VIEWS OF THE ANGLO-FRENCH WAR. 255 



how were stearine candles manufactured ; how did 

 people travel on railways ; and how were likenesses 

 taken by photography ? 4s it true,' asked the prince, 

 ' that the liquid matter from human eyes is used in 

 photography ? It is reported,' continued he, ' that 

 the missionaries at Tientsin put out the eyes of the 

 children whom they had taken to educate for this 

 purpose, which so enraged the people that they put 

 all the missionaries to death.' ^ On my answering 

 him in the negative, the prince begged me to bring 

 him a machine for taking portraits, and I could 

 hardly excuse myself by assuring him that the 

 glasses would infallibly be broken on the road. 



The prince then asked what tribute the French 

 and English paid as vassals of Russia. When I 

 answered the Amban that I had never heard of 

 such a thing, he urged me to tell him whether the 

 above-mentioned nations made war with China with 

 our consent or of their own free will. ' In any case,' 

 continued the prince, ' it was only the exceeding kind- 

 ness of our Emperor that allowed these barbarians 

 to depart from beneath the walls of his capital with- 

 out being destroyed to a man ; as a punishment for 

 their savagery they had to pay a large contribution.' '^ 



^ At Tientsin, in July 1870, the common people rebelled, killed 

 twenty Frenchmen and three Russians ; the latter were accidentally 

 among the number. The instigators of this tumult assured the people 

 that the French Sisters of Mercy, who undertake the education of 

 children, afterwards put out their eyes to obtain the liquid necessary 

 for the preparation of photographic likenesses. This report circulated 

 all through China, and was credulously believed. 



'^ The opinion that during the last Anglo-French war with China 

 the Europeans, and not the Chinese, were the vanquished, is universal 

 throughout the whole of inner Asia, wherever we travelled. Sertainly 



