Both in its inception and in its tragic ending the notable conflict with Japan connects itself with the name of Li Hung Chang. The Island Empire on the East had long been known to the Chinese, though until our times no regular intercourse subsisted between the two countries. It is recorded that a fleet freighted with youth and maidens was despatched thither by the builder of the Great Wall to seek in those islands of the blest for the herb of immortality; but none of them returned. It was to be a colony, and the flowery robe by which its object is veiled is not sufficient to hide the real aim of that ambitious potentate. Yet, through that expedition and subsequent emigrations, a pacific conquest was effected which does honor to both nations, planting in those islands the learning of China, and blending with their native traditions the essential teachings of her ancient sages.

For centuries prior to our age of treaties, non-intercourse had been enforced on both sides,–the Japanese confining their Chinese neighbors, as they did the Dutch, to a little islet in the port of Nagasaki; and China seeing nothing of Japan except an occasional descent of Japanese pirates on her exposed sea-coast.

To America belongs the honor of opening that opulent archipelago to the commerce of the world. Our shipwrecked sailors having been harshly treated by those islanders, a squadron was sent under Commodore Perry to Yeddo (now Tokio) in 1855, to punish them if necessary and to provide against future outrages. With rare moderation he merely handed in a statement of his terms and sailed away to Loochoo to give them time for reflection. Returning six months later, instead of the glove of combat he was received with the hand of friendship, and a treaty was signed which provided for the opening of three ports and the residence of an American chargé d'affaires. In the autumn of 1859 it was my privilege to visit Yeddo in company with Mr. Ward and Commodore Tatnall. We were entertained by Townsend Harris and shown the sights of the city of the Shoguns when it was still clothed in its mediaeval costume. The long swaddling-garb of the natives had a semi-savage aspect, and the abject servility with which their todzies (interpreters) prostrated themselves before their officers excited a feeling of contempt.

Like the mayors of the palace in mediaeval France, the Shoguns or generals had relegated the Mikado to a single city of the interior; while for six hundred years they had usurped the power of the Empire, practically presenting the spectacle of two Emperors, one "spiritual" (or nominal), one "temporal" (or real). Little did we imagine that within five years the Shoguns would be swept away, and the Mikado restored to more than his ancient power. The conflagration was kindled by a spark from our engines. The feudal nobles, of whom there were four hundred and fifty, each a prince within his own narrow limits, were indignant that the Shogun had opened his ports to those aggressive foreigners of the West. Raising a cry of "Kill the foreigners!" they overturned the Shoguns and restored the Mikado. Their fury, however, subsided when they found that the foreigner was too strong to be expelled. A few more years saw them patriotically surrendering their feudal powers in order to make the central government strong enough to face the world. About the same time our Western costume was adopted, and along with it the parliamentary system of Great Britain and the school system of America. Some foreigners were shallow enough to laugh at them when they saw those little soldiers in Western uniform; and the Chinese despised them more than ever for abandoning the dress of their forefathers.

To protect themselves at once against China and Russia, the Japanese felt that the independence of Corea was to them indispensable. The King had been a feudal subject to China since the days of King Solomon; and when at the instance of Japan he assumed the title of Emperor, the Chinese resolved to punish him for such insolence. This was in 1894. The Japanese took up arms in his defence; and though they had some hard fighting, they soon made it evident that nothing but a treaty of peace could keep them out of Peking.

Li Hung Chang, who had long been Viceroy at Tientsin and who had built a northern arsenal and remodelled the Chinese army, had to confess himself beaten. For him it was a bitter pill to be sent as a suppliant to the Court of the Mikado. That China was beaten was not his fault. Yet he was held responsible by his own government and departed on that humiliating mission as if with a rope about his neck. Fortunately for him, during his mission in Japan an assassin lodged a bullet in his head, and the desire of Japan to undo the effect of that shameful act made negotiation an easy task, converting his defeat into a sort of triumph. Happily, too, he enjoyed the counsel and assistance of J.W. Foster, formerly United States Secretary of State. Formosa, one of the brightest jewels in the Chinese crown, had to be handed over to Japan, and lower Manchuria would have gone with it, had not Russia, supported by Austria and Germany, compelled the Japanese to withdraw their claims.

