le Mohammedan rebellion raged, and the unhappy province was swept
from end to end with fire and sword. Marks of the devastation of that
time are everywhere visible. Hardly had it been put down when the war
with the French in the eighties again involved Yunnan. Later came the
outbreak of the tribesmen, while the Boxer movement of the north found a
vigorous response here. Bloodshed and disorder have given the country a
set-back from which it is only beginning to recover.

But the coming of the railway has brought fresh life to Yunnan, and the
prospects for the future economic development are very promising. In the
capital there were many signs of a new day. The Reform movement had
taken good hold in this remote corner of the empire. A hospital with
eight wards and under Chinese control was doing fine work. Schools were
flourishing, and there was even a university of sorts. The newly
organized police force pervaded the whole place and was reputed quite
efficient. But it was the new military spirit that most forced itself
upon you; you simply could not get away from it. Bugle practice made
hideous night and day. Everywhere you met marching soldiers, and the
great drill ground was the most active place in the town. Dread of the
foreigner underlies much of the present activity and openmindedness
towards Western ideas. The willingness to adopt our ways does not
necessarily mean that the Chinese prefer them to their own, but simply
that they realize if they would meet us on equal terms they must meet us
with our own weapons. Writing of the Boxer rising, Sir Charles Eliot
summed up the Chinese position in a sentence, "Let us learn their tricks
before we make an end of them." Now it might read, "Let us learn their
tricks before they make an end of us." The drilling soldiers, the modern
barracks, the elaborately equipped arsenals, as well as the military
schools found all over China to-day, show which one of the Western
"tricks" seems to the man of the Middle Kingdom of most immediate value.
At the military school of Yunnan-fu they have a graphic way of enforcing
the lesson to be learned. A short time ago the students gave a public
dramatic performance, a sort of thing for which the Chinese have decided
talent. One of the scenes showed an Englishman kicking his Hindu
servant, while another represented an Annamese undergoing a beating at
the hands of a Frenchman. The teaching was plain. "This will be your
fate unless you are strong