down the hill several soldiers passed us, each carrying four or
five rifles and slung about with cartridge belts--plunder stripped from the
men who had been killed. A few hundred yards farther on we found two
brigands lying dead in a narrow street. The nearest one had fallen on his
face and, as we turned him over, we saw that half his head had been blown
away; the other was staring upward with wide open eyes on which the flies
already were settling in swarms.

There was little use in wasting time over these men who long ago had passed
beyond need of our help, and we went on rapidly down the alley to the main
thoroughfare. Guided by a small boy, we hurried over the rough stones for
fifteen minutes, and suddenly came to a man lying at the side of the
street, his head propped on a wooden block. An umbrella once had partly
covered him but had fallen away, leaving him unprotected in the broiling
sun. His face and a terrible wound in his head were a solid mass of flies,
and thousands of insects were crawling over the blood clots on the stones
beside him. At first we thought he was dead but soon saw his abdomen move
and realized that he was breathing. It did not seem possible that a human
being could live under such conditions; and yet the bystanders told us tha