The next turn of the kaleidoscope shows us China seeking to follow the example of Japan in throwing off the trammels of antiquated usage. In 1898, when the tide of reform was in full swing, the Marquis Ito of Japan paid a visit to Peking, and as president of the University, I had the honor of being asked to meet him along with Li Hung Chang at a dinner given by Huyufen, mayor of the city, and the grand secretary, Sunkianai. It was a lesson intended for them when he told us how, on his returning from England in the old feudal days, his prince asked him if anything needed to be reformed in Japan. "Everything," he replied. The lesson was lost on the three Chinese statesmen, progressive though they were, for China was then on the eve of a violent reaction which threatened ruin instead of progress.

VIII.
WAR WITH THE WORLD

The last summer of the century saw the forts at the mouth of the Peiho captured for the third time since the beginning of 1858. It was the opening scene in the last act of a long drama, and more imposing than any that had gone before, not in the number of assailants nor in the obstinacy of resistance, but in the fact that instead of one or two nations as hitherto, all the powers of the modern world were now combined to batter down the barriers of Chinese conservatism. Getting possession of Tientsin, not without hard fighting, they advanced on Peking under eight national flags, against the "eight banners" of the Manchu tribes.

What was the mainspring of this tragic movement? What unforeseen occurrence had effected a union of powers whose usual attitude is mutual jealousy or secret hostility? In a word, it was humanity. Spurning petty questions of policy, they combined their forces to extinguish a conflagration kindled by pride and superstition, which menaced the lives of all foreigners in North China.

In 1898, when the Emperor had entered on a career of progress, the Empress Dowager was appealed to by a number of her old servants to save the Empire from a young Phaeton, who was driving so fast as to be in danger of setting the world on fire. Coming out of her luxurious retreat, ten miles from the city, where she had never ceased to keep an eye on the course of affairs, she again took possession of the throne and compelled her adopted son to ask her to "teach him how to govern." This was the coup d'état. In her earlier years she had not been opposed to progress, but now that she had returned to power at the instance of a conservative party, she entered upon a course of reaction which made a collision with foreign powers all but inevitable. She had been justly provoked by their repeated aggressions. Germany had seized a port in Shantung in consequence of the murder of two missionaries. Russia at once clapped her bear's paw on Port Arthur. Great Britain set the lion's foot on Weihaiwei; and France demanded Kwang Chan Bay, all "to maintain the balance of power." Exasperated beyond endurance, the Empress gave notice that any further demands of the sort would be met by force of arms.

The governor of Shantung appointed by her was a Manchu by the name of Yuhien, who more than any other man is to be held responsible for the outbreak of hostilities. He it was who called the Boxers from their hiding-places and supplied them with arms, convinced apparently of the reality of their claim to be invulnerable. For a hundred years they had existed as a secret society under a ban of prohibition. Now, however, they had made amends by killing German missionaries, and he hoped by their aid to expel the Germans from Shantung. On complaint of the German Minister he was recalled; but, decorated by the hands of the Empress Dowager, he was transferred to Shansi, where later on he slaughtered all the missionaries in that province.

In Shantung he was succeeded by Yuen Shikai, a statesmanlike official, who soon compelled the Boxers to seek another arena for their operations. Instead of creeping back to their original hiding-place they crossed the boundary and directed their march toward Peking,–on the way not merely laying waste the villages of native Christians, but tearing up the railway and killing foreigners indiscriminately. They had made a convert of Prince Tuan, father of the heir apparent. He it was who encouraged their advance, believing that he might make use of them to help his son to the throne. Their numbers were swelled by multitudes who fancied that they would suffer irreparable personal loss through the introduction of railways and modern labor-saving machinery; and China can charge the losses of the last war to those misguided crowds.

