om various ships of war on the South African station
accompanied the various columns engaged in the movement through the
Orange Free State and the Transvaal, which republics have since become
the Orange River Colony and the Transvaal Colony.

CHAPTER THIRTY.

FIGHTING IN CHINA--1900.

The early part of 1900 saw an outbreak of religious and anti-foreign
fanaticism in China which rapidly assumed alarming proportions. A sect
or society known as the Boxers, founded in 1899 originally as a
patriotic and ultra-conservative body, rapidly developed into a
reactionary and anti-foreign, and especially anti-Christian
organisation. Outrages were committed all over the country, and the
perpetrators shielded by the authorities, who, while professing peace,
encouraged the movement. Thousands of native Christians were massacred,
and the protests of the ministers of Christian powers disregarded or
answered by lies and denials, and at length Pekin itself became no
longer safe to Europeans.

FIRST ATTEMPT TO RELIEVE THE LEGATIONS AT PEKIN.

On the 30th of May Sir E.H. Seymour, the British admiral on the China
station, received a telegram from Sir Claude Macdonald, the British
minister at Pekin, stating that the situation there had become very
grave, the China soldiers mutinous, the people very excited, and that
European life and property were in danger. Guards were immediately
despatched by train to Pekin, and these, numbering 337 of all nations,
among them 79 men and 3 officers of the British Marines, arrived
unopposed on the 31st. The position of the legations, however, soon
became extremely difficult, and on the 9th of June another telegram was
received by the admiral, stating that if relief did not reach the
Europeans in Pekin very soon, it would be too late.

The admiral at once put in motion all his available men, and the foreign
naval officers commanding on the station co-operated with him. By the
11th, four trains had reached Lofa station, some distance out of
Tientsin, containing over 2000 men, namely, 915 British (62 officers,
640 bluejackets, and 213 marines), 25 Austrians, 40 Italian, 100 French,
450 German, 54 Japanese, 112 Russians, and 112 Americans, all under the
command of the British admiral.

From this time onward there was continuous fighting. About six p.m.,
three miles outside Langfang, Boxers attacked Number 1 train, but were
repulsed. The next day, after repairing the line, the force advanced t