Page:"Round the world." - Letters from Japan, China, India, and Egypt (IA roundworldletter00fogg 0).pdf/115

 into a superstition more absurd than the paganism it sought to replace. At this crisis, when the Peking government was tottering, and its downfall seemed inevitable, there appeared upon the stage a man whose career is one of the most remarkable in modern times, and seems like a romance of the middle ages. An American, who had first come to China as a common sailor, and had acquired some influence with the Mandarins, offered his services to the imperial government, and, as drowning men catch at straws, they were promptly accepted. Although entirely without military education or training, he showed such remarkable talent and energy in the reorganization and management of the Chinese army, everywhere defeated and demoralized, that he soon rose to supreme authority in the conduct of the war. He raised a foreign legion, established order and discipline in the imperial army, procured improved arms, checked and drove back the rebels marching on Peking, retook city after city, and in two years, having broken the back of the rebellion, met an untimely death at the storming of an insignificant town in one of the central provinces.

If General Ward's life had been spared ten years longer it is impossible to calculate what his unlimited influence with the government he had served might have enabled him to accomplish in reforming ancient abuses and corruptions, and introducing western ideas and civilization. Since his death the Chinese have placed his effigy in their pantheon of gods, and regard him as a special gift from heaven to save their nation. Here, on the bund at Shanghai, they have erected a marble monument to the memory of General Ward and the brave foreign officers of “that ever-victorious army” which he commanded, who fell in the struggle with the “long-haired” rebels,

And now, having returned at last to the bund whence we started, let us go back to the “Astor” for tiffin, leaving further record of experience among the Chinese for another day. W. P. F.