Fortunately several companies of marines, amounting to four hundred and fifty men, arrived in Peking the day before the destruction of the track. The legations were threatened, churches were burnt down, native Christians put to death, and fires set to numerous shops simply because they contained foreign goods. Then it was that the foreign admirals captured the forts, in order to bring relief to our foreign community. That step the Chinese Foreign Office pronounced an act of war, and ordered the legations and all other foreigners to quit the capital. The ministers remonstrated, knowing that on the way we could not escape being butchered by Boxers. On the 20th of June, the German Minister was killed on his way to the Foreign Office. The legations and other foreigners at once took refuge in the British legation, previously agreed on as the best place to make a defence. Professor James was killed while crossing a bridge near the legation. That night we were fired on from all sides, and for eight weeks we were exposed to a daily fusillade from an enemy that counted more on reducing us by starvation than on carrying our defences by storm.

About midnight on August 13, we heard firing at the gates of the city, and knew that our deliverers were near. The next day, scaling the walls or battering down the gates, they forced their way into the city and effected our rescue. The day following, the Roman Catholic Cathedral was relieved,–the defence of which forms the brightest page in the history of the siege, and in the afternoon we held a solemn service of thanksgiving. The palaces were found vacant, the Empress Dowager having fled with her entire court. She was the same Empress who had fled from the British and French forty years before.

She was not pursued, because Prince Ching came forward to meet the foreign ministers, and he and Li Hung Chang were appointed to arrange terms of peace. Li was Viceroy at Canton. Had he been in his old viceroyalty at Tientsin, this Boxer war could not have occurred. That its fury was limited to the northern belt of provinces was owing to the wisdom of Chang⁵ and Liu, the great satraps of Central China who engaged to keep their provinces in order, if not attacked by foreigners.

I called on the old statesman in the summer of 1901, after the last of the treaties was signed. He seemed to feel that his work was finished, but he still had energy enough to write a preface for my translation of Hall's "International Law," and before the end of another month his long life of restless activity had come to a close at the age of seventy-nine. By posthumous decree, he was made a Marquis.

In the autumn the court returned to Peking, the way having been opened by Li's negotiations. Thanks to the lessons of adversity, the Dowager has been led to favor the cause of progress. Not only has she re-enacted the educational reforms proposed by the Emperor, but she has gone a step farther, and ordered that instead of mere literary finish, a knowledge of arts and sciences shall be required in examinations for the Civil Service.

The following words I wrote in an obituary notice, a few days after Li's death:–

"For over twenty years Earl Li has been a conspicuous patron of educational reform. The University and other schools at Tientsin were founded by him; and he had a large share in founding the Imperial University in Peking. During the last twenty years I have had the honor of being on intimate terms with him. Five years ago he wrote a preface for a book of mine on Christian Psychology,–showing a freedom from prejudice very rare among Chinese officials.

"Another preface which he wrote for me is noteworthy from the fact that it is one of the last papers that came from his prolific pencil. Having finished a translation of 'Hall's International Law' (begun before the siege), I showed it to Li Hung Chang not two weeks ago. The old man took a deep interest in it, and returned it with a preface in which he says 'I am now near eighty; Dr. Martin is over seventy. We are old and soon to pass away; but we both hope that coming generations will be guided by the principles of this book.'

"With all his faults–those of his time and country–Li Hung Chang was a true patriot. For him it was a fitting task to place the keystone in the arch that commemorates China's peace with the world."

DAVID LIVINGSTONE

1813-1873

AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT

BY CYRUS C. ADAMS

Africa is the most ancient and the most recent conquest of the human race. As far as the light of history can be projected into the past, we see Egypt among the first and foremost on the threshold of civilization. The continent discovered last and opened last to the enterprises of the world is still Africa. Why is it that we see there both the dawn of civilization and the tardiest development of human progress?

The reasons are not far to seek. The physical conformation of no other continent is so unfavorable for exploration and development. Africa's straight coastlines, affording little shelter to the primitive ships of early mariners, repelled the enterprising Phoenicians and other seafarers in their eager search for new lands worth colonizing. Nor was it easy for explorers to penetrate into the interior. In its surface Africa has been compared to an inverted saucer,–the high plateaus occupying most of the interior descending to the sea by short, abrupt, and steep slopes, so that the wide and peaceful rivers of the plateaus are lashed into foam as they approach the ocean by many series of rapids and cataracts.

