within the
walls of the provincial capital. Such misgivings as to the designs of
foreigners we find strikingly expressed in a book of that period called
"Strange Stories of an Idle Student."

One story is as follows: When Red-Haired Barbarians first appeared on
our coast they were not allowed to come ashore. They begged, however, to
be permitted to spread a carpet on which to dry their goods, and this
being granted, they took the carpet by its corners and stretched it so
that it covered several acres. On this, they debarked in great force
and, drawing their swords, took possession of the surrounding country.

III.

THE OPIUM WAR.

The first great event that woke China from her dream of solitary
grandeur was the war with England, which broke out in 1839 and was
closed three years later by the Treaty of Nanking. It was not, however,
all that was needed to effect that object. It made the giant rub her
eyes and give a reluctant assent to terms imposed by superior force. But
many a rude lesson was still required before she came to perceive her
true position, as on the lower side of an inclined plane. To bring her
to this discovery four more foreign wars were to follow before the end
of the century, culminating in a siege in Peking and massacres
throughout the northern provinces which may be looked on as the fifth
act in a long and bloody tragedy.

In the last three wars Li Hung Chang was a prominent actor. In the
first two he took no part. Yet was it the shock which they gave to the
empire that drove him from a life of literary seclusion to do battle in
a more public arena.

The Opium War of 1839 is not improperly so designated, but nothing is
more erroneous than to infer that it was waged by England for the
purpose of forcing the product of her Indian poppy fields on the markets
of China. Opium was the occasion, not the cause. The cause, if we are to
put it in a single word, was the overbearing arrogance of an Oriental
despotism, which refused to recognize any equal in the family
of nations.

In the Straits settlements and in the seaports of India, Chinese
merchants had been brought under sway of the bewitching narcotic. It
found its way to their southern seaports, and without being recognized
as an article of commerce, the trade expanded with startling rapidity.
The Emperor, Tao Kwang, one of the most humane of rulers, resolved to
take measures for the suppression of the vice. He had come to the throne
in 18