in disguise, and said that
I was dressed in one of my servant's clothes, and rode in a broken cart
drawn by a mule, and that this old woman servant of mine was dressed as
the Empress Dowager, and rode in my sedan chair. I wonder who made that
story up? Of course everyone believed it, and such a story would get to
the foreigners in Peking without any trouble.

"Now to come back to the question of the Boxer Rising. How badly I was
treated by my own servants. No one seemed anxious to go with me, and a
great many ran away before the Court had any idea of leaving the Capital
at all, and those who stayed would not work, but stood around and waited
to see what was going to happen. I made up my mind to ask and see how
many would be willing to go, so I said to everyone: 'If you servants are
willing to go with me, you can do so, and those who are not willing, can
leave me.' I was very much surprised to find that there were very
few standing around listening. Only seventeen eunuchs, two old women
servants and one servant girl, that was Sho Chu. Those people said they
would go with me, no matter what happened. I had 3,000 eunuchs, but they
were nearly all gone before I had the chance of counting them. Some of
the wicked ones were even rude to me, and threw my valuable vases on the
stone floor, and smashed them. They knew that I could not punish them at
that important moment, for we were leaving. I cried very much and prayed
for our Great Ancestors' Souls to protect us. Everyone knelt with me and
prayed. The Young Empress was the only one of my family who went with
me. A certain relative of mine, whom I was very fond of, and gave her
everything she asked, refused to go with me. I knew that the reason she
would not go was because she thought the foreign soldiers would catch up
the runaway Court, and kill everyone.

"After we had been gone about seven days, I sent one eunuch back, to
find out who was still in Peking. She asked this eunuch whether there
were any foreign soldiers chasing us, and whether I was killed. Soon
after the Japanese soldiers took her Palace, and drove her out. She
thought she was going to die anyway, and as I was not yet assassinated,
she might catch up with the Court, and go with us. I could not
understand how she traveled so fast. One evening we were staying at a
little country house, when she came in with her husband, a nice man. She
was telling me how much she had missed me, and how very anxious she
had be