In all the other continents rivers have been the lines of least resistance to the advance of man. Civilization has developed first along the great rivers. The valleys were first settled, and up these valleys man carried his industries and commerce far inland. Thus the Euphrates and Tigris of Mesopotamia, the Ganges and Indus of India, and the Hoang and Yangtse of China, were the creators of history; but this is true in Africa only of the Nile. All the other rivers have been impediments instead of helpful factors in the formidable task of exploration and development.

The trying climate, also, gave Africa odious repute and delayed for centuries the study and utilization of the continent. When the British expedition under Captain Tuckey attempted to ascend the Congo, in 1816, to see if it were really the lower part of the Niger River, as had been conjectured, nearly all of its members perished miserably among the rapids less than two hundred miles from the sea. Such tragedies as this paralyzed enterprise in Africa until white men learned that the climate was not so deadly, after all, if they adhered to the manner of life, the hygienic rules, that should be observed in that tropical expanse.

In all the other continents, also, explorers have had the advantage of domestic animals to carry their food and camp equipment; but in large parts of tropical Africa the horse, ox, and mule cannot live. The bite of the little tsetse fly kills them. Its sting is hardly so annoying as that of the mosquito, but near the base of its proboscis is a little bag containing the fatal poison. Camels have been loaded near Zanzibar for the journey to Tanganyika, but they did not live to reach the great lake. The "ship of the desert" can never be utilized in the humid regions of tropical Africa.

The elephant is found from sea to sea, but he has not proved to be so amenable to domestication as his Asian brother. He may yet be reduced to useful servitude. The efforts in this direction in the German and French colonies are somewhat encouraging, though in 1901 only six elephants had thus far been broken to work and were daily used as beasts of burden. Explorers of tropical Africa have always been compelled to rely upon human porterage, the most expensive and unsatisfactory form of transportation, with the result that nearly all the great lines of exploration have been extended through the continent at enormous cost.

So most other parts of the world were occupied, colonized, civilized, before Africa was explored. A continent one-fourth larger than our own was for centuries neglected and despised. "Nothing good can come out of Africa" became proverbial. Seventy years ago Africa, away from the coasts and the Nile, was almost a blank upon our maps, save for fanciful details that are ludicrously grotesque in the light of our present knowledge (1902).

Then dawned the era of David Livingstone. Sixty-two years ago this humble Scotchman went to South Africa as a missionary. It was not long before he became imbued with the idea that missionary service could not be projected on broad, economic, and effective lines till the field was known. The explorer, he said, must precede the teacher and the merchant. We can work best for Christianity and civilization after we learn what the people are and know the nature of their environment. This was the thought that took him into the unknown; that inspired him with unflagging courage and zeal throughout twenty years of weary plodding in the African wilderness among hundreds of tribes who never before had seen a white man. And all the years he was studying the country and winning the love of its people, his faith in Africa, in its abounding resources worth the world's seeking, in the capacity of its people for development, steadily grew till it became the all-pervading impulse of his life. Livingstone's faith converted the world to the belief that, after all, there was good in Africa.

"I shall never forget," said Stanley, one day in New York, "the time when I stood with Livingstone on the shore of Lake Tanganyika, and he raised his trembling hand above his head, leaned towards me as he looked me in the eye, and said in a voice broken with emotion: 'The day is coming when the whole world will know that Africa is worth reclaiming, and that its people may be brought out of barbarism. The world needs Africa; and teachers, merchants, railroads, and every influence of civilization will be spread through this continent to fit it for the place in human interests that belongs to it.' I thought then that Livingstone was an enthusiast and a visionary; but long ago I learned to believe that every word he said was true."

Europe and America were thrilled by the simple narrative of those twenty-two thousand miles of wanderings that brought into the light of day millions of human beings who had been as much unknown to us as though they inhabited Mars. Livingstone did not live to know it, but it was he who kindled the great African Movement,–an outburst of zeal for geographic discovery and economic development such as was never seen before.

