474 The National Geographic Magazine 



truth, vulgar and stupid. We invite 

 him, as a favor, to commit suicide. We 

 direct Ko-pao-hua, President of the 

 Board of Censors, to go and see that he 

 does it."^ 



After directing the various other pun- 

 ishments to be carried out, the edict con- 

 cludes: ' 'After the promulgation of this 

 decree all our friendly nations should 

 recognize that the events caused by the 

 Boxers are in truth only attributive to 

 the principal authors of trouble, and in 

 no wise to the wishes of the court." 



The protocol of the foreign powers 

 further required that the official exami- 

 nations (which are the stepping-stones 

 for admission to official life) be sus- 

 pended for five years in all cities where 

 foreigners were massacred or cruelly 

 treated ; that expiatory monuments be 

 erected in all foreign cemeteries which 

 had been desecrated (the expenditure 

 for which in Pekin alone amounted to 

 over $50,000) ; that the importation into 

 China of arms and ammunition be pro- 

 hibited for two years, and the publica- 

 tion and posting in all the provinces of 

 an imperial edict announcing the pun- 

 ishments stated, and also that member- 

 ship in any anti-foreign society would 

 be punished with death, and that vice- 

 roys, governors, and provincial or local 

 officials would be held responsible for 

 anti-foreign troubles in their respective 

 districts, and if the authors were not 

 immediately punished, these officials 

 would be promptly dismissed and for- 

 ever deprived of official functions and 

 honors. 



An indemnity of 450,000,000 taels 

 (approximately $337,000,000) was stip- 

 ulated to be paid in installments to 

 thirteen foreign governments to cover 

 losses of individuals and the expenses 

 of the armed expedition to Pekin. The 

 share of the United States was over 

 $24,000,000. 



But even these drastic measures were 

 not regarded as a sufficient punishment 

 and humiliation. The Chinese govern- 



ment was required to set apart a large 

 section of the city of Pekin for the 

 foreign legations, the same to be forti- 

 fied and garrisoned by an unlimited 

 number of foreign troops ; the strong 

 fortresses at the mouth of the Pei-ho 

 River and all the fortifications from 

 that point to Pekin to be razed to the 

 ground, and these and other points on 

 the route to the imperial capital to be 

 occupied by foreign troops. 



It is creditable to the plighted faith 

 of the Chinese government to be able 

 to state that these harsh and abasing 

 measures have been and are being car- 

 ried out with exactness. 



I have gone somewhat into detail in 

 giving the terms of settlements made 

 between the imperial government and 

 the foreign powers in order to show 

 what exemplary and onerous measures 

 were deemed necessary as an atonement 

 for the acts caused by the anti-foreign 

 uprising of 1900 and to prevent a re- 

 currence in the future. The severe 

 lesson is bringing forth beneficent re- 

 sults. The two British wars of 1840 

 and i860, with the British and French 

 occupation of Pekin and the French 

 hostilities of 1885, had done little to 

 open the eyes of the Chinese ruling 

 classes to the futility of the anti-foreign 

 spirit ; and even the Japanese war of 

 1 894-' 5 in no marked degree had over- 

 come that sentiment. The exactions 

 of the foreign powers, as shown in the 

 protocol of 1907, at last opened the 

 eyes of the conservative officials to the 

 necessity of a new order of affairs. 



A great change has taken place and 

 is still going on in that Empire. It 

 has begun at the fountain-head of power 

 and influence in the person of the Em- 

 press Dowager. She has been the real 

 ruler of China for more than a quarter 

 of a century. She is a remarkable 

 woman, of great intellectual power, of 

 strong will, and of marked influence 

 upon the statesmen who surround the 

 throne and direct the administration of 



