as if they were to form a manacled procession dragging
their chains of martyrdom to their own slow doom--before we show
contempt for the opinion of those who would tell the truth. There is
more of Boxerism in the far-away interior parts of China than we know
of.

Even as late as the middle of January of the year 1910 there was no
rumor of any uprising. About this time, however, to supply a serious
deficiency in the revenue caused by the dropping of the opium tax, since
that drug had ceased to be grown, a general poll-tax was levied, which
the people refused to pay, and at the same time they demanded that they
be allowed again to grow the poppy. Among the population of
Chao-t'ong-fu, or more particularly among the people around the city,
especially the tribespeople, this additional tax was supposed to have
been caused by the Europeans, and other wild rumors concerning the
Tonkin-Yuen-nan Railway (to be opened in the following April), which
gained currency with remarkable rapidity, added to the unrest. It
required only that brilliant phenomenon of the heavens, with its
wonderful tail--none other than Halley's Comet--to bring the whole to a
climax. This was altogether too much for the superstitious Chinese, and
he looked upon the comet as some evil omen organized and controlled by
the foreigner especially for the working of his own selfish ends in the
Celestial Empire; and a number believed it to be a heavenly sign for the
Chinese to strike.

That the riot was being started was plain, but the first definite news
the foreigners received was on February 5th, when an I-pien (one of the
tribes), whose little girl attended the mission school, was captured
and compelled to join the rebelling forces between T'o-ch-i (on the
River of Golden Sand[O]) and Sa'i-ho, in a westerly direction from the
town. A march would take place on the fifteenth of that month, the
Europeans would be assassinated, their houses would be burned and
looted--so ran the rumor. By this date, for two days' march in all
directions from Chao-t'ong, the rebels had camped, and a motley crowd
they were--Mohammendans, Chinese, I-pien, Hua Miao, and other hooligans.
Mobilization was effected by spies taking round secret cases (the
_ch'uandan_) containing two pieces of coal and a feather--a simile
meaning that the rebels were to burn like fire and fly like birds.
Meanwhile, military forces had been dispatched from Yuen-nan-fu, the
capital (twelve days away), and fr