Thirteen years ago (1889) a Frenchman named De Bissy completed the largest map yet made of Africa. In the preparation of this great work, which occupied much of his time for eight years, he used as his sources of information nearly eighteen hundred route and other maps, nearly all of which were the result of the work of explorers in the preceding quarter of a century. All that we know of the geography of over three-fourths of Africa is the work of the past half-century since Livingstone made his first journey in 1849; and we know far more of inner Africa to-day than was known of inner North America three hundred years after Columbus discovered the western world. A little over a century ago, our great-grandfathers were reading in their school geographies that North America had no conspicuous mountains except the Alleghanies; and these mountains and the Andes of South America were believed to be one and the same chain, interrupted by the Gulf of Mexico. Many men not yet bent with years can remember when the interior of Africa was a white space on the maps; but it is not possible to-day to make such a geographical blunder as we have mentioned, about any part of Africa.

It is because of the work he did in those twenty years, sowing all the while the seeds from which sprang the great African Movement, that "the gentle master of African exploration" is acclaimed to-day as one of the world's great men, and that his body rests in Westminster Abbey among the illustrious dead of Britain.

The son of a worthy weaver in Blantyre, Scotland, Livingstone's early life was that of a poor boy, working in a spinning-mill, quiet, sober, affectionate, and faithful in every relation of life. Moved at last by the thirst for knowledge that has distinguished many a humble Scotch boy, he entered the University at Glasgow, studying during the winter months and spending the summers at his trade in the factory, fitting himself all the while for the conquests he little dreamed he was to achieve over difficulties almost insurmountable. A classmate spoke of him as a pale, thin, retiring young man, but frank and most kind-hearted, ready for any good and useful work, even for chopping the University fuel and grinding wheat for the bread. In 1838, when he was twenty-five years old, he went to London to be examined as a candidate for the African missionary service. Two years later he was sent to South Africa, where for eight or nine years he labored among the natives earnestly and unostentatiously north of the place now famous as the site of the Kimberley diamond mines. It was here that he became intimately acquainted with the celebrated missionary, Robert Moffatt, whose daughter he married. His devoted wife accompanied him in some of his later travels, but long before he finished his work her body was laid to rest under the shade of a tree that for years was pointed out to all visitors to the Lower Zambesi.

In 1849, began the series of explorations that continued till his death. "The end of geographical discovery is the beginning of missionary enterprise," he wrote. Burning with zeal to reveal Africa to the world, Livingstone never forgot the main aim of his life,–to open ways for the planting of mission stations among all the scores of tribes he visited. "I hope God will in mercy permit me to establish the Gospel somewhere in this region," he wrote from the land of the Barotse, on the Upper Zambesi. Does he now look down from his eternal home upon that very land whose churches and schools are the fruition of the labors of French Protestants; whose king, in London to attend the coronation of Edward VII., said he wanted more teachers and more men to train his people to build houses and work iron? He prayed that he might live to see "the double influence of the spirit of commerce and Christianity employed to stay the bitter fountain of African misery." The glowing zeal of the Christian philanthropist and the untiring ardor of the born explorer were perfectly blended in the spirit of the great pioneer of modern African discovery.

Livingstone's routes through Africa would extend about seven times between New York City and San Francisco; and in his almost endless marches over plain, through jungle, across mountains and wide rivers, the natives met him almost without exception in a generous and hospitable spirit. Love was the secret of his success. He won his way by kindness. Give the barbarous African time to see that you wish him well, that you would do him good in ways he knows are helpful, and his affection is evoked.

It was said that the British could never establish their rule over the great Wabemba tribe, southwest of Tanganyika, without a military campaign. In 1894, two humble Catholic fathers entered Lobemba, walked straight to the chief town, and were told that if they did not leave the country in one day they would be killed. As the stern message was delivered, they saw an old woman on the ground in great pain from a severe wound. The news soon spread that these unwelcome strangers had washed and dressed the wound, and made the old woman comfortable. "These people love men," was the word that passed from lip to lip, as the sick and suffering came out from the town to be treated, while thousands of natives looked on. At nightfall the white men were told they might remain another day; they ministered for eleven days to those who needed help, and were then invited to remain the rest of their lives. The mission stations of the White Fathers are to-day scattered all over Lobemba; the country is open in every corner to the whites, and in 1899 British rule was established. The victory was won, not with guns, but by gentle, helpful kindness.

Livingstone never believed that the sympathies of our common humanity are extinct even in the bosom of a savage. Enfolded in the panoply of Christian kindness, he passed unscathed among the most warlike tribes. No memory of wrong or pain rankled in the heart of any man, woman, or child he ever met. He is known to-day as "the good old man" wherever his path led him in those twenty years.

When explorers began to study the healthful highlands of the Akikuyu tribe in East Africa a few years ago, the natives rushed to arms. "Keep away from us," they said. "One of your white men came through the land, stealing food from our gardens, and killing all who said he ought to pay us for our vegetables. We want nothing to do with thieves and murderers like you."

But no vengeance fell on the head of any white traveller who ever followed in the footsteps of Livingstone. Those explorers have achieved most who adhered to his example of unfailing kindness, mercy, and justice. The brutal German, whose crimes made the Akikuyu hostile to all whites, marked his path with blood from the Indian Ocean to Victoria Nyanza. Serpa Pinto, renowned for the scientific value of his work, aroused condemnation and disgust because he fought his way through many tribes, among whom Livingstone and Arnot had wandered almost alone and in perfect safety. Fortunately, there have not been many explorers militant. The brilliant discoveries of Grenfell, Delcommune, Lemaire, and others, who are in the first rank of African pioneers, were made without harming a native.

Let us glance at a few of Livingstone's discoveries and form our own conclusions as to whether his sublime faith in the future of Africa has thus far been justified by events. In the depths of the wilderness he discovered the large lake, Mweru, through which the Upper Congo flows. Though white influences have reached that remote region only within the past two or three years, a little steamboat now plies those waters. A photograph of Mpweto, one of the white settlements on the lake, shows the commodious quarters of the Europeans, two long lines of cabins in which the native workmen live, and well-tilled gardens extending for a half-mile along the shore. Livingstone brought to light the coal fields of the Zambesi, the only coal yet known in tropical Africa. While these lines are being written, the British of Rhodesia are preparing to open mines along these deposits. He told the world of the Victoria Falls of the Zambesi, the largest known, a mile wide and twice as high as Niagara. The installation of an electrical plant at this great source of power is now in progress, and it is hoped within three years to transmit electrically all the power required to work the large copper mines in the north, the coal fields in the east, and to move trains on the Cape to Cairo Railroad for a distance of three hundred miles. The recent improvements in long-distance transmission of power encourages the belief that the Victoria Falls may some day possess large industrial utility for a wide region around them. Coffee plantations on the hills overlooking the long expanse of Nyassa, the splendid freshwater sea which Livingstone revealed in its setting of mountains, are selling their superior product in London at a high price. The town of Blantyre, among the Nyassa highlands which Livingstone first described, has a newspaper, telegraphic and cable communication with all the world, and industrial schools in which the manual arts are taught to hundreds of natives. Here is the large brick church, now famous, built by native craftsmen, who before Livingstone's time had never seen a white man, and lived in a state of barbarism; an edifice that would adorn the suburbs of any American city, and of which the explorer, Joseph Thomson, said: "It is the most wonderful sight I have seen in Africa." The natives made the brick, burned the lime, sawed and hewed the timbers, and erected the building to the driving of the last nail. They had the capacity, and it was evoked by the genius of one of the most remarkable men in Africa, Missionary Scott of Blantyre. Steamboats are afloat on five of the six important seas of the great lake region of Central Africa; on two of the three which Livingstone discovered. Only a beginning has been made, for the field stretches from ocean to ocean; but the man who, in 1873–the year of Livingstone's death,–should have predicted one-half of the achievement of the present generation would have been laughed at as a crack-brained visionary.

5. Chang is regarded as the ablest of China's viceroys. He published, prior to the coup d'état, a notable book, in which he argues that China's only hope is in the adoption of the sciences and arts of the West.